Emily Ford, the queen of winter adventuring and frigid thru-hikes, shares her recent wild ideas and offers listeners tips and tricks for thriving in cold weather camping. Denver Green Vest, Justin Borak, weighs in on staying warm and optimizing battery life on winter trails.
Emily Ford, the queen of winter adventuring and frigid thru-hikes, shares her recent wild ideas and offers listeners tips and tricks for thriving in cold weather camping. Denver Green Vest, Justin Borak, weighs in on staying warm and optimizing battery life on winter trails.
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This episode is presented by Capital One and the REI Co-op® Mastercard®.
Shelby Stanger:
We've officially been in winter for over a month now, and for those of us in colder climates, getting outside and freezing weather is a little more challenging. Hiking, swimming, biking, and even surfing and chillier temperatures isn't as appealing, and camping in the winter can be intimidating even for those of us who enjoy getting into the snow. On Wild Ideas Worth Living. We like to break down big audacious goals into tangible steps so that you can make the most of getting outside year-round. In this episode, we're talking to one of the most passionate winter adventurers we know and an REI employee to hear their expert advice. By the end of this episode, our hope is that you feel equipped to pack up your tent and camp kitchen and take it to the snow. I'm Shelby Stanger and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-Op Studio, this production presented by Capital One and the REI Co-Op MasterCard.
To kick off this winter camping episode, we've brought back Emily Ford, one of our favorite past guests. Emily hails from Duluth, Minnesota and is the queen of winter adventures and frigid thru-hikes. In the winter of 2020, she hiked the entire Ice Age Trail, which is 1200 miles across the state of Wisconsin. Then in 2021, Emily spent a month skiing across the frozen boundary waters. When she talks about winter, Emily lights up. Yes, it might be cold outside, but there are so many things that make the winter season appealing. When we spoke, Emily was in a laundry room in Willow, Alaska where she's training for her next wild idea, the Iditarod. If you haven't heard of the Iditarod, it's an iconic dog sled race that covers nearly a thousand miles in the Alaskan wilderness. Since we last talked to Emily, she has become an experienced musher, which is the person who drives the dog sled. Emily Ford, welcome back to Wild Ideas Worth Living, fresh from the laundry room in Alaska.
Emily Ford:
Hello.
Shelby Stanger:
What have you been up to? I heard you're preparing for a new even wilder wild idea, like crazy.
Emily Ford:
I'm preparing for Iditarod, which is a 1000-mile dog sled race across Alaska. It's going to happen in March. My partner Anna, did it last year and we've been living in Alaska for the winters for the past three years. This is our third year here.
Shelby Stanger:
I don't know anything about an Iditarod. I've never even been to Alaska. What happens and how do you do it? How many people do it?
Emily Ford:
How many people? Not very many. It's been going on for 50 some odd years and less than a thousand people have done it, and Iditarod is, it follows a route from Anchorage, Alaska to Nome, Alaska, and it follows a lot of old mail routes that go from village to village.
Shelby Stanger:
What does training for one even entail?
Emily Ford:
I always compare train sled dogs to just, if you had a pack of marathon runners that you had to train all at once, you start with really small mileage in the fall, literally like five miles a day, and now we're doing anywhere between 50 miles a day to 200 mile series, bunch together, and then a lot of it's just prepping all of your gear for Iditarod. It's a thousand miles, but you do have drop bags at each checkpoint, there's 22 checkpoints while you're traveling across Alaska. All of your stuff will be at different checkpoints and they're anywhere from 40 miles to 80 miles apart as you go along and you're practicing being sleepy all the time because you just don't sleep much on Iditarod because over a thousand miles the champion will do it in between anywhere between eight and nine days. The rest of us will finish it between nine and 12 days or something like that.
Shelby Stanger:
How do you keep yourself fit for this kind of a race? Because it's not like you're skiing, but you have to be fit.
Emily Ford:
My life is pretty physical and it is really your mental fitness that makes you through Iditarod. You can train up your dogs to pull you through almost anything and it's all in your mind of when you are sleep-deprived, how do you respond? For this, you stand on your sled and you're driving, you were really driving on a flat surface. You're not doing much. It's hard to stay awake because it's just standing there. But when you're driving your dog through the mountains, going up and down at a tilt and like a roller coaster, it's your job to keep your sled at a good speed, to not injure your dogs if you're going downhill, to run with your dogs uphill and help push the sled if they get stuck or the snow is deep, keeping your sled upright, making it around obstacles.
Shelby Stanger:
It sounds incredible. What are you most excited for?
Emily Ford:
Man, I love, there's always two parts to long form adventures for me. Man, is it so scary! Anna experienced minus 60 degrees air temp last year and the only reason why we know that is because that is where her thermometer bottomed out. We have no idea how cold it actually was. Am I ready for that? I don't know. That's super scary.
Shelby Stanger:
I've never been in anything close to that. What happens to you?
Emily Ford:
Neither have I. I have at least 20 more degrees colder to go before I get to that. I have no idea what that feels like. I hold these things with two hands. It's like these little parts are scary as I'm sitting in my very warm laundry room, but I can't let that be too scary because the adventure is going to be so awesome. I get to go on this 1000 mile adventure with 16 best friends that I've spent months building a relationship with and there are parts of Alaska that only a few people have seen and I'm so it's going to be beautiful, it's going to be awesome, and the Northern Lights are going to be there and you're going to see I don't really want to see that much wildlife. There was a moose last year. I don't really want to see moose up close, but they might be far away. The bison far away. It's just going to be crazy, man. It's going to be awesome.
Shelby Stanger:
Emily will start the Iditarod race in March of this year. For over a week, she'll be camping in the snow with her dogs in frigid conditions, down to negative 60 degrees, but adventuring in the cold doesn't need to be as extreme as driving a dog sled through the Alaskan wilderness. A casual hike or camping trip in the snow is beautiful and it can be comfortable with the right planning. Emily has gone on plenty of winter expeditions and she's learned tons of tips and tricks along the way.
If you're planning a winter adventure, you are the best person to talk to. You can survive in negative 50, 60 degree weather and you thrive. If we're planning a winter camping adventure, where should we even start?
Emily Ford:
Maybe not at minus 60 degrees. Maybe choose something a little warmer.
Shelby Stanger:
I think most of us will choose something warmer, probably even 30, 40 degrees.
Emily Ford:
Absolutely. We're going to bring it back to a fun camping adventure. We're here for the good times. One thing that I always in my mind of things that are important to me when I'm not racing, find a route that you feel comfortable with for the winter. If you're going to be moving along somewhere, find a route that you feel comfortable with, try it out. Do a little shake out on a little bit of the route. You're not doing the full thing. You're just seeing if the gear you have works and if you give it a little bit of a green light, even a yellow light, honestly sometimes as long as it's not a hard red light, go for it. Number two, sleep is so important to me, especially in the winter. You need to have something that you are going to sleep well in and on.
My sleeping system in the winter is a Z-Light or a thin closed cell foam thermo rest, and then on top of that goes a puffy thermo rest, and then whatever sleeping bag works for you. I use Western Mountaineering. We almost exclusively use Western Mountaineering for cold in our house because their degrees are very accurate to what their degrees go down to are very accurate, but just be conscientious of who you're buying from. If you can't afford something that high-end, that's totally fine. Just be aware, you might have to get two sleeping bags then. Say you buy it from a different company that you can just afford, totally fine. Get a zero degree bag and then maybe get a 30 degree bag on top of that. Another hack that I still use to this day and I will forever is you can preheat your sleeping bag, boil water in a throw it in Nalgene.
Also, Nalgene not a sponsor, bless up. Honestly, their bottles tried and true forever, but is amazing about them is you can throw boiling water in Nalgene, seal it, makes you seal it really well and it's fine. Toss it in your sleeping bag and it warms up your sleeping bag for you because a sleeping bag only reflects heat that's already available. It doesn't make heat, it can reflect the heat of the water bottle before you get in. You can put it down by your feet or in between your legs or close to your heart where we have these big blood vessels in your armpits and then you're in your little jammie, you switched out your wet clothes from the day you're in your dry sleeping clothes, you wiggle into your sleeping bag and you're already 10 steps ahead of everybody else who's complaining about how cold their toes are.
Shelby Stanger:
Making a hot water bottle with your Nalgene or putting one sleeping bag inside of another is a great way to use the equipment you already have. To learn more about how to stay warm and dry while you're sleeping, we talked to Justin Borak, a green vest from the REI Denver flagship store.
Justin Borak:
There's a couple of key tricks to stay warm when sleeping in the cold. My number one is always be venting. A lot of people don't realize when they're camping in the winter, they think you got to trap all the heat inside your tent, but you really want to vent the tent. Condensation from your breath goes out of the tent. You exhale roughly around about a pint of water vapor per night, and you don't want to get your sleeping bag covered with any kind of water, any of your clothes. If you have a roof vent in your tent, it's awesome to always have that open. It feels counterintuitive, but it's extremely important to be venting. I've been in some scenarios where we did not vent and it's not fun. And then really the biggest way to stay warm when you're sleeping is having a good sleep system, not just a good sleeping bag, it's all about your pad.
Pad is going to reflect that cold air back down to the ground, which the cold air is really what gets you. I actually do a double pad system. I have a closed cell pad and then I have a good insulated pad to reflect the heat and having a good quality sleeping bag. Other important things are hot beverages. Whether you like hot chocolate, tea, whatever it may be, having that before you go to bed is going to be really key. And then just doing things like jumping jacks before you get in your sleeping bag because your body needs to produce the heat. The sleeping bag is actually trapping in the heat, but you need to create that heat and then just having a nice winter beanie on to trap in the heat is going to be important as well.
Shelby Stanger:
Once you figure out where you're going and how to make sure you're sleeping well, food is the next piece of the puzzle. One benefit of camping in cold enough conditions is that you don't have to worry as much about things going bad. Emily especially loves that she can bring as much cheese as she wants.
Emily Ford:
Food wise, people are like, "What do you eat? What should I bring?" Bring something you are going to like hands down, I do not care. This is where ultra light backpackers just need to step aside for a hot second because in the winter you just need to be eating, flat out. We can't really care about how much we're caring all the time. Just bring stuff that you are going to eat. Being cold sometimes turns our stomachs into our worst enemies. For me, I love bringing cheese along. I love to have cheese tortillas, I'll bring my WhisperLite camp stove, a pan and butter, lots of butter happens and literally make a quesadilla. Sometimes I'll crunch Pringles in there for just a little bit different texture. Bring something you like. You're not going to become a new person out in the wilderness. Trust me. You're not going to be a different version of yourself out there. You are you always.
Shelby Stanger:
That is probably some of the best advice I've ever heard about the wilderness. You're not going to become a different version of yourself. You are who you are.
Emily Ford:
Absolutely.
Shelby Stanger:
If you like chocolate in normal life, you're going to like chocolate in the wilderness.
Emily Ford:
Yes, you are not going to automatically like fruits and nuts.
Shelby Stanger:
When you're adventuring in the winter, anything hot is going to be pretty appealing. We all know that half the fun of a snow day is going out in the cold and the other half is curling up and drinking a warm beverage, and it doesn't have to be cocoa. Coffee or tea is great for the mornings and you can add in butter or coconut oil to add in healthy fats to fuel your adventures and to keep you warm. Or you can try bringing instant broth if you want something savory. Remember that colder temps mean you're expending extra energy, so you also just need to pack more food. My producers Annie and Sylvia are big foodies and they like to bring a thermos of tomato soup, a burrito and chocolate peanut butter cups. I personally love making veggie chili or spaghetti and Turkey meatballs and freezing it before, so that all I have to do is reheat it on the trail. Hopefully by this point you're feeling a little more excited to try camping in the snow, but there are a few more things to think about before you hit the road.
At this point in the episode, we know how to get a great night's sleep and what type of food to pack for winter camping. Now let's break down one of the more daunting elements of cold weather prep, what to wear? Despite the low temperatures? We need to stay as comfortable as possible. If your feet are riddled with blisters or you realize that you really needed to pack one more layer, you're going to be miserable. Winter through hiker cross-country skier and Iditarod racer, Emily Ford has some great tips for planning your gear carefully for the cold.
What about gear tips? Anything we should bring or do before we head out?
Emily Ford:
Test your gear. Wear whatever boots you're going to be wearing. Just wear them. Wear them somewhere. Wear them to the office. I don't care. Wear you, wear them. Do not go out in the winter for the first time with fresh boots on. You'll regret it. In the summertime, you could take off your boots, air your feet out and all this stuff. Winter, it's a little different. You can only do that when you're in your sleeping bag or in your tent if it's really cold out. Test, test, test, test your gear. And then wet is our worst enemy always. That's in your sleeping bag, that's in your regular clothes. Your sweat's going to cool you off way too quickly. When we talk about layers, I will always go back to the buttery biscuit comparison of like we always want a lot of thin layers. I'm sitting in my house and I have two thin wool layers on right now, and I'm just sitting in my house and even when I'm here on top of this goes another thin wool layer and then a thicker wool layer and then a fleece layer.
We are always layering up in small layers in case we have to be on the move. In the winter, if you're on the move, if you even feel a little sweaty, even if you feel comfortably warm, take off a layer. Always, always, always. Try your bottoms out also. I think when we think of layers, we always think about our tops. What are you wearing close to your heart? What are you wearing? What's on your hands? What's on your head? I have gotten frostbite actually on my butt because I thought I just wasn't thinking very clearly. Like, "My butt doesn't really matter." Your butt matters. The butt matters. Your butt still gets frostbitten, so figure out what works on your bottom. I wear two wool base layers and then a fleece pant, maybe a puffy pant, and if it is your butt, it's just a region with high fat.
And the way blood moves around fat is just a little different than around a muscly area. I don't know if I have them in this room, but Fjallraven and some other companies too. I only know Fjallraven who has the shorts, the puffy shorts, but I know some companies have puffy skirts, use those. They're super helpful to keep the butt a little warmer because if you're moving, your calves will be working quite a bit, but for some reason it's just the glutes.
Shelby Stanger:
What about your feet?
Emily Ford:
It's so tough. My feet are so sweaty. As I've aged, my feet have gotten sweatier and sweatier, I've had to switch up my feet situation. I wear a liner sock, a wool, a merino wool, like a wool liner sock very thin, super thin. And then on top of that, I'll wear a wool, a bit of a thicker wool sock on top of that. That first one is just to pull moisture away and the other ones to keep the heat in. I also powder my socks too. You can never have enough socks. If you're going to overpack anything, overpack socks, bring 10 pair. You're going on a two-day trip. Bring 10 pairs of socks. Going on a month long trip, have your whole backpack be socks. Screw everything else. Your socks are the most important thing in the world.
Shelby Stanger:
You can wear them on your hands. Smart.
Emily Ford:
Wear them on your hands, stretch them out. Put them on your head. You could wrap them as a neck gaiter. You could just wrap your whole body in them. Find a good pair of socks. If there's anything I spend the most money on in my life, it socks, you want to get me a gift for Christmas, socks. My fullest drawer, socks. Your feet are what carry you. Even if I stand on a dog sled, if you're skiing, if you're whatever they are the things moving you along. We want to take care of them as best as possible.
Shelby Stanger:
A good pair of wool socks will keep your feet from getting sweaty, which means fewer blisters and less moisture that turns cold. When you arrive at camp, no matter what socks you're wearing, you'll want to change them and your underwear before bed to help you stay dry and therefore to keep you warm. There's a couple of other important topics we asked our experts about. One is going to the bathroom. You might be adventuring in a place that has public restrooms, but if you're going farther afield, you'll probably need to go outside. If the ground is frozen and we can't bury our waste, we have to carry it out. We luckily there are bags made just for that. We'll link them in the show notes. Now that we've covered that business, let's talk about bringing electronics and keeping them safe in the cold. Most batteries will drain faster than usual and colder temperatures, be sure to put your phone in an internal pocket and your coat to help it last longer. Justin has a great tip for keeping your electronics safe at night too.
Justin Borak:
My other favorite hack is keeping all electronics and if you do have a water filter inside your sleeping bag, when you go to purchase your winter sleeping bag, you want to make sure you get something a little bit extra room in the length. A lot of dedicated winter bags will have a little bit extra room anyways, and that's so you can store things in a little stuff sack or a Ziploc bag so they don't freeze. It sounds weird and uncomfortable, but as long as there's enough room in your sleeping bag, it will be huge so your stuff doesn't freeze the next morning, especially a water filter that can get water in it, and then once it freezes, it cracks and it's not good anymore.
Shelby Stanger:
Speaking of water filters, it might feel counterintuitive, but it is really important to stay hydrated in the cold. Here's Emily.
Emily Ford:
Drink liquids. Nobody thinks that in the winter you need to be drinking liquids. The winter will dry you out faster than the summer. You are still sweating and the air in a lot of places is way drier than anywhere else you're going to be in the summertime. Water will keep you from hypothermia. Water will keep your brain going. Water keeps you warm, even though it seems counterintuitive. Drink two gallons of water before you go to bed. Minimum. Do that throughout your day when you wake up, drink your water, drink water before you drink your coffee. You're not going to want to, but it is the best for your body. All night long you've been sucking down this cold air while you've been sleeping. You got to give your body back what it gave away while you were sleeping.
Shelby Stanger:
Although thinking of wint er conjures up images of snow and rain, winter can be incredibly dry. Drink your water, pack some lotion. And don't forget lip balm. The small things can make a difference when it comes to staying comfortable. Maybe you've heard all of our tips and hacks and gear-wrecks and thought to yourself, "I think I'll stick to the warmer months. Thanks." Trust Emily. Getting out in the winter is worth it. You truly love adventuring in cold weather. What's your favorite thing about it?
Emily Ford:
The winter is so different. It is for us where we have snow and a pretty high snow load, it's so quiet. Snow dampens the sound of everything, and it's just a whole different season, and I love that. Also in the winter time, you see all these different tracks of all these animals around you. Mice are so funny and you can see their little itty bitty footprints in the snow and you can just follow them through the woods and see where they live. It forces you to pay attention in a whole different way than you do in the summertime. You're noticing is just so different.
You can get to places in the winter that you can't get to in the summertime. We have our boreal forest, but we also have these huge bogs or these swamps that you can't really walk through. It's peat or it's squishy and you have to wait until winter to cross them, and it brings you to whole new places that you couldn't go to in any other season. And I think that's super beautiful. It's a way to fully be human right. You're fully living out every season that's available to you. I think a lot of people think in the winter time, this is time to hide away and hunker down. I can't do that for my own mental health. I wouldn't be alive if I did that. And I need to do this for me to fully be a human in all seasons, in all the ways that I possibly can.
Shelby Stanger:
We've talked a lot over the years about the health benefits of getting out in nature, and that doesn't change in the winter. In fact, these cold dark months can be hard for a lot of people, so there's even more reason to get out in the trees, enjoy the quiet of a snow covered landscape and get cozy with a mug of hot cocoa.
I could just think about that now. Remember, camping this time of year doesn't mean that you have to be completely out in the wilderness, especially if you're trying it for the first time. Make it easy and go somewhere local. Plenty of state parks are still open and some even have heated bathrooms and running water. Another bonus is that these sites will be way easier to book in the winter than the summer. Bring a pair of cross-country skis, snowshoes, or even just some extra warm boots and enjoy a nice weekend in nature. To follow Emily Ford, check out EmilyOnTrail on Instagram or EmilyOnTrail.com. I highly recommend going back and listening to Emily's episode about her journey on the Ice Age Trail and across the boundary waters. We'll link it in the show notes. Special thanks to Denver's Justin Borak for contributing to this episode.
Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, produced by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas, and Sam Peers Nitzberg of Puddle Creative. Our senior producers are Jenny Barber and Hanna Boyd. Our executive producers are Paolo Mottola and Joe Crosby. As always, we love it when you follow the show, take time to write a review and rate it wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.