Beard Campout 2013



We're Happy.  No really.  This is fun.  If I say it enough I may believe it.

Tradition.

I am a recent inductee into the Brotherhood of the OTM.  And there are traditions the OTM have adopted that appear to have no rhyme or reason...other than the fact they are traditions.  This is probably true of most traditions in your life, really, just doing things a certain way because that's how things have always been done and that's what your family does during those times of the year.  Some of the glorious traditions you may have read about on this blog include ridiculously goofy hats, Barrel-monkeys hanging on shoe-laces or mountain tops, shorts on the snow trails, and popping magic drink caps in grocery parking lots (which is not nearly as dubious as it sounds).  But it appears that the most time-honored tradition of the OTM (other than regaling one another with our trail-side bathroom adventures) would be the Beard Campout.



Pretty Ice Crystals.  Don't let the beauty fool you.



It's a tradition to grow a beard before the winter campout, although this tradition may just be an excuse for the OTM to be lazy and to get out of shaving for a few weeks.  Allegedly the beard will keep you warm on the trail.  Allegedly, a warm beard-face is necessary when hiking at higher elevations, although it turns out it is actually much colder in the lower elvations of the inverted and  cold-locked valley.  There is a traditional bacon/egg/cheese/muffin breakfast, traditionally missing some vital component (not this year). Allegedly winter hiking/snowshoeing is awesome.

Bearded Huff, looking like a feminine hygeine product.

And so, tradition mandates that there must be beards, and there must be blisters, and there must be misery.  Snowshoeing with a backpack uphill is miserable.  But convincing yourself you had a great time afterward?  That's the real tradition.

Jesse, in full boy-band earnest lip-sync pose.

Someone much smarter than I described this phenomenon as follows:

"Half the fun of camping in those days was looking forward to getting back home. When you did get back home you prolonged the enjoyment of your trip by telling all your friends how miserable you had been. The more you talked about the miseries of life in the woods, the more you wanted to get back out there and start suffering again. Camping was a fine and pleasant misery."

From Patrick F. McManus' A Fine and Pleasant Misery

The quote from Mr. McManus' book is 30+ years old, and it still as true now as it was back then.  But now, instead of just telling your friends how miserable things were, you also get to blog about it and record your misery not just for now, but for maybe next year, when the traditional beard campout comes around, you can look at the blog and remind yourself just how miserable things were.

So.  Beard Campout.  You were miserable.  See you again next year.



Beard?  Goofy Hat?  Backpack?  Inversion?  Must be a tradition.

Bobcat tracks in our snowshoe tracks.



Inversion makes for challenged breathing
when you're in it, nice sunsets when
you're above it.

Jake's backside on a backside climb.












Chili Can top.  Sam says you don't need to pop the top of your can
when you put it in the fire to heat it, but we found this chili can lid
by our tents 20 yards from the fire after it exploded in the fire.
Yes we know what we're doing.

North Willow Lake Map and statistics