Winter camping is the essence of the outdoors simplified to minimal and basic needs. Filled with uncertainty and apprehension of the unfamiliar. Without the added comforts and time spenders to attract our attention, we are left to focus on alterations to our routine, and relearn tasks in the cold. Our senses heightened; eating, sleeping, and going to the bathroom become challenging and pose new discomforts. The latter, almost always waiting until I am comfortably laying in my sleeping bag; warm inside layers of down, somewhere between sleep and awake. Dreading the inevitable ambush of chill to my tender parts, I hold off until the final moments before making a mad dash for any proper spot nearby to find relieve.
Once the urgency is over, I am left again with the lucid wilderness. It is quiet and pleasantly aglow with reflected moonlight. Like a neon blue cityscape, the snowdrifts advertise brilliance and wonder. Blackened silhouettes of wood and pine stand like skyscrapers. They shrug off accumulated snow, with a soft whoosh, from their branches to pile it below. Stars shine like glowing ambers above me, though foreign constellations now inhabit the once familiar sky. Solemn breezes flow across my neck, and raise my hair, as the chill runs down my spine. The forest comes alive, with soft ambiance and I am pleased to witness it alone, in the simplified, cooling silence.
