I enjoyed the solitude of winter in the north, and really missed my fishing and ice fishing after moving south for my job. Now the only way to get my ice and snow fix was to take a trip every year or two for a week of camping and ice fishing in the dead of winter. My choice this year was a lake deep in the northeastern finger of Minnesota. Most of my friends thought I was nuts to go on these trips alone, but in reality I am pretty well prepared and safe. I use a large ATV pulling a sled with gear to get out into the wilderness, sometimes going as much as a hundred miles from the nearest paved road. I carried everything I needed, including a survival radio just in case. I found the best way to get out into these areas were to drive across the lakes. In the summer these lakes are full of canoeists, no power boats allowed except for emergency personnel. In the winter they relax the rules a bit, knowing that there isn't that much traffic. There are a few snowmobile trails, but I tend to stay away from them. The snowmobiles can rocket down these paths at well over fifty miles an hour and I don't really feel like getting run over by them. This year I was on a small lake about thirty miles north of the shores of Lake Superior.
I set camp three days before in a little grove of pines on the north shore of the lake, blocking any north wind with the trees and allowing the southern sun to get to my camp by day. Today was unusually warm, nearly thirty five degrees at noon time. Usually on these trips personal hygiene was a warm sponge bath every few days in the comfort of my heated tent. I learned a long time ago, a little propane goes a long way to making a trip like this more comfortable. I usually ran the heater in the morning and evening, letting nature take its course in the bulk of the day and through the night. If it got really cold, well below zero, I would let the heater just tick over to keep it comfortable in my doubled up sleeping bag on top of my queen size eight inch thick air mattress. Yep, I may be in the wilderness, but I do like my comfort. The weather report was for lake effect snow to move in tonight as the wind swung around to the east. That also meant that it would get colder. I took the opportunity to strip down and take a fast shower with heated water in two liter squeeze bottles just after lunch, drying off and dressing again before I could freeze. But man did that shower feel good. Now though the weather had turned darker, with black thick clouds churning across the sky from the south east. The wind had gotten colder too, with the temp nearly down to 28 already.
I walked my line of holes bored through the ice and checked my tip-ups, putting fresh bait on and then settled back into camp to watch the flags. This was relaxing fishing, just sit back and watch for the fish to hit your line. A flag popped up out at the far end of my string and I hiked across the frozen lake to get there. No particular hurry, in this cold water the fish moved slowly and I needed to give it enough time to turn the minnow head first and swallow it. I got to my tip-up and watched the reel slowly turn. When it paused I pulled it from the ice and gently took pressure on the line. Tug tug tug.... Yep there was a fish on it. With a good yank I set the hook and the fight was on. Fifteen minutes later and a lot of hand over hand give and take, I landed a nice 42 inch northern pike. That was my third fish for the day, and this one would be dinner for a couple days. I was about to re-bait the tip-up when I felt the first drops. Not snow, rain, and freezing rain at that! By the time I got back to my tent, cleaned the fish and lowered the tarp over my cook area I was soaked, and everything had a thin coat of ice on it. I had been through this before. Ice was one of the worst things for a tent, so I climbed into the tent and cranked the heat up, letting the warmth of the tent melt the ice off almost as fast as it froze on. Before long it was a balmy eighty degrees inside, and I was lying on my air mattress stripped down to nothing but my wool socks. My wet clothes were hanging in the middle of the tent drying. With luck they would be well dry before I would have to go out to cook dinner in an hour or so.
Dinner time came and I pulled on my heavy coverall pants and jacket, not even bothering to put other clothes on I was so hot. I pulled my wool cap over my head and moved out to cook dinner. After sitting in the sauna I knew it was going to be chilly, and I wasn't disappointed. I was also surprised. Everything outside was coated with a thick layer of ice and the freezing rain was turning to snow. I could barely see the lake thirty yards away and it was getting dark fast. I knocked the ice off the tarp and pushed the poles back up so I had room and lit up my stove and lantern. The wind had died down somewhat but the snow was falling fast and heavy as I fried fresh fish and slices potatoes. I had a quick meal, watching the snow fall and then went to work cleaning up my cook stuff and getting things set for the night. I heard a snowmobile, which was unusual to start with out here. What was more unusual was to hear one in this kind of weather. It must have crossed the lake from shore to shore twice before I heard it grow closer. To my surprise I saw its headlight aimed at me and it slid to a stop a few yards from my camp. Two ice encrusted occupants of the sled stood up, the larger of the two walking over, pushing up the visor of their full face helmet. Even as the person walked toward me I could tell they were both shivering and cold.
"Do you know where we are?" a female voice asked.
"Goose lake." I answered. "are you ok?"
"Actually, we're a bit lost."
"I would say so. How about some hot coffee and we can look at a map."
"That sounds great!" she said as she stepped under my cook tarp and motioned to her passenger to come too. She pulled off her helmet and a mop of tangled long blond hair fell over her shoulders. "We got separated from our group and have been wandering around trails for hours trying to figure out where to go." she said as she crouched down, her hands shaking so much she almost couldn't hold onto the mug of coffee I held out to her. Her passenger pulled her helmet off as well, revealing shorter blond hair, but clearly a sister or daughter. I poured a second cup of coffee and held it out to her. I watched them both shaking like leafs as they tried to drink the steaming coffee.
"I know this sounds forward, but you need to get out of those wet clothes and get warm before hypothermia takes hold."
"Not much warm place around her to do that." The older lady shivered.
"Kick your boots off first and try not to get my sleeping bag wet. You can get into my tent. I have the heater running in there."
"Oh that would be super!" the younger said moving immediately toward the tent.
"Daina, we need to find Joe and the others! They have to be worried sick about us!" The older one said.
"Why don't both of you get inside and warm up. I have an emergency radio. We can call the rangers."
"Thank you!" she said as she moved to follow the younger one into my tent.
I have a pretty good sized tent. It can sleep six easily, but with my air mattress in there, there just isn't tons of space to stand. I climbed in after them and the three of us crowded around the one place to stand, all trying to peel off cold weather clothes. I piled their clothes up on one side of the tent, not too close to the heater so they would catch fire, pushed my sleeping bag back so they could sit on the air mattress and got them settled.
"Aren't you going to get undressed?" the younger of the two asked me as she sat on my air mattress, sipping her coffee, obviously starting to warm up.
"To be honest, I would, but my clothes are on the other side of you."
"You mean you're not wearing clothes under there?" The older one asked.
"Well, to be honest... No. I was in here keeping out of the rain and it was hot. When I decided I wanted dinner I didn't bother to get dressed....Why am I explaining this to you?"
"I don't know." The older one said with a little grin.
"If you would be so kind as to toss me that set of shorts behind you I would be happy to go outside and get changed." I said, turning a little red.
She put down her coffee and leaned back across the air mattress to get the pair of shorts that were hanging out of my duffel. I had a chance to look her over a bit while she did. She was thin and tall, probably five ten or so and not more than a hundred thirty or forty pounds. The spandex type pants she was wearing hugged her lines revealing she was wearing a thong shaped underwear and her turtleneck top didn't appear to have any bra lines holding what appeared to be a very firm pair of size D tits. Oh yes, and her nipples were hard as rocks from the cold, standing out easily a half inch. She sat back up with my shorts and handed them to me. "You don't have to go outside, we'll close our eyes." She said with that grin still on her face.
"Ok." I said uneasily as I unzipped and pulled my jacket off. True to her word they sat quietly with their eyes closed while I pushed off my boots and shucked the suspenders off my shoulders and stepped out of my coveralls. My survey of her body while she was getting my shorts had me partially hardened, and I heard her suck in her breath as I tossed my coveralls aside, wearing nothing but my wool socks. I quickly pulled my shorts on, trying to adjust my semi-hard dick to a less obvious position, but it was no use. There was no way they were not going to see it. I crouched down to hide it as best I could.
"Ok you can open them again." I said. "Now let's see if we can get the rangers on the radio." I continued as I moved around the two ladies to crawl across to my gear bag. I dug through and pulled out my GPS and radio. I could hear the two whispering and giggling behind me as I knelt down, leaning on one hand for support and digging in the bag with the other. I sat back on my haunches and rolled around to face them. I caught both of them looking down at my crotch, but trying hard not to be obvious about it. I looked down at my lap and to my horror, the head of my dick was exposed where my shorts had pulled up as I moved. They had a clear view of my purple head, and at least an inch of my dick. I quickly adjusted my shorts to cover myself and looked up at them. I was probably beat red by now from my embarrassment. "Let's call the rangers, ok?" I said, trying to get my mind off of what I had just inadvertently showed them.
"EX387 to Rangers...EX387 to Rangers" I called on my emergency radio. It was a small hand held, but it had enough punch in high power mode to reach thirty or more miles. The ranger antenna was high enough and sensitive enough to easily pick it up.
"Ranger station 2 to EX387. We read you weak but readable. Go ahead"
