January '24
Key Stats
On a scale of fist (aka 0) to 5, how high is the stoke level for trailer life? 4...lots of great adventures, yet somehow left feeling a tad over scheduled?
Odometer reading? Start: 5,610 miles, End: 8,921mi
Total: 3,311 mi
Which sports did we tackle? Finally found some ice to climb, plus 21 more days of skiing.
What was the hardest thing this month? Boondocking for a week straight in the winter, including -30F nights. Turns out everything is much harder in the winter!
What was the most surprising thing this month? How easily it is to fill your week, even without working. Somehow, there were still times we felt quite busy...from totally optional activities!
Favorite memory or adventure? Getting first tracks while ski touring Shadow Mountain in Jackson after some fresh powder, including an epic bull moose encounter!
Any lessons learned? While it is reasonably easy to find water in the summer, it's a completely different challenge in the winter. We spent nearly 3 days stopping at every rest stop/ truck stop/ national park we could find but were still unsuccessful at finding water. Fill up whenever you can, or take everyone's advice and head south for the winter.
Favorite book/podcast? Outlive by Peter Attia MD / Freakonomics Radio Podcast.
Musings
Advocacy was the name of the game this month. While we are passionate about many causes, we decided to focus on mostly sustainability and conservation advocacy given we are living and playing in nature this year. We got involved with the Access Fund, Citizens Climate Lobby, Western Colorado Alliance, and Environmental Voters Project. This included writing our representatives in support of BIG WIRES (renewable energy permitting reform to reduce costs and accelerate projects), writing the Mesa County Commissioners in support of renewable energy projects, providing feedback to the USDA and Forest Service on access to wilderness protected land, researching and providing FAQs on utility solar projects, and writing 200 postcards to send to North Carolina voters urging them to consider climate when voting.
While a lesser focus this month, we continued to learn as well, including a refresher on snow science and avalanche safety at the "State of the Snowpack" lecture from the Bridger-Teton Avalanche Center and learning about USFS forest planning.
On the trailer life front, we had our fair share of challenges. We started the month with a week of boondocking through South Dakota and Wyoming. A night or two away from a campground is easy, but around day four we started encountering problems. Short, cloudy winter days led to a lack of solar charging, frozen dump stations and water spigots shut off for the winter led to some serious water conservation, and incorrect forest service campground status had us stuck in 6" of snow and scrambling to find a place to sleep. Ultimately, nothing life threatening, but some interesting challenges and learnings as we gear up for spring and much longer periods off-grid.
One of the biggest surprises was just how little "free" time we have. When we were planning our trip, people would ask if we thought we'd get bored. The answer is a resounding "no"! While we shouldn't complain that our 9:00-5:00 jobs have been replaced with 9:00-4:00 skiing, we really don't find ourselves with much down time. Especially since we spent so much time this month on education and advocacy.
Finally, given January was the first month we really focused on writing the blog, we have a newfound respect for influencers. It takes an unexpected amount of time to aggregate photos and produce content. We'll do our best to be more timely going forward!
Trip Report
We started the year on day 4 of complete off-grid boondocking, questionably parked in a Forest Service parking lot. While we still had time to hike around Devil's Tower, the first few days of the year were somewhat focused on life's necessities. We ran out of fresh water on the 2nd, and our batteries were completely dry by the night of the 4th after 5 days of full cloud cover. Worse, our backup plan to use our trucks AC inverter failed (thankfully, the $2,500 part was under warranty...thanks Toyota!). And in the middle of all of this, we struggled to find places to sleep in the middle of nowhere Wyoming; we went 2 hours into the mountains based on the Forest Service website stating a campground was open, only to find it "open" but very much socked in with at least 6" of snow. After getting stuck and unstuck, we called it quits.
Thankfully, after 2 days of almost exclusively searching every gas station, rest stop, and campground, we successfully found water, a dump station, and electricity to top up before our Bozeman adventures. And what a set of adventures there were! While we were able to find a few sweet powder stashes at Big Sky, much of the 40% of the mountain that was open was more ski killing rocks than snow. Beyond Big Sky, we found some beautiful parts of Montana to explore, particularly Hyalite Canyon where we both cross country skied and finally got out ice climbing.
Next up for the month was Jackson, which may be our favorite spot to date. Between the wildlife, downhill skiing Jackson Hole, xc skiing around the Tetons, the communities in and around Jackson, and all the backcountry opportunities, we get why it's so popular! We had our first true powder day with 13" of fresh snow, and also had one of the best backcountry skiing experiences of our life at Shadow Mountain. Unfortunately, we couldn't fully experience the backcountry opportunities, since the motto this winter was "pretend you're backcountry skiing Colorado". [Editors Note: Colorado has a notoriously dangerous snowpack, while Jackson usually enjoys a much more stable snowpack. TLDR stable snowpack = lower avalanche risk]
We unfortunately decided to skip Sun Valley due to it's rough snowpack and considerable distance (have we mentioned travelling in the winter is hard?), but that gave us the opportunity for round two of skiing SLC! The accessibility to the outdoors is simply unmatched, with at least 9 ski resorts within an hours drive. We also explored Fifth Water hot springs, quite possibly the coolest springs we've been to.
Throughout all of this, we focused on advocacy. While there are many issues facing the planet, climate change is ultimately one of the most dire. We explored opportunities to engage with NGOs, including the Access Fund, Western Colorado Alliance, Citizen's Climate Lobby, and the Environmental Voter Project, along with the Bridger-Teton National Forest and directly contacting our local and federal representatives. Our goal was to advocate for land conservation, wilderness access, changes in policies to promote renewable energy and associated economic growth, and to encourage disengaged voters to consider the climate at the ballot box.
Gear Eval
Woodford got a new Canada Pooch winter get-up for Christmas, and has gotten non-stop compliments! Seriously, the Slush Suit paired with booties keeps wet snow from sticking to his fur, and makes him the pinacle of high fashion.
In keeping with the theme of scoring awesome second hand gear, we picked up a like-new set of ice screws, opening the door to the terrifying world of leading ice. We went with Black Diamond Express Screws after watching a great series on the pros and cons of steel vs aluminum. After some use, we will probably add a few aluminum screws, which have a larger diameter making them better to reuse screw holes.
Ben added another set of used skis (Elan Wingman) for those front-side days, and Chloe upgraded her ripped TRUE bibs to some like-new Outdoor Research bibs.
Chloe's Kitchen
My small but mighty kitchen runs off of a three burner stove & small oven. I have at my disposal one pot, one pan, one cutting board, two one sharp knife, one soup ladle, one sheet pan, one muffin tin, French press, tea pot and a Nutribullet.
My general food philosophy includes leveraging in season/local ingredients where possible, using lots of veggies, and enough protein to fuel our physically active lifestyle. I plan our meals weekly, and have to operate within the constraints of how much food will fit in our Dometic fridge/freezer, along with the constant desire to hand wash as few dishes as possible!
A few of our favorite January meals included lamb stew prepared with ingredients we found at the Jackson farmers market, a one-pot Cajan pasta, and mushroom Swiss Impossible Burgers (better than beef!) with a lime & tajin dressed salad.