Caught Alone In A Snowstorm In the Dolomites

One thing that the mountains have taught me is to not enter them with too many expectations. When I drove deep into the Dolomites this week, I expected mild spring temperatures and mountaintops lightly dusted in white. Instead, I was met with blizzards and whiteout conditions. But rather than turn around or change plans, I decided to go with whatever the season threw my way and I made my home high up on a mountain pass. If you're new here, I'm Jessica and I travel solo and full-time around Europe in my campervan Frodo with my pup Heidi. I've been living on the road for three years now seeking a slower and simpler life, off-grid and with the seasons. Join us for this chapter in our travels where I camp deep in the snow and grow roots in the wild. Hello friends, I have finally made it to the Dolomites. It's a place that I've always wanted to visit but in the past something somehow always got in the way so I'm really really happy to be here. However, I've come to realize that wild camping in a campervan is really restricted here. I guess there's a lot of tourism so it's fair enough really but it means that most free camping spots are at higher altitudes, higher in the mountains. I'm at 1700 meters right now. I just arrived at the spot and it's snowing so much. I did not expect so much snow here in May. I kind of expected to see snow, you know, on the mountain peaks but not all around me so maybe that was a bit naive but I'm gonna make the most of it because I love snow. When I was in Scotland in December I only got a tiny bit of snow so I feel like I'm now finally getting the snow that I was hoping for in winter. It's super nice. Anyway, it's snowing for another couple of days before it starts warming up quite considerably so I just want to make the most of it and stay here in the mountains while it looks like an absolute fairy tale and I just really really hope that I have enough firewood at the back of the van to keep us warm at night. It's honestly nothing better than a hot shower in a warm van when it's really cold outside. So when it's as cold as it is right now I believe the daytime high is three degrees celsius and the nighttime low is like minus six, minus seven. There's a few things that I do to make sure I stay comfortable and the temperature inside the van doesn't drop too low. So the first thing, I'm ready to do my evening skin care and go to bed. It's seven o'clock and it means that during the coldest hours of the night I'm going to be warm and snuggled up in my bed. All of my curtains have been down since pretty much midday so they have a reflective thermo wrap on the other side and that helps keep the cold out but obviously I've got a lot of windows in the van so if the curtains are up I lose a lot of heat and let me show you the rest. For the windows that don't have reflective curtains I draped my blankets across them so the sliding door has my linen blanket and my cab area has my heavy cotton blanket so I would lose a lot of heat through that otherwise which is why I've insulated and separated them. I've also got a fire going it's been way too warm in the van actually it's like 25 degrees in here I'm really warm especially with my layers but I found that the more I heat up the van in the evening especially with my heat saving measures the warmer it will be in the morning so it will probably still be like five to seven degrees in the morning and I can just shuffle over to the wood burner in my duvet restart the fire and snuggle back in until it's warm again in the van once more and I also brought my sleeping bag my camping sleeping bag inside the van. I camped within the Welsh mountains a few weeks ago and it was like three degrees above freezing at night and I was way too warm with the sleeping bag closed because it's a three season one so hopefully that's a good backup I've got layers and yeah it should be fine hopefully I won't get too snowed in but I've also got winter tyres well they're not proper winter tyres they're all season tyres but legally they count as winter tyres so if I drive carefully I should be fine driving down the mountain in an emergency if I run out of firewood or anything but hopefully I won't have to. Daisy do you like the sleeping bag? I think she really likes the sleeping bag I've been documenting my life through these films for over a year now and weeks like this one filming in a snowstorm or in the rain can be really tricky because my main camera isn't waterproof. Some of the shots you just saw were actually filmed on an insta360 camera they're kindly sponsoring this video and I've been trying out the insta360 x5 this week which has been a lot of fun it captures angles my phone and even my cinema camera can only dream of it films in every direction at once on an invisible selfie stick so I can just hold it on the extended pole and walk and the stick disappears in the footage it looks like there's a drone or a person following me but it's just me and this little camera because it films everything around me at once I don't have to decide on one angle while I'm filming I shoot first and then I choose the exact angle I want in the app a wide shot of me in the landscape a close-up or first person point of view all from one take it means I don't have to keep running back to the tripod or fumble with camera settings in the cold and of course it's fully waterproof which can really make the difference between getting the shot or not if you want to give it a try I'll leave the link to the x5 in the video description a big thank you to insta360 for all right let's get a fire going and make coffee okay guys I need to be real with you for a minute because I often get comments like you're so brave to be traveling alone and in all kinds of weather in the mountains and I really appreciate those comments but last night I was I was really anxious I got really hung up on avalanches because I'm parked next to a slope next to a mountain I was like oh shoot was that a bad idea am I gonna be hit by an avalanche and die and I started googling it and I also I was hearing this rumbling in the distance and then realized it was actually just planes flying overhead and I was looking at that flight radar website every time it started rumbling I opened the website to make sure it was a plane and not an avalanche and yeah I was like and it's very unlikely when you're at a trailhead surrounded by trees and forest but I got really hung up on it I went to bed at like 8 30 and didn't sleep until like 11 but yeah that's just the way it goes when you do something for the first time that potentially comes with risks when you don't do it properly and don't take the right precautions it is very scary but I woke up okay this morning I was actually a little bit too warm overnight I had to kind of pull down my sleeping bag but yeah feeling really good this morning I would have liked a bit more sleep ideally but I've got a fire going I've got a coffee what more could a girl want hey snoot did you sleep well I know you slept well because you were cuddled up to me yes and you were snoring yes you were snoring been wanting to go on a walk but let me show you the state of the trailhead completely snowed in and quite slippery I do have winter hiking boots but I don't think they're gonna withstand this and the entire thing it's just really snowed in so I think I'm gonna have to drive back into town because I'm also starting to run a bit low on firewood and it's snowing even more now and I'm gonna try and find an outdoor shop and get some proper gear some snowshoes or at least some micro spikes and poles so I can keep my balance a bit better in this thick snow I think I need to get the ladder out to get the snow off the roof so you're not supposed to leave any snow on your roof because then it can slide onto your windscreen once you start driving okay please start oh you never let me down Frodo so yesterday I was in town and I managed to get my micro spikes and firewood ended up sleeping in town to get some laptop work done because I didn't have good signal on the mountain and now I'm back and mostly nearly all the snow is gone it's quite heartbreaking there's still a little bit so I'm hoping that once I walk back up into the mountains there's gonna be more watching me now driving up into the mountains to find the last snow of the season you wouldn't think that I used to be everything but a winter person I think living in the UK for a long time where winters are grey windy and rainy I fell out of love with the season I forgot the magic that winter used to bring when I was a child when everything was coated in a thick layer of snow contrasted against the rich deep green of the pine trees and while summer is still my favourite season of the year I have become more of a winter person too the cold doesn't bother me the way it used to because I essentially live outside and my body has learned to handle extreme temperatures and I'm very grateful for that because winter can feel very long when you live in a van and like to spend time in the mountains where it can stretch to six months so learning to enjoy it has made a big difference to my happiness I actually didn't end up needing my microspikes in the end because the trail was a lot more muddy than it was snowy which made it easier in some ways and harder in others but eventually we made it all the way to the top we're at the summit now and heading back to the van I'm not usually this tired after 8k but the trail was a little bit more challenging with all the mud and it was very up and down but I also feel that the trails that are a little bit more challenging and even frustrating at times they're some of the most rewarding I do enjoy it when a trail is difficult sometimes I feel a lot more accomplished afterwards so that's nice so we're heading back and then I'm gonna drive further up into the mountains and I guess we'll see what we find there he tired after a long hike was it a long hike yes 13 kilometers and 500 meters elevation change he did so well so we're still at altitude 1800 meters I believe but we're on the other side of mountains now and here it is summer instead of winter and I have completely run out of food pretty much all I have left is stale bread a couple of vegetables red pepper and broccoli so I'm going to make bread dumplings which is actually something traditional from the area but I'm going to mix it up a bit and make a tomato red pepper sauce to go with it bit experimental I've actually never made dumplings before so they may well fall apart instantly I like to spend six out of seven days off the grid and only visit a supermarket once a week so stale bread has become a regular occurrence in my van and I've been trying to figure out more creative ways to cook with it than just frying it in olive oil for this meal I soaked the bread in warm oat milk and mixed in very lightly fried onion and fresh parsley salt and nutmeg traditionally one would use flour and eggs to bind the dumplings together but I was also out of eggs so instead I used ground flax seed and I also roasted a red pepper I'd left over in my tiny oven in this area cubed bacon is the traditional addition but I don't eat meat so instead I finally cubed some smoked tofu and fried it in oil with seasoning okay moment of truth will it fall apart kind of scared to drop it I think we have a success I don't even know what I'm doing anymore some tomato I'll just mix it all together because why not I don't know what I just made it's kind of weird mediterranean inspired tomato stew with stale bread dumplings and tofu but it's very tasty it's crazy how just a couple of days ago Heidi and I were snowed in where we were parked and it was minus degrees and today it's warm enough for me to wear my beloved merino top linen dress again so I would estimate that it's probably around 10 degrees celsius and I really love that about the mountains you know they look different every day throughout my life I would always get really bored of the places where I lived and I moved around a lot I was always really restless and then obviously eventually started traveling full-time and I feel like the mountains are the only place where I could see myself living long term you know because the weather and seasons just make them look different every day even within the same season they look different every day and I feel like it just keeps things interesting you know and I guess that's another thing that the mountains have taught me this week no matter how much we love the things in our lives whether it's people places or a beautiful blanket of snow in the mountains nothing lasts forever no matter how much we chase after it winter will always turn into spring eventually and all we can do is witness the changing of the seasons and the beauty all around us right here in this moment because tomorrow the world could look very different once again