Several years ago It was a typical New Year's eve when my wife and I hosted an early evening dinner for my voyageur canoe race team. We live off the eastern end of Lake Ontario, famous for very heavy snows from "lake effect". Up until then it was a practically snowless season. I have a single room small hunting camp I inherited located in the heart of the heaviest lake effect region of all. We were planning on spending the night there, and we left my home in two trucks and a Prius vehicle at around 8:00 PM in a fresh light snowfall. Less than an hour later we arrived at an inn and red neck bar, very popular and usually overcrowded with snowmobilers, where I have to park my car in the winter and then cross country ski two miles on an unmaintained road into the camp to shovel accumulated heavy snow off the roof at least three times each winter. Now snowing ever more heavily, driving on the way to the inn, twice we had to pull the Prius out of snow too deep for it to get through on the road. Finally at the inn, I was surprised there were no cars or snowmobiles parked and no partying going on, how unusual for that heavy drinking place to be closed on such a usual party night.
So we donned our skis and snowshoes and loaded pulk sleds with gear to spend the night and next day at my camp. I normally ski in on an unplowed road for 3/4 of the way, which is usually well packed down by snowmobiles, then cut cross country through an untracked swamp/ wooded field. That day and night there had been no tracking in the snowy road because until then there had been no snow to ride on. So at first the snow was ankle deep, then deeper and deeper as we progressed after starting out around 10:00 PM. Growing up in the area, I have rarely been in snow coming down at a rate as thick as heavy as 5"/hour. At that density there is more snow than air to breath. Taking a deep breath can give you a chocking sensation with the fluff in your throat. Deeper and deeper, up to our knees and then up to our waist and higher. Skis or snowshoes or bare boots, it doesn't matter, It feels like you are sinking while swimming through the fluffy light unpacked stuff. We took turns sending someone out ahead to pack a rough trail 50 feet at a time for those following with our gear. it was a full moon above the clouds, so enough light filtered through to minimally see where we were going. There is a single house about half the way where old Adam S., a Polish immigrant, once lived. But it had no electricity, no lights. Becky wanted to break in for us to shelter, but we were not in any real danger at that moment of our travel, so I vetoed that idea. My coat cuff was caked with ice so I could not see my watch and had no idea what time it was. Shortly after we noticed the sky getting lighter with a quarter mile yet to go. I pulled back my frozen wrist cuff to see that it was now after 7:00 AM. We finally reached the camp, still intact and crashed for a few hours of rest. it had taken us over nine hours to travel two miles. The next day the snowmobile groomer came through and we had an easy well packed trail for our relatively rapid exit. Later, we had just one word for the experience: "Epic".
So we donned our skis and snowshoes and loaded pulk sleds with gear to spend the night and next day at my camp. I normally ski in on an unplowed road for 3/4 of the way, which is usually well packed down by snowmobiles, then cut cross country through an untracked swamp/ wooded field. That day and night there had been no tracking in the snowy road because until then there had been no snow to ride on. So at first the snow was ankle deep, then deeper and deeper as we progressed after starting out around 10:00 PM. Growing up in the area, I have rarely been in snow coming down at a rate as thick as heavy as 5"/hour. At that density there is more snow than air to breath. Taking a deep breath can give you a chocking sensation with the fluff in your throat. Deeper and deeper, up to our knees and then up to our waist and higher. Skis or snowshoes or bare boots, it doesn't matter, It feels like you are sinking while swimming through the fluffy light unpacked stuff. We took turns sending someone out ahead to pack a rough trail 50 feet at a time for those following with our gear. it was a full moon above the clouds, so enough light filtered through to minimally see where we were going. There is a single house about half the way where old Adam S., a Polish immigrant, once lived. But it had no electricity, no lights. Becky wanted to break in for us to shelter, but we were not in any real danger at that moment of our travel, so I vetoed that idea. My coat cuff was caked with ice so I could not see my watch and had no idea what time it was. Shortly after we noticed the sky getting lighter with a quarter mile yet to go. I pulled back my frozen wrist cuff to see that it was now after 7:00 AM. We finally reached the camp, still intact and crashed for a few hours of rest. it had taken us over nine hours to travel two miles. The next day the snowmobile groomer came through and we had an easy well packed trail for our relatively rapid exit. Later, we had just one word for the experience: "Epic".
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