Cold Nights

The reason I put up with cold nights is not toughness. It is that the same campground that needs a reservation six months out in July is completely empty in November, and it is a different place entirely.

Waking up warm and staying horizontal for an hour because the air outside the bag looks unbearable is a real problem. Here is the sequence I use to get moving on cold mornings without hating the first ten minutes.

I spent two seasons buying my way toward a warmer sleeping bag when the actual problem was six inches below me. What goes between you and the dirt matters more than almost anything else you pack.

The night I wore every piece of clothing I brought was one of the coldest I have had. It took me a long time to understand why piling on more layers inside a sleeping bag can actively work against you.

Most cold nights are lost before you get in the sleeping bag. Here is the routine I run in the last hour of a chilly camp evening, built entirely out of things I learned by doing them wrong first.

A late October trip two hours from home taught me that cold does not arrive all at once. It creeps up from the ground while you sleep, and by three in the morning there is nothing left to do but wait for the sun.