[at-l] What's the coldest temp you've been out in?

[rockdancer97 at comcast.net]

I've spent about 10 nights out below zero, I used to help teach winter backpacking and camping for the AMC in the White Mountains (NH). On two occasions we slept out at -20 F, the limit of our gear. 

The one I remember best we headed into the woods near Lonesome Lake (on the AT) on a Saturday morning, the temperature was -5 F in the parking lot with the sun shining. By evening it was very cold, -12 or more. The novice campers were worried, wondering how to pack more people into fewer tents. I was co-leader and in awhile someone asked "where is the leader?" We found him in his tent shivering, he was already hypothermic. We pulled him out of the tent and marched him around in his snowshoes (the snow was 5 feet deep). We fed him sugar, fats and liquids and we could tell when he snapped back to his senses, a close call! 

One hiker asked if he could keep a lit candle in his tent to add warmth! (I said no) 

None of the Whisperlite stoves worked at -20, the only working stove was my Optimus Hunter 8R (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOOipuUIv20 for a working demonstration). 

The Hunter has no rubber seals and the Whisperlite has 2 or 3. The extreme cold made the rubber inflexible and couldn't build up pressure in the Whisperlites. Mine did all of the cooking that night and by next morning things had warmed up to +5 F. We had a big snowball fight to celebrate surviving the night, not a bit of frostbite in the whole crew of 8! We hiked up to Kinsman Pond for the exercise then headed back to the parking lot. 

--RD 


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tenacious Tanasi" <tenacious_tanasi at yahoo.com> 
To: "AT-L" <at-l at backcountry.net> 
Sent: Friday, October 16, 2009 12:38:24 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern 
Subject: [at-l] What's the coldest temp you've been out in? 




Mine was 0 degrees at the campground at a PARuck at the Iron Master's Hostel. :) 
Tenacious Tanasi 


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