Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire What is the coldest night you have lived thru?

Elk hunting in Colorado. 17 below in a tent.

Winter of 1977.

Parents were building a house in the country and we had sold our house in town. We were living in an old, uninsulated farmhouse that had only been used as a summer home by the previous owners. We installed a furnace but could only put a very few runs to the downstairs. The bedrooms were upstairs. We had air temps in the low to mid -30's that winter. Don't know for sure just how cold it got in the upstairs. But I do remember my parents putting a thermometer on top of their bedspread the one sunny afternoon and it pegged at 34 degrees.

Two categories:

1. The coldest night for which I was prepared was elk hunting in the late season a couple years ago when it got down to 24 below zero and we were sleeping in an unheated pop-up camper. It was a little painful to breathe but we slept warm enough.

2. The coldest for which I was not well prepared was June of 1975 backpacking in the Gore mountain range. It snowed that night and all I had was a thin sleeping bag and an Army blanket. I was numb from the knees down all night. That's when I decided I'd never be unprepared again.

Hunting camp, Stanley Basin Idaho.

Brothers? That is God forsaken, it is not?

-57 DEG IN fARIBANKS, aK IN 1956. i WAS DELIVERING NEWS PAPERS. i HAD SO MANY CLOTHES ON THAT MY SHRUNKEN PECKER WOULDN'T MAKE IT OUT OF MY PANTS. i DID THE REST OF THE ROUTE STIFF LEGGED.
I didn't know that I hit the button, but shouting is appropriate in this case.

North TX when a college buddy and I went to see my parents between Thanksgiving and Christmas. My folks had an apartment behind the house that had a waterbed but since nobody stayed there, they cut the electricity, so no heat and no warmer on the bed. My buddy and I stayed out late drinking and chasing girls and when we got home the house was locked and my parents had gone to bed. We spent the night in the little apartment on the waterbed (and it was dang cold outside). We thought we were going to freeze and the next morning we were huddled so close together you have thought...........well you know, that we were of "that" way.

A night with my x wife...if she uncrossed her legs the furnace would start.................. seriously the coldest temp
I have experienced was -50� F static air temp here. Wasn't at night though but just before sunrise. Spent last Oct 4-5 in a cargo trailer in a blizzard...that was fun even with a heater.

Butler Pennsylvania Feb. 2002.

Gunner

February no tent, just a bag on the snow, got down to -30 or so, didn't sleep much


spring bear hunt with a super duper new thin lt. wt. bag that was supposed to be good to 23 F believe it got down in the teens, and I've had bags rated for 40 above that were warmer than thin pos

after that I test bags before I take them in the field.

have had to siwash with no bag and it got down to around zero, I slept pretty decent by the big fire I built, but man the sparks played hell on that fleece jacket!

Outdoors?

Long story short... was winter 2004/5.

If a buddy and his visiting "river guide/backpacking guide" friend consistently outvote you on a backcountry trip, there are two possibilities: 1.) your backcounty sensibilities aren't as savvy you thought, or 2.) your buddies are full of [bleep] and could get you killed.

The forecast "chance of snow" hadn't fallen by our arrival at the trailhead, so we left the ski's behind and hiked in.

Actual temps that night were unknowable - the briskly moving river rapids we rock-hopped across that first night was frozen over solid by the next AM. Camp was pitched, against my objection, in oxbow of said river. Conifer'd, sheltered leeward side of the ridge above us was just too far.... Later, TV news said low of -7F in nearest town that night, so God only knows what it was in that river bottom, wind and about 6in of fine driven snow (yeah, it showed up), but we damn-near had to go "Lee24" to survive the night. F! that was a cold night and a bitch of an AM start with numbed-dead feet.

man those cold nights sure make you appreciate a nice warm comfortable bed don't they

bonus when there's a lady's shaved legs in there too!

Don't remember the temp or lack thereof 2L2Q but, that damn Lake Erie wind cut through me like a chainsaw, brutal sombitch it was.

Gunner

1985,my brother and I put our stuff on a tobaggan,put on our snowshoes and went out in the 'Dacks for a winter camping/small game hunting trip. Daytime -15.nighttime -37* No real problems 'cept the fire melted down another 2 feet from where we dug down 3' for our tentsite..

Not extreme low temps, probably below freezing sitting on a concrete ramp wearing a field jacket without the liner, no long underwear, no hat, no gloves pulling panels with armor plating off to get oil samples from 2 A-7s with the wind gusting above 15 mph. The wind sure added to the fun of getting the panels back on.

Winter, 1974.

Pop up Tents,.....and propane heaters that were a joke,.....cuz' the propane was frozen solid.

Well below -40* (at that point it don't matter how much more)
the mild "Ground drift" wasn't worthy of the term "Wind",....nonetheless, turning one's face into it FROZE exposed facial appurtenances in a matter of seconds.




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I have a BIL who lived for a while about twenty miles outside the thriving metropolis of Brothers. A lot of good coyote and sage rat hunting but it can get a bit chilly come winter. Calving season when you are expecting over a thousand head can make for long cold nights.

My worst was the winter of 72-73. USS Grand Canyon was in the Tod yards in Brooklyn. No steam lines so no heat. I was in charge of fire watch division. 27 of us lived that winter without heat or running water while the rest of the crew liver on a floating barracks and had heat and showers. High volume desmoking fans sucking outside air through our berthing compartment 24 hours a day because they were burning out old torpedo magazines below us. That was the worst and it lasted months.

Spent a night in a pickup truck on the Arctic Ocean in a storm....had enough gas to keep some heat in the truck.

September 11, 1991 was the storm of the century during moose season when temperatures dropped to -20F with 60 mph winds...way early for that kind of weather.

But those are mere child's play compared to a winter moose hunt up the Little Delta River......the temperature was dropping fast as we snowmobiled 60 miles in.....we quickly set up the wall tent and stove.....bucked up a pile of firewood....fluffed up our sleeping bags and dug a bottle of Crown for a drink before dinner.....The damned Crown Royal wouldn't pour out of the bottle!

Now that is a genuine wilderness emergency!

The coldest I ever had to stay out all night, was 28 Below Zero. I managed but it was tough. The worst was 20 to 30 below days flying out of Bethel. I could never stay warm in the airplane, we stop flying when it got down to 35 below, airplanes cold soak to much. I learned that some hand warmers in various places on your person helps a lot. and Good loose layers of clothing and above all stay dry.

When I was a teen we used to camp for weeks at a time in the Homoochitto National Forest. The closest I ever came to dying from hypothermia was in weather only about 20 degrees. All our gear got wet right after dark when the pop up trailer we were in tipped up on end when all of us but two guys in the back bunk got out. After it tipped up it rolled down a big hill in and into a little backed up creek. The camper was pretty much totaled so we loaded everything salvageable into my toyota and tried to leave. But we got my truck stuck within 100 yards of leaving camp and were effectively stranded with nothing but wet sleeping bags and clothes. We tried for hours to get unstuck but only managed to get the truck sitting down on both axles. There was no way to get a fire going even using gasoline. We sat in the truck with the heater running in shifts then huddled around a coleman stove when it was our turn to get out of the truck. I still shiver thinking about it. I thought my teeth were going to chip from chattering.