Someone said that winter camping offers less appeal as you get older. I stopped to wonder what is or was the appeal of winter camping?
besides the obvious like few people, white snow winterland, crisp cold air, skiing to camp, and clear cold nights with the stars above...
Anyway I'm thinking my original attraction to winter camping came from the thrill of being somewhere sort of dangerous and new and unknown, and doing crazy things. We would dive off the end of our "camp" into 4 feet of snow and crawl through it and climb snow piles that are trees in the summer and slide off them. Pretty much the same reasons I became a boy scout, took up rock climbing, skiing and dating.
Now I look at winter camping and mountain travel as subjects I am well versed in and they no longer seem so exotic nor challenging so going just to say I was there is no longer a valid pusuit.
I DO love to winter camp and I guess I do more winter camping than summer camping. I love setting off in the snow on skis with a pack. Lots of times if I'm alone, I wait until 10:30 or 11 pm to drive to a snow park and ski in by headlamp. Note this is sasquatch, wolf, mountain lion, coyote, bear country. I haven't yet run into anything while night skiing, but I'm sort of preparing myself.
Why do you winter camp?
Jim