Solo Winter Camping through a Snow Storm - Life out of my JEEP

so welcome back to the channel guys i'm drew sims and today i'm in mount hood doing two nights of winter camping this looks like a decent spot mount hood should be over there but it's pretty socked in right now i was hoping this spot would be a little more tree covered but the wind was coming from this way anyway so i think i'll be pretty covered from the wind really not snowing too hard right now and i'm gonna try to back the tarp up onto those trees behind the jeep we'll do uh get the tent open and then get the kitchen going setting up switching spots the one down there was all right but i liked how this backed up in the trees a little more so when i cook i have a little cover from the wind the other one was a little more exposed than i wanted but i like this one just right off the road but i don't like anyone's coming through tonight so i should be fine gonna get the tent going and gonna get some food going just got a little windier a little colder but really excited to try this tent out tonight i've yet to sleep in it in the snow i'll do a bigger review once i sleep in it maybe two or three times and for now i'll try to set up the kitchen pretty cheap looking tarp but i didn't feel like buying an expensive one and didn't feel like buying an awning right now so hopefully this works out we'll see how it goes this is what it came with it's a bunch of bungees probably hook it up to the shower somehow and maybe bungee down the tires also bought some paracord but might just be able to get away using these it's definitely no awning but i think it'll do for tonight probably could've gone one size bigger if this is a eight by eight or eight by six i probably should have gone like 10 by 15 i think it was the next size up but this will work and now i'm just gonna use just a little paracord from walmart super cheap too a decent alternative instead of dropping a much money on an awning not too bad not really any rhyme or reason how i hooked it up but the pull right here would be nice for 15 bucks i think it worked pretty well so i ended up just wrapping this sleeping pad and some extra paracord and then putting it between the lift gate and the top of the tarp it's not the prettiest but it gets the job done and gives me a lot of extra room which is nice and also the snow is building up already uh just on top of the tent it's only four o'clock right now and it's already pretty dark so i'm gonna do a very early dinner probably bring a snack for up in the ten around seven or eight and just hang out and read but let's get started on dinner because the snow is coming down pretty hard right now i'm gonna take a quick break in the video to talk about this week's sponsor and that is backcountry.com backcountry.com is a huge online retailer of outdoor gear from camping hiking climbing snowboarding skiing they literally have it all i recently got hooked up with some winter gear from back country including this jacket this is the arteric cerium lt down hooded jacket and these pants these are the fajala raven winter stormland pants both have been a much needed addition for me this winter i've only been wearing a base layer underneath this jacket the past few days and it's been 20 to 30 degrees and snowing and windy so i would definitely say this jacket holds up and it's super warm as well as the pants they're almost like a ski pant in the sense that they are wind resistant and water resistant as well as insulated but also are just as comfortable as any lightweight hiking pant i put links for the jacket in the pants both down below in the description as well as backcountry.com they're running a big sale on winter gear at the end of this month so make sure you guys check that out and get some gear of your own and thank you again to backcountry for sponsoring this video beanie is officially on it's cold i'm hungry and gonna make some dinner usually the grill faces that way and the propane rest right here but because the camera set up and because the tarp i flipped it around and just rigged up the propane to hang off of the cutting board but we'll go ahead and get some chicken peppers onions and some pasta going well i just went to throw some olive oil in and thing is completely frozen so not sure what i'm going to do i pam guess i could do that but i know it's not going to be nearly as good as that olive oil that is a huge bummer so the car's running right now i've got the olive oil on the dashboard and the defrost running we'll see if that falls it out i'm gonna give it like five minutes see if it does anything but while we wait i'm gonna load up the sleeping bag and pillows and everything up into the tent this is a marmot zero degree bag i have a sleeping liner as well a puppy bring up with me and then a blanket up top this zero degree bag usually holds up pretty nicely got the space heater this thing is a must i don't run it in the car i get questions about that all the time if i use it in the jeep it's only for the rooftop tent i'll show you guys that later lastly just two pillows wow look at that three minutes on defrost actually worked so i've got some olive oil now we'll get back to cooking so midway through dinner it got super windy still is windy so i ended up just throwing all the dishes in the front seat closing up the kitchen probably my least favorite thing about living on the road is having to do dishes and you add you know 20 degree weather snow and a good amount of wind it makes it absolutely miserable so do everything in the front gonna wait till morning to do that and now up in the tent i get asked sometimes if i run this in the jeep i definitely do not it has a carbon monoxide reader so if it does sense that there's too much co2 it'll shut itself off also if it bumps it shuts itself off as well so if it falls over it'll shut off but i don't run it in the jeep if i'm in the jeep and i wake up in the mornings i'll just crank the heat for a little bit i'm sure people run it in vans i'm not going to recommend it i don't know enough about it if you want to run it in a van but the tent has enough air circulation and isn't completely sealed in that i'm not too worried about co2 and like i mentioned this thing is a lifesaver i left florida and this was the first purchase i got on the road the first night that it was like 50 degrees in the 10 i woke up and wanted this and now i'm sleeping it's i think tomorrow morning's gonna be about 15 this thing will come in handy for sure yeah that is pretty much it there's really not much else to do during the winter while living on the road it gets dark at five and it's cold and windy out right now so good to read for a bit gonna hang out uh maybe get up for sunrise i'll peek my head out and see if anything's going on but i think it's supposed to snow till 10 and then it's supposed to be partly cloudy starting at two so fingers crossed i get that second campsite that i was scoping out with a view of mount hood i'll do a fire tomorrow night and hang out for a bit longer but yeah i will see you guys in the morning good morning guys there wasn't really much of a sunrise this morning but it's like 8 o'clock now maybe 45 minutes after sunrise and clouds cleared so i went ahead and moved the jeep to position the tent to face mount hood and i'll show you guys my view so well that was a pretty spectacular morning like i mentioned sunrise rolled around and it was super cloudy and windy and then all of a sudden eight o'clock rolled around sky cleared and it's been blue sky sense and it's absolutely beautiful right now the sun is peeking up behind me starting to warm up a little bit which is nice and yeah i flew my drone this morning as you guys saw make sure you're always checking air maps that's a site i use a lot to see where you can and cannot fly your drone it's illegal to fly your drone at the mount hood area but i'm actually 500 yards behind that so i can legally fly here and that's why i chose this camp spot in this area but just make sure you're always checking it's kind of just common courtesy to know where you can and cannot fly and it's illegal to fly in mount hood yeah we'll get breakfast started and get moving after how cold it was last night i think i deserve a big breakfast burrito this morning so that's what i'm gonna do so you're probably thinking to yourself that was a giant breakfast for one person and you're absolutely right i usually do a pretty big breakfast and then a small lunch or even just a snack for lunch maybe yogurt and granola or some fruit or something and then a pretty good-sized dinner but yeah i'm gonna clean up here get everything organized and then head out maybe go to those lakes i was talking about earlier or just hang around the area and take some photos i have to do dishes now which like i mentioned is literally my least favorite thing about living on the road i'm kind of just sitting here enjoying the sun and pushing and procrastinating doing the dishes but i think it's that time so so just made it to camp number two a little later than i would have wanted so i went to the first spot that i wanted to go to that i scoped out on google earth and unfortunately there's a giant log blocking the road i got there at 3 30 that's when i wanted to get in and then it took me a while to get to this backup spot which for a backup spot it's not bad it's a pretty awesome view but it took me a lot longer than i wanted so i ended up rolling in here at 4 20. and gonna do a fire tonight so i'm excited about that somehow i did not bring any beer or wine or anything so that's kind of a bummer really blew that one but fire will be nice and i'm not gonna film dinner tonight just because i'm doing the same thing that i ate last night the chicken veggies and pasta but i will get that fire going and get dinner going and yeah for a backup spot really really not too bad bought some fire starters i usually don't use fire starters but just because there's snow i figured it couldn't hurt to have so i'm gonna start off first by just putting a paper towel down at the bottom and then taking some of this wood and just scraping off the edge here to get some dry pieces of kindling some small pieces of wood that'll help get the fire going i just put the paper towel down just they don't get wet in the snow you can see here what i'm talking about just scraping off little pieces and that way you get something smaller to get the fire started so i just threw the fire starters on and they are going pretty quickly so i'm going to toss the wood on now and hopefully it's not too wet and it actually starts to burn there's a little bit of snow on it but i think these should catch pretty easily especially with the fire starters underneath forgot about the olive oil again so now we're gonna throw it by the fire tonight see if i can heat it up the chicken is almost done you throw the pasta in in a sec fire's starting to die a little bit and i only have two pieces left of wood unfortunately but i think that'll last through dinner and then i'm ready to get up in that tent and go to bed so it is definitely colder tonight than it was last night but this fire was so nice to have happy i saved it for tonight oh well this is another insane morning super quiet this morning no wind at all it's beautiful out right now and mountain hood's about to get lit up with some morning light i think i'm gonna flip the jeep around really quickly so the tent faces that way just so i get some photos from back in those trees of the jeep with the tent the mount hood lighting up in the background i'll probably throw the drone up for a bit too but it is beautiful out right now and very happy i made it here for two nights of winter camping i don't know if i'm just excited because it's a good sunrise but i feel pretty warm right now i've got two pairs of socks on today so maybe i'm just layered up a little better today now let's get moving before before sunrise hits is about to pop off my hands are frozen i'm gonna grab my zoom lens shoot from back there and then throw the drone up but behind me the sky's already lighting up well that was pretty insane i uh i got some good photos i'm gonna throw in the video for you guys to see it's honestly it's pretty tough without two cameras because i wouldn't consider myself a vlogger i'd say i'm a photographer before i am a youtuber or a vlog or anything so trying to film for you guys and also trying to take photos is tough with one camera so i think i'll be getting a second setup pretty soon maybe the a7s three just so i can video and take photos at the same time but that was an unreal sunrise and we throw the drone up for a bit i know sunrise is pretty much gone but i think it'll still look pretty cool we'll toss this up and see what we can get so so so it is 10 30 right now i still not eating breakfast i got super sidetracked for probably the better half of an hour trying to get some photos of these birds landing in my hand and some video as well see if this guy will come over actually just landed on top of the camera there he goes so that was pretty cool i tried yesterday to do it but i got a little too nervous when they would come close but today i finally got them to come over that one freaked me out came from behind got no food the tent has dropped some of the ice that was on top of it so that's good the sun's been kind of on and off out but i'm gonna pack this up head down a little bit and then make breakfast down there well the spot i was trying to get to uh mountain hood was covered up and it was windy on the edge out there so ended up finding a nice little spot in the interior there's no wind and the sun's actually out behind me mountain hood is this way and it's completely covered up with clouds so no reason to sit out there in the wind it's actually pretty warm right now i took the jacket off i've just got this and the base layer on underneath and gonna make a late breakfast slash early lunch i haven't eat breakfast yet it's 12 30 and i'm pretty hungry so i'm gonna do another big breakfast burrito and then probably head out of here carrying me home well that pretty much wraps up this vlog i'm gonna eat breakfast here and then head back to seattle i'm hanging out there with a buddy for a few days i would like to stay a few more nights but i know tomorrow it's supposed to be a little warmer which sounds nice but there's actually going to be rain tomorrow not snow so i'm leaving a good time it'll be a lot easier to leave today when i go by and mountain hood's covered up with clouds but all in all it's been a really fun three days definitely will be winter camping some more this season one major takeaway will be to get some rain boots or just 100 waterproof boots the ones i have now are pair of solomon boots and i love them and i've taken them on multiple back country trips and through rivers and mud and i've never had an issue with them getting wet but i just think because they've been covered in snow for the last 48 hours and they melt a little and they freeze and they melt that my feet have just been freezing so i definitely be investing in a pair of waterproof boots it's been really nice being out here i haven't seen anybody else in the last 48 hours which has been really nice and something i love the most about being on the road especially you know visiting places in the off season is how you get spots like this to yourself so i've really been enjoying it and you know the snow camping was hard and vlogging the snow camping was a little more difficult than i thought it would be but really enjoyed myself and will definitely be back if you guys haven't already make sure to like and subscribe and follow me on instagram andrew.sims but yeah thank you guys for watching and i'll see you next time

Channel: Drew Simms

Views: 2,392,067

Rating: 4.8954563 out of 5

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

Id: TbaZ9DZe_Qo

Length: 29min 31sec (1771 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 20 2020