Re: Coldest temperature you've ever camped in?

Hi Tom D
I have no idea how cold it got when I was a Boy Scout winter camping in Illinois. In the Sierras I am generally below 8 thousand feet and the coldest I've seen was minus 5 with 50 mph gusts. I was sleeping in my wm bag wearing my long underwear and down bibs and a fleece jacket. I pulled the big down coat over the top of my sleeping bag, which added mucho insulation - i pulled it behind me to keep my back warm.
The winds nearly tore the tent from its moorings but it was anchored with 4 skis shoved into the snow so it couldn't actually go anywhere. In the morning I slid out of my bag and pulled the coat on and I was fully dressed for -60 wind chill. I crawled out of the tent into the vestibule, zipped the tent and unzipped the vestibule and crawled out into an awesome storm. It had snowed at night and snow was blowing horizontally in laminar flow in a band from the ground to about three feet up. The tent was flapping wildly and I managed to shovel enough snow around the vestibule to make it wind tight, then I got the Coleman Xtreme lit inside the vestibule and I sat outside in the snow, and right in the laminar snow blow, but I was not cold anywhere except my face, but if the rest of your body is warm enough the exposed parts will become heat radiaters and will stay pretty warm. I unzipped the door just enough to reach in and put more snow in the pan until I had boiling water for brewed coffee and instant oatmeal.
After packing up we skied a mile and a half back to the truck. I wouldn't say the unexpected temp drop and storm caused us any trouble - our "normal gear" covered it and we had our skis so we could travel through almost any weather.

So many times the news story is about people sho were "snow bound in the back country" being rescued. The wife described him as "experienced". They were found essentially ok, but pinned down. The point being that "they were found" by other people who did get up and brave the storm - for them! Now avolanche can be a real problem that could keep you from moving for a few days waiting for it to consolodate but thats being prudent not "snow bound". Being able to travel either on skis or snowshoes until you decide its time to hole up for a while for warmth or sustenance and continueing to travel, stop eat, travel, you'll get out.

So I may as well bring up this subject here and now.
If you are out in a blizzard and you are being aerobic but you need to stop and you have a warm down coat in your pack, what do you do? If you pull that down over the outside of your ski outfit it will become soaked and useless quickly, even if its a goretex down coat, the inside will soak up the water and snow that was previously on the outside. On the other hand if you take off your goretex jacket to pull the down on under it, you will get snow on your under clothes, down jacket and inside of goretex coat whiile doing it, then when you take it off you go through the same process and you have to stuff a damp down garment into your pack - not a good idea. So what would you do? I do think that a synthetic or down "belay jacket" that was completely waterproof inside and out would be ideal, as you could put in on over everything else.
Jim S