Snow Camping Equipment
On this page I will discuss the various bits of equipment that can be used for camping in the snow and some tips on setting up a camp site. Like the information presented on other pages of this site I'm describing what works for me and people I've camped with. If you have any information I may have missed or can suggest some improvements to what I've written here please contact me.
Besides wanting a warm sleeping bag and a warm (4 season) tent there's no real difference between gear you'd use on a summer hiking trip and gear you would take into the backcountry. The main difference between gear designed with hiking in mind and car camping gear is typically weight and bulk. Car camping stuff will do the job but its typically going to be a hell of a lot heavier and bulkier.
Pack
Without a pack you're not going to be able to carry the rest of your gear so we'll start here. There's two lines of thinking when it comes to packs. The light weight brigade says you should restrict your pack size to around 65L because it will help you rationalise your load. The kitchen sink brigade says you want as big a pack as you can carry just in case you need more room or you buy a bigger sink. I'll confess to being a bit of a kitchen sinker.
I started off using a $60 pack that was approximately 50L. I was able to carry all the necessary gear with this pack but I typically had stuff attached all over the outside and getting it packed was a military operation. I upgraded to a 65L pack which was also fine but I still had stuff attached on the outside so I recently upgraded to an 85L pack and I think this is about the right size for me. It can carry enough gear for solo trips of around 5 days, and the only items I need to secure on the outside are the day pack and the poo bag. Fitting stuff inside requires less thought and I've found this particularly useful when packing up in shitty weather.
Once you know what size pack you want its a matter if finding one that fits your body. Most outdoor shops will help you find a pack that fits properly. Some of the more expensive brands are developing packs that have custom fit elements to them like heat mouldable hip supports and aluminium rods that you can shape to fit your back.
A 'kitchen sinker' sporting a full 110L pack!
A pack with a waterproof fabric is ideal for the snow. Waterproof liners for the inside of your pack are also a good idea to ensure your cargo stays dry.
When it comes time to fill your pack take a bit of time to plan your packing strategy. In order to make carrying the load as easy as possible you want to keep your centre of gravity as close to your bodies natural position. The further you apply a load from the support the greater bending force it applies to that support. So you want to pack the most dense items (water fuel etc...) as close to your back as possible and restrict them to the lower half of the pack. Use less dense items like down jackets and sleeping bags to keep the more dense items in place and to fill the top of the pack.
Shelters
After trialling several different shelter systems out over the past few seasons I’m back where I started with a good old fashioned tent. If you plan on setting up above the tree line your best option would be to purchase a 4 season tent with a reputable brand. If that's out of reach you can make do with something less sturdy. My $70 k-mart dome tent was good for a few trips before I upgraded to something a little better. It's worth noting that a cheap 0-season tent erected in the right place with right protection will probably out perform a 4 season tent erected in the wrong spot.
If you're looking for a tent I wouldn't stress to much about which one you end up with. From my experience most of the reputable brands have fairly similar designs and features and cost about the same. You probably want to make your decision by looking at the size, weight and price of those on offer.
My relatively cheap but effective tent. A typical free standing 2-man tent design.
In recent years there’s been a trend towards single skin designs, which save weight and can be put up faster than two piece designs. Some people say that the single skin designs are susceptible to moisture build up on the inside in Australia’s relatively humid conditions but I’ve spent a night in one and didn’t have any problems. I’ll leave any further debate to the gear testing mags.
For mine, the benefit of using a tent over some of the lighter alternatives are that you have a dry area where you can sit, eat and even cook in if the weather is nasty outside.
A bivvy bag is a good light weight alternative if you’re heading out in fine weather or have time to dig a snow shelter. The down side of bivvy bag is that you’ve got nowhere to store your gear and there’s no room to do much more than sleep.
A bivvy bag is a light weight shelter that's probably best suited to fine weather, use inside snow shelters and emergency accomodation.
Snow caves are fantastic shelters from the weather but there’s plenty of drawbacks associated with them. Firstly, it takes a considerable amount of time to build one and if the snows good you’re missing out on freshies. Secondly, you need to check and clear ventilation holes and the entrance regularly to minimise the risk of asphyxiation and this can be a real pain throughout the night. Thirdly you’ve got to manage your gear well inside to prevent it from getting wet and ideally need a bivvy bag to keep the sleeping bag dry. Drawbacks aside they are great fun to build and sleep in. A good activity to keep in mind if you’re out on the range and the snow isn’t great for skiing.
Inside a two-man snowcave.
A small snow cave and outdoor kitchen setup.
Similar to snow caves, igloos provide fantastic weatherproof shelter. However, building one of these suckers requires time and precision. Definitely not something you'd aim to build without some sort of backup shelter. Igloos are probably best left as a good challenge if you’ve got time to kill while you’re hanging around the camp site.
There are a range of tarp like shelters on the market that are designed to be used in conjunction with structures dug into the snow. These are a good light weight alternative to tents but have similar drawbacks to snow caves.
Snow Pegs
Speaking from experience forgetting to take something to anchor your tent or shelter into the snow can be a real trap for young players. My first snow camping experience was actually meant to be a land camping experience. Having only been up on the main range once in summer the mrs and I decided to head out in early October, thinking the range would be mostly clear of snow with a few drifts left for a play. Armed with the k-mart tent we set off from Thredbo to Alice Rawson Peak. We found an almost complete cover all the way out which made for an interesting walk in steel capped work boots! When we arrived at the summit we found a nice spot to set up and cleared a spot for the tent. It didn't take long to realise the k-mart tent pegs weren't going to work in the snow. After a little bit of panic we improvised by digging the fly into the snow around the walls and ended up spending a cosy night in a pretty solid shelter.
An example of what not to do. A K-Mart tent 'pitched' on top of Australia's second highest mountain without pegs!
Anecdotes aside, the easiest and quickest way to anchor your tent in the snow is to use purpose designed snow pegs. These are available at most reputable outdoor shops. You simply push the pegs into the compacted snow and let it freeze into place. You can assist the setting process by tipping a small volume of water down the peg.
You can also use your ski gear (skis, poles, shovel etc...) as snow anchors. If you're going to ski equipment to anchor the tent be weary that you're going to need most of these items during the day.
If you're after a cheaper and lighter alternative to snow pegs you can use plastic shopping bags as an anchor. I actually think these provide a stronger anchor than anything else but they are a little more time consuming to set up and they can take a bit of work to remove. I'll talk a little more about using plastic shopping bags as anchors in the "Setting Up a Camp Site" section a little further down the page.
Sleeping Bags
A good sleeping bag is an important bit of kit for camping in the snow. Its cold at night so you'll probably end up spending 10 hours or more in your bag every day you're camped out in the snow. That's nearly half of every day so you want something that you're warm and comfortable in.
The performance of the sleeping bag is based on its design and the materials used in its construction. A well designed sleeping bag should fit your body snugly and feature a compact hood to keep your head and face warm and a draft collar to stop cold air getting into your bag. Most reputable brands have similar designs so the real choice lies in the materials that are used to construct and fill the bag.
The fill material or insulation is what keeps you warm in your bag. The warmth rating of the bag is directly related to the thickness of the insulating fill material. The two most common insulating fill materials used in sleeping bags are synthetic fibres and down. You need more synthetic material (by weight) to fill the same space as you can with down so down filled bags are generally lighter than synthetic bags that have the same temperature rating. For this reason alone down is probably the best fill material for any bag that you are going to carry. But downs aren't downs. The quality of down depends on the 'loft' rating. The loft rating is determined by placing one ounce of down into a cylinder. The rating number is the number of cubic inches that the down fills when it is unrestrained. So to minimise the amount of weight you have to carry you want a bag filled with down with the highest possible loft rating. Of course, the higher the loft rating of down used in the bag the more its costs. The best way to assess the potential weight savings that can be made is to compare the weights of bags that have the same temperature rating but different loft ratings at the gear shop.
Besides weight, another advantage of down over synthetic materials is that it keeps its lofting properties for a lot longer. One disadvantage of down is that it loses its lofting properties when it gets wet and won't keep you warm. Synthetic on the other hand does not lose its lofting properties when wet.
Bt that's where the cover material of the bag becomes important. Over the past 10 years most brands have developed water resistant materials to use on the outside of sleeping bags. The most recognisable brand is Gore Dryloft but most brands have there own version of this fabric that are likely to work just as well. Whilst the fabric itself is water resistant sleeping bags feature many seam lines which are susceptible to leaks. That if you're using your bag inside a tent it really only has to cope with condensation on the floor or walls or the odd bit of snow that comes in with the inhabitants.
For Australian conditions i've found my -10 Degrees C rated down bag to be fine.
Sleeping Mats
No sleeping bag will keep you warm if you don't have some form of insulation from the snow under it. As mentioned above, warmth is trapped next to your body by the space filled by down. The down that's under you when your sleeping is squashed flat and therefore can't provide much protection against whatever is underneath you. For this reason you need a good insulating layer between you and the snow to stay warm when you sleep.
You won't find better insulation than your mrs or some random sheila that may wander into your tent, but in terms of weight and cost a closed cell foam mat is probably the best item for the job. On its own the foam mat will insulate ok but it's not ideal and is a fairly hard surface to sleep on. A self inflating mat can be used on top of the closed cell foam to provide further insulation from the snow and provide a more comfortable nights sleep.
I've found that a 10mm closed cell foam mat combined with a three quarter length thermarest works well.
Stoves and Cookware
There are two main categories of stove available for snow camping. The first variety run off disposable cans of compressed butane/propane gas and the second run off liquid fuels.
The butane/propane variety are generally the lightest and most compact option. They are supposed to struggle when temperatures get really cold as the fuel doesn't gasify when it exits the can. However, I have used this type of stove on several trips and never experienced any difficulty. One of the disadvantages of this type of stove is that you cannot refill the fuel cans so you may end up with a whole lot of cans that are only partially filled.
An example of light weight stoves that run of Butane/Propane mixture in disposable cans.
Liquid fuels stoves are a safer proposition in the cold. They're typically a little more expensive, a bit bigger and weight a bit more than the butane/propane varieties. You need to purchase a fuel bottle to go with your stove. Some liquid fuel stoves run on virtually any fuel you can find whilst some only run on shellite (white gas). Shellite is the cleanest burning fuel in liquid fuel stoves. Multi fuel stoves are handy if you're heading to a remote area where white gas may not be available. An advantage of liquid fuel stoves is that you can carry as much fuel as you need and you can refill the fuel bottle to the desired level prior to each trip.
Example of a liquid fuel stove and cooking pad.
Whichever stove you buy its best to use cookware that is relatively wide compared to the flame area that your stove puts out. This maximises the use of heat from your stove. There are several other ways to improve your fuel efficiency. The simplest one is to use a foil heat reflector on the base of your stove and around the diameter of your cookware. Most liquid fuel stove manufacturers will include the heat reflecting guards with the stove. Some stove manufacturers also sell metal gauze that sits between your stove top and your cookware. These are supposed to increase fuel efficiency. I never used on of these so i can't comment on their performance. If you were considering using one you'd have to weight up the benefits of carrying the weight of the heat exchanger with carrying the same weight of additional fuel.
Cooking Pad/Seat
If you've purchased that big pack and want something else to put in it, a wooden stove base could be your answer. A thin piece of wood does serve well as a platform on which to setup your stove to prevent snow meltage underneath and a possible spills half way through cooking your meal. This piece of wood can then double as a something to insulate your arse when you're sitting on a snow seat.
A shovel blade works well as an alternative stove base or you can simply base your stove on a snow bench. Your closed cell foam sleeping mat is a good alternative option for a seat or you can simply just stay standing.
Food
This an an areas I struggle with. Being pretty inept in the old cooking department I go with the pre-packaged dehydrated meals for diners. They are relatively expensive and aren't the best food you'll ever eat but they are very easy to prepare, easy to pack and they're light. The other benefit is that you can eat them straight out of the packet so there's no need to take a bowl with you.
Breakfast generally consists of a few nut or muesli bars. For lunch i typically take 'the crisp bread all the family eats' and a range of deli meats and cheese. Vita Wheats are great because they stay fresh even after days lying open in your pack. Tea bags are a must for some nice warming drinks at the end of the day and at breaky.
For an instant energy hit whilst out and about I carry chocolate, nut bars and jelly lollies.
Lighting
When it comes to lighting leave the hand held torch at home. Head torches are the way to go. There's a squillion different models out there. Some are aimed at camp duties only, others at night time navigation and some a bit of both. The key things to look at when choosing a torch is how many batteries does the torch take and how long do they last. You may also want to consider whether you want to use the torch for night time navigation.