Sleep Outside For A Week (Winter Edition)

During the summer, I thought that sleeping in the cold would be easier because you can always add more layers to warm up. Do you know what they call such thinking? Stupidity. There is a reason why people only camp outside during warm weather.  It didn’t occur to me until I had already done both that the biggest difference is the gap in body temperature to the weather outside. In the hottest places in the world, it may be slightly higher than 100 degrees outside during the overnight hours. This is only a few degrees higher than a person’s body temperature. The entire week that I slept in January, it was around 27 degrees, or roughly 70 degrees lower than a person’s body temperature.

A couple days before I was to start my winter edition of sleeping outside, I took a shovel and cleared an area to put the tent on top of as well as a path to get to the tent. The day that I started my week of freezing I had off work and had the entire day to set up the tent. As technically unsound I am, it is still not very difficult to erect a tent once you’ve done it several times. It becomes a little more difficult when you it is windy outside and more so when you start worrying about exposure and frostbite from the metal poles that are the tent’s skeleton. So in my living room, I pushed all my furniture to the edges of the room and rolled out the tent on the floor. I clicked together the poles and laid them in order of assembly. Then I bundled up and went outside. First, I put down a plastic sheet to work as a barrier between the hardened and wet ground. Next, I went inside to get the tent, carefully folding up to make it easier to carry outside and not drag on the ground. When I got outside, the plastic sheet had blown into the neighbor’s yard. So I put the tent that I had carefully folded up onto a pile of snow next to the cleared area. Once I grabbed the piece of plastic, I had to find things that were heavy enough to hold it in place while I put the tent on top of it. I found myself contorting to stand on different areas of the plastic while trying to put the tent over it. I chuckled to myself as I imagined being one of my own neighbors and watching myself.

The first night I slept outside in freezing weather, I learned several key things for the rest of the week. Number one: there was a happy accident when I put the door to the tent mere inches away from the house. This served as a wind barrier and while it was harder to get in and out of the tent because of the smaller space, I wasn’t as exposed as I would have been if I had faced the tent as I had intended. Number two: memory foam pillows turn into bricks when they get cold enough AND they lose the function to form to your head. Number three: when the ground freezes, it turns into a frozen memory foam pillow with bumps. Sharp bumps. Number four: batteries don’t like the cold. Like many people, my cell phone has replaced the need for an alarm clock. Generally, it sits on the end table next to my bed, charging overnight. I had enough foresight to charge the phone during the day, allowing it to be fully charged as I started the night. What I didn’t expect was being awakened at 3 a.m. to the sound of my phone dying. As it turns out, electronics don’t like freezing weather.  So, on my first night sleeping outside in sub-zero weather, I made my way back to my phone charger and the bed next to it. Leigha was actually relieved because, like a normal person, she was worried about me sleeping in such extreme weather. Like a wife, she wasn’t worried that I would get frostbite, she was worried that I would freeze to death.

Yes, that is ice on the face of my watch

On the second day, I had to figure out how to set the alarm on my watch. I also brought out an inflatable bed. The way I saw it, sleeping on a more comfortable surface didn't diminish the fact that it was so cold outside. After what seemed like a full hour to fall asleep, I woke up because I had to pee. I played out the scenarios in my mind. There were really only three options. 1. Hold it. This wasn’t an option for very long. 2. Try to come out of my blanket cocoon as little as possible and stand at the door of the tent and go out the door. Then I imagined getting frostbite in the worst possible place. Not only would it be painful, it would be incredibly embarrassing as I went into work (The University of Iowa Emergency Room) to be seen as a patient. Then I thought about slipping on frozen urine as I left the tent. So I went with option 3, go inside. I was filled with equal part dread of walking outside as making my way through the dark to the bathroom. After many deep breaths and clenched teeth, I ran to the door of the house. Once inside, I tried to make my way to the bathroom as quickly and quietly as possible. Since childhood, I’ve had a perverse love for sneaking up behind people and startling them. This has translated into a silent step. That is completely negated by darkness. After stepping on one thing and kicking another, I made my way to the bathroom. As I was washing my hands in warm water for much longer than usual, I was faced with an all or nothing moment. I could go lie down in a warm bed next to my wife, or go back out to the tundra for six more nights. I thought about when it started raining during my summer edition of sleeping outside for a week. As a whole, that single night was worse than any of the cold ones had been thus far. I remember my mantra during the storm. I have to do it for the blog. So I headed back outside.

After the first two nights, there was only one adjustment that I made to make it easier for me to sleep. I unzipped the sleeping bag and used it as a blanket. This sleeping bag was loaned to me by my dad, an avid camper. It was one of those specialized sleeping bags that was supposed to allow you to sleep in weather as cold as twenty degrees below zero. I had already read up on ways to maximize my heat efficiency and most things stated that if you climbed into the bag fully clothes and removed them once you were inside the bag, your body heat would maintain itself at a comfortable temperature. What it didn’t account for was that I rock in my sleep. I constantly shift positions from which side that I am lying on while I sleep. This is something that I do naturally during a normal night. When I was hindered from doing this, I woke up annoyed and cold.

The second part of the week came with a lot more ease than the beginning. That is not to say that it was easy, but it sure made me look forward to a warm shower every morning and a warm bed with Leigha at the end of the week. One thing that I learned from this whole test was that people can adapt to most situations. Where I started the week freezing and miserable at night, it progressed into an annoyance and duty that I needed to complete.There is a moral in there somewhere for my kids. This is proof that you can do whatever you put your mind to. Or...Dad is so awesome in that crazy/weird type of way.

Have you ever slept outside in freezing weather? Why?