I Can't Stay Away! (And 2022 Final Numbers)

 

Hello dear Reader and greetings, once again, from Beagle’s northern home base in Boise.  I just finished cleaning her out and delivering her back to her heated storage unit after what was to be a brief—and turned out to be a very brief—winter camping adventure.

And yes, I had written that winter camping was not for me but I just couldn’t stay away from Beagle.  So I packed two kinds of ski’s, Opus (of course) and headed north to McCall.  What a difference six months makes in Idaho!  Six months ago, we were there—heck, less than six months ago—camping in Ponderosa State Park and swimming in the lake.  Now the lake is frozen over and snow banks are so high you can barely see the directional sign to Opus’ favorite stop, the West Face Trailhead.

That was our first stop after the two-plus hour drive up from Boise (incidentally, one of the prettiest drives I have been on; Highway 55 north winds along the Payette River offering plenty of views down to the dark, frigid water cascading around the white, snow-covered rocks.)  Go ahead, take a minute, enjoy the Zen.

Now we're back: Having been to the trailhead parking before, I knew there was plenty of room for Beagle.  It is a great place for a short hike with Opus, off leash, zooming between the walls of the snowshoe tracks like an Olympic toboggan.

Legs stretched, we continued the few miles to Brundage Mountain, the local ski resort.  I had also been there before and knew of the RV parking area and, it being a Thursday, I was reasonably sure I would have a spot.  The sun was shining and the fresh snow on the slopes was calling!  I quickly backed in Beagle, changed clothes and hit the slopes.  One of the prettiest days of skiing I have ever had:

With so much sunshine and only a couple other campers at the ski hill, I was tempted to just park there overnight (they do charge a nominal fee.)  But the temperature was (supposed) to drop to the teens overnight, and, although Beagle’s gas heater and heated lithium batteries would certainly carry me comfortably through the night, I felt like I wanted a little redundancy in the plan.  If something should go wrong with the gas heater, at that low of temperature, all kinds of trouble can start; I opted to drive down to the McCall RV Resort and plug in. 

The teens the weather service promised turned into single digits overnight.  And for the first time ever, I woke to frozen water pipes.  Yes, the heater ran all night and I had it set at 42, my normal overnight temperature, and the tank heaters were on but still poor Beagle could not bring forth water—I could get hot water, just nothing from the cold tap.

The RV Resort sits down along a creek and my spot was well shrouded in trees so, despite the single digits, I went outside (Opus, who normally will walk in anything, pee’d quickly then stared meaningfully at the warm car) hitched up Beagle and towed her up to the sunshine.  We were supposed to stay there two nights but there was no way I could do that now.  I headed south but it still took an hour of driving to reach twenty-two degrees; I pulled into a snow park area to let Beagle’s heater and the sunshine work their magic.  And they did, I am happy to report that no pipes burst and everything seems to be in working order.  Back down in Boise, it was a whopping fifty degrees so I celebrated by giving Beagle a thorough foam-brush washing at the carwash.

Despite the scare, the trip was still fun and I’ll go up again.  The weather should improve steadily now and when overnight temperatures are solidly in the 20’s I’ll head up again, this time parking overnight at the ski slope (because, tell me, doesn't this look like heaven?):

-K

PS:  Numbers for 2022:  As some of you may remember, I was trying to get my miles per night camping down to 50 (from over 100 in 2021), I came close:  Total miles, 8,912; Total nights, 129 (35% of all nights in 2023); Miles per night, everyone’s favorite, 69.