long winter nights are one reason that I may wait until 11pm to ski in and be set up by midnight, if I'm solo. Around here the local ski club will have hot cider and coffee at the trail head by the time I get there... but I always make coffee anyway. Melting snow and brewing coffee is just one of the things I love about snow camping. If I go with someone else we want a lantern and a deck of cards and perhaps other forms of adult entertainment.

phat
the times that I've been out when it was below -25 it was not for fun. I didn't really need to know that -40C = - 40 F and BTW my sleeping bag was rated at +32F but I had a snowmobile suit and a down jacket and a piece of rabit fur to put over the hole in my mummy bag and to be against my face. Of course now I can say that I've bivied at the base of the Eiger the day after Christmas, but at the time it didn't seem reasonable to be there...

No bugs - well fewer bugs as some seem to manage to survive regardless. However I have had a different problem pop up in shallow snow - mice that are not yet hibernating and extend their burrows up into the snow. They make a series of 3 foot hops across the snow kind of like a skipping stone and they can get into your food. I often hang my food 5 feet off the ground to keep the "go-atters" from munching on it.

Oh and birds. They change in the winter. I love the alpine grey jays. They will some times land on the tip of your ski or if you are sitting in the snow taking a break, they will land on my ski-pole standing upright in the snow by me. We get a lot of black headed junkos as small winter bird, and the quail seem to be present all year as are stellar jays and flickers.
Jim