Winter Camping Is Worth the Cold

A snowy wilderness becomes a private playground for hikers, skiers, stargazers, and anyone eager to trade summer’s busyness for winter’s stillness.

Winter camping offers the chance to enter a world muffled by new snow, where even familiar forests feel new. Westend61/Getty Images

Imagine waking in a winter wonderland. Ideally, you are tucked into a cozy, warm sleeping bag and outside your tent the world is muffled in the distinctive way of freshly fallen snow, as if the sound is being pulled from your ears. Don your boots and go out into snow no step has trodden, under pine boughs laden with sun-kissed powder and sparkling with the season’s late sunrise. You light a roaring fire and make coffee and perhaps a bowl of instant oatmeal, ready to face the day.

If this sounds inviting rather than like a horrifying, frigid nightmare, winter camping may be right for you.

Good Reasons for Winter Camping

Fair enough, it’s not for everyone. Nighttime in the wintery forest makes me think of Jack London’s short story “To Build a Fire,” often cited in English classes as an example of the human versus nature story conflict. An overconfident man finds himself unable to reach his destination by nightfall in the wilderness of Alaska. His only hope of survival is to light a match. Spoiler alert: Nature wins. Who would willingly go do this, and more importantly, why?