John Day river trip, 4th day on the water.
Camping immediately above a 45° round rock slope made loading the Canoes a bit treacherous the next morning. I often turn the canoes upside down at camp and tie rocks to the seats to keep the strong up canyon winds from stealing them.
For whatever strange reason these rocks must have been a unique habitat because when I turned the boats over in the morning they were filled with hundreds of intrepid non-web dwelling spiders. It would’ve been too much work to try to get them all out so down the river we all went, with the occasional startling moment, like when spider suddenly appeared right in the center of Liz’s vision on her sunglasses! Generally I’m the one who’s terrified of spiders so this was very satisfying to watch.
More river, more canyon, more desert scenery. We made camp for the evening on a rocky bar across from a spring. As I mentioned earlier I’m a big fan of camping on rocks as opposed to dust and sand.
My most recent innovation in minimalist camp cooking is to bring a bag of carrots. My simple alcohol stove will boil exactly 1 quart of water per burn, and I’m always trying to invent ways to get more cooking out of that meager amount of fuel. It’s become sort of a game for me.
First I cut in the carrots, and then when the water is steaming I pour it into our tea cups, which leaves about 25% of the water and about 25% of the burn time left. Then I pour in whatever we are cooking for the night and let the burn finish. At this point the carrots have a lot of thermal mass so even after the stove dies they continue slow cooking the rest of the food for the next five minutes. Not only is this superbly efficient but the carrots form a barrier so the food doesn’t burn or stick to the bottom of the pan.
With carrots the meal is heartier, stays warmer, and clean up is just a quick pan rinse. Doing three burns a day, a liter of fuel lasts 6 days. So much more to say about cooking with alcohol but I’m probably out of space here…
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