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Hunting In January....Winter Camp 2009

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Welcome to Winter Camp 2009.

The Rules are Simple:

You take your Rifle & Hunting Pack with ONLY the gear you would normally take Big Game hunting. I took my 58 Hawken "Grizzler"

No Tent
No Sleeping Bag
No Matches
No Food

If you want to eat, you better hunt and shoot good. If you don't want to freeze to death, your going to have to be creative.

We typically pack in a mile or so and break up. We hunt untill Noon, then meet up and make camp. I shot 4 squirrels and my brother got 2. When you are hunting for food for the evening, you concentrate a little harder on your sights.


It will be 12 degrees by morning. To sleep comfortably, you will need to do the following. We will be building a Debris Hut. This is my brothers hut

Dig a trench, 2' wide and as long as your body.

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Then Start your framework, you want the inside to be just wide enough that you can fit in it without touching the sides, and just tall enough that if you are laying on your side, you won't touch the ridge pole.

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Here is our setup, the openings are facing South East.

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After you get all of your framework completed, take it all appart and stack it to the side. Then Line the entire bottom of your trench with rocks.

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Then build a fire on top of the rocks and let the rocks warm up and get a good coal bed.

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About 2 hours before dark, cover the trench, coals, rocks, everything.

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Then you can build your framework back. You want the dirt to cook on the coals and get all of the moisture out.

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While you are waiting, now would be a good time to start supper.

Squirrel on a Stick
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For the next step, you are going to need a LOT of leaves. This is my buddy Bob. Ol Bob has fashoned himself a Leaf Rake.
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Cover your entire framework with at least 2 feet of leaves.
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This type of Debris hut can keep you warm in zero degree weather. It got down to 12 degrees that night and we didn't get cold.

WINTER CAMP 2009
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Now thats Livin Boys!

Headhunter
 
Very nice! Y'all must be Eagle Scouts. The coal beds remind me of the scene in "Jeremiah Johnson" when Redford wakes up in the middle of the night with his blanket on fire because he miscalculated on the soil insulation. "Seen it right off," comments Will Geer.
 
My bones is too old to do that no more but it looks like ya did a dern fine job and had fun too. Wish I coulda been there. One thing I did notice, diggin that tranch would not have been quite as easy here in Arizona. :yakyak:
 
Paddlefoot said:
My bones is too old to do that no more but it looks like ya did a dern fine job and had fun too. Wish I coulda been there. One thing I did notice, diggin that tranch would not have been quite as easy here in Arizona. :yakyak:

It would be pretty darned hard to dig a trench & build a winter shelter like that here, in the frozen snow covered northeast!
 
If the ground is froze and you can't dig. Just build a fire over the spot were ou want to dig and thaw it out. Then dig your trench.

There's always a way.

I would not build such a contraption for one night, OR if I didn't have plenty of time to do it. Such a shelter would only be built if you were going to stay in that spot for a while. It gives you something to do while your food is cooking.

We had a blast.

HH
 
Outstanding! :thumbsup:

A real good story of modern longhunters!

Regards

Kirrmeister
 
Modern Longhunters....I like it!
Looks like you had a pretty cool adventure.
I would love to do that for a week in the fall.
Thanks ever so much for sharing.

PJC
 
Well, there's a bunch of places that won't work in the rockies where I hunt. A great story and experience though.
 
marmotslayer,

So, I guess we would find you frozen to a tree like Hatchet Jack?

Your shelter is only limited by your imagination.

Crawling under a pile of leaves is all a man would have to do to live in cold weather.

If you are above the tree line like a Marmot Slayer would be, You might be a tad on the screwed side.

HH
 
Looks like you had a good time. It would be a tad cold here for that. It is -35 and with the wind, feels like -49. It is suposed to warm up for the week end, so maybe I can get out and shoot some. Nice to see all the photos, thanks.
 
playfarmers said:
It is -35 and with the wind, feels like -49. It is suposed to warm up for the week end, so maybe I can get out and shoot some.

Yeah, and on this note, how 'bout doing a better job of keeping that cold air up there with you :grin:
That darned cold air mass is pushing in here and taking us down to single digits the next few days
:shocked2:
 
that's impressive, a real 'roughing it' camp. I have dome something like that here in the WNC mountains with comrades but we packed in sleeping and cooking gear and some basic food stuffs.
 
So, I guess we would find you frozen to a tree like Hatchet Jack?

Your shelter is only limited by your imagination.

Crawling under a pile of leaves is all a man would have to do to live in cold weather.

If you are above the tree line like a Marmot Slayer would be, You might be a tad on the screwed side.

I don't recall who Hatchet Jack was, but the frozen to a tree part tells the pertinent part of the story! :)

Nice thing about the rock heated trench is if it doesn't work out, the search party need only fill it in and cover the remains. :shocked2:

Here's one possible scenario; Elevation 9,500 feet. a windswept high mountain "park". Mostly short grass prairie with some trees on the ridges mixed evergreen and aspen. Trr cover is sparse. Not much snow falls here so the ground is frozen solid and rocky to boot. Night time temps are in the -10 to -35 range. Your equipment is whatever you would pack for a day hunt. You don't choose to spend the night here but even though your car is only three miles away, you have broken your ankle. You need to survive at least one night and maybe more. Whatta ya do? :confused:
 
Sounds like half of what killed Hatchet Jack.

They have this new deal out now for backwoods hunters and the like called "The Spot". It is kind of like a Personal ELT (Emergecy Location Transmitter.)

I have never used one or heard of anyone that has used one, but they are available.

Here's one..
http://www.marvgolden.com/elt-encoders/spotplb.htm

Might just save your life.

Headhunter
 
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