Surviving a WINTER HURRICANE in a Van! | Record-Breaking Blizzard Camping Through a Polar Vortex

Hurricane force winds packing powerful gusts up to 80 miles an hour. The storm system, one of the strongest to hit the west coast in decades. It's going to bring some significant precipitation to portions of northern California. We're talking feet of snow, several feet of snow in the highest terrain. So of course, we're driving up to the highest accessible winter campsite in all of northern California to show you guys how to not only safely and comfortably camp through a major winter storm like this, but also how to get out in the morning. Hope you guys enjoy it. This has to be the most powerful winter storm I've ever camped through. Welcome to Lassen Volcanic National Park. It is snowing like crazy right now. We're looking at potentially setting the all-time 24-hour snowfall record in northern California for the month of November. We discovered about 10 minutes ago that Erin here forgot her ski pants. I don't know where they went. They disappeared. So I'm going to be doing the exploring of this national park alone. This is unbelievable. If you all remember, a couple years ago, I explored some of the geothermal features that are here in the park. But that was not under this much snow. So I'm eager to check those out again and see how it looks in its winter coat of white here. I'm going to try to lose the snowshoes because it's just too light and fluffy. Falling all the way through anyways. They're heavy. This is... I guess so far the forecast is accurate. I've got several feet of snow just in the couple hours we've been here. I don't think it's worth it. Taking too much energy to get up this mountain at this rate. I'll be too exhausted once I get up there. Might not even be able to come back down. I say I play it safe. I'll just see something around the parking lot here and just cozy up with Aaron and make some dinner. They're already buried in snow just from five minutes of sitting here. Now that I have a little more confirmation that it's as severe as it was forecast, I think this is one to just wait out and hunker down in. We've got some excellent food to make. There was about a foot of snow on the ground and none at all on top of the structures when we got here early this morning. This is all just from today. It's snowing at about eight to nine inches per hour right now. At least we can take a little refuge by the visitor center. In the winter all this is closed, but they keep plowing up until a certain point. It's a great place to camp through a winter storm. To really get to experience the full brunt of one of the most powerful low pressure systems in the history of the west coast of the United States. I cannot believe how much snow has already fallen on us. I didn't think it was going to be this hard to put chains on. I did not realize it was going to accumulate at the rate of like a foot an hour. Would you look at that? I'm thinking we're setting that November record. Probably going to have to dig a path to walk back to and from the van. The big shovel is a nice touch. Look at this guys, this is just the snowfall so far today. I've never seen this much daytime snow ever in my life. Let's dig out the other side. There's a wheel in there somewhere. New winter, new set of tire chains. I guess they come tangled from the factory. Chained up, dug out, ready to go for today. That's so cute. Very snowstorms keeping water out. Just forget about it. It has snowed about three feet so far. That's just daytime snow. So if there's another six, like it's possible, we'll be in for quite a morning trying to get out of this. Are you hungry? Yes. Well, believe it or not, it's not even Thanksgiving yet, and yet it already looks like this outside. But we do have quite the assortment of Thanksgiving food to make. We have plenty of oil. That makes it easy. Alright, can you crack two eggs in there, please? Alright, wish me luck. Back into the wilderness that is just outside. You're so brave. Not terribly. I think as long as it snows less than four feet in an extra, I guess, 14 hours, then we won't have problems getting out. In massive snowstorms like this, that's something you've got to think ahead of it, is that the snow will easily, as you can see, go past the doors. And most doors require pushing outwards in some way to open. So windows, ceiling, although the ceiling usually gets snowed on top as well, or just periodic clearing is necessary. Because if not, you're breaking a window. Nobody wants that. Want me to mash the taters? Yeah. This is quite the holiday assortment. Darn burns. What? I'm so thirsty. Here's to this being the biggest snowstorm of the year so we don't have to do this again. Okay, good, this still opens. Okay, okay. Thank you, baby. Where's the way out? I have a new way out. Follow me. See this right here? I shoveled this down to the ground last time I was outside. It's already stacking back up. The walkway here is heated. So, I mean, it's struggling to keep up with the snow. Well, except for this little section. They forgot to put the heaters here. But the rest is heated. Look at all that. Before I get back in the van, I want to ensure that the walkway is sufficiently clear. I'm expecting up to four more feet of snow tonight. This is an important step in assuring that we can get out in the morning. This is where the snow is being concentrated. Throughout the night, we've been getting hurricane force winds. And so, it means that the snow is going to blow around in some areas, like right here on the other side of the van, is where the snow is going to drift and fall. And it helps keep it off the roof and sometimes even off the roads. But as soon as there's an obstacle in the way, like the van, that stops the wind, you see pretty significant accumulations. Looking at all this that has accumulated already, you might think that I'm out of my mind if I think I can get out of here tomorrow. I've been doing this a while. Watch me. I say, bring it on. Alright. I think it's time to hunker down and see what the morning brings us. This has to be the most powerful winter storm I've ever camped through. Can you hear the snow falling? It's coming down pretty hard. The forecast calls for another three feet tonight, and who knows how much tomorrow. I will be up before dawn, and I'm going to be shoveling, because we are getting out of here tomorrow. Good night. This is going to work. Oh my God. It looks like the plow made a pass here behind us, so we will be able to get out. This is... Yeah, so it's snowed about six inches since the last time they went by, and it's much, much thicker. The snow is much, much thicker coming down right now. So just like it was forecast, I do believe it's going to start raining in a matter of hours as the storm intensity increases. Something that worried me last night, which is why I woke up so early, was that the sound of the snow slamming into the van slowly got quieter, and I think that's just because the snow built up so high that eventually there was less and less metal, raw metal surface on the van for the snow to hit. In fact, our heater, the efficiency of the heater started to go up significantly. We actually got too hot, and we lowered the temperature, and it took like an hour before the heater came back on, just a few degrees lower. And my van is not that well insulated normally, so that's purely just the thermal mass of the snow surrounding it. Look at this coming down. This is no joke. Let's check out the van. Oh my gosh. Much heavier than it was falling yesterday. Like four or five times heavier. I've shown you guys how I get out of deep snow many times before, but I don't know that I ever fully explained the process so that you know how to do this in case this ever happens to you. The most important thing is that you do not allow your tires to spin. You'll see a lot of wrong advice about how you should conserve every bit of momentum so the second you move, just floor it. The problem is, with chains on, especially the lower quality ones you get at most tire stores, if they spin too many times, they will break. And if you don't have chains, you're not going anywhere. It doesn't matter if you've got a 10-wheel drive. You're not moving. Especially with wet, dense snow like this, the snow from last night would have been easier to drive through. This is so dense and heavy that I will actually be driving on top of it, which creates basically a negative tractive surface. The friction is virtually non-existent. So, in order to assure that your tires won't spin, you need to unstick your vehicle from the snow bank, which means I'm going to have to dig out most of this so that when I pull back, I'm not being clamped in from the edges. The National Park Service, to be honest, they do an even better job than the state of California. So this is a very reliable place to spend the night during a snowstorm. But I would be lying if I said one of these magnets here didn't worry me a little bit. This is more sure than I think I've ever seen come down in a day. Almost done with this back section. Then I'll just clear the edges a little, show you what to do up front, and then I don't know what the plowing situation is on the highway back down, but I guess I'll have to ask someone to find out. You can see how deep the snow is still. You can see how high off the ground I am. I'm still over three feet off the ground. This is such an insane amount of snow. It's completely nuts. I think I can try to back up now. The van will start like this. That's done. And that's the easy and efficient way to clear the roof. There's a few more. I might give it one more go, see if I can get the rest to come off. Slam on the brake. Oh, there it goes. I heard a lot of motion up there. I think that'll do for now. The main highway's closed, so I'm going to be the only one there. So as the snow flies off of the van, I'm not going to impact anybody. So I say I give it a shot and try to get down here. All right, with that settled and the partial okay from the plowing staff that they're at least attempting to clear the road, I say I give it a shot. See how long I really need chains for. They've been doing a great job clearing all this. See how much out of bungee goes? A little tighter. All right, that should do it for now. Well, thank you guys so much for following along on this adventure. That awful noise you hear is the chains slamming against the wheel well. Had I camped through a snowstorm like this four years ago, that would have been the scariest night of my entire life. But you know what? There was nothing scary about this. The snow was awesome. Well, the last report I saw was 76 inches of snow in 48 hours, which is by far the all-time record for 24 and 48 hours at Alaskan Volcanic National Park for the month of November. A hurricane like this with two waves that just dumps 72 inches of snow barely over 24 hours, I've never seen anything like it. So if you have high hopes for seeing bigger storms throughout the rest of the winter, sorry to tell you, but thank you to my piloting crew for making this possible. Look at how good they did. Thanks for watching. See you guys next time.