Winter’s Coming!

With winter on the way I’m already turning my thoughts to ice climbing and camping out.  This weekend Bonnie and I bought a toboggan for our camping trips.  The toboggan was originally designed by the Micmac Indians for transporting heavy loads over the snow.  http://www.answers.com/topic/toboggan#

Anyway, we bought an 8’ toboggan that had only been used a couple of times for $50.  And yes, Bonnie found this treasure on Craig’s list.  I’m looking forward to trying it out with some gear on it!

And with winter comes ice climbing.  I had Chey out last year climbing with me in the Camden Hills and we had a good time.
            Chey ice climbing

Bonnie went out with me, but by that time she was about seven months pregnant and couldn’t climb due to the fact that her seat barely fit around her.  Below is a picture of her belaying for me while I climbed.

      Yeah, she’s cool.

Here’s one last picture.  This is me doing the lead climb to set up a belay station. 

This section of the climb isn’t too challenging, but it’s a good warm up and pretty fun.  Bonnie will be up there this winter. 

Cold weather camping with a baby

It’s near the end of October now and Bonnie and I both love cold weather camping.  One of the big questions is, “Can we take a six month old boy cold weather camping?”

Answer:  My ancestors lived in the cold for thousands of years so why not? 

The first thing I did was to research the web using a “cold weather camping with baby” search string.  As usual, I found some really good advice about cold weather camping mixed up with some information  that was just wrong. 

If you’ve never done cold weather camping and you think we’re crazy for even thinking about doing it with a baby you should probably stop reading here. 

Having done the preliminary research here’s some (hopefully) good ideas that I’m going to put to the test.  First – dress the baby much as you’d dress yourself for cold weather.  Layer him up!  I’ll be discussing this with Bonnie for more ideas, but my first hard and fast rule of cold weather camping is that you do not wear cotton.  I’ll say that again.   No cotton.  Cotton kills in cold weather folks.  Therefore we need to find some synthetic clothes for the Little Guy to wear.  The first layer is synthetic and then a sleeper made from light wool or something like that.  Then one of his little sleeper bags all stuffed inside of a bigger zero degree kids bag.  Heat is lost through the head, so we need to make sure he has a good warm hat.  Lay him between us on his own sleeping mat and he should be good to go. 

Don’t think that we won’t test all of this out either.  We set up my friend’s (Dave Maddox) tent yesterday to see how it does through a windy and rainy day.  First of all, this is a North Face three person four season tent that is far superior to what I’m currently using.  Thanks Dave, I have serious tent envy right now.  Anyway, Bonnie, Ro and I went out this afternoon in the middle of the rain and hung out for an hour just to see what it’s like. 

First of all, the tent itself is awesome.  I must have one.  I set up my little ultralight tent, which is now about ten years old, next to Dave’s and when I looked inside it was drenched!  I’m glad I took the time to set it up last night otherwise the next time I was caught in a rain storm in it I’d have been miserable.

Second, it was warm enough that it doesn’t even come close enough to consider it cold weather camping (at least in my book.)  Bonnie and Ro hanging out in the tent

We made some coffee, laid out the sleeping bags and talked about ways of keeping Ro warm when it comes time to do a real cold weather sleep out.

Other cold weather considerations for a baby.  When you’ve got him on the toboggan and you’re pulling it through the woods and sweating your ass off guess what?  The baby is just riding and needs to be dressed accordingly.  Again, layers of synthetic clothing or wool, and a good hat and mittens are crucial.  A little gem I found on the web that makes good sense:  if you touch the back of the babies neck and he’s sweating, let him cool off a little bit, he’s too hot. 

I can tell you from personal experience that if you get wet in cold weather you're about two seconds from getting hypothermic if the temperature drops and you’ve stopped moving.

The big day

Well, Today I finally paid off my last credit card.  Hard to believe after I’ve been paying on the damned things for about five years now.  I walked away from the divorce with about $35k in debt, yep, $35,000.  Most of it my own damned fault too. 

Instead of declaring bankruptcy I dug down deep and with a little financial advice from Dave Ramsey I put a plan in place and stuck to it for over five years.  That’s a long time, but I finally did it.  It’s almost an anticlimax after all this time, but I’m so happy to be done with it. 

Hiking Mt Megunticook

We picked up a backpack carrier for Ro yesterday and took it for a spin today up Megunticook to Maiden's cliff.

This is going to open up a lot of possibilities that the little Snugli front carrier didn't and we're both really excited about it. Finally back to hiking!! And just in time for fall as Bonnie noted.

We've got a sled picked out for winter and we're looking forward to pulling him through the snow on our snowshoes. I can see a winter summit push coming up for Ragged this winter. Not when we need ice axes or crampons or anything like that, but maybe a deep snow hike with him all bundled up in his snow suit. Can't wait!

We left the parking lot this morning around 11:15 or so. The hike to Maiden's cliff is pretty easy and we made it up there in about a 1/2 hour of fairly slow walking. I had my pack, which is stuffed full of surival stuff (that comes in handy when hiking) and some food and water, and Bonnie carried Bowling Ball Butt in the baby backpack. (How's that for alliteration?)

Once we got to the top we stopped at the cross for a little while to enjoy the view then went a little further along the ridge trail and laid out the sleeping bag liner, broke out some snacks, and sat back and enjoyed the beautiful day and the incredible view. And what a beautiful day it was!

There are more pictures, but they're on Bonnie's camera and I don't feel like messing around with it right now. So, you'll just have to wait for the scenery pictures.

The Little Guy

Watching the sun set...

Here's me and Rowan on top of Spruce Moutain here in Maine a couple of days ago. We put him in the baby carrier and he tags along with us whever we go.

Rowan is a little over four months old now and it's really amazing how fast he's growing. He went to the doctors last night and weighed in at a whopping 17 1/2 lbs, which puts him in the 90th percentile of his age group. He's a beast!

Bonnie and I have started taking him on short hiking trips and it's really fun to watch him experience new things. Bonnie loves to take him and put his feet in the grass, or let him run his hand over some leaves, or let him get his feet wet in the pool. All new and exciting experiences for him.

He's really becoming quite the little chatter box too. I like to tease Bonnie that it's her side of the family manifesting itself. In the mornings when she's getting him ready for daycare he starts yelling at her and can get himself worked up into a pretty good lather. It's pretty entertaining watch him.

Rowan will experience the great outdoors. Bonnie and I love to hike, camp, climb, ice climb, and anything else that will take us outside and keep us there. Cheyenne (my daughter) isn't as interested in being outside, but she does know how to handler heself to an extent. If I give her a match and tell her to get a fire lit she can do it. Not bad for a 17 year old. I've got a good picture of Chey taken on Mt. Katahdin a couple of years ago that I'll publish here later.

Here's a picture of Ro in the carrier.

One last picture of Bonnie and Ro: