Night two for Mark and I sleeping in the snow!
Tucked inside our sleeping bags atop our mega sleeping pad (more on this later) inside our tent, Mark and I were certainly protected from the dangers of the cold clear night, but we were not entirely immune to it. At 3 am, we were both too uncomfortable chilly to sleep, so we boiled hot water bottles, added an extra and layer and got a few more hours of slumber before waking to a bitter cold morning. Sleeping at the base of a western facing slope, we were not greeted with the first rays of sun. Instead we were awoken by its light and forced to eat our oatmeal and break down camp in the shadow of the slope above us. Even as we started to hike our toes and fingers were still slow to warm up.
We skied one lap, but since we were only two miles from Tennessee pass, decided to head back to the car and go warm up by the fire at the Nordic center. This luxury and some hot coffee revived us and we decided to go back out and ski some more. We felt like a goof troop for having camped at the base of one of our favorite ski spots, hiked away from it and then hiked back to it in the same morning. But between the warm fireplace and the great skiing, we had no regrets.
Moving forward, we still need to figure out the best way to store our boot liners to keep them warm without all the moisture that collects in them sopping into our sleeping bags and add just a few more degrees of warmth to our sleep system. A definite win, new to our camping system, was our double wide sleeping pad. Previously we had been on our own separate inflatable pads. With that setup, we were sliding around a lot and much less comfortable. With the two person pad, we stayed in place all night, and felt like we had a lot more floor space without the air gap between us. We slept better and awoke fully ready to advocate that any pair of people camping together should consider investing in a two person sleeping pad! As we dial in our system, we’re looking forward to spending more time reaping the rewards of camping in the winter backcountry, and less time dreaming about the fire place in the Nordic center lodge!