With the right equipment and preparation, winter camping can offer quiet and solitude not available in other seasons. MICHAEL JAMISON/Missoulian

Camping can continue in wide world of winter

By MICHAEL JAMISON
of the Missoulian

Morning came crystal clear, and cold, but not just any kind of cold – a razor-sharp cold that bit to the core, cold enough to freeze your nostrils shut, and the world was absolutely silent.

Silent except for the groan and growl of super-frozen ice on the lake, crackling beneath an arctic stillness. Silent except for the occasional gunshot crack of trees popping in winter air.

Silent, finally, except for the squeak of powdery snow underfoot, announcing that Bill had roused from his sleeping bag.

“It’s cold,” he muttered.
“Twenty-one below,” my wife answered.
“You know,” Bill offered, “if it were 53 degrees warmer, it’d be freezing.”
Bill has a unique perspective.

The creak of boots, the hurried zzzzip of zippers, the clatter of skis, metal bindings whining in the frost, sunlight everywhere, blazing on pillows of white.
During the summer months, this lake is thronged with campers – kids and dogs and scolding grandmothers, Winnebagos and SUVs and motorboats. Picnickers.
But not today. Not in January. Even the bugs have abandoned the white season.

That’s why we’re here. For the quiet. For the skiing. For the chance to visit a familiar place from a new perspective. Bill’s perspective, here so far below freezing. To cross lowlands too swampy to travel in summer, now hard as ice, and to explore the beyond.

In winter, the greenery is stripped away, and you can see straight through to the bones of this forest, branches bared and casting a spider’s web of shadows.
There, an owl’s wingtips brushed the snow, and a vole’s track suddenly stopped. There, a wolf crossed the icy outlet. There, deer walked circles among thickets of willow.

These are winter’s stories, writ large.

If someone mentions winter camping and your first question is “Why?” then you probably shouldn’t bother. But if your question is “How?” then start gathering gear.
Gather skis and snowshoes, and a good avalanche shovel, and a puffy down sleeping bag with a home-sewn silk liner. Mukluks and hats and mitts and a frying pan.

Yes, a frying pan. Just fill it with snow (ice is always better, if you can find it), melt it all down, leave it out overnight and pop loose the ice-disk come tomorrow morning.
It makes a great window for your snow cave, once you’ve cut a hole with the tail of your ski. But be sure to spill a little water in before you start melting that snow, or you’ll scorch your pans.

Drinking water won’t freeze overnight if you put the bottles in the bottom of your sleeping bag, or better yet bury them deep into the floor of the snow cave. Just remember to mark the spot with a stick.

Sticks are handy, too, when building the snow cave – lop off several about a foot long and poke them through from the outside, so you’ll know how thick the walls are when excavating the interior. Later, those sticks make fine coat racks. Hat racks. Pot racks.

Split-level snow caves, snow caves with icy stairs leading to “lofts,” snow caves strung with Christmas garlands, cities of snow caves linked by underground tunnels. The good life. The subnivean life. Wintertime glamping. Igloo living.

We like to carve lots of nooks and crannies inside, for storage and candle shelves, and generally sleep high and dry on packed snow benches that line the walls.
Snow, in fact, makes great furniture. It’s flexible. You can carve lounge chairs and post-modern tables, sculpt trench kitchens roofed in plastic, mold beds personalized to your curves, complete with pillows.

Dig a shallow pit, line it with a black plastic bag, ring it with fresh snow and when you return from a day’s skiing the winter sun will have melted you a fine pond of cooking water.

Or, if you have to heat water over a camp stove, the mousepad from your office makes a great base to keep the stove from melting down into the drift.

An avalanche shovel digs a pit, and then morphs into a seat, a backrest, a snow anchor to stake out tent or tarp. A Zippo works better than Bic in the cold, a “windmill” torch even better.
Coffee filters strain debris from melted snow. A gallon freezer bag, filled with snow, makes a fine deadman in drifts where stakes won’t grab – and you can use it later to waterproof your pack from leaky bottles.

A hat on your head keeps your feet warmer. Really. Staying warm and dry is easier than getting warm and dry. Wind is worse than cold. Mittens beat gloves, and the mitten string your mom ran down your sleeves in first grade was a good idea.

Watch for colorful sun dogs, and shining sun pillars, and marvel at wind-sculpted sastrugi. If you don’t see any, say it anyway. It’s a good word.

Rocks, heated in a fire and dropped into a covered cook pot, make a welcome space heater. An old camp roll taped to a stick makes a door. A ski pole through the roof makes a chimney.
A sled carries gear and provides endless fun. It also serves to haul snow out of the hole while digging the cave. On a windy and frozen lake, two ski poles, a roll of duct tape and a small tarp combine to make a great sail.

Water freezes from the top down, so drop water bottles into your pack upside down, and the lids won’t freeze shut. An old down coat or a closed-cell sleeping pad can be cut into a “cozy” for your water bottle. And there’s no such thing as too many extra socks.

A warm water bottle in your ski boots at night makes morning brighter. Days are short, nights are long, and headlamp batteries last longer if you keep them warm. Books and cards are good. So’s a harmonica, or a cribbage board. Bring a chestnut, and roast it on an open fire. Or not. It’s dark at 5 p.m., so ski under the moon.
The world, contrary to popular belief, does not shrink each winter to the area lit by your hearth. In fact, the world grows larger, as impenetrable forests become wide, white thoroughfares, complete with nature’s sign posts to show the way.

Just ask Bill. It might be 53 degrees below the freezing mark, but there he goes, up and over the ridge, breath puffing like a steam engine and his internal heater kicking on high.
Now that’s perspective.

Reporter Michael Jamison can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at mjamison@missoulian.
com.