solo winter tent camping in -10C

As ridiculous as I might look right now, I am almost warm. I just got to the spot where I'm planning on camping tonight and it is 26 degrees already at 3 30 in the afternoon. But being in Colorado and it being November, it's about the week before Thanksgiving, the sun is setting early and the Colorado part matters because there are massive mountains behind us that have us in the dark well earlier than we would be if we were in the plains. Which means I don't actually have that much time to set up camp before we are in the dark so I'm gonna get right on that and hope to be in my sleeping bag and warm in time to eat dinner and bundle up for setup of this tent. Okay I can't even take myself seriously in this hood so we're gonna risk all the head warmth for this shot and I'm gonna talk about some of the gear that I brought because the other day I made a quick video talking about winter camping gear. Oh god it's cold. But it's been a long time since I've actually shown you how I put it together in practice. So I did end up bringing my ground mat which I'm sitting on this orange mat from Kama. Really love it. I've had it since I was in the truck camper and it was used every single day out there. Out here a little bit less so because typically I'm sleeping in the rooftop tent or the car but especially if I'm spending a lot more time outside it's great to have some ground cover and a little bit of insulation on my knees and the rest of my body. Speaking of, I brought both halves of my NEMO switchback. This is gonna go underneath my inflatable pad. This is a much higher R value which is why I do both. Also a lot more comfortable but this ground is pretty branchy, sticky, rocky so I want to make sure that I don't pop this because I just got this recently and that would be devastating. For a pillow I definitely toyed with bringing my full-size home pillow and now that I didn't I'm kind of bummed but almost as good is this inflatable pillow from NEMO. It's not inflated right now but there's a thin layer of foam on here which is really comfortable compared to like rolled up clothes. All right next up is this silk liner. Talked about this last week too. This is to help my 20 degree bag function closer to like a five degree bag. It's not gonna get that cold tonight but it will be in the like mid to low teens so I'm hoping that the combination of these plus my clothes and getting into bed a little bit earlier than I maybe want to is going to be adequate to actually keep me not just like safe but comfortable and warm overnight. Last but not least I have my little headlamp to go to the bathroom, get out of the tent at night, and a camp chair in case I'm brave enough to actually sit out here after I get all of this set up if I'm not too cold. It is so early but I am going to make some dinner right now because I don't want to be out here cooking when it's like 20 degrees. I just checked the radar on open snow which allows me to hone in more on where I'm actually camping as opposed to something like apple or google weather and it said that it is 27 feels like 24. Five mile an hour winds which is better than I could have asked for especially being on kind of an exposed meadow plain up here this burn scar that now exists but it's going to get cold it's going to get really cold tonight so I want to make sure that I can get the car all packed up I can get food in my belly and hopefully a warm drink in my hands all bundled up in the tent before while camping because the number of things that I've accidentally lost left in friends bins is insane and this fork I think was part of a six dollar 18 piece set from Ikea so I'd much rather lose or leave this behind or give it to someone else and not care about getting it in return is done I'm actually pretty warm from running around for the last hour hour and a half setting up camp making dinner going to bathroom all that good stuff which is awesome because I would much rather start the night warm than cold because unfortunately it's only like 5 10 right now and I have at least a few more hours before my brain will shut itself off and I can go to sleep. I brought a few books activities things to do things to edit um while I was up here because I knew the service wouldn't be good and even though I have my starlink I really would love to not use it if I don't have to because I did bring a bloody power station with me which I'll tell you all about in a few minutes but I don't want to run it when it's freezing overnight and so I think I'm going to cut it out early just to make sure that I protect the battery it's just one of the realities of winter camping is your battery consumption can be normal during the day when it's warm or when the sun is out but overnight when temperatures drop you just have to be careful about battery protection and while I'm at it before I get into the tent for the night I want to take a quick moment to thank the sponsor of today's video and the sponsor of our power what actually allows me to have lights if you can see the little blue indicator that's my headlamp which is being charged currently by the blue eddy and so even though I'm not actively using it in the tent tonight it is what still helps me prepare for every trip that I go on so let's take a break and I'll be right back I've been using the elite 400 for a few weeks now at least and especially after this cold weather trip I think it's about to become my ultimate go-to power station because it just works no fuss so let's get into everything I love about this power station first it has 3800 watt hours of lithium iron phosphate battery and this battery for a multitude of reasons is one of the best per pound value that you can get on the market right now making it a worthy investment whether you are a regular every Friday through Sunday weekend warrior or if you just go out for a power output the elite 400 can put out 2600 watts of AC power in standard mode and up to 3900 watts in power lift mode which means that not only are you very easily able to run every single camping gadget on a trip like this but it can also run every single tool in my garage at once without skipping a beat and because it has multiple AC and DC ports I never have to worry about juggling cords or ports to free up space for the next thing that I need to charge and speaking of charging this station is super easy and fast to top off it goes from zero to a hundred percent in three and a half hours in standard charge mode and even faster in turbo charge mode getting you back outside faster than ever before and for trips when I'm out for multiple days it can also accept up to 1000 watts of solar I personally carry around a 400 watt panel on sunny days or long trips and it has proven to be more than adequate for car camping like I do but I digress this power station is on the heavier side I won't lie but between the wheels on the bottom and the telescoping handle it's extremely easy to wheel around and it also has two handles on top for easy carrying if you need to it's ease of use and portability means that I don't just use this on camping trips but also at home whether I'm doing a DIY project in the garage or attic or if I'm looking to just have power on the couch where I don't have an outlet close by to power my laptop for work plug in a heating blanket on a cold night or to just charge my phone and scroll a little bit let's be honest it's easy enough to move where I don't hesitate to do it for my own use case though I would say that the elite 400 has proven to be an MVP for cold weather situations not only was I able to run lights my phone my camera which did die twice on this trip but I also was able to plug in starlink and run it overnight so if you're looking for the ultimate power solution for your next camping trip your next big project or your next heating blanket on the couch you can head down to the link in the description down below just in time for the holidays today and thank you again to blue eddy for sponsoring today's video okay first bathroom adventure of tonight you guys see my breath even when I'm just talking earlier when I sprayed my like pasta water you're not supposed to like dump it you're supposed to spray it it did that thing that you see people do when they're in like Norway or the Arctic where it froze in the air so I have no idea how cold it is my phone is telling me via the app that I use that in this pen it should be around 18 degrees right now it feels a little colder because I'm in a 20 degree bag with all of these clothes on and I'm still pretty chilly I'm gonna put my liner in when I get back but it's definitely shaping up to be a cold night so I'm gonna go pee so quick and I'm hoping that there's some really nice stars outside oh my gosh do you guys see the glitter oh I flipped my shoes upside down hoping it would help keep the frost off all right moon car which you cannot see tent lights and way out there there's some little not city lights but there's some like towns alongside the highway to get here over here I can vaguely see it through the camera but that is Denver all those lights over there the moon's pretty bright tonight so you can't really see that many stars but it's something I'll take it all right two bathroom breaks a blanket from the car a little bit of reading and a lot of breathing hot air into my hands later it is 7 20 at night and I fingers crossed as long as everything goes well do not foresee anything else crazy happening tonight so I'm gonna leave you guys here and I will see you for hopefully sunrise in the morning good morning that was certainly not the best most restful sleep I ever got outside but it could have been worse and I will say for the first winter camping trip where I thought it was going to be 20 but my watch and like geolocator on my phone is saying that it's 14 here actually went a lot better than it could have my toes they feel frozen they actually kind of hurt that's been a thing all night I did not sleep very well because of it but I do still have them they can still move so I'm gonna call that another win but it's definitely something that I'm gonna have to figure out especially as temperatures just continue to drop throughout the winter it was quiet it was peaceful there's absolutely no one out here which always shocks me because even though there's not a lot to do out here it's one of the closest dispersed camping spots to Denver and just really easy to get to and quiet this morning I was going to make breakfast here I'm actually not that hungry and it's pretty frigid still so I think what I'm gonna go ahead and do instead is pack up and warm up my toes in the car and head down to town for breakfast or at least a coffee we'll see.