Many people will not even think of going camping in the snow or winter, because they don't want to give up their warm bed to a cold, wet sleeping bag, and what they consider torture- sitting around a campfire freezing you butt off and trying to keep warm. But it doesn't have to be like that. To me, a winter campout simply means bringing heavier, warmer gear and the need to run arround and play games all night to keep warm. And even the worst winter camping experiences turn into great stories.
At Right and Below: Trying to keep from freezing around a campfire
For example, my Boy Scout troop once went camping at an airport for a jamboree or something, when the temperature was arround 10-30 degrees. That night was cold. So we stood arround the lantern, bacause fires were not allowed at the airport, and one of our leaders, who works for the military, told us stories. We laughed our heads off as he told us about his experiences in the field and expanded our vocab. We learned the unofficial words for sleeping bags and bivvy sacks were 'the fart bag' and 'woobie'. Later, we wrestled in the tent (as usual) and eventually went to sleep, shivering. Unfortunately, that morning I found that putting your shoes outside the tent is a bad idea. They were covered in frost! that was miserable. And later, while cooking breakfast, we found it was too cold for our stove, and was barely spitting out flame. We ended up eating half-raw bacon and eggs that somebody (possibly me) happened to have found weeks after the hens had laid them, and turned out to be half-developed. We threw most of them away. Overall, it turned out to be a great campout, although other people would diagree.
At other times, I have had to wake up at three in the morning to coax a fire from a single spark to blazing, to keep from freezing. Actually, I have done that many times as I happened to only own a 50-degree bag for many years. When your only other warmth is a t-shirt, (I sometimes forget my coat) it gets a little cold. On a few occasions I even caught my pants or sleeping bag on fire trying to get as close to the campfire as possible. I finally broke down upgraded to a 20 degree bag a few weeks ago! Unfortunately, I still have not gotten to use it.
Sure, each of these experiences kinda sucked at the time, but I smile when telling the stories. Bad decisions make great stories!
