Long Haul Trips - What do you bring? (Flashback)

Hey guys, when you are taking those butt busting long kite excursions, what's in your pack?

Me and John V took a SICK trip this last season to Lake of the Woods MN (saw kiteyakker and relatives/our friends in the beginning and end). I got a cheap Bushnell GPS off woot this past fall and we logged just under 50 miles.... I think that counts as long haul lol.

We brought:

kite pack,
military surplus folding shovel (excellent snow-based kite stake btw),
camelback - I wore mine inside my jacket, thinking about trying in the pack
First Aid Kit
Extra Gloves
Extra Socks
Extra (thicker) Balaclava/neck gaiter
GPS
Helmet Cam is on the list for this upcoming season
Extra Layers

Proposed additions (need some advice)
Digital Camera - too busy kiting or worth it?
Bundled Rope - I would never kite on marginal ice lakes, but other uses?
Tow Sleds? - For really really long excursions haha tents, etc
Two-way radio to a teammate? and then an earpiece for it?
Binoculars? any use? didn't seem like a whole lot needed it when we went

Let me know what you guys think, and also any sweet long-haul locations, lake or land based that you know of in the midwest. We're breaking personal records this season

We started making gear for a long haul trip. Haven't done it yet due to life getting busy, but in our test runs, we found that two radios would be a big bonus. We had white out conditions in one test and we were far enough apart that we could see each other. I put my kite down to go smaller and my buddy couldn't even see me. Radios would certainly be a great safety feature. Then you have batteries to deal with. We wanted to get small solar panels to mount to our sleds we built to keep batteries charged. For the sleds we used old creek boats. The displacement hulls work good because they keep the selds from tipping. My buddy put a snowmobile hifax along the bottom of his to make it track better and keep tight in the turns. We use poles from Ed at skipulk.com. He makes the best pulk towing system, I highly recommend it. His pulks are sweet too. One of our guys bought his high end sled to use and it's nice! Since us midwesters are mostly looking at lake travel with sleds, you can't beat it. You can bring all kinds of crap and be set. Even hot tents for drying out gear and hanging out in your t-shirt after trekking all day. In our test runs, I found if you have to travel upwind the whole way, it was faster just hiking it. Plan your trip with prevailing winds so that you don't have to hike the whole way and leave room for no wind days. If you get a good day of kiting, you can have a layover day. Also... Beer freezes. Better bring the hard stuff. Here's a pic of my buddies sled.. can't find any in action at the moment, but they really do work:



Let us know when you go. maybe we can finally put all of our gear we put together to use on a trip with ya. Ohh, and you really should get some tele skis. We got touring skis. Like XC skis with scales on the bottom and metal edges. Then you can trek when there is no wind. WAY better then snowshoeing it. Plus you can use them while kiting. Get a soft boot for trekking, but stiff enough for kiting. Like a tough leather boot or something like the Scarpa T3.. which they don't make anymore. But there are other options. Just a light 3 pin binding works fine. I got Voile bindings and they work fine. They have a removable heel strap that you can choose to use or not.

Start planning now, it'll take a while to collect all the toys you'll want for a long trip in the snow!

I have tossed a road flare in my bag when I have gone on my own . It happened to be in the trunk and I was mostly visible from the road so it seemed like a good idea ?

I was dumb enough to think my cell would work

wow that got my stoke on.....

Yea we will have to get together sometime. We threw around the idea of kiting on lake Winnipeg or Manitoba one of these times for a full weekend. They are both obviously huge. Also the red lakes (if you wanted to meet more in the middle).

Most of us are boarders, and although it did take a long time to get upwind, we still made excellent progress on lake of the woods. We started at the south-west ramp and upwinded to springsteel where we had lunch and booked it back downwind (35 mph ). Sleds and radios would be our biggest advantage items if we really wanted to stay on the lake for a long time. We could haul for 10 miles or so to the middle, then drop the sleds, do some freestyle and setup the tents to get warm again. That sounds pretty sweet

I'll post on the meet up when we are thinking about going places this winter

I just sold my Snowtrekker tent to my buddy because with the little kids, I couldn't see getting much use out of it with the family or I'd have little kids with burn marks all over them. Check it out:



It uses a little wood stove and MAN they are nice. Probably the best hot tent money can buy. They pack up small too. It can be -10 outside and 70 degrees inside. Our plan was to kite from Waroad MN to Kenora across LOTW. It was going to probably take us 2 weeks I bet. All those little island would most likely tear up the wind and trekking would be involved. Plus, you need a border crossing permit. Lots of hoops to jump through and red tape, but someday we'll do it.

If you bring a sled, you can pack steaks! The cold will keep them chilled. Otherwise standard issue freeze dried goods pack up small and only need boiling water to cook. I like BACON and recommend it for winter camping. Get your food load up before bed and you'll stay warm buring all that fat. You can wax your board with the grease... haha, probably not the best idea, but maybe! See if you can get a bear to chase you on your kite following the bacon grease trail.

If you insist on boards.. Get a split kit and some skins. Saw that board in half. If you're only basecamping from a tent and kiting, then it's not a big deal, but if your 2 kite days away from your car, and you have no wind to make it back, that could easily be 3-4 days walking and if you're in snowboards boots, you might as well lay down and die. Or at least be prepared to have a miserable trip back. At least bring the snowshoes. But you know as well as I do, you can kite in lighter winds on skis then with a board. I prefer a board too, but for long distance travel, skis are just so much more useful.