Winter camping : cooking, food and hydration

During January and February 2013 I cycled for three weeks in Lapland in the middle of winter with Helen Lloyd ( her thoughts on winter cycling can be found HERE) We cycled and camped at temperatures between -10 and -30 degrees C.

Here I’ll discuss the things learned in the cooking, food and hydration department.

Cooking: 

At the start of the trip we approached cooking just like any other trip. Set up the stove just outside the tent and do what you have to in order to warm up some pasta and sauce.

In the second week we’d evolved to the cooking in the tent porch from the comfort of a snow pit (also very handy for that first cup of coffee in the morning while still in bed).

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Eventually we went for building the full kitchen each evening…..

About our cooking gear: 

Stoves

Helen had a MSR something or other which proved to be less reliable than my Optimus stove in the cold. The MSR has a ceramic/plastic filter which broke quickly when I got my clumsy hands on it and the pump filled up with snow blocking the valve. My stove held up until the last day when the pump leather and fuel seal finally died after 6 years of use (luckily I had spares with me). I also had an MSR pocket rocket with me to see how a gas stove got on in the extreme cold, it proved to be fairly useless.

For our multi fuel stoves we used normal 98 oct unleaded petrol from petrol stations. This worked fine all the way down to our coldest evenings around -25/-30. Though usually I prefer to use something a little cleaner. It was however shocking how quickly we got through fuel when cooking twice a day and melting many litres of snow for drinks/cooking.

Lighting the stoves in extreme cold proved to be a problem. Breath on your match box once and it has a layer of ice on it making it impossible to use, and lighter fuel is fairly useless. Luckily Helen had the foresight to bring a Fire steel which was perfect for starting the stoves.

Pans

Usually I’m a one pan cooking man, I haven’t found a meal yet which can’t be prepared and eaten in one pan. Usually I use a 1.2L pan for everything.

But for this winter trip I added a 2L pan for snow melting, rather than using a lid I go for the double decker pan approach, cooking in one and melting snow in the other. For this trip I used a home made wind break which is twice the height of the standard ones. For a longer trip I’d consider making a “cooking box” similar to that of the folks from the mountain bike expedition team (a great site btw for planning or dreaming up extreme trips).

Cooking box used by the Mountainbike expedition team ( http://www.mountainbike-expedition-team.de)

The box means to can cook/melt snow much more efficiently and also dry gloves etc on the top. BTW snow melting takes forever, 1L of snow is about 100ml of water. Its handy to do  mix of water and snow and keep adding snow, this seems more efficient.

I also made covers for my pans to help insulate them why eating (you learn to eat quick at -25 or your food freezes), don’t forget to clean you pans as soon as you’ve finished eating otherwise its like trying to remove concrete….

Cutlery 

I thought  it wise to bring a folding knife larger than my usual pocket knife. It proved fairly useless as you can’t open it with gloves on and don’t want to touch the metal with bare hands. Better to have a small proper(non-folding) knife next time.

Rather than bringing my favourite Titanium spork and have it stick to my fingers or lips in the cold I brought  2x plastic sporks, both had broke by the end of the trip(plastic is very brittle in the cold)  and while cooking proved to be a pain as they were not very stiff. Next time I’ll bring a wooden spoon…..

Cup

I just used the cup from my flask. It proved to be too small for a good cuppa and didn’t insulate very well.  A proper insulated mug will be needed next time.

Water and Hydration:

Like on any trip dehydration is a problem due to being active all day, plus the effect of being freeze dried all day, cycling in winter has the extra complication that water can freeze. I had a three point plan to make sure I had enough water that wasn’t frozen.

1. The 0.75L flask : worked well and meant I always had a hot drink during the day and night(sweet tea worked better than just hot water). Having an instant hot drink is priceless compared to firing up the stove at the side of the road. The extra insulation cover I made for the flask made a big difference I think.

2. 1.5L camelbak : Against my better judgement I bought an over priced camelbak just before the trip (one of those pre trip panic buys). The theory was great, wear it between my base layer and outer layers and the water would stay warm(always remembering to blow the water back so it wouldn’t freeze in the tube). Then….. I took it off for 20 minutes while making camp meaning a frozen tube, I quickly pored the remaining litre of water into a pan before I got stuck with 1kg of ballast for the next week. Nice theory, but requires wearing the damn thing 12 hours a day and sleeping with it at night……pass.

3. 1L wide mouth Nalgene bottle : These things are great as you can pour boiling water into them. In combination with my home made cover the water was drinkable for 2-6 hours after pouring. I would just attach this to my tent while cycling and on milder nights would have it next to me in the tent ( still don’t trust water bottles in my sleeping bag). Naturally it has its limits and the water eventually freezes. Thanks to wide mouth its possible to still break the ice in the early stages of freezing, but leave it too late and again you’re stuck with up to 1kg of ballast until the next time you get indoors.

Next time? : I think next time I’ll just accept the extra weight and take 2×0.75L flasks and maybe the Nalgene, thats 1.5L of guaranteed warm/hot water plus a dodgy litre…

Having an unlimited. supply of water(snow) was the ultimate luxury of this trip compared to my previous trips.

Food:

Should you really want to know the low down on winter foods down the the geeky level of calories per gram then I suggest you once again check out the Mountainbike expediton team site, they have a great PDF on food >HERE<. My style of travel means I usually pass through a town every 3-5 days so I just go for the eat lots approach and don’t worry so much about weight.

Things you should know: Bread freezes within an hour or two at -15 as does most stuff you’d normally eat. Here’s a glimpse into our daily menu which worked well enough.

Breakfast:  Porridge, the breakfast of champions……with a handful of raisins, usually I also have honey in my porridge but it freezes around -10. Instead we added chocolate drink powder for taste (Helen also added about 100g of sugar to her’s…..).

Snacks:  Rather predictably we ate alot of trail mix as a snack, though after 3 weeks couldn’t face it anymore. For a longer trip it would be better to start with a simple trails mix and make it more luxurious as the trip progresses rather than starting with Shane’s super awesome trailmix mix on day one… Dried fruit such as raisins and apricots stayed remarkably edible despite the cold, frozen chocolate is also not a problem.

Lunch: Crackers are the key, a great bread substitute and they don’t freeze. Our staple lunch was crackers with cheese or salami and sometimes a soup. The salami and cheese needs to be cut into slices after buying it and separated into portions.  Each morning the cheese/salami for the day would then go into my fleece pocket for defrosting by lunch time, the rest could stay in the freezer (front pannier).

Dinner: Pasta of course, though with a twist. In 20,000km of cycle touring I had never eaten so well before this trip. Thanks to the cold it was possible to carry meat, ice cream and frozen vegetables. One evening would be pasta with meat and veg, the next cheese and veg, though it doesn’t look so nice, it was some of the best camping food I’ve had.

After dinner:  Coffee or hot chocolate with a dash of rum and a few pieces of chocolate are a great way to end the day 🙂

A note about campfires: 

Any outdoor expert, forum know it all or armchair traveller will tell you that a campfire is essential in winter. A camp fire gets you warm 3 times as they say: 1. collecting wood, 2. heat from the fire, 3. The warmth from food made on the fire.

All great in theory but collecting firewood in the 1m deep snow is a pain in the arse and hard work without snow shoes (something to add the shopping list for next time). Then getting a fire going with cold damp wood is also quite a pain and also a smokey business.

In the end we decided it was more effort than it was worth instead staying warm with the occasional run and by going to bed on time, the only major disadvantage being that we couldn’t  dry gear without a fire.

Naturally the armchair travellers will say its a lack of bush craft on our part which of course is true but we struggled to keep a fire going even with the help of my stove burning away. Something to work on or something to forget about who knows…….