Snowcamping 101. Left for the town of Arnold on Friday Jan. 29th. This was going to be a great experience w/ the Sierra Club. We started Saturday morning on Hwy 4 near Bear Valley Ski Resort. All 27 of us hiked(snowshoe) & skied for 2.5 miles past Lake Alpine up over a ridge to our final destination, just above Duck Lake. What a view. The frozen lake below and incredible Mountain ranges in the distance, made for a great campsite. We all got busy digging our snow shelters(trenches).
The next task was to dig out a snow kitchen. What a cool thing it was to have almost 30 people enjoying a meal watching the sunset. Everyone worked in unison either cooking the meals or boiling snow for drinking water.
As evening became later most went off to our trenches for a nights cozy sleep. Believe or not, inside a trench the temperature stays around 30 degrees(if built properly). Climbed in the bag w/ my two warm Nalgene bottles and instantly was warm. It got a little cold around 4 in the morning, but ate some brownies & drank some water, which was still warm.
Morning came and it was clear as can be. We all sat around & had breakfast. Bacon is quite popular with campers. I choose oatmeal. Pack loaded, snowshoes strapped on and off we went back up the ridge. A few hours later taking our time we arrived back at the cars. It was an amazing experience in the snow.
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