What a beautiful trip. It makes me a little sad that I never had any children to share such experiences with. :) Perhaps someday I will find a woman who can deal with my weirdness and produce a couple, hehe.

I also like camping with a hammock, but I do not have a good setup for the wintertime. I use one with a 'skeeter net built in, and hang a thin tarp over top as a fly to keep the rain and dew off. But by this time of year it is most too cold without some kind of underquilt. I must find an old sleeping bag to modify so that I can pull it over the hammock like some sort of sock-thing, so as to have the insulation underneath, or something. As I grow older, the hammock is so much more comfortable than sleeping on the rocks and roots, hehe!

For the deep winter camping, I usually set up a very small dome tent, and then bury it in leaves or snow to insulate it, and put a plastic sheet over top to keep it all together.

How soon will the snow start to pile up there? Our weather has been strange the past couple of years. We used to have snow on the ground by the end of Oct, but the past couple of years it has been into Dec before any has stayed. The rivers don't freeze over very much any more, either. I guess that is the global warming or something.... But on the bright side, the growing season is longer now, heh.