Wintertime Camping

Well Rich and I went camping Friday morning. It was about 11:15 when we got to the campsite, on Rampart Range Rd. It was a balmy 18 degrees when we got to camp. We decided to get firewood first, luckily there was deadfall 15 feet from camp so we used our chainsaw to cut it up. While Rich was splitting the wood, I set up the tent. We then built the fire. And quite a lovely fire it was!
I took a walk up the road by myself to get more rocks for our fire ring since it was pretty windy. That was a bad idea, there were some pretty large footprints that looked like the maker was on all fours. I went back to camp and got my gun. I felt better. I drove George (the FJ) up the hill to collect all the rocks I found. Some of them were pretty big and QUITE heavy. Anyways, I brought them back to camp for Rich.
About 1 o'clock we started drinking beer by the campfire. It was quite enjoyable. Nice and toasty (the fire was a pretty decent size). We made our dinner later on, probably somewhere around 5 o'clock. A couple beers later, I had to go pee. Let me tell you 8 degrees and dropping your pants REALLY sucks. Anyways, back to the fire. MUCH better.
Thanks to daylight savings time it was pitch black other than our fire at 5:30pm. It was a full moon, or close to it. And it was absolutely gorgeous! We played with the fire and white gas some (see the video below), it was a blast.
We went to bed and slept on and off until about 4:30am when frost inhabited our tent and covered our bags and us. At this stage it got cold and fast.
Rich got out of the tent at about 5am and turned on the truck, and poked the fire to get it going again. I got out of the tent and ran into the truck to warm up. We packed up camp, in between warming, up as fast as we could. I can tell you I have never been so happy as to actually be on the road, on our way home. Between the two of us, stage one frostbite on our hands and feet before we finished packing up. And my poor poor Rich was practically hypothermic (he didn't warm up as much as I did).
We came home and took a nap in our warm bed, and took HOT showers when we woke up.

Overall it was a blast. We learned a lesson though, we need a tent for camping in the snow/cold. Our summertime tent with screen top (even with rain shield on) just doesn't cut it. Too much moisture gets in there and freezes.