-12C Winter Camping in Idaho - Living out of my JEEP

thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign all right welcome back to the channel guys for those of you that are new here my name is Drew Sims and for the past two and a half years I've been living out of my Jeep as a freelance photographer and filmmaker and today I'm out in Stanley Idaho doing two nights of winter camping as you guys can tell I've got my heavy snow jacket ons the first time I've done this in any of the winter camping Vlogs and that's because it's about 21 degrees out right now and tonight's gonna be 15 and tomorrow night's gonna be a low of nine so this is the coldest I've camped in so far gonna be a chilly couple of nights but excited to be out here I've actually been to Stanley probably seven or eight times and have done 100 plus miles a back country in the Sawtooth and explored pretty much every forest service road in the area but this time through it's it's much much different there's nobody here probably 95 percent less people than over the summer and over the fall and for good reason like I said it's it's going to be a cold couple of nights if you guys have seen previous Vlogs I usually deal with a foot or two of snow on Forest Service Roads and trying to find cool Camp spots but this time through is going to be a little bit different if you get off the main road around Stanley it's more like four to five feet of snow up past my waist and up to my chest and all the roads are shut down and they're only accessible by snowmobile so I'm gonna have to find a spot today to Camp I actually got here yesterday and wanted to do three nights of camping but just kind of dealt with a ton of road closures and just kind of explored the area yesterday to kind of figure out a game plan for the next two nights tonight I'll be sleeping in the rooftop tent like I said it's going to be a low of 15. and then tomorrow night I'm gonna be actually sleeping in the Jeep because I'm gonna be up early for Sunrise the following day and hitting Hot Springs I'm planning on hitting two hot springs while I'm here which will be super nice just because it's freezing temperatures right now and might get a little bit of snow over the next two days too so it'll be nice to soak for a bit in the hot springs I'm only staying two nights because they're actually supposed to get hit with a decent sized storm in the next few days and you're probably wondering why I don't want to stay for that but the storm is going to be a foot or two of snow and temps down to a low of negative 10. so I definitely don't want to get stuck out here for that I don't have to worry about getting stuck out here so I'm gonna head back over the pass and just get down into Sun Valley and head down south a little bit to warmer temps but yeah let's go ahead and try to find a decent spot to camp I won't be able to get too far off the road but as long as I can get a fire cone and set the 10 up I'll be pretty happy if you guys aren't already make sure to subscribe and if you like this video make sure to give it a thumbs up and also a big shout out to everyone who already is subscribed and who's been watching and commenting that means a ton and we just hit 100 000 subscribers on this channel so that's huge for me and a ton of motivation to keep putting in work and spending time making videos like this for you guys but yeah let's get the heat cranking in the Jeep and go find a camp spot [Music] oh [Music] foreign [Music] well we're stuck I've been driving around for about an hour and a half and found a spot that I can camp at that I've actually camped before there's some trees over there that are probably 40 yards 50 yards off the road and what's nice is there is a paved snow plowed road behind me there's actually a ranch up top probably 200 300 yards up it's got a gate up there so that starts the private land this is all public still and luckily this road is snow plowed like I said unluckily though I pulled off the road a little too far and got stuck but my plan is to just dig myself out really quick literally see the road is right there so my back tires are still on the actual Road but the Jeep as you can see the snow is up past my knees right now and it's it's caught the undercarriage of the Jeep and that is preventing my tires from actually getting traction I've got a full-size pair of boards in the mail right now but I knew coming up to Idaho I should have some kind of recovery equipment other than the winch because obviously the winch right now is useless because I need to back up and I move forward but these have been great I used them yesterday just to test them out and they worked super well they're really Compact and they fit in the Jeep which is nice you don't have to worry about mounting them to the exterior but for now going to shovel out as much snow as I can underneath throw these under the front tires once I'm out I'm going to actually shovel out just a 10 by 10 space here this is the best spot I've found so far in the only spot that's been accessible by vehicle anywhere off the road I've camped here over the summer I know you can I know this is public land and I haven't seen any no camping signs so I'm gonna dig out like I said a little 10 by 10 space and get camp set up foreign foreign well that was a fun little workout and created a nice little base section here already this is like are we eight feet wide so gonna shovel out a little bit more now and hopefully this is camp for the night [Music] foreign it's definitely not the prettiest setup but it works I know some of you guys are probably wondering why did I just do this but like I said yesterday I drove around for about three and a half hours an hour towards Kirkman then back to Stanley an hour towards Challis and then back to Stanley and literally couldn't find one single pull-off on the side of the road or any open forest service road so going to drive down a little bit first to get firewood on this area around here doesn't really have any dead trees and I don't want to cut down a live tree obviously so gonna drive down a bit get to a pull-off and then probably gonna have to Snowshoe out a little bit to get to some firewood and then come back set the tent up and gonna do dinner pretty early tonight just because I don't want to be out when it gets down under 20 degrees so let's get that started and get camp set up [Music] foreign all right okay foreign [Applause] foreign foreign foreign out this eye camper insulation for the tent I've never set it up before I don't know how it's gonna go I didn't watch any instructionals on how to do it but I think I can figure it out and hopefully it keeps the tent a couple degrees warmer tonight foreign foreign [Music] thank you foreign [Music] foreign foreign foreign foreign [Applause] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] well I ran out of firewood pretty early tonight which is okay though because it's starting to get really cold and a little bit windy so I'm excited to get up into the tent hopefully this liner helps out a little bit and keeps it a little warmer tonight because I'm already pretty cold right now dinner was great the lamb chops were great the Brussels sprouts and potatoes were great and the Gin was just the icing on top so pretty solid night but yeah the moon's out right now it's actually really pretty you've got these super fast moving clouds and the moon just kind of popping in and out with some Stars Stanley is actually known for being a dark stone which just means there isn't really any light pollution in the area so when it is clear the stars are super bright and really beautiful out here but I'm cold so I'm gonna head up into the tent and warm up thank you foreign made it up to the tent got the insulation in just ran the space heater for about a minute and it warmed up the whole tent while I was running the space heater though I cracked this window I zipped this up and had the exterior window down and cracked a little bit too just to let a little more air flow in with this insulation it feels a little more sealed up than normal and I don't want to mess around with the space heater so just cracked a little window for that my biggest downside so far and something I wish they had done a little bit differently is you're kind of missing out on quite a bit of space on the sides below and even up top the insulation kind of sags in rather than being tight up against the sides and the biggest place I'm going to notice it tonight is here probably missing out on three to four inches and my head's down here somebody resting up against this instead of having all that open space like you normally do with the tent obviously this insulation isn't meant to be used year-round so I get it if it works and keeps me a little bit warmer tonight then it's worth it for the winter but just wish it would have been a little tighter up against the edges but yeah going to hop in the sleeping bag might get up for Sunrise probably just gonna poke my head out and if it looks clear I might just put up the Drone and maybe shoot with the telephoto lens the mountains are right across the road I won't drive because it's going to be like 15 degrees out so I don't want to break down the tent in the morning you can't actually fly in the Wilderness Area so you can't get super close to the mountains but in the National Forest you're allowed to fly drones so I'm gonna throw that up in the morning but yeah I will see you guys in the morning foreign [Music] [Music] amazing [Music] foreign [Music] hmm foreign foreign foreign foreign guys pretty slow morning today it's about 10 o'clock right now I stuck my head out for Sunrise you guys saw I flew the Drone a little bit this morning I honestly I flew it from inside the tent with the space heater going because it was about 16 this morning so a little chilly I will say the extra insulation with the eye camper definitely helped last night but I don't know how often I'd really use it if it was below 20 degrees I would definitely throw it up there I think it helped retain heat a lot more but it kind of takes away the whole convenience and the whole reason you buy an eye camper and that's you know it takes a minute to set up a minute to break down I can be in the tent within two minutes with all my gear loaded up and having to undo it and hook the whole insulation up and especially having to take it down this morning was a bit of a pain it just kind of takes away the main benefit of what the eye camper is so I get it for winter again if it's below 20 I'll probably throw it up there but anything above that I think I'll just have a little bit of extra cold to have the convenience of being able to put it up and down within a minute or so I'm gonna do dishes I'm going to show you guys that a little bit I know I've been getting a ton of comments asking how I do dishes it's really nothing interesting so I won't show too much of it but I'll give you a quick show of just kind of how it works usually when it's this cold out I just throw the dishes up in the front seat under the passenger side but the sun's in and out right now and it's warmed up a little bit so I'm gonna do at least these morning dishes I don't think I'll do the skillet I'll probably leave that for when it's a little warmer so I can let it soak we'll go ahead and do the dishes get everything loaded up put the tent down and get to snowshoeing foreign [Music] foreign [Music] I'm going to take a quick break in the video to talk about this week's sponsor and that is audible audible is the largest online selection of audiobooks and that's not just traditional audio books it also includes podcasts guided Fitness meditation sleep tracks and much much more for the past month I've been listening to the Dune series by Frank Herbert I've never really been into sci-fi before but I've been loving it so far being on the road for the last two and a half years I've pretty much run through all my music so having an audiobook to listen to while camping and while long road trips has been great right now audible's offering a risk-free 30-day trial for new members and that comes with one free audiobook as a premium member you can actually select one free audiobook a month and that's from audible's entire Premium Selection and once that title is chosen and downloaded that stays in your library forever if you guys are interested in audible make sure to check out audible.com Drew Sims or text Drew Sims to 500 500 or just click the link below in the description to get your first audiobook for free a big shout out to Audible for sponsoring this video foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] foreign foreign ly made it back to the Jeep after a pretty solid day today with the snowshoeing and then you guys just saw it ended the day with the hot springs which was the perfect way to end an eight and a half mile day of snowshoeing snowshoeing was great though and I got super lucky with the sun there for a little bit I was actually just wearing a sweater and a t-shirt for probably half that hike really cool to see redfish Lake in just that whole area completely empty you know usually during the summer that's kind of a main hub for a bunch of backcountry hikes and you've got the beach there and all the cabins so it's just super popular and there's a ton of people there but it was cool to see it just frozen over a little bit of sun peeking through some snow coming down and just completely deserted so as you guys saw the hot springs was awesome as well ended out with a beer and a little bit of hot spring soak and now back to the Jeep and just I'm gonna pull off on the side of the road tonight not gonna be setting up the tent not going to be doing a fire or anything like that it's currently 16 degrees out so I'm deciding to sleep in the Jeep tonight because tomorrow morning I want to shoot sunrise and tomorrow morning the low is 9 degrees so sleeping in the Jeep is a lot warmer plus I can just flip around start the Jeep crank the Heat and stay in my sleeping bag when I'm ready I just pop in the front seat and I can drive away without having to you know break down anything or put anything back in the Jeep I don't have to leave the Jeep I can just get from my sleeping bag to the front seat and drive away which is awesome after Sunrise I'm gonna head to actually another hot springs which should be nice as well it's just this big cauldron right off the side of the road I've been there probably a dozen times but never during the winter so really excited to see that Stanley's supposed to get hit with a pretty solid storm starting tomorrow at noon so I want to make sure I get out of here in time and get up and over the pass but yeah going to set the bed up really quick and then get dinner going I was gonna do just a super easy freeze-dried meal tonight but instead I'm gonna do pasta sausage and a little bit of broccoli with heavy whipping cream butter and Parmesan as a sauce but yeah let's get dinner going before this temperature drops anymore foreign [Music] foreign foreign foreign foreign foreign getting the water to boil the pasta because it's so cold out I should I use the jet boil and then put it in the pot on the actual stove but got the job done any energy that I had after the hot springs is completely gone with that pasta filled meal so let's get everything set up and get in bed [Applause] foreign [Applause] foreign the sleeping bag I can tell it's going to be a cold night already I had the heat blasting while I was brushing my teeth now I'm in the sleeping bag it's been off for about two to three minutes and the Jeep's already getting cold so I know it's going to be a cold night going to be a cold morning but I like I love winter camping I've got my zero degree bag wool socks base layer on and it's a mummy bag so the only thing showing when it's all wrapped up is basically just my eyes so it'll be a warm night as long as I'm in the bag I'm not worried about it but hopefully Sunrise isn't too cloudy and the sun actually comes out tomorrow would be great and yeah I will see you guys in the morning [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] foreign [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] thank you all right well that pretty much wraps up this Vlog I just got done with the hot springs probably an hour ago as you guys saw Sunrise was beautiful this morning super clear skies and even the hot springs it was pretty much blue skies the whole time it's a beautiful morning but as you can see behind me now there's some pretty dark clouds rolling in so I'm trying to make it up and over the pass into Sun Valley before the storm really gets here this winter camping Vlog has by far been the most difficult to get through and the most difficult to try to film while camping dealing with a lot more snow than usual dealing with a ton of inaccessibility and also temperatures that are much much colder than what I'm used to I definitely enjoyed the last couple days but it was much more of a challenge than usual which is fun in itself so I definitely enjoyed it and can't complain when I got to hit two hot springs that were surrounded by snow and pretty much had those to myself while I was there also really cool just to be back in Stanley like I said I've been here you know probably seven or eight times during the summer sort of seeing winter was really cool if you guys want to follow along with more up-to-date statuses on where I am and also see a little bit more of my photography make sure to follow me on Instagram at drew.sims but yeah thank you guys for watching I hope you enjoyed the video and I'll see you next time

Channel: Drew Simms

Views: 4,715,566

Keywords: winter camping, solo winter camping, how to winter camp, winter stealth camping, winter survival, bush crafter, bush craft cooking, survival shelter, jeep camping, sleeping in jeep, living in jeep, roof top tent snow camping, blizzard camping, how to camp, snow camping, jeep wrangler, overlanding snow, camping cooking, solo camping

Id: xdSr2cy2hrM

Length: 48min 31sec (2911 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 04 2021