Braving the Ol' Shawnee Appalachy - Pt 4: The Island
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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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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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
When I'm out in the backcountry, the most important thing of all things the woodsman must always have on his mind is water.
You can survive a long time without shelter. You can survive a long time without food. What you cannot survive a long time without is water.
For each night I plan to be out, I plan my camps as near to water as I can — down in the hollers, where two hills dip down and meet at the bottom. That's where the reliable water lies, more often than not. What that means, in the vast majority of cases, is I will not be staying at some spectacular vista on a high elevation. I'd rather have a quiet branch like this at my door than a pretty view and a dry canteen.
— The Practical Woodsman
