Challenging weather conditions, what's your experiences

[red langford]

The weather of the past weekend has really made me think about this. It rained straight for 18 hours, the wind blew at 40-50 km/h and all the while the temperature was dropping until the rain turned to freezing rain and then to snow. Everything was frozen the following morning. Cabin water lines froze. These are the sort of conditions that can create some real dire situations in my opinion. Cold is cold and winter is different than packing for a canoe trip and finding yourself in winter. The ice then snow would have created some serious weight on tents and tarps, there would have been almost zero chance of starting a fire unless you had made a stockpile of wood and covered it from 3 sides before the rain. Again, I am so glad to have not had to deal with that in the bush. It was miserable enough working in it.

The worst that comes timing for me was a trip I took in Killarney one spring. It was cold and we weren't prepared for it. Inexperience and lack of preparation made for a miserable day. There was also a November trip into Algonquin that I got dumped on with some wet snow overnight. It was just an overnighter so I just trudged through the wet snow and headed home but if I was to stay another night it would have been different. You couldn't move without getting wet. Trees and bushes were coated with the wet stuff and it dripped all day.

Let's here some of you horror stories about weather.

 

[Mihun09]

We consider the May long weekend to be shoulder season tripping and prepare for potential cold. Winter bags, long johns, appropriate clothing for hot or cold or whatever we might encounter. May 2009 we were packed and ready to go but got 11" of snow Friday morning so postponed one day. Still had snow in the bush and one nice day, but Sunday turned to sleet and wind but we were prepared for cold. Christine started to get ill so we paddled out of Siderock into Wallace and stayed the night for conditions to improve and bugged out early.

The real threat this past weekend was the wind and forecast. Friday was sunny and beautiful and the weekend forecast was for cooler and rain at that point. The Weather Warning was issued at 4am on Saturday, so anyone already out wouldn't have a clue what was coming. Most places we trip there is no cell coverage and you also need people to Actually check the forecast if they have coverage.

The rain started Saturday evening on the back of a steady 40km wind. By Sunday morning we had 60 kph wind with gusts into the 80's and occasionally 90's. So, for those not prepared they weren't getting off the water in the first place with that wind. Then they have to huddle up and deal with the heavy rain, ice pellets and snow with the wind not letting up until Monday evening. How do less quality tents deal with the wind and incessant rain of a system like that?

Be prepared in the shoulder seasons...

 

[redoleary]

First time in the BWCA we were on Brule Lake and, on what was supposed to be our last night the wind picked up to a sustained 25 mph, gusting 30-35 mph, no biggie, we'll just make camp and it will calm down overnight and we'll make an extra early departure before it picks up again. Wrong! It didn't let up, even a little, all night. But we had to get the rental canoe back so we made a break for it but once we got out of the protection of the bay we were in the waves were 3' white caps and we were clearly not going to make it across the lake. So we manage to land the canoe on a rocky beach without swamping it. Grabbed all our gear and stowed the canoe in a safe place. We walked back into the relative calm of the woods and set up a tarp and just waited out the wind. Unfortunately the wind didn't subside all day and all night, until finally about 5 pm the following day it dropped to 10-15 mph and we decided to make a run for the car. We just kept the bow into the wind and sort of dog tracked our way across the lake then made a turn down wind and was basically blown all the way back to the
take-out. It was a pretty harrowing experience, one neither I nor my wife care to repeat. But learned something about our limits and that our safety is more important than getting the canoe back on time, or camping only in a designated area etc. We were in fact not in a campsite that night but every effort was made to be as LNT as possible, we had no fires etc, but we did what we had to do to stay safe.

 

[red langford]

As a solo paddler, wind is my enemy.

 

[Odyssey]

We've been fortunate with the weather, never having suffered severe storms and such. The occasional flurries kept us around the fire. Windy wet days kept us under the tarp. I re-learned how to be patient when one time I tried to break camp and get on the water before an impending frontal system. We could see it coming as it crawled across the sky, everything under it turning grey. Just as I had our packs at the ready on shore and the canoe held steady by my wife, the skies opened up and all hell broke loose. It was like Niagara Falls had been diverted to Algonquin Park. I couldn't get the packs into the canoe fast enough before we needed to bail it out. I tried about three times. We even pushed off from shore and tried bailing as we went, but it was a losing battle. We pulled ourselves and gear on shore, I set up a small tarp to stand under, and we waited. After about an hour the rain lessened and we debated "Do we just stay one more night to dry out, or do we commit to heading out?" I wish we had've been sitting comfortably under a tarp in front of a fire all along with much patience, because we decided to get going in order to keep with out original plans. Paddling through drizzle wasn't bad. The world around us was eerily calm and quiet. After 3 hours the weather broke and the sun came out. I thought "We could've been getting a late start in the sunshine rather than an earlier one in the rain."

 

[Robin]

At the un-official Solotripping.com La Vernedrye Gathering a while back we encountered heavy rain, sleet and snow but it was a base camp type of thing so we kept a warm fire going, ate well and paddled a little when the wind allowed us. I believe this was the May 24 weekend, nothing like being in WCPP in snow, but it was a cold wet weekend.















In the summer, just hunker down under a good tarp set-up,

Marshall Lake


Summit Lake,


And in Woodland Caribou PP you sit for two days till the storm passes over Wrist Lake,

 

[scoutergriz]

I've had some wild weather, but never any real horror stories; Big chute trip with north canoes, heavy rain and golf ball size hail, we never made it to the water and ended up camping at the picnic area by the marine railway, the railway operator was great- he left the bathrooms open all night and called and told the cops we were there so we wouldn't get bugged.
Grundy lake- tornados and high winds- we ended up stuck in the car camping for three days while they re-opened the roads, just up the road at the French someone got killed by a tree, and the evacuated Killarney to Grundy.
Algonquin Pen lake- windbound for 3 days,3-4' whitecaps.
Algonquin Burnt island- Extremely dry, the grass crackled as you walked on it, college kids with a bonfire around the point, We bugged out in high winds, hit canoe lake around 5.15pm, back to the office before 7, had to bail at the beach to break a 100' surf, watched the canoe get airborne and end up in the trees behind the office, found out the office was still open, as someone had reported "some crazy canoeists coming down the lake".
Lost channel, caught in a blizzard, good thing I had the GPS as the proximity alarm went off about 3' from an island we couldn't see, paddling sucks with 2" of snow in your lap.

 

[snapper]

The only truly scary weather related situation I can remember happened on Middle Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks. This was before the campsites were pay sites and we were approaching Shaw Island for the day. It's a small island and the sites were full so we headed off across the lake to some mainland sites. The day had been overcast and a bit drizzly but nothing too bad; just occasionally uncomfortable. We were about halfway across the lake when I noticed the sky turning green. From there it got very very still and then someone whispered, "oh sh_t!" I looked to my left and saw a wall of water coming toward us. I had enough time to yell to everyone to keep as low a profile as possible and don't get sideways to the wind. The words were barely out of my mouth and the rain hit. It was coming down so hard I wasn't able to see any of the other 4 canoes and could barely see the person in the bow. Seriously, this was one heck of a deluge. While it seemed like forever, in about 5 minutes it was completely over. We got to shore very quickly after that but one person was so shook up that she collapsed when she stepped on shore. Thankfully I've never experienced anything like it since; and hope never to do so again.

That's all for now. Take care, safe travels and until next time...be well.

snapper

PS - As for the wind...if I'm not comfortable with it, I'm staying on shore even if it means not staying on schedule. Better to be safe than sorry.

 

[red langford]

During a day paddle a few years ago I had scary lightening moment. Beautiful clear day, not a cloud in sight. Shortly after midday on my way back I had spotted a few billowy clouds forming. I knew it could mean trouble but it was still very early to declare a bail-out. 15 minutes later these clouds had all increased in size 10 fold and we looking really threatening, but it was still mostly sunny. Then the crackling started. I could hear it crackling away and at first had no idea what it was then the crack of thunder so loud and so close I could feel the shock of air from wherever it struck. I rounded the point and it went from somewhat sunny to full on storm in about a minute. I had about a 1km bay to cross and contemplated sticking close to shore and making a 3 km paddle or cutting straight across. I chose the later and paddled like mad all the while the weather became wilder. When I got to shore it took everything I had to get the canoe onto the roof of the truck without it being ripped from hands. By the time I finished my 20 minute drive back to town it was like nothing had happened. Sun shining and nothing more than a light breeze.

 

[memaquay]

May long weekend, 2010. Not the worst weather I have been in, but very memorable. -10 C that night. It was a port clearing trip.

 

[clemency]

Your Timberline holds up better in snow than mine ever did, memaquay. Way better.

 

[Odyssey]

Are you sure you hadn't wandered into Manitoba? lol

 

[Seeker]

Worst weather I've been out paddling in, long-term, was my wife's first trip with me last October in the Adirondacks... it rained every day pretty non-stop for the 4 days we were out... The year before that, with my daughter, we also had 4 days of straight rain after what was said to have been an exceptionally rainy summer... I couldn't get ANYthing to burn despite my best efforts. She said "that's ok... this sorta makes up for all those times we had really great weather on our trips." I thought that was a pretty mature attitude. Of course, this was AFTER beating me about a dozen games of UNO in a row, marooned under our tarp the entire time...

Worst single 24 hour period was a solo trip a couple years before that, also on Low's... guy a couple campsites down told me there was 9" of water in a 5-gallon bucket they'd left out in the open overnight. The lake was visibly "up" about 6" the next day, and I found out a few days later from Ranger Dawn that they had officially recorded 6" in Long Lake that day, but that she thought locally it was more. I spent that night mostly awake, making sure my tarp and hammock stayed up. They came through just fine. I learned a few things about tarps and seam sealing though... re-do it every year, whether it looks good or not.

Worst winds I've ever tried to fight were also at Low's, I think on that same trip... I had taken shelter in the lee of an arm/ridge sticking out into the lake (known from the Scout camp as "Lookout Point"). I saw 2 guys in a WAY overloaded canoe trying to fight their way across from the SE passage (teen campsite numbers)... they were blown back around the point 3x before finally giving it up and heading back. I was expecting at any time to have to go assist them after they dumped, but somehow they stayed upright... the cooler was sitting on top of bags, and the grill was entirely visible above the gunwales as well. lotsa ballast, I guess... There was also another solo paddler there, resting nearby, who fought through it and I didn't see him again that trip. I'd estimate the winds at somewhere between 30 and 40 mph, with higher gusts. Fortunately, I was on my way out, not in...

Worst storm I've even been through, not camping, was Hurricane Rita, here in LA in 2005. I'm about 50 miles inland, and I think it was a Cat 2 when it hit us (Cat 3 on landfall). We got 16" of rain over a 2 day period then... A friend of mine survived TS Lili in his hammock while out on a military exercise in 2002.

Worst overall weather I've ever camped out in was a period of record-low cold in the early 90s at Fort Drum, NY... sub 30 below at night for two weeks, locally recorded sub-40 below a couple nights, with highs in the -20s... Miserable weather to be out training in.

 

[ppine]

Where to begin. First and only trip to the BWCA we hit Basswood Lake with winds at a steady 25 knots with gusts a lot higher. We were young and in shape in 1985 but could barely make any headway. No one capsized, but I would have hit the shore now with more experience.

A few years ago we were on the Colorado River in Feb on the CA/AZ border. The winds increased to 30 so we hit the beach. At night the winds were up to 70 mph and I slept in a flat tent with no poles. There was heavy frost every night. We did not move the next day.

Packing mules on an elk hunt in Colorado in early November at 11,000 feet, it snowed almost every day. It was below zero at night. We had wall tents and wood stoves, but finding the critters and getting them saddled in the dark for our clients was very difficult. After 10 days we had been out of grain for awhile and the horses and mules were pawing through the snow to find feed. They lost a noticeable amount of weight and stumbled on the way out. We had multiple wrecks and got to the trucks at midnight riding all day in blowing snow. Was it 1985 or 1885?

The worst was Chilkoot Pass on the Alaska/BC border. We were backpacking the famed Trail of 98 to Dawson. It rained for real for several days, the temperature dropped with sleet at night. Near the pass we were above treeline at only 2,500 feet with no wind protection, no firewood, temperatures consistently wet. My sleeping bag got wet. It was the closest I have come to freezing to death and the date was August 31.

 

[southcove]

About 4 summers ago, friends and i were camped at Round and Little Tupper Lakes for 5 nights. One morning a nearby campsite cleaned out and the folks shouted to us to be very careful a huge thunderstorm/high winds/possible tornado threat was entering the central Adirondacks in just a few hours... We buttoned down and then each of us went our separate ways for the next few hours. One stayed near camp with the dog, another took off on a hike along an old woods road and I took off downlake to fill water jugs at the Ranger station (mostly just an excuse to get out on the water. On my return, the sky had become quite ugly and there was that peculiar smell in the air and feel of things about to go bad...I moved quite near the shore in my boat.

When it hit like a wall of water, there was a odd sound but I was already making way to the shore w the idea of climbing out or having to hold on to branches at water level...the wind, water and sound was astonishing and I felt some mild panic (like standing in a hurricane w mouth and eyes open and unprotected...it was hard to breathe!). I managed to clamber out, pull the boat up somewhat on shore and just huddled by a tree (right?!) in astonishment at the violence of the storm...it took 5-10 minutes to peak and start to subside, despite rain hat and parka, I was drenched 100% stem to stern.

Since my real interest and passion has been real winter trekking and camping for years, there is no excuse made for any of my idiocies on that count; this summer storm blast was just dumbfounding in it's violence. Me, too darn careless to have been on the water at all those last 15 mintues...someone caught in the open water might have flipped and had some very unpleasant minutes and true panic at what ensued. Laughingly, one of the guys figured already I had 'drowned' given the conditions, so he didn't bother to go to water's edge to look for me...and the other had done just that, seen me come around a point and duck in towards shore...

 

[Guest]

Let's here some of you horror stories about weather.

On the paddling side it has almost always been high winds, especially paddling open water coastal bays and large lakes. Not just on open water; the winds on the Green last spring were estimated at 50+ mph. Close your eyes, hunker down and wait for the sand/dust storm to pass.

I’ve seen sudden winds in camp shred a friend’s Hennessey fly in seconds. Had it stress a Tundra Tarp so severely that the seams were showing daylight before I managed to drop it. Had it bend the vee poles on the ends of a Eureka Timberline into pretzels, even with two guys sitting inside the tent holding the end poles in place with both hands.

Had it pick up boats and blow them to the ends of their tie downs in camp (now when I tie my boats down in camp I spring line them, with ropes pulling in opposing directions at each stem).

One almost horror story. We paddle out of the Adirondacks on July 14[SUP]th[/SUP] 1995 in two open canoes with 5 and 6 year old bowmen. We racked the boats and unknowingly drove into the Derecho that ripped through the Dacks.

With two canoes on the minivan I couldn’t keep it on the road, and parked it on the sheltered side of a brick bank building. The wind was still rocking the van from side to side to the point that my wife and sons thought it might tip over. We had had no idea that was coming and were simply fortunate that our paddle out date wasn’t a day later.

We were back in the Daks the next year. One of the sites had suffered a microburst. Mature trees were snapped off and splayed out in a circle, centered on the firepit in camp. That may have been one of the sites where there camper deaths from falling trees.

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/misc/AbtDerechos/casepages/jul1995derechopage.htm

 

[yknpdlr]

No Title

The 1995 derecho/microburst rolled through the Adirondacks during the very early morning hours of July 15. Five people were killed outright, several others were injured, and a number had to be rescued from interior campsites where trails became impossibly blocked by the nearly 100% downing of trees across the trails.

I happened to be camped out that night with other students and instructors at a town park in the Saratoga area, where I was scheduled to take a wilderness first aid course. We were allowed to set up tents at the edge of a treeline and field, maybe a hundred yards from the training building. The night was incredibly hot and humid with no breeze. I sweated heavily all night with no fly covering the open mesh tent, trying to get any possible air movement. Around 5:30 AM I heard the sound of distant thunder. Shortly after lightning lit up the dawn sky like I have never seen before. I also had never seen mammatus clouds before (so named because of their obvious shape), certainly not covering the entire sky like these bathed in early morning red light.

Fingers and fine spiderweb-like threads of lightning flittered continuously at the bottom of the cloud deck from horizon to horizon, like some giant Van de Graaff generator running nonstop. Just as I figured I had better rig the tent fly the wind began, so I quickly finished and I headed into the tent. Thankfully my tent was well staked and the wind, while quite strong with heavy rain, did not last very long. Other than a few down branches there was no obvious large scale damage in the field or tree line, and the first aid course started on time. I later learned that a local woman was killed while driving when a tree fell on her car.

That windstorm severely altered ability to travel in the Adirondacks for years, with some trails remaining closed to this day. My favorite wilderness area, the Five Ponds, where most of my travel is off trail, was hardest hit of all. Some stands of ancient old virgin timber, gigantic white pine trees, were more than 99% destroyed. Elsewhere tree trunks were piled up on top of one another ten feet high or more. Even if you wanted to expend the energy to climb up and over the logs every few yards, the tangled upper branches of down treetops made travel even more impossible. I learned a whole new way to bushwhack and to bide my time as nature finally dissolved most of the upper tangles. At least one good thing was that when I traveled in there I had the entire area to myself. Things are different for travel now, some places are improved but certainly are not the same as before the storm hit. In much of the area, new growth dense and heavy, has exploded in new found sunlight.

 

[snapper]

I remember the micro-burst and was supposed to be on an overnight work trip in the western High Peaks caring for a couple of lean-tos our program had adopted at that time. When I heard about "unsettled" weather heading our way I decided that if I got the work done in enough time to hike back out, I would. After what happened in the woods I was glad to have done so because heading back wouldn't have been very difficult. I got back to my truck around 4 PM and headed home. When the storm did hit I was really glad to be out of the area by then.

That's all for now. Take care and until next time...be well.

snapper

 

[memaquay]

Microbursts really scare me when I have the students out. We have been through a couple now over many years, and luckily, we were right on the edge. I was caught in one with my wife and son when he was about five. I saw it rolling in and took off down the lake. I was in an 18 foot square back freighter with a 3 horse kicker. The waves went from dead calm to six foot mayhem in minutes. I aimed for a point of land, flipped the canoe over and tied it down. We crawled under just as the hailstorm hit. After about 20 minutes, the wind began to blow from one direction. I got the canoe back in the water, but had to almost be completely submerged to hold it while it bucked over the waves. I will forever love freighter canoes after that day. The waves were very large as we headed for my vehicle, the kicker kept coming out of the water between troughs. When we got to the car, it took a long time to get home as hydro crews had to clear all the downed trees on the highway.

Whenever I arrive at a campsite with students, the first thing we do is cut down any suspicious looking trees that might succumb to a wind storm. That's one of the nice things about travelling on Crown Land. However, in a microburst, no tree is safe. We are still opening up routes from the "snowdown" of 2001, when a heavy wet snow preceeded a huge microburst and took out hundreds of miles of trees.

Mother Nature can be pretty unpredictable!

 

[Philtrum]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-9cpQNQNsI

This was taken on one of the four days we were windbound on Ima Lake in the Boundary Waters. We could have gotten off the site but the next portage landing was downwind - a narrow, vertical breakwater where waves could be seen crashing up from a mile away.