How we walk in winter
Our view on organizing winter hikes. How we walk, how we dress, how we set up camp, how we relax. An attempt to give a holistic picture of a winter hike, to mentally prepare you for future challenges, and to give an impetus to a more informed choice of equipment and clothing.
Day.
Let's start with the simplest and most interesting component of a winter hike - a day hike. Yes, walking with a backpack seems to me to be one of the most comfortable options for spending time on a winter hike (sometimes even more comfortable than sleeping in a tent). It's interesting and beautiful on the go. It's always warm on the go. Actually, this event is started for the sake of walking.
As we go.
We are walking slowly. When setting the speed, we focus on the “slow” participants in the hike. We save our energy and try not to sweat so as not to freeze at the rest stop. Therefore, it is important to regulate the number of clothes in a timely manner, or, simply put, to remove excess clothing. In general, you need to learn how to quickly dress and undress - you will have to do this many times during the day and you cannot waste a lot of time changing clothes.
We are walking in one group - without stretching, in order to maintain contact all the time and be able to quickly respond to changing circumstances. The trailing person makes sure that no one lags behind. If you need to stop to tie your shoelace, tell the leader and he will stop the whole group. This is not a halt, but a technical stop for 1 minute, so the rest do not take off their backpacks and do not sit down.
Trail.
Let's assume it's a snowy winter. Moving on snow is much more difficult than on a clean path. My feet either fall into the snowdrifts (always at the wrong time), or stand firmly on the frozen crust (always unexpectedly). You have to walk with your knees high and smoothly transfer your weight to your feet, breaking through the snow crust and compacting a certain step. This process - “trailing” - takes a lot of energy. The hardest thing is for the one who goes first. He's literally sweating. The rest save their strength - they try to follow in the footsteps of the first, gradually trampling a real trench in the snow. Every 5-10 minutes there is a change of trail. We change along the chain: the tired trailer becomes the back of the group (for a well-deserved rest), the tourist who was second begins to trail. Thanks to the constant and systematic change of the leader, fatigue does not have time to accumulate and the group moves more easily and evenly than during a chaotic path. The average speed of movement is 1.5 km/h. If there is more snow than knee-deep, then the speed can drop to 500 meters per hour. Then you can't do without snowshoes.
Rests.
Approximately every 50 minutes the group leader announces a 10-minute break. At a rest stop, you need to take off your backpack and immediately put on a warm jacket. Then you can stretch your shoulders and relax a little while lying on your backpack. You can’t rest for a long time - without movement it immediately becomes cold. To maintain morale, the attendant gives out a pair of candies. A minute before leaving, everyone takes off their warm jackets, hides them and puts on their backpacks.
Dinner.
Winter lunches bear little resemblance to long summer picnic lunches. It lasts at most 30 minutes - it is unrealistic to stand in one place longer. I often have to eat with gloves on. In such conditions, you can’t count on special culinary delights - a couple of loaves of bread, a piece of cheese, a piece of sausage, something sweet. Usually food for lunch is cut in the morning so as not to waste time during the day. By the way, in cold weather food inexorably hardens, so your jaws have to work hard.
Drink.
In the cold and dry air of winter, the body loses especially much moisture. And it is much more difficult to restore its reserves than in the summer. It is impossible to drink cold water from bottles - it hurts your teeth, and it freezes. Put on the burner and boil water every time you get thirsty? No, too long. Therefore, during the day we drink tea from thermoses. It is very important that there are enough thermoses in the group (approximately 0.7 liters per person). Otherwise, sneaky winter thirst will provoke you to try to eat snow. And this is a direct path to a cold, and what’s most offensive is that it doesn’t quench your thirst at all.
Bad weather.
In winter, the weather can make significant adjustments to the original trip plan. Sometimes you have to sit in tents for days, and sometimes you have to walk for many hours in a snowstorm. Be prepared for anything. The most important thing is moral preparation, the ability to think soberly in difficult conditions. Control yourself.
You should think in advance what you will wear if a strong wind rises or a blizzard begins. Warm mittens hidden in the depths of your backpack are of no use - you simply will not have the opportunity to get them. Therefore, although we walk most of the way lightly dressed, we always have mittens, hats, windproof masks and warm jackets at hand.
Subordination.
In winter in the mountains it’s like being at war. We must obey the group leader and unquestioningly follow his instructions. There is no place for discussions and struggle for your rights. Numerous rules and strict routines have been invented to make the trip as safe as possible. Follow them or don't go hiking at all.
Setting up camp and dinner.
As soon as a suitable place to spend the night has been found, one must waste no time in setting up the camp. Don’t sit and rest, but quickly get dressed before your body cools down after walking. Then the group leader distributes responsibilities - getting firewood and water, clearing snow from the camp site, setting up tents. If possible, a large fire is lit to dry clothes and lift the spirits. If there is no fire, then we cook dinner on the burner. Then everyone who is not involved in cooking hides in tents and “warms their sleeping bags.” Before this, you must hand over your plates to the attendants.
After eating, you should immediately clean the dishes with snow and hide them. You can't put it off until later - everything will freeze overnight.
Getting ready for bed.
If there is no fire, then immediately after drinking tea you need to hide in a tent and climb into a sleeping bag while your body is still warm. A sleeping bag works like a thermos: if you lie in it warm, you will be warm; if you lie down cold, your teeth will chatter for another two hours.
Don’t forget to stash all your belongings and equipment in the vestibule of the tent before going to bed. Nothing should be left out in the open - if it snows at night, it will be very difficult to find a forgotten cup in the morning. Shoes should be hidden in a tent or even in a sleeping bag at night. If your boot freezes, you won’t be able to put this ice on the next day; you’ll have to warm it up over a fire.
In a tent.
The main source of heat in a tent is your neighbors. The more people, the warmer it is. Therefore, it is advisable to forget about individualism for a while and settle not alone in separate small tents, but all together in large tents or marquees. It is also better to use sleeping bags not individually, but in groups. A combination of 2 sleeping bags can accommodate 3 people. The third sleeping bag opens up and lies on top of the stitching - it will work as a “capacitor”. The fact is that due to the temperature difference, by the morning the surface of the sleeping bag will inexorably become damp, and the “condenser” takes this blow upon itself.
In general, it is quite warm in the tent at night. Even if there is a deep minus outside, the temperature inside rarely drops below zero. However, when choosing a winter sleeping bag, do not count on this - look for the warmest one, weighing at least 2 kg for synthetic insulation and 1.1 kg for down. And most importantly, everyone should have 2 travel mats (if we are talking about ordinary Izhevsk mats). Otherwise, the cold from the ground will “get” you.
Socks, gloves and other small clothes that got wet during the day can be dried at night by simply putting them in a sleeping bag. Better yet, put them on your stomach. The main thing is not to forget anything in your sleeping bag in the morning.
Morning.
The hardest thing about a winter hike is getting out of your sleeping bag. Everything around is damp and cold. And you'll have to get out. You need to pull yourself together and start dressing intensively. Your clothes will quickly warm up and life will get better:)
We usually get up in the dark - 2 hours before dawn. Daylight hours in winter are very short and we must use every minute of “sun” for walking, and we can set up camp and prepare breakfast in the dark.
In the morning it is useless to try to dry anything (sleeping bag, tent awning, etc.). Perhaps you can let the moisture freeze and chip off the ice.
In addition to preparing breakfast, you need to boil a lot of water in the morning to fill your thermos with hot tea. Therefore, when sitting by the fire in the evening, do not burn all the wood - leave more for the morning kitchen.
Immediately before departure, you need to make another effort and take off your warm jacket. Otherwise, you will lose steam within the second minute of walking.