Go winter camping

“Went out to a local state park for the night to test some new gear, temperatures were about 10 degrees colder than predicted when I had made my reservation a few days earlier. I was at a close walk-in site, only like 200 meters so I figured I could just wander back to my car if I got too cold. Well. It was cold. But I didn’t need to head back to my car! I was wearing two pairs of pants, a long sleeve shirt and a sweatshirt, thick skiing socks, and a hat. My sleeping setup was my new REI Trailmade 2 person tent, a Nemo tensor sleeping pad (not insulated), the kelty galactic 30 sleeping bag, a sea to summit sleeping bag liner, and a big Coleman sleeping bag [...] Eventually I got comfortable by pulling the drawstring bit on the sleeping bag tight so that it was more like a mummy style bag and after that I slept super well!”

“One of my favorite trips happened the same year I started. It was mid-March, though it felt more like January. The temperature remained around the teens all day, and the snow was eight inches deep. That night we crawled into Adirondack shelters—just imagine a small shack missing one of its walls. Ice and frozen mud surrounded the entrances. I won’t lie and say that I wasn’t freezing that night. My body was fairly warm, though my feet were completely numb. I didn’t get the best sleep, but I felt pretty hard-core. I accomplished something most urban kids never will.”

“As someone who had been wanting to go camping for years, I genuinely loved the experience. Being out in the woods and not having to deal with the mundane parts of human existence for a bit was a very welcome experience. I enjoyed feeling like a part of nature, just another animal going about its business on Earth, not any more important than the deer and squirrels that were surrounding me. The real question is would I do it again in the winter? Absolutely not. While the camping experience was fun and everything I could have hoped for, I was uncomfortable and cold the entire time.”