Wintercamp Reflection

This trip was a great experience. The weather was not too warm as to soak our gear, but not so cold that it made the night uncomfortable. I found that sleeping in the quinzhee was not as bad as I thought it would be, considering the fact that we made our sleeping block a little small, so I was constantly sliding off the platform. Aside from that minor flaw, the sleep was great. It was very warm inside the quinzhee, so we were able to sleep comfortably. For dinner, I had a boil-in-the-bag meal, which consisted of sweet and sour pork. To go with it, I had hot chocolate, diced fruit, granola and some oatmeal cookies. I think that this was a good meal, since it was enough to sustain me until the morning. In the morning, we ate pancakes, bacon and eggs, which was a great conclusion to the wintercamp experience. Throughout the night, I only woke up one or twice, but each time it was easy to fall back asleep since the quinzhee was warm and comfortable, since we had built the wall to a thickness that kept lots of heat inside, and kept us warm. The only problem with the quinzhee was that in the morning when I woke up, there was a thin layer of moisture which made the boots and coats cold, but not unbearable. Also, it made packing annoying since the water was making everything moist which made some of my clothes for the next day wet.

I think that our group did an excellent job working as a group and participating with equal amounts of effort. This helped maintain a sense of companionship which is very important to building a good quinzhee to sleep in during the winter. Our cold sink worked very well, since the quinzhee was nice and warm, and it was comfortable inside. I think that the only thing I would change would be to increase the size of the quinzhee so that we could make the sleeping platform longer. The reason for this is that my feet hung off the edge the whole night, and made it slightly uncomfortable. Overall, my experience on the wintercamp trip was a very good one, and I really enjoyed it.