What is the coldest/warmest that you have camped in.

My buddy and I went winter backpacking in February and it got down to 0 F at night.
We knew enough to sleep with our water bottles, but never considered our boots.
Man O Man did we find out the hard way!!!
Our boots were frozen solid! Being stupid as we were, we just put them on, broke camp and started to hike. In my head I was screaming to stop, but I didn't want to be the chicken. My feet ached soooooo bad!!! It probably took over 1 hour for them to thaw on my feet.
From that day forward, I would take a stuff sack, turn it inside out and put my boots in it. Then that would go to the bottom of my sleeping bag.
Never had that problem again.
I can't tolerate heat well as so try not to at all costs. Hottest was probably 85 with 85% humidity...mosquitoes everywhere!!! Not my idea of fun. I'd rather be cold :D
 
-65f in an open air lean-to? Is that really possible even with two bags? Wouldn't just breathing in that air freeze you from the inside?
 
I have camped in -40C a few times in my younger years. It is tricky because everything you do has to be calculated. I have a good Western Mountineering sleeping bag (I used a Wood 5 star as well back then) that made the difference.

On the warm side about +37C in the Okanogan area. I found that easier.
 
Working above the Arctic Circle we had daily temperatures of -48C and at night it dipped as low as -55C with the wind. We had heated prospector tents though:p I have never slept as well since:(
 
-25C for several times, some of them with some wind.

We've built a wind shield with snow blocks to protect our tent.
That worked fine but the terrible sound of wind never kept us asleep.

No experience with higher temp. Just around room temperature.
 
Coldest for me was 0C in an incomplete lean-to with out a sleeping bag, just a raincoat. Hottest was around 38C, great fun to hike in! My dad and I were supposed to be heading off on a week long camp today, but 44C and Catastrophic level fire warnings made us decide to wait a day!
 
Coldest was in the 30s(F), Warmest was 110(F) in horrible humidity.....Im not much of a cold weather camper......
 
I once drove through 122 weather but the hottest camping was about 118 canoeing the Topok Gorge on the Colorado River in the middle of summer (what the heck were we thinking????). The worst part was when it dropped to only about a brisk 93-95 and humid at night. Great sleeping weather!

I bought gear for an AK dog mushing trip but never ended up going. Coldest camping was probably only about -10 to -20 during hunting season in Montana.

DancesWithKnives
 
Mannlicher said:
thats the one alright. We had a good turn out, did a lot of interesting stuff. Wish you had made it my friend.
All 'the usual suspects' were there.;)
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Darn! I just found out about it and we still have most our camping gear unorganized. We'll be set for the next one if Uncle Sam leaves me alone for a while:D

ROCK6
 
coldest: -7 celcius. I had a rubbish sleeping bag, so even with all my clothes I was still
cold.

warmest: can't remember exactly, but it was hot enough for 4x4 stopping mud to dry up within a day or two. two guys on the camp went down with sunstroke.
 
Coldest in Korea, Alaska, and Germany, in that order. Warmest by far in the Sahara in Sudan, East Africa, and second was in central India. Don't know which was worst, the dry furnance heat in Sudan or the turkish bath in India. BTW, the native troops I was with in Sudan made frozen sherbert every evening for dessert with no generators, electricity, etc. Really.
 
112 in Arches park in Utah. Not too horrible. Cracked lips from the dry.
About 15 below near Moscow Idaho.....in the middle of 100 million acres of brown grass.
Nasty.
In the last several years. About 25 + O - On Irazu volcano.

The "coldest" I have ever felt was Christmas. 1989. In the Florida Everglades. 28F or thereabouts.
I had the same exact gear as the Idaho trip.
It was "colder' in the 'glades.
 
DOC-CANADA said:
And like CLAK, anything over 70F is hell for me.
Doc
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Doc- what is this F thing you write about?? Must be something from the old days, like glass paper;), or are you secretly an American??

Mentor said:
I like my winter camping in the -8 to -16 range, and my summer camping in the +6 to +15 range (anything above that and I melt).
- Mike
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Actually my comfort range is +15 to -15, but colder is better. I don't usually go out of shorts until -5 to -10 range unless strong winds (as long as my kidneys are warm it seems like I can withstand most temps, at least for a while). We just got back from a 2.5 hour walk @ around 0 in shorts and I was nearly comfortable (a bit hot as I have to wear gloves to protect my hands now). Any time it gets below 10 degrees my body wants to get out and chop wood.

Evolute said:
The coldest I've camped was -2 degrees Fahrenheit, in the high Sierras.

The hottest was 119 Fahrenheit, outiside Las Vegas. However, the 5 days camping in 113 degree weather, with very high humidity (in the Midwest, during a heatwave, in the Summer of 1988) seemed hotter.

Doc, CLAK, anything over 70F is hell for you? Interesting – Up to at least 105 F, the heat doesn't bother me at all.
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I can't stand heat- if I am in anything but shorts inside a building I am overheating- it's a running joke in my class that I would be in a snowstorm overheating if I couldn't undo my jacket.


During my walk I remembered that during hunters training it almost reached -30 (lean to, but modern sleepware. We made sure that we knew our survival training for that trip, and made it out OK. Hard to remember that long ago (and it was only 17 years ago), and even harder to believe that at that time we did not even own an axe!!

Thanks for all of the contributions so far- I had not realized so many of you had spent time in the Middle East.
 
Freezing point, in a debris hut. No sleeping bag.

Not enough debris over the feet part of the hut. At least I had happy rocks.
 
Coldest: -30C/-22F > Northern Presidentials [New Hampshire] in February. Moving north along the N. Presidential Range. Had some 130+ mph gusts that night at about 5000' [just north of Mt. Washington] while hunkered down in a well-anchored mountaineering tent. The windchill numbers were off the chart. I've been in lots of sketchy situations, but that experience takes the cake. Winds over the summit of Washington hit 154 mph that night. In a word, it was loud.

Warmest: 1] Nitmuluk NP, Northern Territory Australia - 48C/118F - I'd have to move during the early morning and would then spend the rest of the day sitting in a water hole somewhere. There was very little shade and I had to move about 15km/day. 2] High 38C/100F and 100% humidity while hiking on Hinchinbrook Island [Queensland, Australia]. 3] Experienced the same temp. while hiking in Corcovado NP in Costa Rica. I hated tossing the fly on my tent, but the rains were so unbelievably heavy.
 
Coldest -10F for a week in the Army in Germany. -25F without windchill in New Hampshire White mountains for a couple of nights. So cold I'll never forget the trees exploding during the night when the bark was rupturing from the sap freezing in the trunk. Sounding like gunshots going off in the night all throughout the forest.

Highest winds with very low temperatures were at Tuckermans ravine in the White mountains. Blowing ice and snow. 65 MPH winds sustained with 85 MPH gusts. I remember opening my jacket with a spindrift collar and had chunks of ice fall out.

Hottest probably in the 90's and very humid in the White mountains also.

KR
 
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