Frigid Temps Pharaoh Lake Wilderness, Adirondack Mts, NY

[Dirtbaghiker]

No hanging here, straight up commando on the snow and ice.(close enough). Very COLD overnight Snowshoe trip in the Pharaoh Lake Wilderness area of the Adirondack Mountains in NY.

[lorazepam]

Beautiful. People pay big money for scenes like that to hang on their wall. Being there and seeing it in person is priceless.

[cmoulder]

I thought I didn't need a zero degree TQ but after that trip my view has changed a little. At -15°F my 20deg quilt plus down parka and pants were barely cutting it. Glad we bagged it and didn't stay another night. Glad we made it down the southeast side with no significant injuries!

Still it was fun, but definitely Type 2+ on the Skurka Scale.

I also ordered one of those stake hammers, which is something I never thought I'd do!!

Your bivy... the MLD event soul or superlight? That seemed to work very well.

Caltopo map with tracks... I was using 2 GPS devices, Garmin Fenix and Samsung S21 (with Maprika app) to record tracks. Red/White are phone and Blue/Yellow are Fenix.

[Dirtbaghiker]

Yeah Bob.. the bivy is eVent Soul.. I used a 0° 950 down fill Hammock Gear quilt and an MLD FKT on top of that. I was cozy toasty comfortable the entire 13 hours sleeping in there! I also used a Neoair X-Therm pad inside bivy with me. Warm as possibly could be!! That MSR hammer is a life saver in winter conditions here in NY. Hammock or ground sleeping.. when ground is frozen solid.. and if its so cold that snow is fluffy powder.. that hammer saves the day. Too many times I have struggled to stake out my tarps. It also can help to break ice if needed to melt for drinking water! That trip was awesome.. I did enjoy it even though it was so cold.. lol. Thanks for planning it and getting us down Pharaoh mountain!!!

[Dirtbaghiker]

Thanks @ lorazepam

[Bobonli]

Nicely done Gentlemen. It looks like the views were worth the effort. And based on the condition of the trail, it looks like you weren’t the only people hiking up there. So hopefully you didn’t have to break trail a lot.
No hammocks? It is impossible to avoid the comparison of the bivvy with a body bag!

[cmoulder]

Yeah Bob.. the bivy is eVent Soul.. I used a 0° 950 down fill Hammock Gear quilt and an MLD FKT on top of that. I was cozy toasty comfortable the entire 13 hours sleeping in there! I also used a Neoair X-Therm pad inside bivy with me. Warm as possibly could be!! That MSR hammer is a life saver in winter conditions here in NY. Hammock or ground sleeping.. when ground is frozen solid.. and if its so cold that snow is fluffy powder.. that hammer saves the day. Too many times I have struggled to stake out my tarps. It also can help to break ice if needed to melt for drinking water! That trip was awesome.. I did enjoy it even though it was so cold.. lol. Thanks for planning it and getting us down Pharaoh mountain!!!

Thanks, a bunch! Your setup seemed to be less hassle than mine.

[cmoulder]

Nicely done Gentlemen. It looks like the views were worth the effort. And based on the condition of the trail, it looks like you weren’t the only people hiking up there. So hopefully you didn’t have to break trail a lot.
No hammocks? It is impossible to avoid the comparison of the bivvy with a body bag!

We were lucky that a couple day hikers from Saratoga Springs got on the trail ahead of us, which did help. However, the snow wasn't very deep, about 6-10" from recent snow, so it wasn't terribly difficult anyway. We broke trail the next day and it was relatively easy. I've been in 1.5 to 2 feet (or more) of fresh powder and it is much, much harder. People discuss snowshoe length, width, flotation and weight limits etc, but when it's really dry and fluffy there is very little float and you really have to raise your knees very high with each step, which is exhausting. What happens is that the tendons in the front of the hip get very sore unless you've done a few longer training hikes to get them in shape. I had no such training this year and those tendons did not get sore at all from this trip, which is a very good barometer of the difficulty level!

I tried to figure out a way to make the hammock work. However after doing the math it just didn't seem I could manage the volume with my 0deg UQ plus more insulation to augment it, then TQ and additional puffies I use for that... which in fact turned out to be marginal at best, so I could've used a bit more there. Which means I don't think I could've gotten it all into a 62L pack. And, to be fair, I *still* didn't get it all in because as you saw in the video there was the CCF mat strapped to the top of the pack.

Not for nothing, in most of the extreme cold weather hammock camping videos we see people snowshoeing or pulking in a short distance and carrying lots of gear, which isn't going to happen — or will be extremely difficult — when big hills are involved.

[ObdewlaX]

Nice video & looks like a good but cold time out. Pretty manly with just the bivy Dirtbag... did you have a tarp too?

Had y'all originally planned to be out longer than overnight?

[possum daddy]

I used a 0° 950 down fill Hammock Gear quilt and an MLD FKT on top of that.

How do you like the FKT? Any moisture on the inner quilt using it like this? Use it much otherwise? How?

Thanks for the video. Looks wild


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