KATAHDIN 2000

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KATAHDIN 2000
A report on an expedition with lessons for winter
camping
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Meet the participants
DISCLAIMER This was not an official MITOC trip.
This is not an undertaking to take lightly. It is
required to have previous winter experience
before such endeavor. We are not responsible for
any actions, opinions, suggestions, innuendoes,
data, information, statistics taken from this
report that causes any adverse conditions onto
yourself or others.
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The lessons

1. Testing the gear beforehand and learning how to
   use it
2. Careful planning
3. Picking and preparing a campsite
4. Camp-setup routine
5. Food, food, and more food
6. Getting tucked-in
7. Surviving the night
8. Getting up
9. Morning routine
10. Sustaining all this for multiple days in a row

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Testing the gear beforehand and learning how to
use it
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Testing the gear beforehand and learning how to
use it

• Boots (poor Mike)
• Skis technical stuff
• All stoves (Primus?)
• Food (frozen solid?)
• Sustainability

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• Careful planning
• setting objectives
• training together
• cost projections
• detailed itinerary
• gear and food lists
• crucial equipment
• 1) stove
• 2) ground pad
• 3) sleeping bag

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Finally, time to set out (no lessons here)
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On the way to the mountain
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Picking and preparing a campsite dig in!
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or at least hide in trees

• Other tips
• skis stay on
• at first
• crampons off
• functional
• areas
• recessed
• vestibule
• floor

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• Camp-setup routine
• Everybody works, GROUP STUFF FIRST!!!
• Dont bundle up asap, try to dry up as much as
  possible
• Division of labor is the way to go
• Melting snow and cooking
• Pitching tents
• Arranging the insides of pitched tents (mats and
  bags)

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Food, food, and more food

• Dinner
• Instant stuff rules!
• Fat is your friend
• Large insulated mugs
• Water
• For night and next day
• Thermoses rock!
• Breakfast
• Sugar fat liquids!
• On summit day bars

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Getting tucked-in

• Last bathroom stop
• Organize all gear
• (it could snow at night)
• Moisture is your enemy
• (Hamlet method)
• One at a time!
• Make it quick
• Quick sugar snack
• Human clothes-dryer?
• Two philosophies
• Dry extra clothes
• Just take off GTX

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Surviving the night

• Warm at first, colder later on (either zip up or
  add clothes)
• Quick run last resort
• Pee bottle yuck!
• This moment will come, but much later than you
  think

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Getting up morning routine

• This is the coldest you will be all day!
• Do as much as you can in your sleeping bag
• Again, one at a time!
• First one out starts breakfast cooking
• Whoever doesnt cook packs up for the day
• Brisk toe-warming 15-minute walk (for
  bellow-zero conditions)
• Cooking breakfast
• Ideally in the vestibule of the tent while in
  sleeping bag
• Large groups standing around camp
• DONT PANIC, you will actually feel your toes
  and fingers
• after you start hiking Best strategy run
  stop

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After all this, lets climb the mountain!
Cathedral trail
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Returning via Saddle Trail
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Pamola Peak lets climb it tomorrow!
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What a day!!!
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Who needs tents anyway?
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Retreating back to the car
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Lets go again in 2002!
http//graphics.lcs.mit.edu/hbriceno/climb/katahd
in2000