There's a certain element of craziness to snow camping, at least that's what our friends tell us. Meanwhile, the element of beauty is so tempting and overwhelming enough that we can't resist going.
The challenges are part of the fun. The cold air makes you appreciate luxuries like a home with insulation, or hot water in the tap. The hardest part of snow camping, in my opinion, is keeping our water from freezing. Even the foam insulators on our Platypus hoses stop working when the sun goes down and the temperatures dive with the sunlight. We've determined that keeping water bottles in our sleeping bags seems to alleviate the problem of not having any liquid water to drink. Plus, if you put hot water in the Nalgenes, it even keeps your toes warm.
I made a point of saturating this image because I found that it brings out the amazing contrast in the sky.
At 5am, Darin takes a break from reheating the water in our Nalgene bottles that had cooled off.
The mountain standing silently before the morning light began to kiss its summit,
Rainier's summit is first to feel the warm daylight.
It was insanely windy, as shown with the drifts blowing off the Tatoosh. I had trouble keeping my tripod steady.
Details in the windblown drifts.
Finally, the sunlight reaches me and I start to warm up amid the 30mph sustained breeze.
Mount St Helens is in the distance.