Winter is the BEST Time of Year

I got up early in the morning well before daylight, dressed, and had a bowl of hearty hot whole wheat cereal. I checked my gear and started the truck, scraped the windshield, then hopped in. Everything creaked and cracked in the cold morning air. I headed up to the canyon near our shop. The snow was still falling as I entered the canyon, it had been a while since the snowplows had come through. Soon I was in the parking area at the trail head.

As I got out of the truck I took in a deep breath of the chilly morning air, ahh nothing like that to get a person going in the morning, for me at least, it’s a pure adrenaline rush.

I open the back of the truck up and try to decide which pair of snowshoes to wear, there are 9 pair in there, perhaps I’m a snowshoe addict. I grab a pair of 36″ Tubbs, 9″ wide. It had been snowing off and on for a week and I figured a little extra floatation would be nice. Besides I was carrying a lot of extra gear with me, Beau needed some shots of our gear in the snow, for the re-launch of our website on New Years day. I think I was carrying an extra 60 pounds, but I didn’t care, I was going snowshoeing.

I was soon strapped into the snowshoes, had the backpack on and gear lashed everywhere I could find a place. I headed out of the parking and onto the trail, giant snowflakes were falling, landing on my face and eyebrows. I crossed the bridge over the creek, figuring someone would be glad I broke trail for them this morning.

The cutoff to my trail was just up ahead, I turned to the left and into some deep dry powder snow. Every step I took there was a puff as the light snow shot out from the sides of my snowshoes. I was thinking, “what in the world would I rather be doing right now? This, this is all I want to do, I replied to myself.”

About a month before the snow season began, I had made a debris hut out of sticks and branches, then covered it all up with a foot or more of dry leaves. I wanted to try out some of the survival items in my kit, so a shelter like that was a fun way to test them. I spent a good bit of time there before the snows, so now my curiosity was fully aroused and I just needed to see what it looked like after this snowfall. So I would do my photos and visit the ‘ole debris hut.

After an hour of snowshoeing and a little picture taking I arrived at the debris hut, it was so exciting to see a foot and a half of powder snow on the roof and inside was still 2 feet of dry leaves to sit or sleep on, now I really had an adrenaline rush going on.

Man I love winter!! Get out in it, enjoy it. Winter survival can be no worry at all If you have good gear and a survival kit, like our Off-Road Real Survival Kit, haha you know I had to plug it, nothing to worry about, just have fun. Till next time…Perry signing off.