Elke has been organizing a winter yurt-camping weekend for many years. The first time I went, I was in awe of Dan for sleeping outside! in a tent! in the winter! (the rest of us stuck to the yurts). In subsequent years, though, I got mighty sick of sleeping in the yurts - I was always too hot, I didn't like how messy everything got, and there was snoring and once even a demand for a night light. The yurt weekend was always at a busy time of the year, and it was a long drive, and I just stopped going.
Last year, I started going again, but I slept in a tent myself. And it was the best thing ever. I could hang out in the crowded, warm yurt in the evenings, ski during the day, eat bacon, and sleep in my own space. Brilliant. Dan's style of yurting had caught on with a bunch of people by then (and Kevin outdoes us all by just sleeping outside, no tent!)
This year, we showed up in time for the last snowmobile shuttle in. I was feeling pretty smug about all the warm clothes and the fleece liner I brought for my sleeping bag and the forecast: this was going to be the best sleep ever. Moreover, there was no shortage of bacon in the cooler, and I had both skis and snowshoes. I was ready to do it again!
That is, until I went to set up my tent this year. The poles, as always, gave me grief in the cold, but I popped into Jim's hot tent and got warmth and help. I marched back to my campsite in the snow and finished setting up just the inner tent, and then, with a flourish, unfurled my sleeping bag. This was quickly followed by a sinking feeling: I'd packed the sleeping bag in a gloomy garage, with my mind only half on the job. And I had half the sleeping bag I needed: I had packed a summer bag, size small (which is fine, for summer, given that small means short and I am short... but in winter, I like to shove my water bottle and various other things I do not want to freeze down into the extra toe room). I realized it would be a chilly night, and decided not to think about this until after dinner. After all, it was time to hang out in the yurt and drink some beer and eat some food and listen to politically incorrect jokes. Weekend. I am needing weekends lately, there is always too much to do and no time to just turn off and stop thinking about it.
It was a cold night on Friday. Oh man, was it a cold night. The thermometer apparently registered -23, which is by no means the coldest I have ever slept out in, but is definitely the coldest I have ever survived without my big puffy winter bag. I lined the space between my fleece liner and the wimpy bag with jackets and spare long underwear and shirts, and of course I wore a whole lot of clothes and my toque to bed. By the end, I had assembled such a complicated system that the thought of leaving the cocoon at any point to pee was ... well, it wasn't an option, and I didn't have to. Mind over matter. Mind, however, did not turn off so well, and there wasn't so much sleeping.
Ah, but whatever. There was bacon at breakfast, and the sun came out, and the chickadees landed on outstretched hands - which, kind of a cool feeling. I went for my first ski of the year, on the back loop of the yellow, on my own. I came back to find Chris doing all the dishes from the night before, and hung out with him while he did the domestic thing. Then I joined him for a walk to the lake to check if John, intent on ice-fishing, had caught something as good as bacon. He hadn't, but he'd attracted a bunch of other people, and we hung out for a while. Then, I got hungry, and made my way back to the yurt for some lunch, and then there was another turn on the back yellow. It was good. It wasn't until days later that it became clear that somehow, my energetic poling (probably, I'm not sure if it was the poling) actually got a rib to pop out of place in my back. I didn't feel it until the chorus of angry muscles made life miserable back home.
The second night - not as cold as the first. Still not particularly comfortable, but at least I did not have frost buildup on the top of my toque. Perhaps it was -15. In any case, there was bacon (and french toast, and sausages, and eggs, and probably some other stuff but that is what I went for) in the morning.
And then the weekend was over, and I fell asleep in the car as soon as I turned the seatwarmer on. (No, I was not driving at that point!) And then it was Monday and I was in class and wondered why it felt like somebody was viciously stabbing me in the back, but all in all, you know, it's still worth it. I'm going next year. With my winter sleeping bag, my fleece liner, and a spare sleeping bag in the trunk just in case. You never know...
Turboglacier is my hero. He is the only person I've ever met - in person even, not just in email - who gets a mention in the New York Times.
Yeah, so, I went to Costa Rica in December. Panama, too, but that's not what this story is about. Actually, this story is really only about only 48 hours of that whole trip.
The tallest mountain in Costa Rica is Cerro Chirripó. It's 3,820masl. That, in the grand scheme of things, is not really all that tall - but the ascent is considerable, you start hiking at about 1,400m, in San Gerardo de Rivas. Me, I came from sea level the day before that.
Now here's a thing you didn't know about me - I mean, I didn't know it either (though I suspected). I am very altitude sensitive. Let's add that to my other great physiological advantages: I get very motion sick, I am a super light sleeper, and I am lazy. Yes, yes, you could argue that the last one is psychological, not physiological, but regardless - I reluctantly made my way up Cerro Chirripó, because Elke, who I was traveling with, was incredibly determined to climb the highest mountain in Costa Rica. And non-planning lazy person that I am, I of course did no research at all before the trip and thus was on someone else's (someone else who did a lot of research, and consequently had a very detailed itinerary planned) agenda. Fine. That's not all the lazy, either - I don't really get that much of a charge out of trudging up mountains unless there is going to be a view. I will do a lot for a view.
So, where was I? Right. 1,400 to 3,800masl in a short time, altitude sensitive. Now, the trail up Chirripó ascends a wee bit steeply - you walk 14.5km to get to Base Crestones, and at least 2km of that is level or downhill. Base Crestones is at 3,200m. That means that most of the trail, uphill - and relentlessly steep for a large proportion of that. Me, I relied on a brief obsession I had with running in the fall to make it to the halfway point, Refugio Llano Bonito, without any difficulty whatsover. Well, not unless you call being very sweat soaked difficulty. Whatever. From there, though, the trail is brutal for some time. At about 2,500masl, I started needing to rest. The frequency of the rest stops increased - by 3,000m (the *first* time I hit 3,000m, before losing 200 precious vertical meters in a downhill stretch), I was more of a walk 25m, take a rest sort of hiker. By the second time I got to 3,000m, it was probably walk 15m, rest. Yeah, it was all kinds of fun.
Still, I got to Base Crestones sometime around 12:30p.m., and I checked in with the ranger and checked out my spartan bunk. Base Crestones is no luxury, that you should know - it is, as they say, perfectly adequate, but that is about it. Still, I met some people, I made some coffee, I hung out chatting for the rest of the afternoon and waited for Elke. All was fine, I was even warm enough if I wore all the clothes I brought with me at once. I ate my dinner.
Alas, that dinner was the last thing that went in, really. By morning - after a fitful sleep, but again, light sleeper to begin with - I had no appetite. Sure, I had a coffee, but I was disinterested in food. If you know me personally, you realize just how highly unusual that is. Actually, you probably know that just from reading five random entries on these pages. So, yeah, not hungry - but also no matter, because it was pouring rain and completely socked in. Some people went for the summit, they came back soaked to the bone and had seen essentially the same thing as you do when you're driving along on one of those fall days and hit a super thick fog bank. I was not going anywhere. I met some lovely Polish people, and hung out with them, and generally felt a bit off.
Midafternoon, the rain let up. I joined two of the Poles in a summit quest. Well, a more accurate description was, two lovely Poles cajoled and bullied and all but carried me up to the summit, with the patience of saints. Because, you see, there were all these little knives stabbing into my chest if I tried to breathe. So I kept slowing down, and - if anybody stopped walking to take a picture, actually sitting on the nearest rock. It wasn't so fun. And we didn't see so much at the summit, and it took hours to return to Base Crestones even though it was only 5km and *downhill*. We got back well after dark.
And I was still not interested in food. Plus, in addition to the stabby little knives and the going off my feed thing, I had a headache and... uh... well, I was glad I brought extra toilet paper. You could have set your watch by that part, every 30 minutes like clockwork, whether or not there was... uh... significant production or not. Boy oh boy, was I looking forward to having to do 14.5km of this, with my pack on, the next day. Then again, I also didn't want to stay at Base Crestones. Really, I wanted a damn helicopter.
And so, the next morning - a beautiful day, and I'm sure people that day had a good summit view - we made our way down. Elke was out of my sight within the first 20 minutes because I was back on the walk a little, rest a lot rhythm. I saw nobody save all the porters coming back (cause, you see, most of the Ticos? They don't carry gear, they pay someone else to do it.) After the porters, nobody, for a long time. This was good, because I ... uh... well... (oh man, this is embarrassing), I had an "accident".
Yes. I did just admit to shitting myself on my blog.
But I was carrying my own pack! And in my pack, clean(ish) clothes! And even some leftover toilet paper and wipes! No problem! So I did what you do when you have done what I did and are nice and alone: I speedily took off the clothes on my lower half (cause, ew!) before even thinking about digging through the pack for other clothes.
The trail at this point, kind of narrow.
Yeah. You just know what happens next, don't you. There I am, bare-assed, bent over my pack. And over there, oh look, a porter with a horse, coming my way. Nowhere for me to go, and *of course* I then get hung up on a zipper.
Hey, at least I picked up the pace after that. There was *no way* I was going to let that porter catch up to me on his way down.
Yeah. This is what busts through the blog updating laziness. Not burblings about fantastic bicycle trips in Europe, or fall in the Côte d'Azur, or a super wet and miserable Superior trip or not wet and not miserable trips on Georgian Bay and the North Channel, nor the two trips to Chile (though! there is another poo story! I got food poisoning from some goat cheese in the High Andes! And I barfed on the tarmac while walking out to a plane and everything!), or the early December visit to Amsterdam, or all the lazing about I did in hammocks in Panama. No... I'll go right to the most embarrassing moment.
Sometimes I wonder how my mind works too. Happy New Year. I may even start taking pictures again!