John Hotze's Christmas 2002 Trip Report
1-2-2003 - Rose, Karen, Bryon & I arrived at the cabin about 2:00 PM Thursday December 26th. After driving past the 2nd gate at the caretaker's home there were no tracks in what appeared to be about 12 inches of snow. I had to guess where the farm road was all the rest of the way. After crossing the spring and heading up to the cabin, the car became like a snow plow and was unable to continue for more than about 15 feet. I backed down into the spring and pulled up what was obviously the road leading past the farmhouse. I had to park about 30 feet up this way. We carried everything to the cabin from there.
I got the kerosene heaters fired up while Karen & Bryon got a fire going in the fireplace. Rose helped with the rest of the unpacking and getting situated. I think the temperature was around 30 until nightfall when it went down to the low 20's. After an hour or so it became evident that the new heater was going to flame up too high again so I shut it down and didn't use it the rest of the trip. Both the round heaters worked fine with the exception of automatic lighting. Part of the time I removed the guard and metal casing to fill & light them but after awhile I was able to relight them by tilting up the inner circular heater core and holding a match against the wick. It is a little difficult to work your hand with a lit match in for enough but it can be done. Needle nose pliers would have helped. I'm not sure if it is necessary if one was careful but I shut them down and moved them to the porch table each time I refilled them. Refills seem to be needed about every 9 to 12 hours depending on how high you run them. I see that a lot of black residue is accumulating on everything in the cabin from using these heaters.
I'm not sure what could be done to prevent the cabin from getting coated with the black residue from the heaters. I'm thinking of trying to see if I can scrub the ceilings down later this spring when the weather is warmer. Hopefully if there is an efficient wood burning stove installed in the cabin sometime that will prove to be a lot cleaner. I will close this report for now but I will probably think of more to add later. jkh