The Food Situation Part 2

I have been sitting around this morning (and now well into the afternoon) swilling coffee and preparing the food list for our trip this winter.  What makes this exercise so time consuming?  Why have I been staring at a computer screen for five hours?  The numbers speak for themselves, well that's not true, the numbers say nothing, but our interpretation of those numbers justifies the time I have spent this morning:

4 People@

30 Days@

4500 Calories a Day=

540,000 Calories

2.5 lbs per person per day=

300 pounds of food

Cooking Bannock on a wood stove

This may seem like a lot of food/calories to those folks who haven't done any extended backcountry camping and even to those of you who have, the amount may seem excessive, but winter camping requires you to consume significantly more food than warm climate camping.  In cold weather your body is charged with not only keeping your body up and running as usual, but is also asked to increase the amount of heat it puts out to compensate for for the cold temperatures faced in February in northern Minnesota and also to handle the increased workload that comes with pulling heavy toboggans and living in a winter camp- think chopping through 2' ice for water and cutting firewood for the stove.  

The easiest way to understand the needs of the human body in terms of food is to think of the food we eat as wood on a fire.  Small sticks (carbohydrates) release intense heat for a short period of time but need to be replenished often.  Medium sized sticks (proteins) burn slower while releasing less heat, and large logs (fats) burn for a long time while emitting a lower level of heat.  We need to balance the three, carbs, fat and protein in order to have the quick energy and heat we'll need to get going in the morning and to stay warm throughout the day while also benefitting from the long term energy we'll need to keep going for the long haul (no pun intended).  

So what are we eating?  It is amazingly hard to find half a million calories unless you consume large amounts of animal and vegetable fats.  Fats are the most calorie dense food (4800 cal/lb) so we are taking 15 lbs of butter and 8 lbs of coconut oil; the latter being more usable in a frozen form than other vegetable fats.  We are also taking nut butters, sausage and the holy grail of trail fat: bacon drippings.  For proteins (1800 cal/lb) we are taking bacon, dried meat and summer sausage.  Also, the grains we are taking (quinoa, flour, oats and rice) all contain good amounts protein.  Sugar, dried fruits, pasta, chocolate all contribute to the carbohydrates (1800 cal/lb) on our food list.  We will also be taking dried veggies, a few sauces, spices, coffee, tea, cocoa, and some locally made cookies and fruit cakes from Coco's Bakery in Washburn Wisconsin.  

It is a simple diet, but as they say "hard work is the best seasoning."  I have found this to be true countless times- where you are working all day outdoors, camping, hiking or cutting firewood only to be thoroughly satisfied by what would be considered a simple or bland meal were it to be prepared and eaten indoors after a day typing on computer.  Fresh air, the smell of the woods, and the contentment of a good day on trail all make dinner a source of nourishment and not necessarily a fine culinary experience.  That said, we will not be living on gruel- venison and vegetable spaghetti, oats with cranberries and whole milk (powdered), and homemade fruitcake are all on the menu.  Anyone in the northern Wisconsin area is welcome to attend an expedition food planning workshop I will be teaching at Northland College next month- date of the workshop will be posted here. 

The Food Situation

Dehydrating apples ain't no joke.  Not when you're doing a 30 day supply for 3 people. That's 90 apples.  It'd be easy enough to go out and buy a bunch of industrially dried or freeze dried food as I've done for adventures in the past.  But by purchasing such a large quantity of food and going through numerous processes to make it work in one way or another, I'm finding a deeper appreciation for this journey already.

Toboggans

One of the joys of winter camping, assuming you are pulling some sort of sled, is the extra gear you can bring on trail; gear that really goes a long way towards blurring the line between camping and living in the bush.  As opposed to carrying your gear in a backpack, where space is at a premium and, if you are at all like me, you start questioning your choices in life when your pack starts reaching the 50 pound mark, pulling gear on a toboggan, all things being equal, allows you to bring more gear and also a different variety of gear with you on trail.  For example, on our trip we will be hauling along a canvas winter tent and a stove to go with it, both together weighing close to 40 pounds.  It sounds like a heavy load, but considering that the stove and tent will be split up on multiple toboggans, it really only adds roughly 20 pounds per toboggan.  What that setup allows us, as opposed to cold camping, are warm evenings and mornings where gear can be dried out and where we can lounge and relax regardless of what the weather decides to do.  
Traveling with toboggans offers other advantages- the amount of time out on trail without a resupply is longer than if you were backpacking, the food that can be brought is different (better unless you are a fan of monotony or of store bought camping grub), and as opposed to lugging a heavy pack which is always heavy no matter what surface you find yourself on- ice, snow, slush, a fully loaded toboggan on a smooth lake, or even better on ice, pulls with very little effort at all.  Of course cold camping with backpacking tents and the such has its place, say in the mountains where the topography would make it ridiculously hard to pull a sled or for short trips into the back country, but from my experience the extra weight you haul on a toboggan more than pays for itself in the quality of the experience.

The toboggans we will be using from Black River Sleds

Just like any piece of kit, there are many different styles of sleds people use to pull their gear ranging from toboggans to pulks to whatever-you-can-find-at-the-hardware-store models.  If you want to spend a day reading all the pros and cons of each, there is a wealth of opinion and debate on discussion forums like WinterTrekking.com, but for this article we'll just look at the toboggan as that is what we will use for this Boundary Waters trip.

Toboggans have been used for a long time to haul gear and, much like the canoe, come in a variety of shapes, materials and styles.  The up-curve at the front of a toboggan is important as it floats the toboggan up onto the snow pack instead of plowing into the deep snow, but the degree to which it curves up, in some cases forming a candy cane curl or more, is up for debate.  Suffice it to say the nose should curve up to some degree.  The body of the toboggan should be widest in the middle and taper towards the end, much like a coffin shape. This shape allows the toboggan to be turned easier than if it were of uniform width the whole length.

Inexpensive plastic sled hauling firewood

The overall length is more dependent on the amount of time you'll be on trail, but typically a 8-12 foot toboggan is used for back country trips.  There are two main materials to choose from: the more traditional wood or the modern HDPE (plastic).  Both are flexible, durable and make a great toboggan.  The wood requires a bit more care and more maintenance than the HDPE but flows more smoothly and has the advantage of being easily repairable (much like the difference between plastic and wood/canvas canoes). The plastic toboggans on the other hand are more forgiving of abuse and can be rolled up and packed into the back of a truck, whereas a wood toboggan is sometimes an unruly piece of gear to get around.  
As with any gear there is a wide spectrum of options fitting most needs and price ranges. For years I used the $40 hardware store "expedition" toboggan (the orange beauty in the picture above), which although the plastic gets brittle at sub-zero temperatures and is too short for long trips, they do pull nicely and have the added benefit of being easily replaceable.  Ultimately, if you go to far down the worm hole researching gear, you may find yourself sitting at home in front of your computer burning your eye balls reading forum posts while waiting to find that perfect toboggan, where as if you just would have strapped you gear to a upturned folding card table and started puling you'd be out enjoying the thrill of winter on trail.  
    

Pre- trip Presentation

One of our goals for this trip is to incorporate other people, groups and organizations who share a similar passion for outdoor adventures and also the same goal of preserving the integrity of the greater Boundary Waters area ecosystem .  So far we have agreed to give two presentations on the campus of Northland College in partnership with the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute, one described below and the second (date undetermined) in early April to correspond with their celebration- Wildness Week.  Check in with the SOEI for details and dates at:  
 http://www.northland.edu/sigurd-olson-environmental-institute-overview.htm

I am going to be giving a pre-trip presentation at Northland College on January 13th from 3:00pm - 4:30pm under the Wheeler bridge on campus (The walking bridge between Wheeler Hall and the Larson-Juhl Center for Science and the Environment).  I will be showing the gear and other kit I will be taking on the trip, teaching a few short lesson on winter travel and living outdoors in the winter, and also we will be discussing some of the environmental issues facing the Boundary Waters area.  This presentation is free and open to the public.  Hope to see ya there.

Water water everywhere

Water is pretty neat stuff.  Just like every other substance which we depend on for life- oxygen, nutrients and vitamins, day time talk shows- water in the proper amount keeps us going while a small adjustment in either direction disrupts our precarious balance between life and death.  Too much water and, well you drown, or assuming you are not swimming at the time, too much water can cause havoc with the electrolyte balance in our body causing the sometimes fatal condition know as hyponatremia.  Of course too much water is generally not a concern, at home or on trail, but too little water is an ailment that most people suffer from to varying degrees.

The cold statistics:

Humans are roughly 60% water depending on age, sex and physical condition.

So for a man of my size, 175 pounds or so-

175 x .6 (percentage of that weight which is water)= 105 pounds of water

105 lbs of water / 8.3 (roughly the weight of a gallon of water)= 13 gallons of water in me

13 gallons x 3.7 (3.78 liters per gallon)=46 liters of water 

Now of course this does not mean I have 46 liters of water in my body, it just gives you an approximate idea of how much water you'll need to replace every day, so lets go on into eqautionland:

We on average lose about 5% of our water every day, which is why folks say "drink 2 liters of water a day."  The problem with blanket amounts is that they don't take into consideration how hard you are working (sweating) how cold/hot and dry the air is, how big you are and so on.  So if we go by the 5% rule:

5% of 46=2.3 liter per day (.6 gallons) for me but...

When I am pulling a loaded sled and working hard and breathing in cold dry air while exhaling warm moist air I can bump up that fluid loss to 8%, 10% even 15%, which means in the winter I need to drink:

10% of 46 = 4.6 liter a day (.9 gallons)

15% of 46= 6.9 liter a day  (1.7 gallons)

A sure sign of fluid loss- The Beardcicle  

At a 1% or 2% fluid loss you feel thirsty, which means you are dehydrated, but don't worry, most people are at this stage and correcting this problem is as simple as drinking a glass of water.  

Around the 5% level you start to feel the first signs of real dehydration- headache, muscle cramps, lethargy

10% and you are starting to go downhill fast- your urine is dark and smelly, your vision can be impaired, your pulse goes way up and if you don't drink some water you will start circling the drain

At the 15% fluid loss consciousness becomes a distant memory and you need medical care.  

Even at low level dehydration, your body will stop functioning the way it likes to.   A loss of water reduces the viscosity and amount of the blood in your body which disrupts your body's ability to thermoregulate effectively, you are more prone to injury and your higher level brain functions are impaired.  All of which are not good for your long term health at home and especially on trail in the winter. So if you are feeling thirsty, your pee pee is yellow and has an odor, and/or you are getting a bit crabby, drink some water, keep the caffeine to a minimum, and reduce your work load to keep the fluid loss under control.  

Oh yeah, as I am sure this will be asked, you can indeed eat snow.  The problem with eating snow is the temperature of the snow, or more specifically the temperature difference between the snow and your body.  You get water into your body by eating snow, but it takes energy to melt and warm the snow so if you are already cold or running a bad calorie deficit, eating snow may not be the best choice.  I have read that melting the snow in your mouth alleviates some of that problem, and as someone who eats snow all the time in the winter (Hey I am allowed to forget my water bottle once in a while) I have found it better to kinda roll the snow around your mouth until the snow is melted, then drink it down as a liquid.  Of course, make sure the snow is clean...

Sweatin' to the Coldies

So what's it like to pull a toboggan weighing over 100 pounds up and down hills, through waist deep snow, day in and day out in the depths of winter? It hard work! Since winter for many people, including myself at times, has the tendency to make our lives more sedentary, I have made the goal for myself of working out this winter in preparation for our trip in February. In addition to the go-to strength building pull ups, sit ups and push ups, I have also been pulling a loaded sled around the area in order to get my body ready for the unique stresses pulling a heavy load enacts on the body. So far I have been pulling around 90 pounds from 4-5 miles a day on snow covered roads (much to the curiosity and amusement of some of the other folks in the area). Not only is this a great workout but it also gives you experience pulling a loaded sled, which if you haven't tried it, can take a bit of getting used to as a loaded sled, much like spirited horse, can decide quickly and unannounced that it wants to go somewhere other than where you are going. 

2014 Winter Boundary Water Trip

“Song of the North”

“The song of the north still fills me with the same gladness as when I heard it first. It came not only from the land of the Great Lakes, but also from the vast regions beyond the Canadian border. More than terrain, more than woods, lakes, and forests, it had promise and meaning and sang of the freedom and challenge of the wilderness. I seemed drawn in its general direction as naturally as a migrating bird is by unseen lines of force, or a salmon by some invisible power toward the stream where it was spawned. Within me was a constant longing, and when I listen to this song, I understood.” Sigurd Olson, from his book Open Horizons

The purpose of this blog is not to document our trip across the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness this February, there are many pretty videos out there showing people having a gnarly time in some very awesome places. Instead we aim to use this experience as way to do more than show off this wildly exciting expedition, our goals are to:

1. Use our trip as a platform onto which we can build a greater awareness of the Boundary Waters, both the park's tremendous beauty and the opportunities the area offers and at the same time exposing the fragility of the park when confronted with the realities of our modern world. This is the same story being played out in many places where Wildness, outdoor recreation, and the industrialized world converge. While we don't expect to unearth any answers, sometimes all it takes to make positive change is to shed a little light where all there exists is darkness.

2. Help others enjoy the winter as much as we do. Through this blog we will be posting short videos covering topics like winter travel, proper winter clothing, food planning and preparation, winter tent use, and whatever else we think would be good to know. The winter is a magical place for those who can brave the long hours of darkness, shrug off bitter cold and who put in long hours pulling a toboggan- the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights), crystalline stars, and the echo of wolves all come to those who make the effort to find them.

3. Lastly, we will be documenting our 100+ mile, 25+ day trip from one end of the Boundary Waters in the Saganaga Lake area into the town of Ely with video, pictures and writings captured along the way  And, yes, we also plan on having a blast...