On some wintry nights, just summoning enough nerve to slip under the cold sheets can be difficult. Imagine exchanging your warm bed, fleece-lined slippers and nearby indoor plumbing for a sleeping bag, snow boots, and the great outdoors. The thought alone inspires a shiver. Yet many Bowdoin students decide not only to try out winter camping in Maine, but to do it repeatedly.
So what is the appeal of sleeping outside in subzero temperature? For Ed Carr '08, camping in the winter just has an "extra edge to it. Plus, there are no bugs and everything seems cleaner."
Carr did not have much winter experience before coming to Bowdoin. He grew up in Wales, United Kingdom, where there is "not much of a winter," but became intrigued with the idea of winter outdoor adventure after spending a chilly summer in Greenland in 2003. Athletic commitments prohibited him from furthering exploring his newfound interest until this semester, when he embarked on his first overnight winter trip.
"It's nice to get away and do something different for a weekend," says Carr, "but going to the bathroom can be pretty interesting."
Carr's weekend excursion was sponsored by the Bowdoin Outing Club (BOC), which is offering several other opportunities to get outside this winter. Laura Jefferis '05, the assistant director of the BOC, spearheads the winter activities. Although she hails from the frosty mountains of Montana, Jefferis's first winter camping experience was not until her first year at Bowdoin. She recalls that "it was the best night's sleep ever," and after that she was hooked.
Jefferis continued to explore Maine in its coldest season?even summiting Mount Katahdin in the cold?and by her junior year she felt confident enough to lead a winter leader seminar with Peter Schoene '05. During a weekend trip she and Schoene taught other aspiring winter aficionados such skills as proper layering and packing, selecting and preparing a campsite, cooking (lots of chocolate and cheese), and staying warm.
Jefferis appreciates the heightened sense of remoteness she experiences on winter trips: "There's hardly anyone else on the trail. You're more likely to run into a moose than another group of people."
Despite all the beauty and serenity that being outside in the winter provides, Jefferis admits there are some down sides. After a stream crossing that left some trip participants with wet clothing on a trip her first year, some people in the group became hypothermic and had to be evacuated. Jefferis left with some frostbitten fingers, but she shrugs and says, "they only tingled for three months, and then I was fine." Another time, she punctured her leg with a crampon (a spike in the front of a boot that aids in climbing in snow or ice), but did not notice until much later because the -30 degrees Farenheit temperature instantly numbed her wound.
Injuries are not enough to deter Bowdoin's winter crusaders and neither are the wild beasts of Maine. Ivy Blackmore '07 recently returned from her first winter camping trip after getting a little less sleep than she had hoped.
"I woke up a few times with mice running over my sleeping bag because I was right next to the food. But whatever, it was funny," Blackmore says.
Blackmore found winter camping appealing because it gave her the chance to revisit the places she knows well from summer trips and see the landscape transformed. As an experienced camper, Blackmore also relished in the opportunity to learn a completely new set of outdoor skills.
"I had no idea that if you buried a pot of boiling water in the snow at night, it would still not be frozen in the morning. It was so cool," she says.
Others find the sheer challenge of winter camping enticing. Ben Lake '07 decided to go on a winter trip his sophomore year and his interest "just snowballed from there?no pun intended."
"I think that there are a lot of people that don't enjoy it, which is too bad. Maybe it's a masochistic streak of mine, I don't know," Lake says.