First-timer's instructionsThese are instructions for beginning snow campers for the De Anza College Outdoor Club winter trip. Experienced people will probably pick up a few useful ideas.
For a list of required equipment (and another list of the things you will really wish you had) as well as menu advice, and a discussion of what to look for in long-johns, fabrics and rain gear, go to: Snow or rain camp must-haves We put info about any cheap rentals and other budget minded clothes ideas there.
Snow Camp is the main trip page.
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Bears in Yosemite break into vehicles and tents that have food or toiletries in them. So the Park service put bear-proof metal food storage lockers in all the campsites.
When camping with a large group of people we have found that some complain there is not enough room in their shared bear box for all their gear. On our winter Yosemite Valley trip the Ranger said we could not use bearboxes in empty campsites, but would need to buy more campsites instead.
There won't be room for everyone's gear if we don't plan ahead. A paper bag used to hold food in the bearbox will disintegrate from melted snow or rain. More on the logistics of using bearboxes is at Using a campsite food storage locker.
Besides being sure we only have tents pitched for six people per site, (Yosemite park rules) and not disturbing the ground "digging, trenching and leveling of the ground is prohibited," where you
pitch your tent within a site is important.. If you pitch your tent in an area with trees, the trees
will catch some of the snow as it falls, putting less weight of snow on your tent. But when the
clouds clear, and the sun warms the snow on the branches, it will melt and come down off the
branches, sometimes right down the back of your neck if you are unlucky in where you happen
to be standing. In most campsites this will be your only choice, but some have space clear of
trees where you'll have less snow falling off tree branches, but more weight of snow on your tent
itself.
Pitch the tent with the front door facing towards sunrise to have sun flooding in the entrance in the morning. Or pitch it with the entrance towards the best view, so you can unzip the door in the morning and enjoy the view while still snug in your sleeping bag.
The easiest way to pitch a free-standing two- or four-person tent during precipitation is to pitch a dining canopy first, pitch the tent under the dining canopy and then move the tent to where you will sleep.
Yosemite campground regulations also say "driving nails, stakes or other objects into trees is prohibited." But we can tie ropes or lines to trees, just be careful about not breaking branches or stripping off bark in the process.
Don't dig trenches around your tent. Even if it's really, really, really wet. It's okay to remove any pebbles, stones, pinecones, etc. from where you will pitch the tent. And it's a good idea to get a group together to stomp down deep snow where you will put a tent, but you don't need to shovel it all away to bare ground.
If you brought one of our pop-up dining canopies on the trip you can use it overnight near your tent, especially if it's raining instead of snowing. After everyone is done with dinner, move the dining canopy to your tent to turn it into a front porch.
Set it up where the door end of your tent (and maybe other people's tents) just sticks out under the canopy. Then when you come and go at night you can stand under the canopy and shake water off your rain jacket before you get into your tent. No, it's not fair to rent a club dining canopy for the trip just for your front porch, it will need to be used over a picnic table most of the day.
Be aware, in high wind you should just take down the canopy. Heavy snow will collapse it.
Upon arrival at the campsite snow needed to be cleared from the picnic table and out of the firepit, so it was a smart idea to set up a dining canopy and put a tarp over the firepit when the work was done. But it was not smart to leave the canopy up overnight in the heavy snow:
  
If you use a tent or dining canopy that needs tent pegs in the ground, please put some pieces of kindling or other small wood pieces in the ground or in the snow sticking up next to the tent/canopy pegs. In low light or no light the pegs and the (usually) white guy lines will be nearly invisible. Help prevent people tripping on your guylines. (The faculty advisor usually has bright pink tape to tie on guylines.)
In the picture below of one of our campsites, with a coyote walking through, you can see a piece of pink tape on a guyline, but otherwise you would not be able to spot the line:
Shock cord is the elasticy line inside of shock-cord loaded tent poles, the tent poles that automatically fit together and stay together when you unfold them. You can buy shock cord in various small diameters by the foot at REI. Use it to upgrade your guy lines by adding small loops of shock cord to each of them. This helps a line 'give' when it is stepped on or in high wind. I've also added lengths of it to camp clotheslines to make them tighten up.
Below: these people made a front porch for their tent from a tarp with poles that needed guylines. They put a piece of kindling where the guyline peg went into the snow. The kinding is quite visible, but the guyline isn't.
Some tent mates decide in advance that no one can walk inside the tent with boots on, to keep snow (and melted snow, dirt) from accumulating inside. In this case you might want booties or slippers of some kind for hanging out in the tent playing cards, etc.
Your lantern mantle may have disintegrated during transport to the park. It's easier to put on a lantern mantle in the daylight. At least find your lantern and flashlight before it gets dark.
Before you settle down for an evening's campfire or a night hike, get dinner cleaned up, trash
deposited and your gear in your tent ready. If the weather is lousy you can mop up dirty dishes a little, store them in the bear box
and deal with them when you get home. Yosemite rules say to dispose of all
trash in the dumpster, not to store it in the bear-proof. Please replace any clips keeping the door on the bearproof garbage bin locked.
Put away miscellaneous pieces of equipment even if we don't expect a fresh snowfall to cover
and hide them from us in the morning.
Below: people left gear out on this table overnight. They didn't expect overnight snowfall because the sky was fairly clear. It would have been a lot easier to pack things up the night before.
This includes things sitting on picnic tables under
dining canopies. Heavy snow overnight can make the dining canopy collapse and your potholder,
etc. you left out will get soaked and frozen. In the morning you'll find the lantern frozen to the table top.
The canopy below had a lantern burning on the table under it when it collapsed and the hot top of the lantern burnt a hole in the canopy.
Before you put away the stove, heat up some water to fill your hot water bottle and a thermos for
overnight drinking water. You could make hot chocolate or soup for a midnight snack, but store
it in the bearbox, not in the tent or car. A thermos by itself may not keep things warm, so you
might want to wrap it in a towel. Also wrap up propane tanks.
When you take off your gloves to do work, stuff them inside your jacket to stay warm instead of putting them down in the snow.
Moisture in your car trunk lid and door jambs may freeze overnight, and you might not be able
to thaw them and open them until it warms up, so store things you might want right away in the morning in the bear box. Breakfast equipment and the stove may have some food residue so they should be in the
bear box. Also be sure your kindling supply stays dry. Experience shows that you can't start a fire
with damp cardboard, (we have seen people try, because that's all they had left the last morning). Store a can of spray de-icer in the bear box instead of the car.
It's going to be cold in the morning and hard to drag yourself
out of that warm sleeping bag. But you'll probably want to get an early start, especially if you
want to have time to make and eat a good enough breakfast. Set an alarm. You don't want to miss the free
bus to Badger ski area (snowboarding, cross country and downhill lessons and/or equipment rentals, the ranger snowshoe walk).
You'll want enough time to do a long hike before dark.
On Friday evening, plan ahead for Saturday morning. Pack your day pack (or that recommended
large backpack, which you can borrow from the club if you are a member) the night before. Details are at Day hike gear
You should have stored your sleeping bag in your car during the day (thefts occur in parks).
Take out down bags and fluff them up at least a half hour before bedtime. Be certain down
bags, vests, jackets, etc. never get wet --wet down is useless.
Smoking campfires cause a lot of pollution. How to build a campfire that doesn't smoke too much is at:
Campfires
You need good firewood that you bought or brought from home. Green sticks off the
ground won't work (and it's illegal to collect firewood in Yosemite Valley). Most experienced
campers build small campfires that can actually keep people warmer than huge blazes you have
to stand away from. If your campfire is smoking a lot, get some help.
When it's time to put out the fire, Yosemite campground regulations say it needs to be put out with water, because a
fire that's just left to burn out or buried in dirt will smolder and pollute the air. "Fires must be extinguished with water so that coals are cold and no smoke is visible."
But, if you just pour a bunch of water on a blazing campfire, you'll create a cloud of steamy
smoke with a bunch of ash particles that may bother people two campsites away.
Instead, plan to take the time to put the fire out properly. Don't put on extra wood really near
bedtime. When it's time to put it out, pull the logs or remaining chunks of glowing charcoal
apart, let them die down a little, and then finally sprinkle water on. If it makes huge clouds of
steamy smoke, you need to let it die down before you put on more water.
To be sure it's out completely, move any lanterns away from the area, turn off any flashlights,
stir the campfire debris around, then sprinkle more water on any glowing coal bits. Don't let
anybody dissuade you because they say they won't be able to build a fire the next day (they're
wrong). If you visit Yosemite valley often enough, you will notice the smog and be glad you
didn't contribute to it.
If you've been sitting awhile by the fire you'll want to move around and warm up a little before
going to bed.
Check around the campfire area and under the picnic table with a
flashlight for
stray M&Ms and potato chips. Hike to the trash bin with the last
of the trash,
or do some sort of exercise to warm up. If you go to bed cold,
you'll stay
cold longer because you need to be warm to warm-up your
sleeping bag.
But, don't get sweaty, unless you have a change of inner layer
clothes in
your bag.
Leave your shower kit in the bear box, not the tent or the car.
The mint toothpaste and Caribbean sunscreen really smell like
food to the animals, and there will be coyotes in the campground on and off 24 hours a day, whether people are around or not.
Double check that your daypack and jacket pockets are empty of candybars and snacks. We've had people who didn't and raccoons got into the tents. Picture crushed Cheetos in your sleeping bag. Picture how happy your tent mates will be with crushed Cheetos in their sleeping bags.
Is your inner layer of clothes sweaty? If so, put a dry set in your sleeping bag
to change into, especially socks. Also put two large plastic leaf bags in the
tent, a cloth to wipe moisture off rain jackets, a cloth to wipe condensation
from the inside of the ceiling and walls in the morning, and a cloth, sponge
(or one of those small super-towels that soak up a lot of water) to mop up
water (rain... melted snow you tracked in on your boots) from the tent floor.
To get into a small tent, shake the snow off your jacket and sit backwards
into the tent rather than walking in. (But don't sit on your sleeping bag with
wet clothes on.) After you sit down, tap your feet together outside of the tent
to knock the snow off your boots. Wipe excess moisture off your jacket
and put it in a plastic bag, folded so the wet places don't touch the dry
surfaces. Loosen the laces on your boots and put them in another bag.
The bag with your boots should go under the foot end of your sleeping bag or
in the foot end if it fits, to keep your boots from freezing. Any removable insoles could go into the sleeping bag.
Some tent mates decide in advance that no one can walk inside the tent with boots on, to keep snow (and melted snow, dirt) from accumulating inside. In this case you might want booties or slippers of some kind for hanging out in the tent playing cards or...?
If your jacket is dry, you can spread it out on top of your sleeping bag, with
the inside of the jacket facing down towards the bag, to keep it from getting
so cold, but don't spread wet things over your bag. Why would this work?
The thing that makes a sleeping bag warm is you. Your body heat warms the
clothes you are wearing, the sleeping bag liner or an inner blanket, the
sleeping bag, and a little might go out of the bag into a jacket on top of it. There are limits to how much dispersed warmth can do, though.
Position your sleeping pads and bags so they don't touch the inside walls of
the tent. This means a "6 person" tent which really could fit six people
(without much gear) in the summer, should only have 3 or 4 people in it on
our trip.
 
Wrap a knit scarf around your face to pre-warm air by breathing through it.
Resist burying your face in your sleeping bag because your moist breath will
soak that part of the bag. Leave your knit hat on to make a big difference in
how warm you stay. You might also want a bandanna on under the hat to be
sure your ears stay warm.
If you're using a sleeping bag without a hood, and with a wide opening at the
shoulders, bring an extra blanket to wrap around the opening, so the bag
won't be drafty. Another blanket inside of a wide, non-mummy shaped bag
will also be warmer.
Don't wear too many clothes to bed. You'll be warmer if you wear fewer,
looser clothes. Tightness around your armpits or the tops of your legs can
slow down blood flow. Plus, you'll sleep better if you can move easily in
your sleeping bag. Piling on lots of layers and a jacket and stuffing yourself
into your sleeping bag really won't work.
Leave some tent zippers open part way for ventilation. Yes, even if it's windy
and cold, or else you will have lots of moisture on the interior of your tent caused by your steamy breath condensing -- in one night, the average adult
exhales a pint of water. If you can, arrange for a low air intake and vent a high outlet.
Store your flashlight and your contact lens kit (in screw top containers instead of pop-open-any-time containers) in the sleeping bag to stay
warm. If you will need a mirror to put in the contacts store it in or near the sleeping bag so you don't have to go hunting for it in the morning.
It's not good to have your toiletries kit in the tent, the various smells will attract animals, but it's okay to have a hair brush or comb.
If you have a thermos that has never had anything but hot water in it (and therefore didn't pick up any food odors) you could fill it with warm water for overnight drinking. If you don't have a thermos for your in-the-tent overnight water supply, wrap
your water bottle (a water bottle that also never had anything but water in it!) in a sock for extra insulation, and set it on its side or upside
down. If you leave it sitting right side up, the thin layer of ice that forms in it
on top of the water will keep you from drinking, and/or the moisture around the threads will freeze and you won't be able to open it.
Before getting up in the morning or at night, do some isometric exercises
(do crunches, wiggle around and stretch in your sleeping bag) to get blood moving and
warm your muscles. Have a rag or dishtowel in the tent to wipe moisture
off the inside of the tent walls.
This way, you won't get up and bump the tent and make it "rain" on you (or
snow on you, depending on how cold it was). But also have a spare blanket
over your bags for the possibility, and leave some tent zippers open part
way.
If you've been drinking enough water to stay healthy, you will need to get up
in the middle of the night. This gives you an opportunity to check the tent for snow accumulation. A little insulation is okay, but knock a
bunch off if it's been snowing heavily. On one club trip a tent collapsed from too much snow.
If it isn't cloudy, take a minute to check out the stars.
One night we were super quiet and saw raccoons
raiding a neighbor's tent for food. The people and their dog slept right
through it. Aren't you glad you left your midnight snack in the big metal
campsite bear box instead of the tent?
The bathrooms are heated, so the first water out of the sink tap might be
warmed in the inside pipes and less cold than the flow of water a couple of
minutes later; refill your water bottle first.
When it's time to put in your contact lenses, do it while still in your bag. Sit up and lean over the top of the bag. Spread the bag material at your lap out smoothly with a depression in the middle. Then if you drop the lense it will fall on the surface of the bag and head towards the center where you will be much more able to find it than on the ground outside or the muddy bathroom floor.
If your car lock is frozen in the morning, hold a lit match to your car key to
heat it a little (watch out for your fingers and meltable polypro glove liners!
And if it has a security code device in the key, or a plastic key fob, don't try
this). Gently pushing down on the trunk lid or against a door a few times may break up ice
crystals so it will open. Also try de-icer in the locks. Don't try breathing your hot breath into the lock, the moisture in your breath will just refreeze. Sometimes you just have to wait until it warms up a little, or have everyone climb in the one door that will open.
Invest in enough de-icer. The Centers for Disease Control website warns:
"Never pour water on your windshield to remove ice or snow; shattering may occur."
You will want deicer for your car windshield, windshield washer nozzles and door locks. A real windshield ice scraper works better than a fabricated one.
On a budget? The Yosemite Daily report said: "Top off your wiper fluid reservoir with freeze-proof fluid, a few tablespoons of rubbing alcohol added to standard fluid works as well."
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If you didn't pack enough proper gear to stay warm overnight on our snow camp trip, and you decide to try sitting in the car to warm up, with the engine running in the middle of the night, not only will you risk waking up everyone else, you could make it difficult or nearly impossible to start the car later when you want to go home.
Prepare for winter driving has the reason why and lots more info.
  
If you intend to borrow an eight person tent from us for a trip, and you don't have much experience at pitching tents, copy the photo page at How to pitch the Cabela eight-person tent and bring it with you. Or even better, try pitching it at the on campus pre-trip meeting.
Here's the fast way to clean out a tent before you pack it up:
Remember to unpack it right away when you get home, wipe it down with a damp sponge and spread it out or, even better, pitch it, so it can dry out.
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Snow or rain camp must-haves has menu ideas
You really need to read Snow camp weather, hike safety and first aid considerations
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There's easy camping info at: Have more fun camping
Camping solutions for women answers typical questions.
Things to do during a Yosemite snow storm besides hiding in your tent
Learn to build Campfires that don't smoke too much.
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photos below by Quang-Tuan Luong/terragalleria.com, all rights reserved.
  
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