As you may recall, winter camping is a BIG deal at our house. We talk about it most of the year ("I wish the snow hadn't melted already" quickly becomes "When do you think it will snow first?" followed by "Do you see the snow on the mountains!?!?!?"). We scope out trails and make marks on our GPS of places to come back to. We discuss the advantages of skis vs. snowshoes vs. crampons. Mike makes things like ice axes (see the bottom of this post) and gives them to his friends (happy b-day Nelson!). We read backpacker (thanks again Nelson) to be prepared for winter and first aid and to decide on the best gear. We spend many a night frequenting outdoor shops or constantly keep steepandcheap.com open on our computers. And as that fateful day of the first snow gets closer, mike gets the itch. and we all know what happens when he gets the itch....we test gear....beyond that which is normal. like last year and the artificial downpour. this year, the experiments have been a bit warmer since we are working on building our insulation arsenal. and this year, i have been the test subject (after much coaxing.."c'mon", he said, "you're the only one of us small enough to wear it all"). behold, the grand down experiment....
stage two. down # two: mtn hardwear phantom (in metallic puke green)
stage three. down # three: north face nuptse (mike's jacket)
all bundled up
look at my sweet biceps (more like chunk-ceps)
my waist grew a number of inches
this many to be exact
i don't know how to read the output,
much to mike's chagrin and despite of multiple attempts to teach me to which i respond "when will I ever use these when you aren't home?"
...I almost had to the other day to aid in building nelson's b-day ice axe...ironic)
i chose not to post the unflattering picture of me being quite exasperated after he would not let me remove the jackets five minutes into the experiment. seriously.
this time with homemade primaloft pants
they're a little rough around the edges since we decided to wing it without a pattern
we're about to start mike's
and hopefully they'll go a little better and be ready before the snow comes
gotta love the sweet color combo
(we settled on the blue river mountain hardwear subzero down
...just getting you the details if you really care)
a nice vanna white pose illustrating the velcro tabs i laboriously sewed on
And again, the thickness measure (a little less technical, without the calipers)
here is a picture of the ice axe mike designed and built.
basically, it has been his most prized possession since last winter and even more so since it quote "saved his life" on mount nebo this summer.
as a side note, he made it before we were married while i was hiking the grand canyon.
he ate a sum total of 3 meals in the 4 days i was gone b/c he was so intent on finishing it.
that fact alone is why i get nervous anytime i leave town...my dear mike will not eat if not reminded, especially if their is a "sweet awesome wicked bad" project he wants to finish which is often the case.
1 comments:
I loved every word of this post. You're hair is so long...and pretty. You made those pants? They are great! What did you make them out of? We are planning to go winter camping here in a couple of weeks--it's a different scene for sure and a different kind of cold to ward off.
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