Camping in a Snowstorm & Freezing Temps! ️ | Kelly's First Solo Winter Trip in Alaska
welcome to the bags pack Family YouTube channel in today's episode I am going solo camping for the first time in 18 years it's hard to believe I've been camping a lot in my life but I haven't done a lot of solo camping so I'm out here scouting for a good campsite testing gear trying not to slip on the ice and then I wake up to a beautiful winter wonderland join me as I go out into the Wilderness of Alaska to see how I survive all right so I'm at the trail head and I already forgot something super important my mittens I always forget something this is it I hope this is the only thing that it cuz I haven't unpacked that pack yet so um yeah I I forgot my mittens Jonathan's going to drive them to me to the trail head drop them and uh they definitely can't do the trip without mittens it's 21 degrees Fahrenheit right now according to my car and uh it's cold it's like it's chilly I don't know if you can see there's Frost there's frost on the the branches and so um I don't know I wouldn't make it long without mittens or I'd be have my hands in my jacket the whole time so yep those are going to come then I'm going to put my pack on and this is my first solo trip since the Appalachian Trail I believe I think this is the first time I've done anything solo since then so uh since 2006 18 years cuz I have my hiking buddy with me all the time so Jonathan's always my hiking buddy or I've did a couple trips uh through the university one through the university and one through noes which is national outdoor Leadership School and so I've done a few trips um led a few trips through the University of Alaska but never alone as I'm always with a group so that's pretty cool I'm excited I'm a little nervous and the fact that I forgot my mittens I'm hoping that I that's out of the way and that's the only thing that um that goes wrong but we'll see I've got my mittens and I'm heading down this Trail but check it out uh it's all shut up with bullets I don't even know if you can see it it's probably not a good sign to get to a trail head and have a bunch of bullet holes in the trail head sign but uh I don't know it's good I'm going to head out to the woods soon so I'm going to head down this Trail um it's pretty icy right now and not a lot of snow packs so hopefully um hopefully I won't slip I did bring a trekking pole with me just in case for a little extra grip I actually bought micro spikes for my shoes you saw that in one of the Costco videos but um I they don't fit my boots so I have to get different kind um the way those are set up they don't they need a tow grip and I don't have Tow grippers on my muckluck so I have to get something different um which is fine but uh yeah I'm out I got a couple layers it's cold the Sun is going down it's about 2:30 um I was hoping to be out here 2 hours ago but it didn't happen uh so it's okay this is like a really good moose hunting trail a moose hunting area so That season is done but I'm hoping that I don't run into any moose that's my that's my biggest large animal right now worry um I do have bear spray on me I'm keeping it on the inside pocket of my coat my coat's not zipped up I just have my down vest and then I have my my down jacket wow check out this view amazing everything's frozen and the mountains are out and the Sun is setting and I don't know if you can see it but right there is the moon coming up so I definitely want to set my tent up out here but not on the trail okay actually looks like there might be some good spots this way I think that's part of the fun is just like scoping out where you're going to go and then making making that spot your temporary home for however many nights tonight I'm just out for one night I'm testing gear I'm sure Jonathan told you about that he's went out tested all the gear on his own uh previous video I'm coming out I want to test all this stuff too gosh these are really big I don't know what that is look at that one I'm going to hope that that is just dog Prints but it's pretty big in my opinion it's almost as big as my foot woo might be a fun night Friday the 13th maybe some wolves maybe a moose look at that wild celery ooh ooh okay I'm breaking through post holding so it sounds like there's water right here the map kind of says I'm right at the end then there's birch trees they wouldn't necessarily be right in that water maybe I'll go over here by these trees starting to cool off took off my jacket hung it up on a tree over here let it um air out and dry out I'm going to there's a lot of little brush that I need to kind of get out of the way pull out and break up and then I'm going to lay this footprint out and uh get it going cuz the sun is already down going down uh and it should be getting dark soon and once it hits gets dark it's going to be colder oh I had my gloves off so I could work but my hands are so cold on those metal tent poles I put my mittens back on so we're going to see if I can try and do this with the mittens on for it's tough to get those hooks going so I'm a little I'm playing with the poles a little bit I'm AF I I'm afraid of snapping them because even the poles are Frosty from Jonathan's trip we didn't give it enough chance to like dry out so everything refroze on the walk-in and right now so um I'm going to work on this top part and um probably goingon to need to do a battery change soon but um gonna need to get this little rainfly on just to keep with the Dew and the and the condensation that's going to happen so what I've decided is I'm not going to force any of the clips to go over the Dome area just because the poles are frozen and the material is frozen and I don't want to break anything it might be sturdy enough to hold it but I'm just going to leave it up for now the way it is um it is very spacious inside of there so I'm not worried about rain or snow or anything tonight so I'm not worried about the weight um I don't I'm not I'm not even going to put the rain fly on because I don't really need it probably the ventilation is better just to like get any of the condensation out so we let it be Airy I have a lot of down layers um I have that I have a huge down sleeping bag so I'll show you that and lots of layers on the ground I do need to get rid of a few trees in my vestibule but for now now I'm going to get everything into the tent um and just kind of get it set up so everything all the down can start to like fluff up newest update had to do a battery change uh I found my headlamp I've un uh packed my entire bag into the tent the tent's big enough so I can keep all my stuff actually in the tent I don't actually have to store my backpack outside the tent or in the vestibule so that's kind of good um I've been warming up my hands I did some jumping jacks to get the blood flowing and my sleeping bag is starting to inflate or not inflate but just fluff up cuz it's down and the uh sleeping pad is all blown up and good to go so um I was thinking about maybe eating something cuz I am pretty cold I keep taking my gloves off which is a bad thing um but I did bring as one does a potato hot potato in my pocket um that's my that was my trail snack today and so I'm going to fuel up a little bit and uh I got to warm up the uh canister so I got to find the canister I have my kitchen but I haven't opened my kitchen yet so I'm going to um just eat this baked potato that I made earlier and I brought some I got a little mustard I'm going to add a little mustard on it as I go I wish I had like a fancy mustard but that's more weight so I got this little one put in my pocket and uh just warm up with a potato it's super hearty it's going to stick to my insides keep me warm it's hard to know when you're out in the wilderness if it's better it's probably a preference but is it better to like be out alone and like okay I'm out in the wilderness I'm all alone or if it's better to know there's other people out here at the same time I tend to lean towards just being by myself but who knows there were a lot of dogs um on the trail when I was waiting in the parking lot for my gloves to show up and um so I kind of felt confident coming down the trail that those dogs probably were loud enough or I don't know animal animish enough to kind of uh scare off any of the wildlife right along the trail definitely some of those moose tracks were new and fresh cuz you could see they were still powdery where the Moose had stopped or stepped in where like a lot of the Dog Tracks or possible other can9 animals out here were um older CU they were crusty and had been refrozen BR it is so cold out I should find out what the temperature is about 14 there we go what smell that smells not good okay make sure there's no flammable stuff near it woo that smell really bad for tea okay so I got hibiscus tea for tonight I have another one before bed the stove seems to be working good I just need a platform for it I did buy some blue foam um but I haven't had a chance to cut it and bring it out I'll probably put blue like just um A Thin Blue foam pad down just so it can have something to sit on really steamy so one of the major reason I'm out here alone is to get a feel for how the tent Works how the stove works um how to set it up without bringing the kids out here because if I had to do this with the kids um might be a little not super safe to try it out for the first time uh winter camping with them with this Gear with new gear and everything so we'll do a couple trips um just getting getting to know the gear and getting familiar with everything and then add the kids in I think that's probably the the wisest idea now I have been winter camping before um I helped lead uh Four Season backpacking trips and stuff like that but it's been over a decade since before grite was born so it's been you know 14 15 years and uh so it's just trying to like get back into it and how do I how comfortable am I and um how well do I know the gear and so this tent is a brand new um tent for me but it's also a brand new style for me uh new brand and everything the stove as well cuz usually I just go out with my uh jet boil this little setup here is new so it's good just to kind of get out here get comfortable figure it out before throwing the kids in the mix which I kind of like I think it's a good idea now we only have enough gear for um two people and maybe three if we bring Forest cuz Forest can sleep in a sleep Meg with others um so we'll have to kind of do a little bit of switch off of who goes on which trips and who wants to go on which trips and stuff like that um so that'll be good just trying to uh try out some new stuff and take the kids on Adventures out in the winter and get comfortable with snow I know they're going to um be skiing soon they're going to be in a Nordic ski classes and then they're going to learn how to snowboard down the mountains so they're going to get really comfortable on the snow uh we'll have to get them snow shoes and uh hopefully some ice skates or if we can rent them and get out on the ice just to kind of gain that confidence and okay I know if I'm dressing warm then I'm going to be safe and I know if I'm staying active I'm going to be warm and stuff like that oh no all right let's do a temperature check it is eight 8° so it is dropping pretty fast um it feels cold but not too bad um now they have this tea it is I'm feeling good I'm not um shivering I started getting really cold just waiting for the stove to work so I'm was going to come out here CU I don't know if you can see no it just looks like a speck the Moon is almost full and it's super super bright out here and uh it's casting light on all these little crystals that are frozen pieces of frost and stuff on the on the branches some leftover cranberries from the fall and they are like all covered in Frost and it's really pretty and sparkly out here uh Cedar would love it so the Moon is nice cuz it's going to keep everything bright for me out here and uh and uh it's really pretty and it's quiet it's definitely quiet I can see a I can see a planet in the distance which is always fun granite and M like to try and figure out if it's a which objects in the sky our planets and which ones Our Stars and which ones our satellites so we spend a lot of time looking up uh when we're out in nature together which is good make sure I don't spill my tea on myself tents looking pretty good now um yeah my tea is almost done which is nice and then uh I might set up the tent and then I'll maybe cook dinner which will be good so that ice is making really funny noises probably means somebody's walking by it or on it when somebody steps on the ice it makes a thump sound in what's kind of it's like oh is that a moose w it's so cool just to sit here and watch all the little Embers and everything change color it's nice to listen to it it's roaring it's kind of rumbling I don't know if that picks up on the GoPro it's so quiet out here I find myself Whispering because I feel like I'm so loud and I don't think anyone else is camping out here but I did see people earlier so who knows I don't want my voice to Echo all the way across the water and the ice and disrupt their peacefulness uh but it's nice I think making a fire is kind of like a slow thing same with hiking it just slows you down hiking slows you down making a fire slows you down sleeping in a tent and it's kind of nice because it gives you space and time to like think and reflect and process all your thoughts without the Clutter and disruption of your everyday life right there's lots going on uh in our lives and it's good to slow down and it's good to like reflect and be out in nature and to really just I don't know get some time for yourself to think and I kind of hope we do these trips with the kids that that's what they take away from it like there's a lot of things I kind of hope they take away from it I hope they feel confident that they feel not afraid of Nature and to process if you're having lots of hard feelings go out in nature and just reconnect with the Earth and if you're having good feelings go out there and celebrate so um that's kind of what I hope I provide for the kids when I bring them out here it's just that this is another way to do things it's another way to live and it's another way to uh another tool they have to process life when it gets hard or uh when they just need some time to think I think all of my uh really good reflection times have happened out in nature like um so I did Peace Corp for two years in El Salvador and when I came back from from that I went and hiked the Appalachian Trail and that 6 months on the trail helped me process pretty much everything in my life but definitely that entire experience that I had living in a village in El Salvador and it was really cool to be able to have that time it's hard to break away from uh your everyday life to like take a chunk of time to go out in nature and hike and camp but it's in my opinion it's worth it it's worth it for the the mental health it's worth it for your physical health and uh yeah it's been really cool nature has really helped me and I hope I can pass that along to my kids I know they don't always they don't always want to go out in nature right now but I think I hope when they get older and they're like oh I'm stressed out and like oh let's go on a camping trip let's go for a hike let's go have a campfire somewhere let's down and just lay in our sleeping bags and read books for 10 hours it's pretty nice for dinner I'm going to make my favorite breakfast the tofu scramble um it's kind of supposed to represent like a scramble egg and I brought um it normally put on tortillas but I was like oh I should put it in um uh like red pepper chunks so what I'm going to try to do is make the tofu scramble and then put it in a pepper chunk um these are starting to freeze so I'm hoping it it'll still work there we go I'm going to add a little water which I saved in my cup because it was starting to freeze in the pan oh it's starting to freeze in the cup too I don't a saut some onions they have red onions pre uh pre- chopped cuz I didn't want to to deal with all the scraps out here and then I have the tofu this is a like half a block I'm just going to break it up so it's crumbly so I'm just going to crumble it up break it up so it kind of looks like scrambled eggs that scrambled egg texture the most important thing are the seasoning and I pre-seasoned I put them all in this bag and it's salt and pepper turmeric nutritional yeast and then I have some garlic powder and some onion powder with it so now it's more of a a yellowy a yellowy scramble the egg color at least that's from the turmeric and then I brought a bunch of spinach so I'm going to break that up this is a great way to get my Greens in especially in the winter when it's harder to eat a salad here give it a minute to stop steaming so you can see it so it's just scrambled tofu with onions and spinach and I'm going to put it in a in a red pepper boat all right there you go tofu scramble with spinach it served in a red pepper boat this is just a raw red pepper got to take couple pictures for Instagram look at this chalula hot sauce salsa pecante now look at that that's going to be delicious oh yum that red pepper is so juicy I was a little worried about it but I'm actually it's really good I thought it might be too Frozen oh that's delicious I would Def defitely do that again maybe not winter camping but definitely my hands are starting to shake cold um definitely uh in the house I'm going to try and eat this as fast as I can before it gets cold I think that's another issue with winter camping is your food gets cold fast so you can't like you try try to stick to one pot meal and try and eat as fast as you can once you get it and I don't have my gloves on so my hands are cold yeah all right I'm going to finish this up and then I'm going to do dishes and uh and check on my fire okay so the fire fire is pretty much out at this point I'm just going to pour my dirty water on it okay put that back over it dishes are done woohoo I am almost completely in the tent the vestibule is closed up these are my down pants that I'm going to wear um I got the is on one of my trips I think uh probably my noll's trip my national outdoor leadership trip and uh when we got rid of a lot of our gear when we moved out of Alaska this was one thing I was like I can't I can't get rid of it they're really expensive and they are really nice to have so um I've been holding up for all this years I hope they still fit me actually CU I haven't tried them on since then but um I'm going to change into those in a minute but uh I have these my our fairy lights which I'm excited about but looks like we have a little National ampon Christmas vacation going on here but I'm excited about them they work great in the cabin on the cabin trips and the kids like them so it's nice to have a little extra light plus when we're filming well the cabins we go to don't have light so it's it's nice to have different options of ways to light up the the place and then um when we're filming we need extra lights as well because you know the GoPro doesn't work as good in the dark light or the low light oh my goodness this might take me a minute I might as well sit down and get comfortable the best part about December is decorating the house um getting ready for the holiday season uh the kids get really excited we have our our list of Christmas movies or holiday movies that we always watch and um we try to do our movie Nights based around those so that's always fun and uh we've been baking a lot we've been making a lot of cookies and um I tried mold wine for the first time or glint wine is what we called it when we were in Georgia one of the early early YouTube videos um so that was delicious and we tried and I tried to make that and got some recipes from friends which was nice what is in here oh dirt bark okay so let's see let's put these lights up and see how they do okay not really sure the best way to hang them though it does look like we have lots of little um loops and stuff in this tent which is nice so I could string some paracord all the way around and then if we needed more more lights we could do that put that there bring it it over here and then back around I'm going to be reading for a while tonight so uh this will be good let's turn it on wo oh blinking lights quite festive so this sleeping bag is the Marmet cwm so this is a really super fluffy um filled look at how thick it is 800 fill down Marmet it's supposed to be to -40 and we figured with the kids coming out here we need extra warm gear we want to make sure that they're safe and they're warm they actually sleep warmer than I do so as long as I'm warm then I can pretty much guarantee that they're okay but I just need to double check and make sure um yeah so let's climb into this thing so now I'm extra Snuggly in here I have a whole poofy head thing I have this uh this neck liner that I can tighten up and keep me warm at night and um I'll probably try and keep my face out so I'm not breathing in the sleeping bag and I don't want to get like condensation or anything inside of it so I'll probably just tuck my face out but everything else will be surrounded by this super fluffy cocoon for the night and uh oh my gosh it's already nice and warm in here I think that's why I love my down jacket my down pants my down vest and now this huge down sleeping bag it's not the best in the rain or if it's a really wet snow but it is amazing when it's just dry and cold it's my favorite it's super light and fluffy it weighs not very much I can't remember how much this one weighs I'll have to put it down down here but it is it's light it fills up like a big chunk of my bag so I had that big pack on today but I haven't hiked with the backpack in a while so it did take me a little bit of time just to get used to it but I think I was so distracted by the ice and trying not to slip um that I didn't even notice really that the pack was heavy or awkward when I first put it on I definitely noticed it um even just like putting it on in the house to carry it to the car I was like oh man it's been a while since I've worn a big backpack like that um but yeah so this is kind of fun um I definitely miss my family I like to hike um with them and camp with them and have my evenings with them but um gosh so I like I said earlier I started the Appalachian Trail all on my own but there's so many people in the appalachi trail I think I I was on for six months and I think I slept at a shelter by myself maybe three times otherwise you get to a place and you put your tent up and then a bunch of other people show up and they put their tents up and and um so you have that um hiking Community together uh the first time I ever did a solo hike was in Montana when I did the 28 day backpacking trip with the University of Wisconsin we were hiking out there in the absaroka Beartooth uh the Galatin National Forest um and we did Vision quests so you had the option of spending four days and four nights by yourself in the woods and we fasted during that time but it was cool experience and I was super afraid to uh to do it on my own and super afraid to C by myself at night but um it was fine and it was good and sometimes it's good to do hard things and things that you don't want to so that you know that you can do them and that they're good it's okay to do that so even though I'm out here tonight by myself and I'm kind of like oh I hope I hope a moose doesn't come into camp or um I hope I didn't put my tent up next to I don't know like a fox den or anything um so I can hear them crunching around or whoever was shooting off guns earlier I hope they don't come by but um for now it's just kind of peaceful I think these little lights help having this uh peaceful evening it's helped it's been really quiet around here the snow is so crunchy that no one's going to come into my camp at night without me hearing so probably the bigger fear is if I hear footsteps is it a squirrel or is it a bear or is it a moose hopefully the Bears are all sleeping but sometimes you get the Rogue bear who wakes up and wanders around and then that ruged bear is what scares me cuz I'm not prepared for it though I do have my bear spray and in my jacket right now warming up so I do have that kind of crazy is I'm going to read this mystery tonight so this this is called the mystery of Miss Mrs Christie and this is a historical fiction uh story about Agatha Christie who writes Mysteries so it's a mystery about her this mystery author who actually um disappeared for like 11 days and there's no and she doesn't remember it she said oh there's a am Amnesia I can't remember what happened so it's the whole uh mystery about her disappearance and um this came uh recommended to me so I'm excited to read it should be pretty good and I'm not sure if I should read a mystery while I'm camping alone in the woods but I'm going to do it good morning it is 8:30 and it is Pitch Black in here still even at 8:30 in the morning I slept fantastic in this sleeping bag I did wake up on and off um last night hearing different uh noises and stuff but mostly just I could hear cars and trucks driving by and at one point I I got up and I put the bear spray into my sleeping bag so it could be warm in case I needed to use it and then as it warmed up it got super wet so then I had to get up and get a a dry bag a dry sack stuff sack for it so I did that and put it in there and I think that's better still in here I also brought my water bottle in cuz I was afraid it might freeze in the night so I mean luckily I have this big bag I have the GoPro in here I have the GoPro batteries water bottle bear spray uh extra socks my mittens which I took off at one point cuz they they were so hot um but yeah it's been EV uneventful night and I got I think I got a lot of sleep but it is 8:30 and it's still I don't know still really dark out so um I might try and wait another hour and then pop out of the tent for a little bit and check things out I'm hearing rain just a little bit sprinkling of rain started I woke up around 4: and heard it and then again around 7 so I don't know if it's raining I don't know if it's snowing or if it's just like my condensation on the tent so we'll check it out when I get up okay so it is 9:00 now I'm going to try and uh motivate to get going uh it's I'm going to there's things I can do in the tent even though it's dark outside I think the sun is starting to come up so I should be pretty good A little bit but I can change back into my snow pants out of my down pants I can put my I can stuff my sleeping bag back into my backpack and put my book away so anything that it's in the tent that I'm not going to use anymore um I can start stuffing into the backpack uh I am going to make tea so I need to leave my kitchen out so I'll probably pack that up blast but everything else can pretty much um start to go back into the backpack so I'm going to do some stuff in the tent get some lights on and uh get my day going little bit of Loft little bit of Loft so they do make stuff sacks that you can cinch down this um Sleeping Bag did come with one so I could stuff it into the sack and then pull the straps down and make it even Tighter and um I I have used those in the past and like them but I thought with this such a big battle I'll try to keep punching it down all right put my boots on got those going snow pants check it out the snow that I accidentally brought into my tent is still here and we can check it out this is pretty Frosty out here from condensation just normal breathing tent looks nice and tight here's a little vent which I didn't use all right now how to get out of this thing oh it did Snow oh it's snowing what you guys it's snowing oh my goodness check it out wow it's so beautiful out here oh no my GoPro I left the the little GoPro out here oh no that can't be good oops oops Yeah that can't be good I'll have to warm that one up that's my time lapse so if we don't have a time lapse that's why W check out my tent and I don't know if you can tell but it's snowing at like 4: I heard like little quickling I don't know little creaking noises I thought oh my gosh is there like is there a mouse eating my garbage bag um I've had that happen in the past so um I kind of woke up it woke me up around 4: and I had to you hear a squirrel and um so it wasn't it wasn't um a m and then I kept hearing it was all over my to thought well maybe it's raining rain sounds funny intense because I don't know it sounds bigger or crazier wilder than it really is I'm put that GoPro in there okay wow this is beautiful I'm going to get a rain jacket on before my down gets all wet but yeah wow it is so pretty out here you can't even see the mountains anymore all right well maybe we won't have a sunrise till later cuz it's snowing but let's get some breakfast going let's get some tea going it's weird to have sit here and drink this coffee I'm so used to hanging out with my teacher friends and we'd have like we drink this coffee together and we'd talk about they they make different flavored coffees too so we were talking about them and and we're sitting in Indonesia up on the mountain drinking this coffee and now here I am in the mountains of Alaska and it's snowing on me it's a little bit different it's kind of cool and I'm just going to break this potato up I'm going to use it to get the olive oil spread all over just kind of want it warm doesn't have to cook I already cooked it so just break it into junks might even be nice to flatten it a little bit all right steaming hot sweet potato it's kind of nice like when the sweet potato Cooks if you've never put it in a fry pan before um it kind of caramelizes the sugars in it caramelizer um gives it a really really nice flavor I like to switch this up um so I'm not EA oatmeal every morning or I kind of go between the tofu scramble oatmeal and the sweet potato bowl and then I brought pumpkin seeds some peans throw those on there I have crains dried cranberries feel like I got myself a trail mix right now I'm going to mix them all into one bag and use it when on my hike out and then uh some shredded coconut which I've never used um but toasted coconut was what I was looking for it sounded really good um but I've never tried it with this with this before so it's the first here it is sweet potatoes with lots of toppings I'm going to try with that coconut M oh that's delicious I can't tell if this Pan's hot yeah I can put it on my snow pants oh it's really good with the coconut I was looking for toasted coconut like little strips but um I found the sweetened coconut shredded sweetened coconut that works just as well and has a really good flavor let will warm me up to get me out of here give me the energy to put this um snow covered tent down all right all right one more good luck so good okay I'm going to finish this up and then it's time to pack it all up f all right guys this this has been an incredible first solo camping trip just absolutely what I needed to do to make sure that I have the right gear and that I know how to use the gear and just to test everything out before getting in the field with the kids um thanks for sticking with me and it's I can't believe it's snowing this is beautiful there's no snow in the forecast for like 10 days and here it is all right um I'm heading out so I'll see you in the next adventure
2024-12-23 11:06
