there was a light snow falling on our camp as we awoke. it had dusted our shelter and surroundings in a thin blanket of fresh white. we rekindled the fire in the stove to get some coffee brewing and have a warm oatmeal breakfast. as we ate we discussed the plans for the day and thought we could make the cabin today if we pushed hard. we finished our breakfast and coffee and broke down camp. this was the first time that we had to break down camp and repack our sleds after a full night. we quickly discovered that it takes a considerable amount of time to get things packed back up as we ran into unforeseen challenges. our groundsheet had frozen to the ice that formed underneath from the melted snow due to our stove, the legs for the stove had melted into the ice and then refroze and had to be chipped out with a hatchet. the cord to tie down the sleds was wet and icy with snow and became difficult to handle. it was now nearly lunchtime and we were just finishing tying down the gear the to sleds. we both felt rushed at this point, knowing that a push to get to the cabin today was now going to be a grind.
it was slow going along TURCOTTE CREEK and we quickly learned that a well packed sled made all of the difference when pulling it over the rough terrain. i dumped my sled several times while on the portages between lakes as the trail dips and climbs over buried trees and unseen obstacles. even on seemingly perfect trail conditions our poorly packed sleds would seem to dump for no reason other than they came slightly out of the tracks we made with our snowshoes. it became a frustrating battle. as soon as a i could get into a rhythm, i would feel the depressing tug of my sled, stopping my progress and forcing me to retreat back to the overturned sled right it. then get back to my original position, gently tug the sled back onto my snowshoe path and begin again. at times, the sled would dump immediately forcing me to repeat the process. every time the sleds would dump the load would shift and the cord would loosen against the soft packs and hard crates. it seemed i was constantly retying my load until i finally took my time while breaking for a sip out of the coffee thermos and some homemade jerky to repack my shifty load. it made all the difference as i used more bungie than static cord to keep my loaded sled working for me rather than against me.
the cabin was now well out of reach as we approached the rapids named after the prince of darkness. it seemed fitting as dusk was fast approaching and we were spent. we made camp on a small frozen pool of water between GREAT DEVIL'S and LITTLE DEVIL'S rapids just passed a small island that we had camped on a few years back while canoeing the river in the fall. what had been a day of relative quite was now interrupted by the sounds of open and raging water from the rapids above and below our camp.
the key to success on any adventure is to learn from your experiences and improve your skills. we were much smarter with our second camp. a thick layer of fresh pine boughs separated our shelter floor from the snow, ice, and melt water. we slept warming and instead of waking up in a half frozen puddle of melted snow and ice, we awoke to a dry floor and the smells of christmas morning...