Mid-winter family camping is an adventure in the Adirondack Mountains people, fire

tiffiant

Mid-winter family camping is an adventure in the Adirondack Mountains
Winter camping is the kind of thing that sounds like a good idea when you're summer camping and you're on your third glass of wine by the fire, imagining the tranquillity of a crisp winter's day blanketed in a downy coat of white, and forgetting that in winter people sleep indoors because if they don't, they die.

My wife thought it was a great idea, until she found out I expected her to join me. She looked even less impressed when I said I wanted our kids, ages 5 and 7, to come, too. The forecast for our outing on the last weekend in January called for -10C the first night, -20C the second.

We decided to sleep at the Adirondack Mountain Club's wilderness campground located near Lake Placid, N.Y., in the heart of the Adirondack High Peaks region.

It's an area we know well for summer hikes, with a lodge nearby and a heated information centre with hot showers open 24 hours in case of catastrophe. Nothing could go wrong.

We chose a beautiful spot (we had our pick -for some reason, nobody else was camping) amid towering pines, brushed the two feet of snow off the picnic table and got to work.

Inexplicably, despite my detailed warnings to the boys not to play in the snow and get wet because damp clothing freezes solid, they did not listen, perhaps because there was nothing else to do.

A four-season tent, which we are lucky enough to have, is recommended for winter camping in case of heavy snowfalls that could crush a regular tent while you sleep. They can be rented for around $15 a day, or you can risk it with your regular tent. The boys had two sleeping bags each, one placed inside another; parents had down sleeping bags supposedly good to -15C degrees. All had extra blankets on top.

We cooked hotdogs and toasted buns over the fire in the dark for supper, and the boys played chess by candlelight on the picnic table, taking a mitten off to make a move, then putting the mitten back on. Kids, it turns out, are very adaptable.

By 8 p.m. we were all in the tent, where our overexcited children bounced off the thin walls and drove us crazy. After settling down with bedtime reading, everybody was asleep by 9.

Until it was time to pee, at 11:30 p.m.

If you think getting out of a tent to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night is a chore, try it at -10C with unconscious children.

As we lay there, unable to get back to sleep after the pee excursion, me a little cold despite wearing long johns, pants, a T-shirt and a fleece sweater to bed and only my frozen nose poking out from my mummy sleeping bag, my wife and I decided that while this was definitely an adventure and doable at -10C, doing it again on a subsequent night at -20C with two small children was dabbling dangerously close to criminal negligence.

We decided we would make our oatmeal breakfast in the morning, go for a snowshoe hike, then pack up the tent, go into Lake Placid for some shopping and dinner, and drive home to our warm beds.

Imbued with a new hope for the future, sleep came.

It snowed overnight.

In the morning, my eldest emerged from the tent and into the silent wonder of a world shrouded in white, bathed in sun and inhabited only by us.

"It's like Narnia," he said, referring to the winter wonderland depicted in the children's fantasy book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

tiffiant

And it was.


IF YOU GO

Multiple-day trips with small children is nigh on impossible due to the difficulties in keeping them dry, but one night is very doable and fun. You'll want two layers of sleeping pads below, and if you don't have winter sleeping bags, one summer bag stuffed inside another works quite well, although the kids might have to wear some warm clothing to bed.

Mountain Equipment Co-op rents four-season sleeping bags good to -30C ($9 a day), four-season tents ($15 a day) and sleeping pads ($3-$4 a day). You can also rent snowshoes and cross-country skis from them, and they have a weekend special that allows you to pick up gear as of Thursday 3 p.m. and return it by Monday 1 p.m. and only pay for two days rental. The Montreal MEC is located at 8989 Acadie Blvd., just north of Highway 40, 514-788-5878, and there's one in Longueuil at 4869 Taschereau Blvd., 450-766-1359. www.mec.ca.

We chose the Adirondack Mountain Club Wilderness Campground (www.adk.org), about two hours from Montreal, because we know it well, the campground has access to 24-hour heated bathrooms, and there were motels nearby in case things didn't work out so well. There's also a good information centre where they can provide advice on which snowshoe or cross-country ski trails to choose. They also rent snowshoes and cross country skis. Most important, they sell hot chocolate and power bars in a heated chalet.

But you can go anywhere that provides winter camping, and it can be as close as your own backyard for a fun mid-winter family adventure or couples' getaway within metres of an easy bailout option.

Princeton University has an excellent, 35-page Outdoor Action Guide to Winter Camping available on the Internet, that provides several pages of advice on what to bring, wear and eat and how to set up shelters and avoid falling through the ice. Type the title into Google and it's the first page to come up. I also liked an article written by avid winter camper Stephen Sharp that details what it's like by someone who has done a lot of it and has plenty of info on how to equip yourself without spending a fortune on costly winter gear. www.clubtread.com/articledetail.aspx?id=49

tiffiant

Winter camping in the Adirondacks.