Im curious about somthing. Which is the worst? After hiking all day and it is very cold out there and your setting up camp or at a shelter while soaked in sweat and being tired. Or the next morning awaking to very cold temperatures and having to crawl out of your sack for another full day of hiking?
We will be using 0 degree down bags and have wicking longjohns. I hope these keep us warm?
Cross
Cross
Yes, yes and so did we. When you’re moving you’re fine. When you stop and you’re wet and shivering it will be hell. Learn to be a pyro and have the ability to get some kind of fire going to dry out add some cheer. Mollies Ridge Siberian Death Camp was not cheery. Picture this; a foot of snow and ice, 15* at midnite, the plastic flapping on the front of the shelter in the fourty knot wind-which is blowing in the shelter, snow blowing in the shelter, moaning shapeless bodies moving around amoungst the swaying packs hung like racks of meat in the gray darkness…oh, and you have a +20* Saran rapper for a bag. I’m going to DIE here! Go with the O* and keep the stove nearby to heat a water bottle, so toasty on the footies. :>) and a sugar snack. Oh the memories.
Bramble & Bushwhack
When are you starting again? We startedin the Smokies March 5th, right after a snow storm, then it melted and turned to slush, then it froze, then it melted, then it froze, then it melted again, then our boots froze solid, all pretty shiny and everything. It’s all mental in the cold. Enjoy nice hot fire and some tea and all the boogie men go away, almost. Try laughing at your shelter mate’s misfortune, that always helps. Huh?, you ask? Don’t worry, your best of times will be cutting up with your new buds when you’re nearest to going insain. We laughed for hours over how a bicycles was/wasn’t fixed.
Bushwhack
Winter camping is a thing of attitude. Equipment and knowledge are one thing but enjoying it is another. Get aclimated to the cold the best you can. Try to concentrate the value of everthing, the warmth of your sleeping bag, the taste of hot chocolate, the way trees look when frosted with ice, etc, but not how friggin cold it is. I agree… enjoy the misery with friends, it helps a lot. My best trips have been in the winter because of trail humor that starts in the cold (and because I love everything about winter).
scott
scott02
I have done several trips in the smokies. The AT can be bad around the winter time. If it ices just beware of the ice on the trail. It can be a lot of fun to try and figure out the easiest way around an obsticle. The important thing is to try and get your clothes dry when you get to the shelter. It takes a while sometimes.
James Deane