Harvard Cabin - trip photos

Photo show

I now know that...

Things I learned or would like others to learn.

• If you leave your gear downstairs and go to bed, people arriving later will simply move it out of the way to some random place. Don’t assume others will not touch or move your gear.
• Mark all gear. That includes boots and snowshoes. Asking if someone has your boot liners or trying to get feet into the size 10 plastic shells of someone else instead of your 11’s, well simply wont work.
• Bring your stuff in stuff sacks and keep them together in another bag.
• A bigger backpack than is needed is better than a backpack that is too small. Err on the large size.
• Some people I have an incredibly loud snore that only they can sleep through. Yes, the trip leaders warned me and I had ear plugs, but for some unknown reason I still did not use them.
• Some people have never tried or used their equipment before. This is understandable early in the winter hiking season or with rental equipment. If you’re in this position, how about spending an hour alone with that new gear, adjusting it, walking about outside in those rental boots instead of waiting until everyone is dressing or dressed to leave for the hike?
• People with new gear to put on or use should not ‘volunteer’ to do breakfast clear up.
• Your level of fitness is a perception before a hike and a reality during it. Make sure your perception matches reality by testing yourself honestly before demonstrating its lack in front of your fellow hikers.
• Even in rustic surroundings social graces count for a lot. So put the lid down in the composting outhouse, wash your hands or use sanitizer and sneeze into the crook of your elbow not on my plate.
• Watch out for people near your car with snowshoes strapped to their packs. They have no idea how large they are.
• Snowshoes can accidentally scratch down to bear metal on your car in 0.2 seconds.
• Don’t put backpacks with snowshoes attached into the passenger compartment of your car, if you value your paintwork.
• Don’t value your paintwork, or carpets.
• Hot water in a Nalgene bottle inside your sleeping bag is heaven.
• Put the Nalgene in an old sock or else it will burn you.
• Bringing one bottle of wine is not enough – unless of course everyone brings one.
• Wear waterproof shells or pants that shed snow. Even when cold, snow melts when it comes into contact and soaks through.
• The same goes for hands. They may be warm enough not to wear gloves or shells, but only until you slip and put one or both hands into a snow drift.
• Don’t expect to hike fast. A lot of time will be spent adjusting gear by people who have not used it before. The same people are likely to have minor problems like shin bang, blisters or other gear problems and general discomfort.
• People like to define themselves and you by the job they do or by where you work. It’s a reasonable conversation starter, but not the best. Try to find a new approach, unless you’re the President (of the USA).
• Listening is as valuable as talking.
• Stopping or turning to talk on the trail is not good for the five or six people walking behind you.
• If a stop is called by the leader for 2 or 10 minutes the keep it to 2 or 10 minutes. Avoid roll on. For example hiker ‘A’ stops for a layer adjustment, ‘B’ adjust layers and goes for a pee, ‘C’ adjust layers and has a drink and eats some food whilst ‘B’ pees and then decides – heh, I need a pee too. ‘D’, ‘E’ and ‘F’ stripped off ready to go in 2 minutes and stand around for 10 minutes getting cold. Empathy and awareness please people.
• Smile – this is fun, this is the outdoors, this is winter hiking in groups.

Winter wonder land

That extreme cold numbs the brain and slows down response time was not an excuse we could use. Well, not yet. Especially after a comfortable and cozy drive to New Hampshire and Harvard Cabin for the winter hiking program “debug the gear”, weekend in December.
The propane tank is leaking. The propane tank is empty. The circuit breaker is sticking or not sticking. For more than 30 minutes - as one of the early arrivals at Harvard Cabin on a Friday evening in December when the external thermometer read 19F and the one inside the cabin read 10F – five others and I attempted to master lighting the massive heater.
The fact that the cooker in the kitchen wouldn’t light either re-enforced the no gas theory and brought fresh concerns. Yes, we could layer up, keep moving or simply go to bed in zero degree bags we were instructed to bring. Mine was only rated to 15F, but that wasn’t the problem on my mind. Cooking food and melting snow for water, now that was a problem, although we wouldn’t starve – not with a brewpub 10 minutes down the road.
The heater instructions were long, but straightforward. All except the initial one that told of operating a switch above the breaker box. Now my definition of a breaker box is also straightforward. It is a box with breakers inside. There was no switch above it and so no switch was switched, making the execution of the next seven or eight steps meaningless.
Folks, the switch is IN the breaker box – above a bank of breakers. It is in itself a breaker and looks like the master switch of a normal breaker box.
I can’t remember who made the discovery, but I know I went to the cooker one more time, turned the knob, smelled gas and lit it. I went through similar steps with the heater and we were all set for the weekend.