Winter camping in April

(Here's an April Excursions column from the Jackson Hole News&Guide. Enjoy).

By Amy Schenck

What: Winter camping

Where: Plummer Canyon, accessed from Moose Creek

Equipment: sleds rigged with PVC pipe, warm sleeping bags, down booties, a sturdy tent and the list goes on.

Resources: There are several good “how to” books on winter camping, including Allen and Mike’s Really Cool Backcountry Ski Book by Allen O’Bannon and Mike Clelland.

Come rain or shine – or both – Cory Hatch and I were determined to go winter camping. We’d already put the trip off three times: the first two times because we had too much going on to get ourselves ready, and the third time because of that dreaded rain.

This time, nothing short of an invitation for coffee with the President of the United States would derail us.

Since the President was preoccupied with staving off a government shutdown, by 11 a.m. on April 9 Cory and I were hauling a monstrous amount of gear over deep, sticky snow. 

Everything from down booties and zero degree sleeping bags to stove fuel and the ingredients for quesadillas were packed into the green sleds trailing behind us.

Our plan was to start at Moose Creek and head up Plummer Canyon to a broad aspen-covered perch located in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest.

Early on, as we skied passed a sign announcing we were leaving Idaho and entering Wyoming, it had already become clear that our plan was ambitious, given the conditions.

Wet snow clung to our sleds and skis, adding a few unneeded pounds to our load, and granular ice crystals made for an abrasive sliding surface.

Before long, we landed on the banks of a churning stretch of open water.

A metal ladder stretched from one end of the river to the other. Rather than laying level, the ladder was tilted just enough make for a precarious crossing.

Cory unhooked from his sled and tiptoed across the ladder on his skis. Once on the other side, he unhooked from his skis, crawled back out on to the ladder and reached for the sled I was pushing toward him from the opposite bank. Miraculously, we managed to get two people, two dogs and two sleds across that river unscathed. (The dogs Zippy and Oscar splashed through the river).

We maneuvered through melting wetlands into the mouth of Plummer Canyon. As the afternoon sun hit the snow, and our route began to incline, our progress slowed to a crawl.

At one point Cory remarked, “I’ve come to welcome the adversity.”

With that, the trip stopped being about our intended destination, and became about the experience.

We found a flat, open clearing, tucked between the walls of Plummer Canyon, and decided to call it home.

We staked out our camp site by walking on skis in a rectangle. Then, we began construction. We dug out a flat platform for our tent. Below that platform we put in a deeper pit, allowing our feet to dangle out of our tent. To our snow palace we added seats, a kitchen counter and even a liquor cabinet. (Whisky and apple cider never tasted so good).

Once the tent was pitched, we headed out for a short ski tour. Quiet permeated the forest and peace poured into my being.

That evening we watched perfect stellar snowflakes land on Oscar’s black fur.

Periodically, the dogs would work themselves into an absolute frenzy. Something was out there, and Zippy and Oscar spared it no barks and howls.

While the disruption to the calm evening was less than pleasant, it felt reassuring to have the pooches taking their job as sentinels with the utmost seriousness.

When the sky grew dark, all four of us piled into my two-man tent. Zippy and Oscar managed to wedge themselves right between Cory and me, ensuring maximum pad space for themselves.    

Like a pack of tired puppies, we slept deeply, soundly … and warmly. It was so cozy that I had my sleeping bag unzipped for the first part of the night.

Long after the boys got up in the morning, I stayed curled up in the layers of down and synthetic insulation, sleeping the sleep of a girl exhausted from a winter of relentless outdoor play.

It wasn’t until Cory had gone off with the dogs for a ski tour that I made my way out of the tent. I took my time melting snow to make coffee.

We didn’t have a watch, and it felt both refreshing and disconcerting to not know what time it was.

Sometime later in the day, Cory and I packed everything back onto those green sleds. We left our packed up camping gear behind while we climbed up the walls of Plummer canyon to get a look into Game Creek and the valleys beyond.

Then, we swooped up our camping gear and skied back to the truck, enjoying the ease of a downhill pre-set track on the return trip.

Amy Schenck is thrilled Cory turned his back on the many naysayers and took part in hatching out this trip. Her columns appear here every other week.