Cold Camping

            For New Years weekend my wife Haley and I went up to my parents cabin. The cabin sits on 80 acres near Emily, MN and as you can see from my post yesterday the scenery is beautiful. The goal was to hangout, play cards enjoy the quiet woods and try camping outside to see if we want to do full on winter camping. This was a perfect time and place to try our little test. If we got too cold or wimped out we could just walk a few steps to a nice warm cabin. Since Haley and I both had that Friday off from work we headed up about mid morning. Which gave us plenty of time to unpack the truck, warm up the cabin (wood stove) set up the tent and enjoy being situated before dark. My parents also came up and were only a couple of hours behind us. Both Haley and I were getting psyched up and anxious about sleeping outside especially since it was going to be in the single digits.
            Our setup was Marmot firstlight 2. Minimum weight: 4lb 12oz Max. Weight: 5lb 5oz according to what I found online. I haven't weighed it myself. The firstlight 2 is a great tent for most camping. I wouldn't recommend it for car camping since it is so small. Bike camping, canoe camping, along with backpacking is more along the lines of what I think Marmot designed the tent for. The biggest drawback with the tent in our situation is that it is a three season tent. But I figured we could just throw on another layer of clothing or blankets. Plus we both sleep on Therm-a-Rest Women's Trail Lite which have an R value of 4.9. Yes, I got a woman's sleep pad. I am about 5'6" and the pads medium length and extra R value, compared to the mens, is a great fit for me. In addition to being covered head to foot in polyester clothing we each had goggles and hand warmers. I have heard that goggles go along way with keeping your face warm while sleeping. Haley was trying her new sleeping bag. A Kelty Cosmic Down 20. Good to 20° and filled with goose down. The pack size of her sleeping bag is ridiculously small, making me very jealous. It seems like my sleeping bag is nearly twice the size. With temps in the single digits and a sleeping bag that only goes down to 20° you might be thinking that I am a terrible husband but I also got her a Sea to Summit Thermalite Reactor sleeping bag liner. The liner adds 15° and being with your significant other adds 7° to 10°. I have a ten year old Kelty that i don't know much about except that it has been a trouper and has held up well. For a sleeping bag insert I used my hot weather bag. Lumber Jack. The bag says it is good down to 60°. I am not sure how many degrees that adds when it is stuffed inside my regular bag. We weren't very concerned with staying warm.
            We were concerned however with an incident that had happened shortly after setting up camp and right be for dark. My Mom, Haley and I saw what we all thought to be a bear climbing a tree maybe thirty yards from the cabin. I had just got back from riding on the four wheeler and my Dad was now out riding. Before he got back the animal had stopped climbing and was just sitting in a crotch in the tree about thirty feet up. My Dad did spot him though he never got a good look at it. The three of us who saw the animal climb were very confident that it was a bear cub. Which isn't a big deal, except we wondered why there was that small of a cub this time of year, where its mother is and shouldn't he be hibernating. If we were in momma bears territory and she got scared and sent her cub up a tree does that mean she might mess with us tonight in the tent. How do you make sure that you don't smell like food when you've been spilling your meals on yourself all day and having munchies. I don't know how hungry a bear would have to be to want to eat me and Haley, but if there was a time of year when a bear would be really hungry. I think it would be right about now.
            Well that bear turned out to be a porcupine, but we didn't find out until the next day. And an hour into sleeping in the tent Haley woke me up because she heard something. The wind was howling making the trees snap and crackle and pop right next to us. She said she wasn't going to be able to sleep and I wasn't sure if I would be able to fall back to sleep with the wind ripping like it was. We wimped out. Once we were back in the cabin my parents gave us a hard time and then asked what time it was. It was 11:59. Just in time to say happy new year. I hope to be able to post more successful camping stories in the future.