Soon a campfire is roaring and Fife begins a time consuming process of drying out the soaked leather boot. JB finishes gathering wood to feed the hungry fire. Darkness settles in.

Surviving around an campfire in the middle of a winter night may conjure up images of a peaceful firelit interlude, but in actuality it's difficult, dirty, exhausting work where one rarely gets a second to relax. Gathering enough firewood in the remaining light of dusk takes an incredible amount of energy. Driven by fear, the hikers know that once it gets dark and the fire is going, there is little opportunity to venture much beyond the camp perimeter. It's bitterly cold outside the fires sphere of influence, all your stuff drying out near the fire needs constant attention, and lacking flashlights, a few steps in the wrong direction will quickly turn into a nasty bush scratching and eye poking experience, while freezing your ass off.

Near the campfire things are not much easier. The hiker is undoubtedly sitting on a roll of foam, perched on top of a moss covered log that was hastely dragged into camp. Unless there was enough sunlight to fashion and place stakes, that log is ready to roll at the slightest perturbation, dumping it's occupant either backwards onto snow, or forward into burning embers. Constantly flexed in isometric fashion, like a muscleman at a bodybuilding contest, the camper must maintain balance while ducking thick acrid campfire smoke blown about as the wind randomly changes direction. That is not easy to do when one is loaded up with stuff like a Chinese acrobat. Boots off, your feet become a drying rack, a sock flopped over one foot and a glove over the other, that also happens to be the foot maintaining balance by leaning against a boot propped up near the fire by a good sized, but loose, rock. Your elbow is hosting several other items drying out, dinner is being held from burning over the fire with your right arm, your left hand is flipping your hat and a glove draped over a stick, also moving plastic water bottles that are about to melt near the flames as well as quickly handing off the smoke or booze that is being passed around. When the wind turns in your direction you lean way back, trying to balance over all that stuff, until nearly facing the snow behind you, swearing and hoping that the wind will shift back some time soon. But maybe before it does...whamm! The log slips and sends everything flying. Your sock falls in the fire, bare feet hit snow and dinner tips over. Coughing with red-eyed, blood-shot eyes, completely engulfed by campfire smoke, you faceplant into the snow with a soft thud reminiscent of a moose dropping a turd in snow.

Eventually as the night wears on things calm down a bit. Dinner is over and stuff is dry. Logs have sunk into snow, or a second has been found to form a stable seat. The wind dies down to the point that a candle will stay lit. Temperatures drop toward zero and below. Hikers sit around the fire staring absentmindedly at dancing flames. Talk and laughter is sporadic, and muffled by the snow filtered wilderness, it rises and falls like soft wind playing with ice coated trees. A smoke is passed, some whiskey too. Plans for big winter expeditions are made, the guys talk of being able to survive for an entire week up in the mountains. JB is now finally relaxing from the days effort, and as the whiskey warms his stomach, he is warming up to tell a classic story of winter survival. A haebar glows as it is passed back and forth between the two.

"In the winter of 1980-1981, Mt. Monadnock was the goal, but neither me or Tim had the equipment, or wheels to get up there." JB starts in thoughtfully. "In fact, we didn't have shit back then. We started wintah' camping back in 1972 when we were both 12 years old, did an Operation Deep Freeze, they called it that, at Camp Resolute, that's a Boy Scout camp in Bolton, Massachusetts. Fucking froze my ass off bad. Every year we did a wintah' trip, mostly overnight at places like Rocky Narrows in Sherbon or the Army Labs up in Sudbury, that's where a lot of Boy Scout troops often went. We used shitty summer stuff to go in the winter, a coffee can to cook Ramen noodles, and had cotton bags in some smelly Boy Scout tent. Man I remember one trip to Rocky Narrows in January, we wake up to find the Charles River had risen like ten feet and the river was in the tent about to float us away!"

Fife bogarted the haebar and listened on.

"Hmmmm," Fife says, "Is that minus 40 below Fahrenheit, or Celsius?" he asks naively. JB just smiles and takes a swig, "Someday when it happens again out here you will find out!" He roars with laughter, and tickled to death with his cleverness, is now stumbling off to take a whiz like a gumbie faced drunk. Apparently the story is over, abruptly, and the crew, tired to the bone, crashes out to the sound of booming trees and crackling embers.

Morning arrives crisp and cold. JB is up and working on some wood, with the fire starting to life behind him. Fife eventually crawls out. The two pack and head up the trail. Around lunch time the duo arrives at Franconia Falls. A multi-cascade of sliver water roaring down over ice coated waterfalls, crossing is tricky, but successful. Snow shoes are on now, and after lunch the duo continues upward.

By mid afternoon, they are in trouble up at maybe 2700 feet. The trail cut sideways along the face of a steep ravine and as they gain altitude it is becoming increasingly clear that they are woefully under-equipped to handle that terrain. The wooden Tubs snowshoes do not have crampons integral with the binding, so they are constantly sliding sideways downhill as the snow shifts underfoot. At one point JB, who was up front, has a big section of snow avalanche out from under a gingerly placed snowshoe, his sideways slide into oblivion checked by a small evergreen shrub that he was lucky enough to grab. Dusk is approaching and the wind, howling around, has the trees wobbling left and right as if they were shaking their heads, saying no, no, no. JB looks around and realizes that in fact there is absolutely no place to camp in the rugged notch, and by now he is suffering from an acute case of backwoods panic.

The decision to bail is an easy one. Neither are looking forward to traversing back across the slope, but lacking knowledge of the trail ahead, going further was not an option. Back down at the Falls, they cross and find a nice place to camp. It is out of earshot from the falls, since the sound of flowing water annoys JB no end. They camp there for the next two nights.

By the second night they have built a real nice log camp, complete with staked log seats on the uphill side of the fire, and a large log barrier on the other three sides as a windbreak. The camping is difficult with deep snow and nightly sub-zero weather. But lots of fun too, with the entire day to take care of chores at one's leisure, and explore the area, without impending darkness forcing a rushed panic. It's last night in the woods, so they party on the remaining booze, smoke and food.

The next day they pack up and snowshoe out. On the way JB takes one final look at their camp. Forest destruction from high impact survival camping is everywhere, and the resulting wood used to built a camp that looks like urban development. "Man we should of got a building permit!" JB says on the trail. The stream where Fife fell in is now completely frozen over and the two stand right on it laughing about the incident. At the car they load up packs tiredly and head for fast food in town.