The first adventure of the year I want to treat you to is one of my winter camping adventures this season. For the last few years, I've been guiding winter camping trips through the Boy Scouts of America at the Northern Tier High Adventure Base in Ely, Minnesota. I had my start there as a part-time gig while going to college in Ely, and have come back for weekends here and there ever since. The season kicks off with Holiday Stay between Christmas and New Years. This year, we ran the program from the 27th through the 1st, with Boy Scout crews coming from all over the country.
You may be wondering, "Camping? In the winter? Are you crazy?" To answer all of the questions, yes. Yes indeed. As I like to tell my crews, crazy is one of the job requirements. Anyway, I have to mention right off how awesome Northern Tier is in terms of quality and location. First, the Charles Sommers base where the Okpik Winter Camping program is based out of has top of the line outfitting gear ("Okpik" is Inuit for "Snowy Owl," which is the symbol of the program). We are the premier winter camping base for the BSA, so we know our stuff. On top of that, the base itself is surrounded on all sides by the Superior National Forest, which has four million acres of beautiful forested landscape. On top of that, the base is barely an eighth of a mile from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, which has over a million acres of pristine wilderness land. Needless to say, lands where trek with our scout crews are absolutely amazing.
Arriving crews spend the first night on base. The next two or three nights, however, are spent out "on the ice." My crew actually spent three nights out, of which I am still proud. Did I mention that my Holiday Stay crew was from Georgia? Yes, this crew, by far, had to be one of the funnest groups I've ever taken out.
To start, I have to mention that most of these kids had never experienced real snow before. They did say that the area they were from has had snow before, but only an inch or so at a time that melts in a day's time. So, to put it truthfully, they were a crew of newbies. By the end of our trip, however, I had molded them into winter warriors, but we will get back to that. On top of their inexperience, most of the group had only ever experienced temperatures as low as the thirties. Thus, the single-digit, and at times sub-zero temperatures, were entirely new to them. And, as the final icing layer, Ely had just received a fresh snow cover, so we had a good six to eight inches of powder to work with. Life was good.
Despite the warm southern temperatures they were used to, my crew adapted wonderfully. We spent our first two nights on the far side of Moose Lake in the Boundary Waters with no issues whatsoever. We spent a good portion of our time building snow shelters and learning about he wilderness at large. As comical as it sounds, I tend to have a hard time keeping my crews up past 6:30 pm, as everyone is generally pooped. We did, though, enough to do a bit of star-gazing both nights. I want to mention also that it ended up being below zero every night we were out, and my guys slept though it wonderfully. On the third day we packed up and trekked a few miles to make camp out on Flash Lake, but not before we did a bit of dogsledding! Yep, Northern Tier actually offers a bit of dogsledding to all of its winter crews. Not long exposure, just enough to get a good taste of it. And, of course, to get the bragging rights. Now, this third night out has become sort of legendary. Before bed (and after making new snow shelters), I had my crew stay up long enough to watch a lunar-rise. That is, we watched the moon come up over the horizon. For anyone who hasn't done this before, I highly recommend you try to see one sometime. It truly is a magical experience. In the cold of the night, the lights we saw from the stars and the moon were as clear and as crisp as ever. It was after bed that things went south. Literally, the wind shifted completely and started blowing fiercely out of the north. It was a cold arctic wind, one that brought the wind chill as low as negative twenty-two. It wasn't until I woke up the next morning that I became aware of problems. To start, everyone had placed tarps over their shelters to block the wind. Well, that was before the wind shifted. After getting up, I noticed that every shelter was blown apart (uplifted roofs and such) and that the big tent we set up on the lake actually became a wind tunnel. Needless to say, nobody slept that night. It was, by contrast, a stunningly beautiful morning. But everyone was tired, groggy, and cold, but we toughed it out. Why? Because by this point they were winter warriors and I was their fearless leader. ;) We packed up camp in less than an hour, then hiked back to base camp, eventually cooking our breakfast on the porch of their heated cabin.
In my experience guiding trips, one of the most rewarding feelings is when you have a group pull through some sort of tough situation. In this case, that last morning was, by all means, a miserable experience. But at the end of the day, we were sitting in the dining hall, warm, dry, and worn-out. All of us were enjoying hot cocoa or coffee, smiling and laughing about everything. And, being from Georgia, these guys were incredibly proud of themselves for overcoming the whole ordeal. We had a blast, and they positively kicked ass. And that, my friends, is something you simply can't buy with any amount of money. That sort of fulfillment is why I love this job. It's why I love outdoor education.
For any of you are interested in looking more into Northern Tier experience, check out their webpage at www.ntier.org. Take it from someone who has had the opportunity to work there, these guys do a fantastic job.
