Winter Longhike Logistics

Organization Timeline

Decide when Winter Longhike will take place. It usually happens the 1st or 2nd weekend after the Christmas break, before people start getting too overwhelmed with school.
Book a room for the pre-trip meeting on a night the week before the trip (It should be able to fit more than 100 people). A room with a big chalkboard makes it easier to sort out rides.

Decide where you will be holding Winter Longhike. Consider # of ppl, and if you want to cap numbers (this is important for high use areas, i.e. Red Heather, where other Backcountry users don't like to see big hordes of VOCers.) Post on other backcountry forums that a large VOC group will be in the area. You might also want to consider to split the group into two depending on group size. Make sure that the snow pack at the destination you choose is sufficient for snow cave building.
If you are going into a high use area, it is good to check with the owners/maintainers of the area (i.e. the rangers in Garabaldi park - Kendra) to ask for 'permision'. Do this before Christmas to avoid long delays in communication because people are away for the holidays.
Make sure you have sufficient instructors/leaders. The number of instructors are not particulary important as long as there is a bunch of people around to show the way and give a few tips on snow cave building.
If you are going to a place without an outhouse, you should think about 'pack it in, pack it out' in relation to ALL human wastes - biodegradable dog poo bags are about $4/50 or so from IGA. Explain how this works at the pre-trip meeting - beginners might not know things like the need to bring a heavy duty outer bag/container to put the poo bags in.
Advertise on the message board and create a wiki-page at least 2-3 weeks before the trip, although ideally this would be posted already before the break.

Usually there is mulled wine for Saturday night - the money/wine usually come from Glacier school left overs. Depending on what the exec decides, the club can otherwise pay for wine out of the social budget or ask participants to make a contribution to the wine fund. Make sure that you have someone to help carry the wine.
Hold pre-trip meeting, where everyone organizes rides, food and cave groups. Rememeber to cover how to build a snow cave and winter camping basics. Lots of participants have never camped in the snow before.

Google Drive of Helpful Organizational Tools: