HIDDEN GEMS

DUTCH OVEN Decadence

Tips for cooking gourmet camping meals guaranteed to become a tradition

BY TIONA EVERSOLE

The fire crackles as the sun slowly begins its descent below the canyon walls. Nestled next to the flames is a large cast iron pot with a lid. Lifting the lid from time to time, the smell of the meal inside escapes and makes our mouths water as we wait patiently for the call,

“Dinner’s ready!”

Ideal for car camping and raft trips, the Dutch oven is a hefty kitchen item, weighing in at roughly 14 pounds (depending on the size). DUTCH OVEN SELECTION AND HELPFUL TOOLS When selecting a Dutch oven, opt for one that

While slightly heavier than other camping has a flat lid. This will allow your coals to lay level cookware items, the meals that a Dutch oven and distribute heat evenly, and can also second as prepares stand out from the typical foil pouch or an additional cooking surface. A Dutch oven with hot dogs on a stick. Plus, the Dutch oven serves as feet will provide room underneath to place a multipurpose cooking tool: use it to simmer, charcoal or other heating elements as well. boil, steam, sear, pan-fry, sautee or bake meals. Its Size and depth are also important factors to sheer utility makes the Dutch oven well worth consider, and will depend on your cooking goals. the extra weight. For overnight raft trips with large parties, opt for

Dutch oven cooking is something of an art: a larger Dutch oven — about 14 inches in it takes time and practice to perfect different diameter. For a simple car camping getaway with methods and recipes. But when done correctly, a friend or loved one, a smaller 8-inch Dutch oven a Dutch oven meal is one of the best outdoor will do just fine. A deeper Dutch oven is ideal for dining experiences. Whether you’ve already most Dutch oven meals, while a more shallow dabbled in cooking with Dutch ovens or are Dutch oven is best for baking. Having the lid interested in trying out this new skill on your next closer to the contents allows for browning the trip, up your camping meal game with these tips. tops of specific items such as bread.

The best kind of Dutch oven will have a flat top for the coals to rest on top. Cooking with a Dutch oven is an art — and like any art — takes practice to perfect.

Invest in a pair of heavy duty, heatproof gloves for handling the Dutch oven. A couple of other helpful items to have handy are a charcoal chimney (if choosing to cook with charcoal) that helps start the charcoal and will heat it up quickly, and a 4-in-1 Dutch oven tool. This nifty device assists with lifting the lid to check on the contents, and can also be used as a trivet for either the Dutch oven or the lid.

HEAT SOURCE

The most important aspect of cooking with a Dutch oven is to maintain consistent heat. Not doing so will result in uneven cooking. The best fuel for consistent heat is charcoal. Start by lighting the charcoal first and allowing the briquettes to fully heat up. Then distribute the briquettes above and below the Dutch oven, placing one-third of the briquettes on the bottom and the other two-thirds on top.

Wood embers are another option, but the embers produced depend on the type of wood. Softwoods, such as pine, produce a weak ember that is not ideal for Dutch oven cooking; whereas hardwoods, such as oak, beech and hickory, will produce a longer lasting ember.

FINDING THE SWEET SPOT

The trickiest part to Dutch oven cooking and baking is getting the placement, temperature and timing just right. Make sure to select an area with flat, even ground that’s out of the way of the wind to place the Dutch oven. Any kind of slope will tilt the Dutch oven and result in uneven cooking of the contents.

For most recipes, a temperature of 350 degrees Fahrenheit is ideal. So how do you determine how much heat is needed to achieve this temperature? A good rule of thumb is to take the diameter of the Dutch oven, double it and add one. For example, a 14-inch Dutch oven would need about 29 charcoal briquettes to reach 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

However, take this with a grain of salt. Factors such as the air temperature, type of heat source and the contents within the Dutch oven will play a part in the final results of your meal. Ultimately, practice makes perfect with Dutch oven cooking. The more you work with a Dutch oven, the better you will become at reading the signs for optimal meal prep.

TIME TO EAT!

When it’s time to move the Dutch oven from the hot coals, use caution and move slowly; the Dutch oven will be hot and heavy. Take the lid off and allow the contents to cool before serving, as it will be extremely hot. Let everyone know that it’s time to eat, and watch as the fruits of your labor are enjoyed around a warm campfire below starry skies.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake Recipe:

2 boxes yellow cake mix 2 cups water 6 eggs 2 sticks butter (softened) 1 cup vegetable oil 1 cup brown sugar 1 can sliced pineapple 12 cherries (optional)

Directions: Prepare and heat Dutch oven. In a separate bowl, combine cake mix, water, eggs, vegetable oil and one stick of butter. Set aside.

Once Dutch oven is heated, add the other stick of butter and brown sugar; stir until caramelized.

Lay the sliced pineapple on the bottom of the Dutch oven in the caramelized brown sugar. If using cherries, place in the center of the pineapple slices.

Pour the cake mix on top, cover and bake!

Pro tip: replace water with the pineapple juice from the canned pineapple.

For more Dutch oven recipes, visit our website at www.adventurepro.us/dutchoven-recipes.

Choosing the right tool. Technically you’ll want a “piolet” (French for an ice axe used in mountaineering). These days the terms are mostly interchangeable, but some old school climbers still differentiate “ice axes” as technical tools used for climbing steep snow and ice.

Go to snow school: Take a mountaineering class or hire a guide to learn fundamental skills like efficient snow travel techniques, footwork and selfarrest with an ice axe.

Spring Mountaineering

Increase the length of your peak-bagging season by learning how to navigate snow-covered terrain

WORDS AND PHOTOS BY SUZANNA LOURIE

It’s no secret that outdoor enthusiasts love spring — mountain bikers rejoice for dry trails, backcountry skiers praise a more stable snowpack. But for some of us — the trail runners, hikers and peakbaggers out there — spring can feel like a three month waiting game, as if a mountain is off limits until every last snowfield has melted off its flanks. It doesn’t have to be.

For me, embracing the snow doubled my peakclimbing season from three to six months. It allowed me to push my limits and achieve things I didn’t think possible. Most importantly, it created a new way of relating to the mountains in my own backyard. I found freedom at 13,000 feet while looking out over a San Juan skyline — dramatically draped in white, muffled and deafening, all at the same time.

Sure, it’s more complicated — there’s extra gear to carry, no trails to follow, avalanche and snow-related hazards to consider. But, for those of us who feel inexplicably called to the mountains, the reward is well worth the effort. In fact, discovering snow climbing or “mountaineering,” in the general sense of the word, is a blast. If you’ve ever StairMastered your way up a San Juan choss hill, I can assure you that scampering up a snow slope in spiked boots is objectively way easier (and more fun). All you’ve got to do is put in the time — learn the basics and get some new gear, and you too can enjoy a snow-covered summit right in your own backyard. With a bit of planning and preparation, you don’t have to wait for summer to reach a mountaintop. HERE ARE FIVE TIPS FOR SPRING SNOW CLIMBING:

1. GO TO SNOW SCHOOL

Take an avalanche education course. There are many resources out there, and deciding where to start can feel overwhelming. THE ESSENTIALS: • There is only one certifying body of avalanche education in the country: the American

Avalanche Association (A3). Keep that in the back of your mind always. • Where do I take a course? The A3 doesn’t offer courses itself but instead authorizes certain providers to teach its curriculum. One well known provider is AIARE, but plenty of local guide companies offer courses as well. To find a course with an official provider near you, visit www.avalanche.org. • Familiarize yourself with your local avalanche forecasting center for daily reports about avalanche risks and potential dangers where you live. For Colorado, it’s the Colorado Avalanche

Information Center: www.avalanche.state.co.us.

2. GET EDUCATED

For all types of climbing, your first layer of security is you. Knowing how to efficiently travel across snow slopes using proper footwork/crampon techniques is the key to preventing injury. Mountaineering involves a lot of sharp, pointy tools that are designed for protection, but can achieve the opposite if used incorrectly. THE BASICS: • Snow travel techniques: Safely walking on flat or steep snow slopes in variable conditions includes footwork techniques such as step-kicking, front-pointing, crossover step, duck foot and plunge-stepping. • How to use an ice axe: Understand basic self arrest techniques to stop yourself in the event of a fall on an icy or steep slope. For this one, there is no substitute for hands-on practice, and I recommend learning from a professional.

• Crampon techniques: Know how to walk in crampons (it’s harder than it sounds), and be sure to understand how to put them on, take them off and make adjustments. Snow can be hard or even become full ice, and crampons are your lifeline. Practice footwork techniques wearing them. • Take a class. Sure, a class isn’t required, but it’s definitely your best bet for learning these skills and getting hands-on practice in the backcountry. Look for a course offered by a local organization like the Colorado Mountain

Club or check out a regional guide service.

3. GEAR UP • Mountaineering boots: Leather, waterproof and insulated are a few characteristics of a good boot. Double or plastic boots are overkill for the Four Corners area, just make sure it’s solid, sturdy and warm enough to be covered in snow all day. • Crampons: Steel crampons with 10-12 points (look for horizontal front points versus vertical which are used for ice climbing). Universal or step-in crampons are easiest to start with since they will fit any type of boot. Make sure you know how to fit your crampons properly to your boots before going out. • Ice axe: Keep it simple — look for a single axe designed for general mountaineering or glacier travel. The shaft can be straight or slightly curved — experts recommend 60 centimeters minimum for the length. • Helmet: Climbing-rated helmet for rock/ice fall — make sure it fits over a hat. 4. PLAN (AND UNDERSTAND) YOUR ROUTE

Start small. Even for the most experienced peak-baggers, climbing mountains in winter will feel like an entirely different world. Terrain looks different, new hazards exist and you need to know how to navigate off-trail (i.e. map and compass). Start with an easy (Class 1) hike on a popular trail where you are certain you will not get lost. Build from there and wait to tackle a peak until you’ve built a foundation of confidence moving through snow in the backcountry. THE PLAN: • Learn to navigate with a map and compass. Batteries die in colder temperatures, so don’t put yourself in a position where you’re forced to rely on technology. • Study maps of your route and understand how the terrain will look in real life. Remember it will be covered in snow. • Know the meaning of avalanche terrain, slope angle and terrain trap, and learn how to identify these features. • Have a backup plan.

5. START EARLY

You have fewer hours of daylight in spring than summer, so prepare to start before dawn. Hiking on snow takes roughly one-third longer than what a typical hike would take on a trail (if a climb takes 7 hours in summer, allow 9-10 hours, if not longer). In spring, north-facing slopes are ideal snow climbs because the sun hits them late in the day. That blissful ease of ascending a snow slope goes out the window once solar radiation hits. Warm slushy snow is not only dangerous due to the increased risk of avalanches and rockfall, it’s also terrible to move through, thus prolonging your exposure to these objective hazards.

At the end of the day, have fun. Pushing your comfort zone is the very essence of adventure, and the mountains offer an excellent stage for challenge and growth. Embrace it, enjoy it and don’t risk losing it. Practice safety first, so we can continue to experience new adventures in the alpine and enjoy all of the abundance in our own backyard.

The term “mountaineering” traditionally refers to the act of getting to the top of a mountain using ropes and traveling across glaciated terrain. Today, it encompasses everything from multipitch rock or alpine climbs, to ski mountaineering. For this piece, we’ll use it to refer to non-technical (non-roped) ascents over moderate to steep snow slopes.

The “American Technique” or “Hybrid Step” involves a combination of flat footing (aka “French Technique”) and front pointing to securely ascend slopes steeper than 40-45°. SUZANNA LOURIE is a former journalist turned wilderness guide whose love of the San Juan Mountains inspired her to pick up a pen and paper after a six year hiatus. You can usually find her above the treeline on some remote peak between Durango and Ouray running (downhill) with her pup, Oso.

BONUS TIPS:

• Bring a more experienced partner. • Always tell someone about your plan before heading out. • Seek out learning opportunities. Join a mountaineering club or climbing group near your hometown. • Embrace the beginner’s mindset. Be okay with turning around. • Hire a guide. If you’re still feeling apprehensive about a snowy summit climb, trust your gut and go with a professional! Sure, it costs more, but there’s no substitute for hands-on learning. • Conditions are important. Be a student at all times. Don’t just check your iPhone’s weather app. Familiarize yourself with resources like www.weather.gov and understand how patterns might affect avalanches and other snow hazards. • Know your limits.

For more information on ski mountaineering gear and a suggested packing list for spring summit climbs, head to www.adventurepro.us/springmountaineering-gear.

Cause & Effect:

Wolf Reintroduction

Can wolves returning to Colorado actually help the state’s cattle industry; and how much do we really know about the predator’s impacts?

BY RYAN WICHELNS

Wolf Reintroduction

Chris O’Bryan almost seemed to stumble across the idea while talking: “That would be a really interesting thought exercise,” he said after mentioning that there was a possibility wolves in Colorado could actually help the state’s cattle industry.

O’Bryan, a postdoctoral fellow at Australia’s University of Queensland has spent a lot of his career examining the unforeseen impacts of bringing big predators back into an ecosystem. A 2018 study of his published in Nature Ecology and Evolution compiled the effects of leopards in India, red foxes in America and falcons in New Zealand, among others. But even he would admit that the impacts these animals have on their environments can be hard to track.

Bringing wolves back to Colorado — a plan set in motion when a ballot measure ordering such was passed narrowly by Colorado voters last November — has some better known benefits: wolves eat deer, which could both lower the number of deer-auto collisions in the state, as well as help keep deer-assisted diseases like Lyme disease in check. But it was a comparison to dingoes in Australia that made O’Bryan perk up.

“Deer and elk directly compete with domestic herbivores — with cows,” he said. According to O’Bryan’s study, dingoes play a role in controlling populations of red kangaroos, Australia’s most prolific native herbivore and a constant competitor for grazing space with cattle. By killing kangaroos, dingoes have actually made it easier for cattle to eat. Sure, O’Bryan said, the occasional dingo might attack a cow directly, but his study notes the predator has still managed to increase a pasture’s output and profitability.

Could the same thing apply to Colorado’s incoming wolf population? Elk in particular are a major competitor with cattle for grazing space in the state, and also happen to be major food sources for wolves. But O’Bryan says that like so many of these cause-and-effect scenarios, it’s hard to know for sure until we can observe it.

According to Colorado Parks and Wildlife, humans overhunting elk and deer led gray wolves, once prolific statewide, to turn to a new prey: livestock. Consequently, wolves themselves were eradicated from the state by the 1940s. And prior to Election Day 2020, a wolf’s possible impacts on cattle were precisely one of the larger arguments against returning the predators.

Michael Robinson, a conservationist with the Center for Biological Diversity is skeptical about how the Australian study

will apply to Colorado, saying it’s more often cattle that push elk out of grazing land, rather than the other way around.

“It seems fairly obvious to me that livestock tend to displace animals such as elk,” he said. That would mean the elk that wolves are eating are largely deeper in the woods and not at competition with the state’s cattle.

But in reality, whether or not wolves will help or harm cattle in Colorado isn’t something we can answer definitively until the wolves return — a process that isn’t scheduled to begin for another year or two.

According to O’Bryan, so many of the effects of apex predator reintroduction — or any adjustment to the ecosystem — are intertwined and related in obvious or obscure ways, and it’s almost universally impossible to see all the potential factors involved until after it’s already happened. This is called a trophic cascade, the long chain of cause-andeffect that branches and weaves after a change to an ecosystem. In the case of wolves, who sit near the top of the food chain, that cascade is a waterfall, working its way down to the smallest pieces of the environment in multiple different directions. While we can know a lot of the major impacts, especially having seen wolves reintroduced to other Rocky Mountain ecosystems, a lot of the smaller details are simply impossible to notice. “It’s just like any prediction,” O’Bryan said. “They’re never really right. Predators have a cascading effect on species simply by being in a landscape.”

Robinson agrees at least theoretically: “Do we have a way of knowing everything that is going to happen? The absolute answer is no. But do we have a means of at least predicting the future? Yes.”

According to Robinson, wolves are among the most studied animals on Earth, and we have good reason to believe we know at least the major impacts of bringing wolves back to Colorado.

“Are we going to find wolves in Colorado that have six legs and fly? No, we know that pretty definitively,” he said. “Are we going to find wolf impacts on a random ground squirrel that we didn’t expect? Sure. But there’s a lot in between.”

“I don’t think we’re ever going to know every little impact,” said Nancy Warren, the executive director of the National Wolfwatcher Coalition, a wolf advocacy group. “We need to have an umbrella approach,” she said, advocating that we look at the big picture rather than trying to itemize every change. “I’m a believer that wolves have a net beneficial impact on the ecosystem.”

For O’Bryan, picking and choosing impacts isn’t the way to think about predator reintroduction.

“Generally, we know apex predators are important to the health of systems, and when you see ecosystem degradation, you see impacts on human health and well-being,” he said.

For him, almost everything about reintroducing a big predator like the wolf is a net benefit to the system, even if we don’t recognize them yet.

RYAN WICHELNS is a full-time writer based in Ridgway, Colorado. When he isn’t at his desk writing, he’s at his desk planning months-long exploratory mountaineering expeditions in remote ranges. Either that, or he’s skiing.