Winter camping: best and worst

[daway8]

Let's hear the best and the worst of your experiences learning how to pack for backcountry winter camping.

Whether you're a Winter Warrior who only needs a double thick loincloth and a light wind breaker to curl up in on the snow next to the elk or if you're a Winter Weenie who only camps if you have a Sherpa to carry your portable self heating hut with hot tub, let's hear what you put in each category below:

Category 1: Must Haves
These are are items you won't leave home without.
Category 1b: Unexpected Needs
Subcategory for the items you didn't think of the first time or two or that you now never leave out.

Category 2: Golden Extras
These are the luxury items you could do without but, oooohhhh, that extra pound or so is worth its weight in gold for making the experience less miserable!

Category 3: Dead Weight
These are things that maybe you initially thought were category 1 items but now you no longer feel they're worth the extra weight.

Category 4: Epic Fails
Any nearly disastrous winter camping fails others can learn something from?

Crossover Items:
I fully expect certain items may show up across multiple categories on different people's lists. For example, maybe one person sees a stove as a must have, another considers it a luxury and still another feels it's dead weight.

OWN your list! Don't be afraid to call necessity what others call dead weight. The Winter Warriors may impress some with their minimalism (and maybe we can learn a thing or two from them) but the Winter Weenies may have discovered a luxury item that makes the Winter Warrior say, "dang, why didn't I think of that!"

So let's hear from across the spectrum - whether you're a Warrior, a Weenie, a Wannabe, a Weirdo or a Winter Wizard - what's on your own personal list?

[letitbeirie]

1a) Shovel.

1b) Something to sit on. Even better if insulated, but worthwhile even if it's one of those awful ultralight camping stools.

[Aphelion]

1a: I don't think the winter camping needs differ much in this category from summer, assuming of course that the temperature ratings are adjusted accordingly. The only thing I can think of is more of a system than a piece of gear: how do you keep your liquids from freezing? I usually put them in the sleeping bag with me, and carry a proper thermos rather than Nalgenes or a soft-sided bottle.

1b: A shovel. I didn't think much of carrying a shovel for camping until one of my friends went to Denali and came back with a bunch of tips on how to dig yourself into a much more comfortable site. Being able to shovel out a low wall around your sleeping area, or a pit to sit in while cooking, make life much easier.

2: As a weekend warrior, most of my winter camping is single-night only. And for that, having a thermos of hot soup/stew instead of having to cook a "delicious" freeze-dried meal is great. It doesn't need to be the meal, some hot chocolate can be just as good for morale. Just heat it up in the morning before you leave, and with a good thermos it should still be hot that evening. Also here, I'm putting a tent. Winter affords a great opportunity to dig a body-sized hole in the snow, and that can provide a lot more heat than you think. I still use a tent most of the time, but a bivy in a snow grave works alright if you don't want to haul the weight and don't expect new snow.

3: Snow tent stakes. Maybe useful on the coasts where the snow is wetter, but I haven't found them useful here. Also, 4-season tents. Colorado weather just isn't that bad, the extra weight and condensation is not worth it.

4: I did spend a miserable night trying to sleep in a 0-degree bag, in -20-something temps, in a cold sink. That's more user error than any gear fault, but it's my winter near-disaster story.

[Wentzl]

Rollins Pass from the east portal to Winter Park in January.

Best: Frozen oranges.

Worst: Drying boots by the fire and having them catch fire.

[14er101]

Cat 1: A shovel and a good sleeping bag (also kind of Cat 2): I think an unreasonably warm sleeping bag makes those nights oh so much nicer.

Cat 1b: Warm Nalgene: On the colder nights, putting some hot water in a Nalgene and then into your sleeping bag makes life a little bit better and gives you a warm drink in the morning

Cat 2: Overall good food, hot chocolate, soups, etc. Not super heavy be amazing at boosting Morale. I also enjoy bringing really big flashlights, completely unnecessary but when your camping on top of a mountain and its -10F, sometimes its fun to flash your friend in fairplay with a light.

Best thing about winter camping: Bacon
Worst thing about winter camping: Rime ice has annoyed me a few times

[SnowAlien]

oh, I got some winter camping horror stories. Not too many and thankfully, not too disastrous to prevent from getting a snowflake.

February - Harvard from Frenchman creek. After a full day of trailbraking (on skis) my Big Agnes sleeping pad went flat overnight. Luckily I still had the foam pad. Very uncomfortable night sleeping on snow, but was fine and still got Harvard the next day (40 mph winds on the way back in the afternoon prevented me from getting nearby UN 13xxx)

January - Wetterhorn/Uncompaghre camping. We had 3 stoves between 5 people, and 2 out of 3 stoves broke. I spent 3 hours boiling water in my Jetboil for all. Got sick with the cold afterwards. Still got both summits.

March - North Maroon. Went to get running water from the creek and punched through with one boot. Completely soaked. Thankfully, it was the ski boot with removable foam liner. I stuffed the foam with hot Nalgene and it was mostly dry by the morning.

February - Lindsey. While carpooling and consolidating gear, I forgot the foam sleeping pad. Thankfully, it was pretty warm night of camping, so wasn't too terrible.

[Scott P]

Category 1b: Unexpected Needs
Subcategory for the items you didn't think of the first time or two or that you now never leave out.

I take a small piece of wood to put the stove on, otherwise it melts through the snow. Also, down booties for sleeping.

Category 3: Dead Weight
These are things that maybe you initially thought were category 1 items but now you no longer feel they're worth the extra weight.

Rain or waterproof pants. Of course that was a long time ago and I learned fast.

[nyker]

Essentials:
* "backup" food that doesn't need to be cooked
* extra (dry) wool socks
* some sort of extra light/extra headlight
* extra liner gloves

One thing I'll add going forward - hot chocolate packets - one trip I was on the summit of a local mountain at the tail end of a front/storm that was very cold and was one of days I just couldn't get comfortably warm and shockingly there was this couple on the summit, we were the only three people on the mountain that day. They had an extra pack of hot chocolate which was the best hot cocoa I ever had and really made the difference and made the descent much more comfortable.

[TomPierce]

OK, I'll focus my suggestions on Colorado vs. higher peaks, e.g. Denali expeditions, etc:

Must haves:

-Heresy, but I still strongly prefer a liquid gas stove for winter. Read that TR on the Culebra rescue: two different canisters failed? And the hoops people jump through for Jetboils. A water bath? Anyway, most seem to prefer Jetboils. OK, but the liquid fuel option has always worked well for me, super reliable if you use good fuel, and it's just not that hard to use. But I realize the trend is toward kid-friendly stoves.
-A winter-rated sleep pad is a must for me. Fwiw, mine self-destructed the last night on Denali, a -22 evening. Ugh. My theory is that the breath used to inflate and top up the pressure eventually froze and led to a puncture. Speculation.
-A small shovel or ice axe is pretty indispensable for digging out frozen tent stakes (or whatever you use for anchoring). Also nice for gathering snow to melt (but find running water if possible, which you'll probably need to dig down to anyway). But building snow walls? Find a spot in the trees, save that for Denali.

Nice to haves:

-I agree a 4 season tent may not be necessary in Colorado but it sure is nice to have a fly that goes down to the ground when the wind is howling, a (vented) vestibule to cook in and/or store gear under, etc.
-I'd opt for more bag insulation than less. A freak cold snap. or more likely a really cold valley/trough is enough to make a spot pretty cold & miserable.

Luxury item:
-A small brass candle lantern. Don't scoff! It's a few ounces, raises the temp inside a tent at night, and most important (to me) it seems to eliminate condensation. But dammit the candles only last about 4 hours...

Horror stories: I won't say "horror," but slightly miserable: Snow cave off Berthoud pass, a -5 night in a (supposedly) -5 bag. Ha, ha, probably slept a sum total of two hours. Or 3 guys crammed into tent near Longs Peak, sounds cosy warm? I think we measured -10 that morning. Inside the tent. Not fun.

-Tom

[markf]

OK, I'll focus my suggestions on Colorado vs. higher peaks, e.g. Denali expeditions, etc:

Must haves:

-Heresy, but I still strongly prefer a liquid gas stove for winter. Read that TR on the Culebra rescue: two different canisters failed? And the hoops people jump through for Jetboils. A water bath? Anyway, most seem to prefer Jetboils. OK, but the liquid fuel option has always worked well for me, super reliable if you use good fuel, and it's just not that hard to use. But I realize the trend is toward kid-friendly stoves.

Which TR is that?
There's a number of TRs on Culebra on this site, I'd like to read about the rescue without reading through all of them.

[CaptainSuburbia]

OK, I'll focus my suggestions on Colorado vs. higher peaks, e.g. Denali expeditions, etc:

Must haves:

-Heresy, but I still strongly prefer a liquid gas stove for winter. Read that TR on the Culebra rescue: two different canisters failed? And the hoops people jump through for Jetboils. A water bath? Anyway, most seem to prefer Jetboils. OK, but the liquid fuel option has always worked well for me, super reliable if you use good fuel, and it's just not that hard to use. But I realize the trend is toward kid-friendly stoves.

Which TR is that?
There's a number of TRs on Culebra on this site, I'd like to read about the rescue without reading through all of them.

Might be this one,
https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/triprepo ... trip=22011

[justiner]

I've been experimenting with getting my fuel canister stove working in cold temps. The water bowl trick works just fine. I'm going to make a Moulder Strip soon and give that a go. I think there are a few things you need to know about useing fuel canister stoves in the winter, but they boil down to getting the right fuel mix, keeping the canister warm, and some of the ideas like the water bowl trick, the Moulder Strip - heck you can even warm the bottom of the canister a bit with a lighter.