14°F in the Appalachian Backcountry. Tomorrow morning we have to pack up and cover 10 miles, so I boiled water, poured it into a double-walled thermos, and saved the leftover in my kuksa. Morning coffee, no fire required.
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Tremendous howling, getting closer and closer, coming up over the ridge. Spooky — and I could still see the trees moving up real good from down in a little Appalachian holler.
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The story of that most ornery of rivers. ©️ 2026 written and composed by me.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: the wind is the number one enemy of the woodsman.
You can work with rain and snow and all that. Wind, though — wind just makes everything so much more complicated. Even if you get the fire goin' real good, you can't enjoy it, 'cause the wind's takin' the heat right away.
Basically, you just got to hide out. Puts a hair in my biscuit.
— The Practical Woodsman
Folks'll spend a heap of money on gear they don't need, then turn around and skimp on the one thing they're totin' every step of the way.
"Brand names aren't better than most cheap, Chinese knockoff brands. Softshell jackets are all polyester. What you're paying for is a logo and perhaps some more appealing colors. Backpacks do seem to matter when it comes to brand names, cost and quality."
So go cheap on your britches and yer jacket if ya want to. But spend money on the pack. You’ll be glad ya did, and she might just become a dear ol’ friend given time.
— The Practical Woodsman
The biggest issue is not the snow. After all, snow is an amazing insulator. The bigger issues are dress, temperatures, elevation, wind, and those sorts of things.
I myself have fallen asleep in the open on snowy, below-freezing nights while on long, multi-day-and-night excursions in the backcountry next to my campfire many, many times. The reason why this has happened is simple - I was cozy. If I had not been dressed with an appropriate number of layers, and if there had been significant wind, I would not have been cozy, and I would have had to move into some sort of shelter, like a tent.
— The Practical Woodsman
