Hard Winter Camping: Conclusion

While we lived at Fayetteville in the 60’s and 70’s, we usually spent every spring break at Watson, with Barbara’s parents. Barbara didn’t really care how many nights I was gone there, because she had all her sisters and her folks to visit with, and could care less about what I did. I made the most of it. Her Daddy, Sport, was a farmer and a tough old man, he loved to fish and enjoyed laying out on the river bank all night, so we usually took his middle buster, plowed a row across the old hog pen, picked up about a gallon or two of those giant Buckshot worms, and headed for the river. Southeast Arkansas, near where the Arkansas River and the mighty Mississip’ join, is not like other places I have fished. It’s pretty much the catfish capital of the world. There’s no legal limit on catfish there, and on my best night, I caught 78 catfish.  Weight wise, my best catch down there was 300 pounds, spread out over 40 or so fish. But, there’s only a small window between freezing to death on the river in early March, and getting eaten up by mosquitoes in late march. In early March I often found myself sitting in the truck with a lantern for heat between line runnin’s.  Or hugging my campfire. In late March one just had to tolerate, as much as possible, the swarms of skeeters.

 Back in pioneer days, there was a town down there named Napoleon, Arkansas, right on the banks of the mighty Mississip’. All that’s left of Napoleon in modern times is the grave yard. Or was, I should say. The big river finally washed away even the graveyard last year. That’s just the nature of a very large river. They move around a lot. There’s also a little strip of land that belongs to the state of Mississippi on the Arkansas side.

Anyway, looking at the tombstones, every one there died by the time they reached the ripe old age of 26. They seemed to have moved on rather quickly from those vast hoards of skeeters, or died early from malaria. Delton, my brother in law, and I once camped at the confluence of the White River and the Mississippi. We set up our tents well before dark, sprayed down the doorway good with mosquito dope, went inside really quickly, and spent a little time, locating those who managed to rush in with us, and picked them off one at a time. Then, we could sleep. Or would have, had it not been for a buck deer who so resented our presence that he spent a good portion of the night, running up and down behind our tent, snorting and stomping. Or maybe, he was just trying to get away from those hoards of skeeters.

Cossatot Falls is a nice place to go, if you’ve never been there. The name Cossatot means “skull crusher.” It’s in mid western Arkansas, and is now a state park. It’s a spot where the Cossatot River cuts right through the top of a tall ridge. How could that happen, you might ask? Well, the Ouachita mountains are relatively young mountains. They were formed when another continent bumped into the southern end of North America, and gradually wrinkled up the earth, forming long ridges. The river was already in place when this started, and as the Mountain slowly rose up, the river slowly eroded it down. The hardest rocks were the slowest to erode, and they remain, sticking up at an angle in the river bed. It not only makes a neat place to look at, and make pictures, but it also produces the highest rated white water between the Smoky mountains and the Rockies. Six or so major falls in a relatively short distance, with the river dropping 40 feet in one eighth mile. The baddest rapid is named Washing Machine, rated IV+. I find myself going there regularly, to either show it off to someone who’s never been there, or to just look at it again for myself. The river eventually empties into Gilham Lake, named after me, probably. (OOPs! There they go, misspelling my name again.) I took a Canadian couple, my friends Doug and Cora-Faye, to see it once. She just would not leave when I told them we had to go, lots of other places to see before we sleep. She wanted to stay there all day.

Anyway, let me get back to the point of my story, hard camping. Years ago, before it became a State Park, Corey decided one Christmas that we should go to Cossatot Falls, camp out. We didn’t have any winter sleeping bags then, but the day was pretty warm, so we went. When it got dark, it started getting much colder than we anticipated, so we drove up on a mountain, found a truck load of pine knots in the dark, and that kept us busy, and warm, until close to midnight. Then, burning those pine knots kept us warm for a good while. But we had not anticipated the fact that we would eventually get sleepy, and that’s where the cold came in. Corey put on all the clothes he had with him, and tried to get in his bag, but it would only go on him up to his waist, what with all the coats he had on. We finally pretty well kept each other awake the rest of the night with our chattering teeth. The thermometer said 19 degrees, but the river WAS beautiful the next morning at daylight, with all the fog arising from the falls.

My latest episode of hard winter camping came a couple of years ago. I found a minus twenty degree sleeping bag at a garage sale. I figured I could take anything an Arkansas winter could throw at me with that bag, and my little tent. So, I went into the Ouachita mountains, drove until I had completely lost myself in those hills and valleys, found a likely spot with plenty of wood on the ground nearby, and set up camp. I spent most of the afternoon dragging up plenty of wood to my campfire area. I set up my tent, built a good fire, got really close, and just sat. As an old man, I find I can be happy for a long time, just sitting by a good campfire. It was getting really cold again, in the teens, with a stiff breeze. At bedtime, I went into the tent and started my small propane stove, got the tent cozy. I got in my bag, warmed it up, then turned off the stove. I didn’t like the idea of having a stove on when I sleep in a tent, just too many ways that can come back to bite me. Tomorrow morning, I would just reach out with one arm and light my stove, let the tent get warm, then get dressed. Everything would go perfectly. The bag was actually for two people, so I had plenty of room to bury up in it. But I DID have to breathe, so I had to leave a little tunnel to breathe through. The side of my face next to the tunnel lost all feeling that night, and stayed that way for a few days. Also, I was forgetting one thing. Old men usually have to get up a couple of times at night. And I was now an old man. That part didn’t work well. I didn’t have a good system worked out to keep from freezing during those expeditions. All in all, though, it was a good trip. I found my way back out of those mountains the next day, although it took the best part of a day. And, a few days later, all the feeling came back into the breathing tunnel side of my face. So all’s well that ends well.

I’m now planning my hard winter camping trip for this winter, but not while it’s as cold as it has been lately. Those single digits just won’t work. And, I’m going to do like my dad always did in the winter. I’m taking a jug into that tent with me. I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.

So, if you read in the paper, “Really old man found deep in the Ouachita Mountains, mysteriously transformed into a human icycle,” You’ll be able to put two and two together, and figure out the details. Anyway, I can think of no better place to meet my maker than in the mountains, or on the river. Not that I’m in any rush about that. I’ll be fighting for every last breath, even if I live to be l00, though the Gillums aren’t famous for that.