Solo Winter Overnight Bushcraft Camp

I'm in eastern Ontario today. I drove about seven hours to get here yesterday with the intent of making a YouTube video. So basically, I've never really backpacked in the winter on snowshoes and set up and camping. I've done multiple winter camps where I pulled sleds. I've done backpacking in the summer, spring, fall, all that stuff. This is kind of combining the two. I don't have a sled. I have my Fjällräven Freelight 55 on that weighs about 25 pounds, got minimal gear for a winter camp. snowshoe around for half the day find a spot to set up and camp out it's gonna be a lot of fun. I'm real happy to be out here it's totally different than my home totally different than the woods that I have around my house I'm used to these kind of woods I've lived up here before I spent a lot of time camping and I just love it so much more there's hills there's birch there's conifer man nothing like this at my house it's almost like I'm a real Canadian pretty ice formations here from snow melting and freezing obviously it's yellow color over here it actually hollows out behind inside it it's not big enough to get in or anything but I've reached my arm back in there there's a lot of rain in this area past few days and it really knocked the snow down it's snowing now but it's it's not gonna amount to much by the time I leave here tomorrow I had to make an executive decision at the car and whether or not to bring my snowshoes snowshoes are something that you don't really want to wear unless you have to but if you don't have them and you need them you're kind of screwed so I opted to bring them I haven't needed them much yet but when I go deeper into the woods maybe I will so hopefully it wasn't a bad decision because it's hard walking in snowshoes harder than in just boots guys I'm getting a touch tired pretty warm I've been walking for about three hours now so it's time to look for a good location to camp I want to be protected from the wind kind of want to be in the conifers and the evergreens the spruces the hemlock stuff like that away from the wind but I'm gonna need some hardwood for fire and I don't want to try to burn pine and spruce and hemlock so I think I've come to a good spot let's go check it out you can see here in front of me there's all these hardwoods and spindly trees and stuff but back in the distance it's a bunch of hemlock that's what I'm aiming for so my plan now is just kind of assess my situation taking my surroundings I know that this is where I'm gonna camp in this vicinity at least in these hemlock I still have half a day gather firewood set up my shelter and have fun I didn't want to walk too many too much distance today because it gets light in the winter or gets dark in the winter early and I wanted to have some time to bushcraft around have some fun maybe try to hike down to the lake but I'm glad to have these snowshoes off I think I might have a little bite to eat and like I said check out my surroundings gotta love this fall raven pack man easy access to stuff really nice pack that's nice for lunch i'm able to have two things that got sent to me by subscribers once again i'm so lucky to have like awesome subs really really supportive and and some of them send me stuff just all the good comments and all this stuff all the time it's really appreciated but right now it's about these two things stephanie's wonder bar made by an awesome lady named stephanie took my course one time she sent me a box full of goodies so thank you very much Stephanie you guys have seen this on my Algonquin 80 Algonquin video I had some of these and also you got these pepperoni sticks that subscriber sent to me they're from Hamilton Ontario and the name is springers meat so his family owns the company and sent me boxes of spicy ones and mild ones so big thanks to both you guys I have another thing that a subscriber sent to me but I'm not gonna make it right now we'll have it later I'll show you that it is cold you know you're walking around for a while Working up a sweat getting warm you stop for a minute, and you actually realize how cold it is I have a thermometer on my watch, and it's 0.2 degrees Celsius right now So 0 degrees Celsius, and it's supposed to drop to negative 8 tonight, so not that cold my sleeping bag's rated to negative 10 I'll be fine But I am chilled just sitting here so now we're gonna go I'm gonna leave all my stuff here, and I'm not gonna go within I don't know 50 yards of this vicinity Excuse me whoo this vicinity. I'm not gonna go farther than 50 yards or whatever. I do have my knife, my fire steel on me just in case, but everything's fine. So as you can see, the ground here is not very level. So that's one thing I'm looking for. The other thing I'm looking for in a site is clear overhead, so flat spot, no overhanging limbs. I'm sure you've seen things in survival manuals and stuff about how an upturned tree like that, those are the roots, could be a good shelter. Let me tell you why nine times out of 10 that doesn't work. So I get the gist of it, I get the understanding why people say that this would make a great shelter. This is a full one side. Nothing's gonna penetrate it. It's wind block, you know what I mean? You can build a lean-to on this side of it, you'd be solid. But under here is always wet because it's a depression. And underneath the ice, there's water. So any time of the year, there's gonna be water here. And any time of the year, you don't wanna be wet while you're sleeping. Still on the search for the perfect campsite. This is the site that I've chose to camp at tonight. The wind's kicking up pretty good. I kinda feel like an urgency to, I kinda feel an urgent need to set up my shelter. I can't really explain why. I think I'll just feel a little bit better when it's all said and done. So, without further ado, let's build a shelter. I chose this spot because it has the right things that I need, being two trees relatively close apart, and then behind it, flat-ish ground. None of the ground's flat, but it's flat enough where it's gonna be all right. Tonight we're gonna be using a silnylon poncho tarp, some paracord and a little bit of natural materials. I've cleaned the area of snow. I wanted to scrape down to the ground. Sometimes I'll pack the snow down with my snowshoes. Sometimes I'll scrape it away. Today felt like scraping it away. There's not too much snow, maybe a couple of feet tops on the ground. So I used my snowshoe and I'm glad I brought it after all. I put it to work. So even though I didn't need them when I was walking, they've helped a little bit when I was walking up into the thicker stuff and then for digging, it helped. So now basically, I have my area and I need to go cut a piece of wood, two pieces of wood actually. I'm going to be laying my tarp for my poncho on top of this branch so I really wanna clean it up from any pieces of wood that are sticking out so I don't poke a hole in my poncho. This is a piece of dead hemlock I'm using. That's 90% of the wood inside these little patch of conifers. She's really starting to come down now. I would like to get my shelter up here. Filming everything takes like three or four times longer than if we were to just do it, but that's what I'm here for, is to film. I find a lot of times when I don't film my outings, I look back on it and I can't remember how good they were or how crappy they were to the extreme. I'd like to be able to recall and look back on all the trips I've done and the hardships I've went through and the sunny days, you know what I mean, the good and the bad, and filming it really lets me capture that and remember it better, so I enjoy it, even if it is more work. This is my second piece of wood, and she's ready to go now. I wanna get this cross piece up. It's a bit short, but it should still work. I'm gonna do Canadian jam knots. You don't know how, if you wanna learn how to do these, I did a knots video not too long ago, and I showed how to do it on there. So basically I'm gonna do two Canadian jams on either side of this log to support them up there. So that's the gist of the shelter there. You got a T, right? got a ridge line a ridge pole and then a center ridge pole and i just double overhand knot that one there it's not going anywhere i bowed it out so that the bow is on the top arcing instead of underneath like this i'll give myself more room underneath underneath the shelter like that now to get the tarp on i finished setting up my shelter for tonight you can see how i did it it's kind of like an a-frame with the drop back to it um i there's a couple reasons i did this i don't want snow to to fall down on me and bow my poncho or my tarp and if it was just paracord it would do that it would sag and bow and keep bowing out so with it with the logs it does a couple different purposes for me it's going to keep the tarp exactly where it is no matter how much the snow falls on it you're just going to shed it especially with the angle of the tarp which is great another thing is it's going to protect me a little bit more maybe from falling objects maybe if a if a limb fell or if a tree went down this is definitely not going to stop a full-size tree from hitting me Right, but if there are just branches falling It's gonna protect my tarp and I you can see where is that sorry that diagonal tree? They're growing above my above my shelter. I left it there on purpose. I was yanking on it and pulling on It's not moving at all But again, it's gonna be an extra buffer if it if a branch falls to protect me from hitting my head my body or even My top my tarp my shelter. I don't want to rip a hole in my poncho That's the least of my worries, but I still don't rip a hole in my poncho to be totally honest with you I could just throw my bivy out on the ground and put my sleeping bag and go inside and sleep. It's winter. It's fine. But it is nice to have wind protection, and it is nice to have snow protection and a little bit of protection from above. It's a negative 10 down mummy bag. It'll be my third night using it. This is my little down pillow that completes my sleep system. It goes right in there. I'm going to actually zip everything up, have it all cocooned away. I've got my REI minimalist bivy, my Therm-a-Rest NeoAir, my negative 10 Celsius mummy bag, down mummy bag, and my down pillow. and i will be toasty tonight i'm not gonna sleep with much clothes on i never do probably my i'll change into my long johns my new pair of socks and my my base layer top and uh we're good to go well i'm all set up now it's time to go get some firewood i got a lot of firewood to cut so i'm probably gonna bring my hatchet with me i got this cool little hatchet carrier here we go got that got my saw and i'm off to get some wood standing i'm gonna go to the hemlocks here out into the hardwoods and try my luck for some firewood out here man it is snowing like crazy just awesome so happy it's snowing all right that might be a good piece he's frozen inside too i gotta get a dead standing for sure for some reason i'm having some trouble finding a dry firewood that piece looked like it was a dead standing but it was actually a limb that had fallen out of a tree it crashed and stuck into the ground so it was all rotty inside too no good i have some pieces and and don't get me wrong the frozen pieces sometimes will work but i just want to get a good amount of firewood like good dry firewood to get the fire going and then i can add on the crappy pieces after it doesn't matter gotta love American beech just throwing a little bit of brown in the world of white every piece of firewood i find i think is going to be good i cut it open and it's frozen inside this is a little weird they did get a lot of rain a few days ago before i came like i said that's what killed a lot of the snow so it has something to do with it but like Man, it's all hardwood. I'm just trying to find some firewood You can see how much it's been snowing not that much But it's been steady and you got to remember I am protected underneath these hemlocks It's snowing a lot more out in the open, but she's holding up I might end up putting another stake see I put that stake in the middle there Might end up putting another one out there just to pop it out a little bit. Excuse me like that Definitely not necessary. I'm not too worried about it gotta go back get some more wood get my coat and all that stuff it's a lot of work man once you're camping by yourself it's a lot of work i just got back and when i went back to get my coat and some other wood i was i hit the jackpot i found a nice piece of ironwood so that's the piece there iron wood some people call it hop horn beam so i got two big substantial pieces and then some scragglers my next job is to buck the firewood up and split it and all that stuff get manageable pieces but i also still need birch bark to start the fire i don't need birch bark but i want to use use birch bark to start the fire and some twigs and all that stuff but I found something cool so I won't tell you what it is I'll take you over and show you I uh I was wondering what I was going to do for a seat I had planned on sitting at the entrance of my shelter and having the fire I don't know a few feet away I'm not using the fire for warmth for sleeping just you know before I go to bed and to cook my steak and stuff but still I wanted to sit there and I was debating on whether or not I was going to make a bench or any of that stuff but I found something pretty cool and that's going to help me out with my seat okay it's cool and it's not cool at the same time it's cool because it's going to help me out i'm going to use it it's not cool because no matter where you go you're going to find garbage i i'm in like this hemlock grove that doesn't seem like many people come here at all ever and here i find a milk crate it was laying on that side as you can see from the leaves and all that stuff and it wasn't frozen in too bad it's not broken so i think i'm gonna cop a squat on there yep not too shabby rest my back on the tree the fire in front yep i can handle this pretty good i even have my reflectix if i want to put another insulation layer beneath my butt and then folding it up behind my back on the tree i might end up doing that too nice i was kind of concerned uh because it was only around zero degrees celsius today that was going to be raining instead of uh snow but i'm glad it's staying around zero not any above actually i haven't looked at my watch in a while 0.6 degree celsius so almost a degree this is a nice spot here i had an opportunity to come up here um i came it's just after three now so i really do have to kind of get a move on cutting this wood up and find a little bit more getting some birch bark like i said the wind has shifted directions it was coming from behind me now it's coming from this side probably put the fire kind of that way towards the camera good times. I'm a bit tired. I've been going, going, going, going. So I might have a little snack and a drink. Get back to her. I've processed a lot of firewood so far. I've got all of them done except for that big ironwood. That white oak that I cut up was a pain in the butt. Super dense. So I'm going to leave that last piece there pretty long. About four pieces total of that white oak. I'm going to take a break from that because I'm getting a little warm. My arm's getting a little tired from cutting with that small saw. So I'm going to go get some birch bark and possibly some twigs but definitely some birch bark I saw some yellow birch or I saw a yellow birch tree over here this is the yellow birch I was talking about you can tell it's yellow birch because of the ribbony curls and because of the color it's this reddish orange yellowy color whereas white birch is white paper birch whatever it is so I'm gonna grab a bunch of these curls and these are really good for fire lighting I like it even better than white birch bark white birch bark tends to be like sheets of it and these are ribbony, that'd be worth grabbing before I take this down. Has anybody seen on YouTube, there's a video or a couple videos by a guy, it's old he's running around the woods knocking over trees and like real amped up about it, just like your body checking trees and whatever and sometimes they're like breaking off the game in the head and stuff and he doesn't even like phase them and in the in the background there's crazy song singing and the chorus is I'm a loose cannon, I'm a loose cannon, it just goes over and over and over. Anyways, every time I'm about to knock over a tree in the woods without a saw or an axe that plays in my head, I highly suggest you guys type in um, I'm a loose cannon or something along those lines in uh YouTube or like guy knocks over trees or something along those lines you will not regret it, I don't know if I can even do this, I'm super angry at this tree loose cannon I'm a loose cannon no joke, it's hilarious so getting big pieces of wood big thick rounds is really important so I can have a big sustained fire for a long time, but this stuff is really important too, these little twigs, either twigs or small pieces of wood that you split down are an integral part of the fire, you don't just uh, you don't just put your birch your flaming birch bark to big rounds, you know what I mean so you have to get it all split down and as I'm splitting it i'm just organizing it quickly into rough piles and my piles that i go by that i was taught are pencil lead thickness pencil thickness and then finger or thumb thickness and that's just a general rule like obviously that's thicker than pencil pencil lead but i'm putting that as pencil lead thickness there's thinner ones in there and there's probably a couple thicker ones in there too but the idea is that you're going from smallest to bigger to bigger to bigger eventually adding fuel. This is all kindling. None of this is fuel. None of this is staining. So this is all hemlock twigs. When the needles fall off, they have a really tight twig pattern. So a lot of twigs almost look like needles on there together close. So those are really, really good for kindling. And those are going to go in my first stage as well. I'm pretty pleased with my wood collection. I have a substantial amount of wood and I'm going to go get a couple more trees before night falls. It's not going to be that much work. I'm not going to take it. I'm not going to beat myself up doing it i'm going to take it easy doing it and maybe not even cut them up because i can always cut them into pieces with my saw by my headlamp i'm not going to use my axe at night but just to have them in case there's a few things i need to do before i lose light one is getting my headlamp out and i'm just going to put it in my pocket my chest pocket here so that it's on my person i don't have to fumble around in the dark to find it and i'll be good to go when i lose light the other things i want to do i bring up my clothes that i want to change into because i don't want to be messing around with that um i also as you saw i put my sleeping bag together and my sleeping my sleeping kit together way earlier what right when i got here as soon as i could because i want to give my sleeping bag time to fluff out right it's down it's been compressed for a couple days so it needs to fluff out everything's in there it's all dry it's all good it's protected by the tarp poncho tarp so what i'm going to do is i'm going to put my long johns i'm going to change into and my base layer shirt i'm going to change into and my socks i'm going to put all of them inside my sleeping bag right now so they're ready ready to change into before i go to bed this is how i'm going to start my fire in this hand i have that yellow birch bark that you saw me collect in this hand i have white birch bark and you can see the difference the white birch bark is a lot more coarse whereas this is more fluffy this will accept a spark spark from my fire steel a lot more easily and with less preparation than this So I'm gonna light this throw this on and then it's gonna be a bird's nest of really really fine This is actually pencil lead thickness stuff Not thicker this might go on all together pencil lead and thumb. So as you can see, I've got my two big long logs I'm gonna make I want to make a long fire These two logs are that ironwood super dense ironwood finally got through it, it is bone-dry, too great great wood But I don't want to cut it into lengths because it's like ten times harder to cut than any of the wood any of the other wood, I got these hemlock pieces in the middle of them three of them like a base big base, oh nothing much left to do now, just wait for dark, I'm not going to start my fire until dark, there's no point, I'll sit here from about five till ten and go to bed then, winter time lots of time by the fire lots of time to think especially when you're by yourself tonight for supper, I'm having a big old fat ribeye steak so I'm looking forward to that, and remember earlier when I was having my lunch and I said I have really good subscribers and I've got a few things from a couple of them this is the other surprise I got from one of my subscribers, it's called a Kiana coffee roaster, it's a backpackers brew, so in here is like a pod and like a tea bag almost and you just boil it in the water and get it going so I have never drank a cup of coffee in my life I've tasted coffee, I've had like sips here and there of different kinds or whatever I'll get a French vanilla from Tim Hortons all day but coffee is just not my thing, but since the subscriber sent it and since it's supposed to be a gourmet coffee I'm gonna give give her a shot, I'm gonna have it with my supper so I'm gonna have to gather some snow and boil up some water, I still have the full Nalgene, one Nalgene left, I figured I might as well show you guys the tools that I brought out in a little bit more detail because I'm sure I'll get a few questions about what I brought and why I brought it in, this in the wintertime I'm a huge advocate of bringing a big axe and a big saw, that's the main time to use them in my opinion but this being a backpacking trip my first winter backpacking trip without pulling a sled if you're pulling a sled bring whatever you want you know what I mean it gets heavy but you can put it in there you can pull it on a backpacking trip again lightweight as possible but seeing as how this is winter I'm not just gonna try and come over here with the Swiss Army knife I just don't want to do that so I brought my Silky Gomboy the one I've been talking about quite a bit lately and she's doing good really really good wood processor I wish that it would have had a bigger saw to cut that ironwood and took out some of the bigger stuff with but to be totally honest with you it worked just fine and I don't want to carry a big saw around as far as my axe same deal normally bring a bigger axe but again trying to save weight and still bring some tools so this is my Sandvik it's a one and a quarter pound head on a 19 inch Gransfors handle you cannot buy these anywhere I've got a million questions about this this was re-handled by my buddy Mike he got the head used fixed it up reprofiled it handled it and it is immaculate this is my new favorite axe this is going to stay with me forever my neck knife i'm not sure if you've noticed it but that's what i've been carrying i've carried this on the past two outings this is a Deering bushcraft EDC it's got a 3/32nds thick blade so it's like the same thickness as a Mora one it can't be three inches long the blade and the handle is probably about three and a half or four inches it's a nice knife man super nice knife i put this little orange lanyard on the outside of so i can put my pinky in there if i have to a little loop and it also helps me to pull it out of my uh my sheath so not really a neck carry guy but in the winter time i think something like this is ideal it's five o'clock now i'm gonna be losing light soon and i'm getting hungry so it's time to light this fire we're gonna use a fire steel and a knife to do this that's just the birch bark it's a good idea if you can afford it to put a little bit of water in your snow and it just helps it melt a lot faster and turn to water a whole lot faster no need to do anything fancy it's gonna prop up there and let the fire do the work for me nice so I melted my snow into water there's a bunch of leaf litter and debris in there but I really don't care I'm not going to heat it up you just yet it's a little warm now but I'm gonna wait yeah I'm gonna wait because I was told specific instructions on how to make this coffee perfect and the way to do that is to boil the coffee bag with the water from the get-go so a little bit different but we'll try it out i'm so incredibly hungry right now so i have to let that fire die down a little bit more and the steak is going right on the coals i'm tired of waiting i want to build the fire down here so that i can get to the coals that are right there use those coals for my steak look at that bad boy it's a big one yeah buddy oh baby look at that steak that's gonna be good the truth here the char is so good gotta love the char i feel like a madman like a wild man out here all about the steak no seasoning the steak was excellent this is my dessert the kienna coffee roaster this is a backpacker's brew i decided to bring the backpacker's brew this time because i felt like a backpacker on this trip okay so it is like a tea bag oh it smells delicious so in the pot she goes in cold water and then you're supposed to boil it with it in it let's see she's boiling it smells good it smells very good i'm going to uh it's been boiling for a bit i think i want to Take the tea bag, or sorry, the coffee pod out and let it sit for a minute. No cream, no sugar, no almond milk or eggshells either. Tea-like than I thought it would be. Still definitely a taste of coffee. Thinner, not as thick as coffee maybe. It's definitely good out here tonight. Thanks a lot, buddy. Appreciate it. Long fire in front. Cool little setup right behind. I'm pretty happy with this. Oh, man. The reason you want to change your clothes before you go to bed, especially in the wintertime, is because you've been sweating all day even if you don't feel it if your feet have been hot sweating you're under your base layers are wet or moist at least if you go to bed like that it's hard to warm up sometimes so that's the reason why you saw me put my socks my my base layer in in my sleeping bag ready to change sitting here stopping for a while now a couple hours sitting here i can feel my feet starting to chill down so that's the reason it's because i was sweating my feet were toasty all day in these boots and now I can feel them they're damp and they're sweaty a little bit There's a couple ways around this you can use like a vapor vapor barrier sock if you want to You still get wet, but you change it out as well But I think my system of one mid hiker sock in these boots all day and then going to bed and Changing them out works for me at night. That's what I'm gonna do. I think I'm gonna stop filming now My second battery's on its last leg. So I only have one battery left on this I do have the GoPro, but but I want to make sure I can film tomorrow. I'm gonna head to bed soon guys All settled in now snug like a bug ready to hit the hay. I'll see you guys in the morning. Good morning I guess it's time to get out of this cocoon of warmth. Never a fun part of the day. My fire is completely out I'm sure there's not even any warmth left in that. It got cold last night, man. Cold, man There's no coals at all in here. Not even a hint of red. Not even warm really. Underneath this stuff It's a little bit warm, but I'm gonna have to make a fire from scratch today So this awesomeness Bam! Two packs this morning balling out of control when you're doing it this way You guys have seen me make oatmeal this way plenty of times. There's nothing new just pour the water right in the packet But when you do it You really want to make sure that you mix it up as much as possible beforehand because all the flavoring gets stuck in the bottom corners it's really gross when you get like a full bite of it by itself or if you don't get it distributed throughout the oatmeal it's pretty bland so stick with me boys and girls oatmeal cooking 101 a lot of the times after i put the water in i'll just mush the corners again try and get it all saturated with water i don't like to put too much because i don't like a soupy mess all scrambled though oatmeal I like Joe oatmeal which is tacky and thick sticks to your ribs you know warms you up so then I'll fold that down and I'll let that sit while I prepare this one sitting like this with my legs open towards a fire my feet on either side far enough where they're not gonna melt or whatever and I'm just getting warmed like crazy all up in here and it's it's a good feeling as I'm eating my oatmeal for sure I feel very warm right now I i like to leave some hot water well after i'm done doing i'm done cooking up breakfast and whatnot that way i can clean my spork off my hands whatever else i need to do before i get out of here so that oatmeal probably as you can imagine sticks to things pretty good but just hot water is enough to to clean it off splash a little on my hands it feels good to wash your hands mouth then you got the old trusty dirty bandana doug outside made me this i never used one before in my life before i started using this a couple trips ago and i don't think i'll ever be able to go back it is invaluable in my opinion she is inside the old cave just enough room to stay dry stay out of the snow and enough coverage for this to shed the snow for me this is a perfect shelter for last night i needed nothing more nothing less oh man my hands are frozen i have to keep stopping and warming them by the fire after touching like my sleeping bag and stuff it's just because the material is so cold well that milk crate i found was a lifesaver man i could have made a bench i've done it multiple times just took a lot of the work out of it i'm not above using something i find that's for sure i'm gonna get out of here real quick i'm almost done packing up oh that was a good time i burned 90% of the firewood that i gathered which is good i find that normally i gather too much firewood too much is better than not enough but it's nice to use the stuff that you worked for i stayed up till nine o'clock last night i was probably asleep by 9 30 and then i was up at 6 30 in the morning this is a good night's sleep i'm well rested i'm actually looking forward to this hike out see all the new fallen snow i might need my snowshoes now so and we're off this is what i mean this beautiful winter wonderland you gotta love it when all the snow is on limbs trees just blankets everything gotta love it the snowshoes might actually be helpful today we must have got a lot of snow man it did snow all day yesterday so remember yesterday when I was showing you the difference between yellow birch and white birch bark well this again is a yellow birch just a super old one and instead of it being ribbony it's more plates now the bark becomes these plates they're still flammable they're super thick not half as ribbony and not like I'm not gonna be able to light something like this with a fire still without any preparation you can still do it but it takes time to prepare when the yellow birch gets really old it gets this pinky orange red color on it too they can get really big safe for sore eyes man always nice when the car starts up you've got a good few inches of snow as you can see excuse the fog guys my lens is a little fogged up from being in the warm car listen I had a great time out there I'd love to do it again I just don't live in an area that's accessible for snow like this but in a couple weeks I'm gonna be going up on a big camp for about five days so you see some more winter action from me hope you enjoyed it hope you learned something and I'll see you on the next one guys but