Snowcamping photos!

Clarire putting the pack on Tsuga. She loves her dogpack. It makes her feel very responsible, like she's got a job to do. Which means that it stops her from wanting to roar around the parking lot when she's just been released from the car. I didn't have the camera accessible, but she flew out of the car, and dove into the snow head first. Then she got up, and licked snow, and ran and dove head first into the snow again. And did this over and over...

Starting out. We've just left the populated areas, and are headed into the snowy backcountry. It is Bubba, Pat, Claire and me. Tsuga liked to try trailblazing, but she's kind of short.

Pat and Bubba

It's really hard to move when the dog is on my snowshoes. Will you look at that ridiculously joyous face though?! I love the tongue hanging out the side look.

I know the polite thing to do would be to discreetly delete this photo permanently, but it's so great! It's so true too. Sometimes you fall into a snowdrift, and it takes like 3 minutes to haul your ass out. The camera was slow, originally it was going to be a really cute picture of Claire laughing at herself for falling.

Pat.

Making our tent spot.

Our tents in the morning. There was 8 inches of snow accumulation overnight. We had to periodically knock snow off our tent through the night. I would wake up and realize that the wall of the tent was 2 inches from my face. It was so effing cold that I didn't sleep more than an hour at a time. Bubba was worried that our car would be towed, since we parked in a parking lot that would be plowed. I was a little worried about avalanches and finding our way back. At 4:30 in the morning we asked the other tent, who wasn't asleep either what time it was and when they wanted to leave. We were out of our tents by 6:30.

Snow dog

Pat and Claire

The avalanche danger was kind of high that weekend, and we had a couple avalanche slopes to cross. Not areas that had already avalanched, but areas that looked like they might. We went one at a time, and I was the last here. Tsuga is waiting anxiously at the bottom of the slope, making sure I'm safe.

Sliding down a steep part on my butt. Okay, so I fell...sometimes it's the easiest way down.

Our car in the morning. We dug so much snow that weekend. First the camping spot, then in the morning we had to dig out our tents, and when we got back, we had to dig out our car. They had plowed around us, which was really funny.

At the car. Notice the dog eating snow. It's classic Tsuga. She loves to eat snow. We were finally warm by this time. It's about 10:30 in the morning.