Re: Coldest temperature you've ever camped in?

I don't know about 'routinely' but back around 1990 or so we had a trip planned for early February off the Blue Ridge Parkway. We all submitted vacation requests for that Friday and everything. Well, it turned out to be the coldest weekend in like 50 years or something. 20 below or colder at night, below zero all day. One of the guys was on his first winter trip and absolutely refused to get out of his clothes before getting in his sleeping bag. In the morning he was borderline hypothermic and we had to hightail it back to the car to get him to some heat. I bought my first thermarest shortly after that trip.

The coldest I've seen was driving from Alaska to North Carolina in February of '97. At lunchtime in Whitehorse it was -42C (about the same F). It was COLD. I have no idea what the nightime lows were, but it was cold enough that the PCV valve on the car froze shut and the front main seal blew due to the pressure. Prior to that, even with a piece of cardboard covering the entire radiator, you couldn't keep the ice off the side windows of the car. 5W30 synthetic motor oil flowed like pudding. I can hardly imagine backpacking at 40 below.