All That Has Been Since Last Blogged I, or As Much As I Remember....

During the weekend of January 8th through 10th, we here in the St. Louis are experienced record low temperatures that had not been seen for some eleven years or more. This of course made it the perfect weekend for WINTERGEDDON, the Zombie Squad's annual winter camping trip and exercise. I believe that you can have no higher hopes than for your life to have adventure and this trip proved to give that to all involved. We gathered at the McDonald's located on Hampton to form a convoy to make our way North West. Our destination was Cuivre River State Park in Troy, MO. We checked in at the visitor station and park ranger HQ, finding that the main road to our trail head was closed due to snow so we mapped an alternate route. Once we had formed up at the trail head we geared up and set off to hike into the back country where we were to set camp. As we made our way in we all walked past a dead frozen solid possum by the trail. Was this a bad omen trying to warn us of danger to come? If it was, we sure as hell did not listen very well and marched on. A short while later as we were passing over a creek bed, we had our first casualty of the day as one of the three ladies of our group (we will call her J.F.) took a fall. She had tripped on a root, then hit the ice of the creek bed, so of course the ice had to break for her on impact. We all watched in that slow motion that happens in times like this as she did not get back up and as she called out we could tell, she was hurt. B3 (another of the ladies in the group) was there first and while trying to help J.F. she herself went into the water. With the temps we were dealing with, water is bad and can be very dangerous in short time. B3's pants and hat flash froze in mere minutes. We got J.F. up the bank and tried to get here comfortable. This was not going to happen as she had fractured her tibia as well as bones in her heal. As options were weighed, Cripto and I started to cut wood to make a quick travois or a litter to carry her out on. J.F. was in hard core mode and said no one was carrying her out and getting hurt in the process. She stated that she was going to crawl out on her own and then began to do just as she had said. Cripto had already called in to the ranger station and reported the situation. They were on their way in on ATV but did not know how successful they would be in getting to her. When this had hit, half the group who had been to this site before double timed it up a steep side of the terrain to get to camp, drop their packs and get back pronto. When they arrived, the rest of us made it quickly up to the camp site to start set up as time and temperature were not on our side. The rangers arrived shortly and loaded J.F. and took her out on a four wheeler. Her hard times were not over as they flipped the ATV with her on it as they were making their way out of the trail. She was taken to a local hospital for treatment. As far as last I heard she wound up with some pins, screws and a cast to say the least. I look forward to seeing her at the next ZS meeting to see how she is doing. Now back to camp...and we were behind schedule on getting camp set up and starting a fire. Remember that B3 had frozen clothing to contend with as well. She managed to get a change of clothes on and start thawing her gear by the fire once the fire was up and going.

The fire in itself was a topic here because when you have single digit to negative digit temperatures a fire does not want to burn so well. The ground wanted to suck any energy the fire could muster right out of it. It was like having to live a section of the Jack London story, To Build A Fire and no one really wanted to have the whole dog thing on their conscience. It took a full twenty four hours of fire burning to actually melt the snow inside the fire pit as well as the ice and snow just on the outside of the metal frame. The fire was our friend and we wanted to feed it. Wood cutting and gathering had to be the main task when you were not eating or sleeping.

Later in the first day, one of our ZS came up the trail and they had a guy with them that we had seen at a meeting or two but no one seemed to be very familiar with, we will call him MF. MF strolled up wearing a cowboy hat, light clothing for what we were dealing with and a day pack. We asked if he was some kind of extreme ultra light back camper ( I have heard tales of some of the ZS vets who were crazy like this. The name Ollie comes up a lot and I hope to meet this guy someday soon.). He stated that no, he was not that extreme but had another trip to make back to the trail head for the rest of his gear, and after a short rest he was off. Flash forward about two and a half hours, it is dark now, and we are all gathered around the camp fire with temperatures already dipping into the sub zero zones. Someone mentions that we haven't seen MF in a long while and that we should have seen him by now. There was discussion as to whether we should worry or maybe he had just got back to the trail head and decided it was way to damn cold and would come back tomorrow. It was decided that a search party would go out so Ladydeath and Drewder decided they would go out with head lamps to search. A short while later the called into camp to report that they had found him. He had been lost for hours in those temps with no water, communication device, light source, or means to make fire. When they returned to camp with MF and his gear which Drewder carried for him, we found that he had planned to camp out in a Hennessey Hammock, which is not a cold friendly device from what history has shown on these trips. He did indeed try to sleep in that thing the first night and as we found out the next day when another ZS group showed up with MF's sleeping bag he had left on the trail his first trip in, he had slept in that thing with just a heavy wool blanket. I awoke at about six thirty the next morning and even though my bag was warm, my mortal enemy other wise known as my bladder bid me to rise and attack the day. MF was up already trying to get a fire going so he could thaw out his boots and gloves that had frozen solid in the night and would not flex enough even for him to put his hands and feet in. I won't go on and on about MF except to say, we probably should have taken him out on the second day but hind site is always 20/20 and we did not know him well enough to read him or his behavior. He showed up unprepared and with equipment he had never tested or even set up to make sure he was familiar with the gear. As we were breaking camp on Sunday, and he told me that he did not know how to break down his tent because Kyle had set it up for him and he had never done it. I looked at him with all seriousness and asked him if he was trying to die on this trip. This did not seem to phase him to much as he was distracted by his hammock/tent not fitting easily into his stuff sack it came with. I will say that LadyDeath and Drewder were both heroes on this accord and if they had not found him that first night, he would be a corpse-0-pop in the snow for the rangers to find.

Now drama aside, we had some great times around the fire and cutting wood. It is an amazing thing to wake up and the entire inside of your tent is covered in a layer of ice/frost. The first night it got down to -8 and the next evening dropped to -10 or more. With wind chill factored into the mix it was down in the -20s somewhere. This was not pleasant by any means but with the right gear and a different attitude, we all survived and thrived. The exercise was winter camping and survival so with that in mind, we won but not without cost.

Epilogue...

I would like to apologize to the bathroom belonging to the Walgreen's in Troy, MO. Once back to a more civilized area and being the first stop we made, your bathroom with it's spacious stalls and wall heater just next to the toilet made for an excelent target for that which must not be named but had been referred to as the meat and cheese plug we all tried to form in camp.

In other happenings.....

My mother is doing better in her battle with small cell lung cancer. They seem to think they made some good progress with the Chemo and the Radiation Treatments. They are waiting on some results from a MRI to see if they are going to do some more radiation treatments to the brain area. I try to stay optimistic but knowing that my mother smokes just as much while going through treatment in combination with being on an oxygen line, as she ever has, does not give me long term hope. I know that the math of it all means that no matter what it is all just a matter of when not if.

Charlotte seems to have a severe addiction to Nintendo DS or to be more specific, the new Super Mario Brother's game for it. Aunt Lex wins the prize for giving the Christmas gift that most replicates the effect of the one true ring from LOTR.

Now I am done with drying and repacking my gear, have even reorganized my bug out bag while I was at it. I am enjoying some final time off with all my children today before I set off for the work world again tomorrow. I had a great time at Wintergeddon and can't recommend the experience enough. It is a bonding experience and don't let the stories of woe scare you away from it next year.