Micro Trip Reports

Status
Not open for further replies.
I've checked this site out for awhile now, and figured it was time to finally post a little trip report. This is from the Sylvania Wilderness Area in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan on Feb. 19. I used to live in Gunnison, CO and St. George, now that I'm back in Wisco, I find the need to do crazy things for adventure. It all started when my friends Justin and Colin wanted to go on a trip for Colin's birthday. One of the unfortunate things was that they both had to work until about 8 at night. With temps approaching -25 degrees we decided to be grown men and still go for it (yes we were called crazy and dangerous). We got to the trailhead at about midnight on Thurs. The hike in to our campsite was a only a little over a mile, but snowshoeing and pulling sleds and route finding in the cold night made it take about 2 hours. I stayed for two nights and they stayed a third night. As you can see, having the sleds allowed us to bring some extra comforts to keep warm. The following days warmed up a bit to about 15 degrees and 0 at night. I probably won't winter camp if it's that cold again, but it was totally worth it. Complete solitude near a frozen lake! If you haven't heard of Sylvania, it's a pretty sweet place, in the summer it is similar to the Boundary Waters where you are canoeing and portaging. Absolutely beautiful country, I highly recommend checking it out. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pics.

Tom

IMG_1377.JPG IMG_0607.jpg IMG_0609.jpg IMG_0610.jpg IMG_0612.JPG IMG_0613.JPG IMG_0625.JPG IMG_0626.JPG IMG_0640.JPG IMG_0650.JPG IMG_0660.JPG IMG_1383.JPG
 
-25 is really cold. I give you guys props. That's definitely some big boy camping. I was in -15 temps for just a 7.5 hour dayhike a few weeks ago and I had to literally crank the heat full blast for over 1.5 hours on the drive home just to thaw myself out. I still felt cold in my bones despite my steering wheel being almost too hot to handle from the heater blowing on it so long. Cold like that really does seep into your bones.
 
That is awesome, and you guys are nuts. And this is totally 'full trip report worthy'!

How about we just make a sub-forum called 'Micro Trip Reports' so these can at least be their own threads? Searchability and also we don't end up with one thread page with 500 photos on it (see previous pages)??
 
You guys are nuts! I've been there in the summer a few times with canoes. The Bass fishing is out of this world. Pristine lakes, awesome campsites, great place to get lost for a long weekend. But very popular place need to reserve campsites way in advance. Nice though because they limit the number of people entering the wilderness.
 
We all knew it was crazy, but we were prepared with lots of warm clothes. I grew up in this area and I work outside doing forest management so I'm used to being outside below zero. It was one of those trips that I'm glad I did but not wanting to repeat anytime soon. I think that the only way to be comfortable in those temps is to be acclimated from long term exposure and getting used to it. Also, most of our time was spent finding wood and enjoying the fire

Opi said:
You guys are nuts! I've been there in the summer a few times with canoes. The Bass fishing is out of this world. Pristine lakes, awesome campsites, great place to get lost for a long weekend. But very popular place need to reserve campsites way in advance. Nice though because they limit the number of people entering the wilderness.
Click to expand...

Hey Opi, where are you at in Wisco? I'm obviously always up for adventures. The fishing up there is great!
 
Otis said:
Hey Opi, where are you at in Wisco? I'm obviously always up for adventures. The fishing up there is great!
Click to expand...
Hey Otis, I live in Wrightstown. It's small town south of Green Bay. Where you at? I'm always planning for my next adventure. That's all I do!
I've been exploring Wisconsin and the UP for the past several years with a pack and before that most of my time was spent in a canoe exploring and fishing places like Quetico PP, Boundary Waters, Sylvania Wilderness, Big Island wilderness and many other small lakes. Now my main mode of transportation is with my legs. But I also have a little fishing boat I take out a several times a year.
I usually do a couple early spring hikes in the southern Wisconsin along the Ice Age Trail South Kettle Moraine SF and Devils Lake SP. Hopefully end of March early April. I'm Dying to get out! Just waiting for winter to go away.
 
Opi, I'm in Stevens Point. I'd love to explore more of the state. Since I moved back a couple years ago, I haven't gotten out as much as I'd like. I'm outside all the time but not enough camping. I've got a boat also, looking forward to some boat camping this summer.
 
This last Tuesday I took a hike up above my neighborhood. Hiking from my house and back made for about a 9-10 mile loop. I went up Slate Canyon and then up and over to and down Slide Canyon, descending Y Mountain.

Ascending Slate Canyon. The footsteps I was following along the trail would soon come to an end.
P1010957.JPG


Northward up the pass over to Slide Canyon. Notice the untouched snow. It was through here I wished for snowshoes rather than spikes. Let the post-holing begin.
P1010961.JPG


The high point. Timp is in the far background. It was all downhill from here. In a normal snow year, much of this sign would probably still be beneath the snow.
P1010964.JPG


Descending into the top of Slide Canyon. The post-holing was the worst through this meadow, reaching my upper thighs. Thankfully, it didn't last long. Again, I was surprised to find no trace of any snow-shoe tracks or any other kind of foot traffic.
P1010966.JPG


As I got further down Slide Canyon, and the snow started to thin out again, the trail became full of footprints at the fork leading out to Y Mountain Summit. It was neat being able to set the first tracks through the area between Slate and Slide. There were some rodent tracks and bird tracks here and there in spots, but surprisingly, nothing bigger through that stretch.

Exiting the snow line and descending Slide Canyon back down to the valley.
P1010967.JPG


Edit: It was this last Tuesday. Not sure why I originally put Wednesday.
 
Last edited:
With it warming up a little in the northeast (days have been getting into the 40's), I thought it might be nice to take a short hike with Joey yesterday. I wish I could always take him with me, but he isn't a spring chicken anymore. I have to manage the wear and tear on his body and it always makes me sad when I have to leave him at home. I make sure I always mix in some shorter, easier hikes, and paddling so he can still join me on some trips and get his fill of the outdoors. He lives for hiking, he just can't handle long mileage and steep climbs that well anymore.

2.jpg

Since I'm always so impressed by the waterfall pictures posted on here, I decided to read a few instructional articles on how to manually shoot moving water the night before and give it a try for the first time. Thinking it had warmed up enough where the water wouldn't be frozen anymore, Joey and I drove about an hour to Minnewaska State Park where I knew of an easy trail along a cascading brook leading to a waterfall called Awosting Falls.

Minnewaska State Park is part of the Shawangunks in NY. We hiked along the brook that can be seen below.
1.jpg

Ok so after reading a few how-to articles, I thought this would be pretty simple... long shutter speed, small aperture (high numbered f thingy), make the ISO as low as possible. What I didn't realize is how hard it would be to not have everything looking overexposed with bright white snow everywhere. I'm guessing this would be a little easier when the snow is gone?
3.jpg

A cascade that I practiced on.4.jpg

Same cascade in black and white. I made it b&w because I didn't like the yellowish hue of the water.5.jpg

When I got to Awosting Falls, they were sort of half frozen still. The water was crashing down on thawing chunks of ice. 6.jpg

I had to play with the settings a lot and wasn't really sure if I was making the right adjustments. The articles I read suggested lowering the ISO to 100, but I realized out there that the lowest ISO setting on my camera is 200. I'm not sure if that's cause I have an older, cheaper camera? I'm also not sure how much of a difference it made that I could only get down to 200? 7.jpg
Joey enjoyed being out for the day and now I'll have somewhat of an idea (maybe half a clue) of what to do if I'm out hiking/backpacking and come across some running water that I want to shoot.
 
Last edited:
Nick said:
You guys and your micro trip reports! :rolleyes: Awesome stuff and TOTALLY full TR-worthy! If this was below the benchmark, I think we'd all be screwed. And hey, it's not like we're gonna run out of space, right? But if it's this or nothing, I'll definitely take this! Great stuff! :)
Click to expand...
I agree. I have set a rule for myself. 5 or less pics will definitely be a micro report. 5 to 10 will depend on location and quality of pics. 10+ will usually deserve their own TR thread.
 
Good approach, Will. I think the problem is that people think their stuff isn't up to standard, so they stick like 40 photos in one post in here when really they're stuff is great. It's a pretty arbitrary number, but when we've done trip report contests in the past, the threshold was always 5 or more photos is officially a trip report.
 
Vegan.Hiker said:
I thought it might be nice to take a short hike with Joey yesterday. I wish I could always take him with me, but he isn't a spring chicken anymore. I have to manage the wear and tear on his body and it always makes me sad when I have to leave him at home. I make sure I always mix in some shorter, easier hikes, and paddling so he can still join me on some trips and get his fill of the outdoors. He lives for hiking, he just can't handle long mileage and steep climbs that well anymore.
Click to expand...

Super cute pup. I totally feel you on struggling about how much to bring them as they get older and can't do what they used to. When Nikita hit that age, I viewed it as my opportunity to go crazy in the national parks where no dogs are allowed. A few years like that and now I have Sage who is eager to put down the miles, so I'll stick to the dog-friendly stuff until she gets older. Meanwhile Nikita went from trouble hiking a few miles to trouble even getting up and down the stairs. It makes it even better when we can take her out though. She gets so stupid happy when we go to the lake. She basically falls all over herself stumbling to the boat at the start of the trip. Love it.
 
Nick said:
I think the problem is that people think their stuff isn't up to standard, so they stick like 40 photos in one post
Click to expand...

I'm definitely guilty of this, sorry. Although in self defense my one really long post in here with like 30 pics was actually 4 micro trip reports in one post. It's hard for me to post a TR of a short hike I did in my local State park when I literally see TR's of Mt. Everest and the Grand Canyon on the homepage. Maybe some loose suggested guidelines would help... like a micro being a paragraph and 5 pics or less, anything longer a full TR? I could read TR's all day, so anything that would encourage more of them, I'm all for.
 
Nick said:
Super cute pup. I totally feel you on struggling about how much to bring them as they get older and can't do what they used to. When Nikita hit that age, I viewed it as my opportunity to go crazy in the national parks where no dogs are allowed. A few years like that and now I have Sage who is eager to put down the miles, so I'll stick to the dog-friendly stuff until she gets older. Meanwhile Nikita went from trouble hiking a few miles to trouble even getting up and down the stairs. It makes it even better when we can take her out though. She gets so stupid happy when we go to the lake. She basically falls all over herself stumbling to the boat at the start of the trip. Love it.
Click to expand...

Thanks Nick, I can relate. At the expense of sounding like a lunatic, last summer I actually bought a used Tough Traveler brand child carrier on eBay because I saw on the Tough Traveler website that they make an insert to convert it to a dog carrier. I was going to the Whites and thought he could walk on his own for a while and then I could carry him on my back when he needed help. Unfortunately, he's too big and didn't fit comfortably inside the insert, so I never used it. I was able to find a dog sitter up there so I could still bring him on the trip and do some easier stuff with him, but dropped him off with the sitter when we did the harder stuff.
 
Last edited:
Vegan.Hiker said:
I'm definitely guilty of this, sorry. Although in self defense my one really long post in here with like 30 pics was actually 4 micro trip reports in one post. It's hard for me to post a TR of a short hike I did in my local State park when I literally see TR's of Mt. Everest and the Grand Canyon on the homepage. Maybe some loose suggested guidelines would help... like a micro being a paragraph and 5 pics or less, anything longer a full TR? I could read TR's all day, so anything that would encourage more of them, I'm all for.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I think short should should be the key to a micro TR if we keep it going in this big thread format. I'm all for anything that gets more people to post stuff though. But when it comes to full TR's, I just want to emphasize every chance I get that you don't have to be a pro photog or go to the Himalayas to make an awesome TR. If we only wanted to see the very best out there, it'd be a real snooze fest around here. Also, having your trip reports in their own threads makes them easier to find, look back on, and discuss. And in the near future we may be implementing the new trip report tracking feature so they will show up in your profile page and as a count under your name. Posts in the micro TR thread won't. So post a new thread even for the small stuff! We have no shortage of space on our server! :)
 
Nick said:
The NoPro does surprisingly awesome in low light!
Click to expand...

Far better than what I've been previously carrying around for video. That's for sure. It's also surprisingly better at picking up audio than I thought it would be and was led to believe from watching other youtube reviews. I think it's going to work out as an all purpose video camera after all. Can't beat the weight of these action cameras!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Don't like ads? Become a BCP Supporting Member and kiss them all goodbye. Click here for more info.

Back
Top