You've done winter overnights? All my winter hiking has been day hiking only, but I want to get into winter camping this year. I bought a liquid fuel stove and am looking for the right sale for a winter sleeping bag. I figure I'll need a larger pack, too.

My snowshoe experience is if you're reasonably comfortable hiking, adding snowshoes to the mix isn't a lot more challenging. It can be much slower depending on how much snow is there, but there aren't a lot of new skills to learn.

I suspect Adirondack glissading barely qualifies. I've seen videos like this one from Mt. Adams, and it's nothing like what I'm doing. I'm sliding maybe 20 feet, 100 feet tops. I feel it's safer as I can't fall; I'm deliberately on the ground to start with. I do give some thought to what's at the bottom. Usually the slide stops because the trail levels out, stopping with no effort. I did have a scare on one of those. I would put a foot down right at the end and use my momentum to stand back up, and I had a weird twinge in my knee. I'm more careful now.

I mostly use my poles as crutches to rest on. Not everyone uses them, but I like them both summer and winter. My axe is on the shorter end to make it easier to fit in my luggage, and for my use the short size works well. It might be too short for more serious mountaineering.

The Hillsound trail crampons have a plate on both the front and the heel. The Kahtoola microspikes are primarily tied by chain links. I think the solid piece feels more stable. The major drawback with both is the lack of toe and heel spikes. They're great on sort of hilly terrain, but when it gets steep they struggle. Lots of people use them exclusively and don't carry full crampons, but I feel it's a safety risk for me. Without heel and toe spikes, natural stepping causes loss of traction. One has to step with their foot flat to the terrain. I think it risks injury but again, many do it. "Hike your own hike," as they say. I'm not judging them, and I hope they aren't judging me for possibly seeming over equipped.

One thing I haven't mentioned: avalanches are rare in the Adirondacks. I have no experience safely traversing places with an avalanche risk. It's one of the points that drew me to New York rather than the Rockies or Cascades.

Thanks ButterflyEffect for posting this snowshoe thing.

i am midwest, from Chicago. I can drive to Wisconsin's Black River State Forest in under about five hours under optimal conditions. (very close to interstate both ends).

For year round camping I have three types of tent. One is an ancient canvas center pop up umbrella pole tent. it is roomy but no smoke hole at the top. and it weighs a ton when dry and two tons when damp. its waterproofing is degraded thru wear and tear, also many rips and holes. The windiest place I used it was on a point of land into a little lake in National Forest in north west central (Taylor County) Wisconsin. That was in early spring the ground was yet too frozen to anchor the tent nicely; i used logs and misc the weights to hold it down but that wind had other ideas. Because of the wind I kept my fire very small which was tedious due to frequent tending. It was Spring per the calendar but still winter per conditions. I relied mostly upon clothing and bedding to maintain my body temperature. This was in a small but official campground that even featured an outhouse (sheltered pit latrine). It was so cold I wrapped a wool scarf around the toilet seat. also so cold a local farmer drove his pickup truck far onto the little lake with impunity to retrieve and bring home his ice fishing house. Sharing the campground there was a Jewish family ( I could tell by the attire and hair styling of the men) They saw me sawing and splitting firewood a few times. When they broke camp they come over and dropped a couple big armloads of nice split firewood by my tent. The Ice Age Trail it passes very close to that little campground.

The last time I used that heavy canvas tent was at Pigeon Creek Campground in Black River State Forest. It was Very Cold at that time and place. Like minus 28 degrees F at times, I hated that because I could not even take a short hike without my coffee freezing up. For heating the tent I had a home made stove. To prevent carbon monoxide buildup I used a small pipe to bring outside air into the bottom of the stove. I kept the stove just inside the tent door. I had a flexible aluminum clothes dryer vent from the top of the stove to the outside. One thing my homemade stove lacked was a damper, so I had in effect created a blast furnace which disintegrated a four inch thick log within seconds, and also got the exhaust vent so hot it started the tent on fire even tho it was not actually touching the canvas. Lucky for me the tent remained usable but I have retired it due to its great weight since I have switched from close to the car camping to walk far from the car camping. Another funny thing happened with that home made stove - I did not know that Coleman fuel was volatile like naphtha or gasoline, no, I thought it was on the order of kerosene, so I poured a little into the stove and dropped in a match - BOOM - a ball of fire blew off the stove lid (which hit me in the face) then the fire jumped out of the stove singeing my eye lashes and eye brows. That and the tent fire convinced to give up on home made stoves for a while.

Okay that was the now-retired canvas wall tent.

By the way I always want my tent to be big enough to comfortably stand erect and walk around at least in a nine or ten square foot circle just in case the weather or whatever keeps me in for a long time.

The other two types of tent I use for year round camping consist of plastic tarps.

For winter I have fashioned A-shaped tarp end and door flaps attached to a large tarp that has a ceiling smoke hole and closable side windows. The large tarp is suspended by a rope or long stick attached as a ridge pole between trees. Sometimes it seems there is a need to support the long sides too in a similar manner. This set up manages the cold wind issue well. But always be aware that NO shelter should be airtight when there is a fire inside. It has been reported that in the Far North more have died from carbon monoxide then from freezing within their shelter. So do not attempt to seal up every little opening That wind may save you from carbon monoxide.

For more moderate temperatures I simply string up a big tarp into an open ended A-frame, with the ends closed only during waking hours.

I want the ends open while I am sleeping so that bears or other wild ones can clearly see hear and smell from a distance Hey there is a human in there.

At these times I keep my food and anything else that might smell interesting in a cache at least over about 50 yards from where I will sleep. So far I have never strung my stuff up in the air, just only cached it in or on the ground in somewhat odor retentive packaging. It has never been stolen or even disturbed by animals large or small.

Of course in this Midwest Country we have only the black bears not brown or grisly like Out West. and so far I have seen no wolf coyote raccoon possum skunk etc tracks around my food caches. There are no wolverines as far south I as go.

So that is how I do four season camping in the Upper Midwest of North America. I hope I have not been way too wordy.

What kind of wintercamping setups do you use, ButterflyEffect, WanderingEng?

Crampons for ice climbing, definitely not running anywhere in those but you can sort of fast walk if you skip the rocks poking above the water and just walk on the pebbles a couple inches down. That eventually happened when I started trusting how waterproof the boots were.