Happy Camper

You may remember that at the beginning of the season Andrea went to Happy Camper School and she got caught in a huge storm. They hunkered down and had a great time in huge winds and lots of snow. I went to Happy Camper School last week and had a very different experience. Andrea's group was in 'survival mode' for their night and my group was relaxing on a car camping trip.
We had virtually no wind and it was 'warm'. After setting up camp, I went for a great walk and others built pyramids and other snow structures. This is 'Snow Mound City' where we slept for the night.

Cooking dinner, freeze dried goodness.

This picture is from my walk. If you click on the picture and blow it up you will see little sparkles in the snow. These made the most amazing rainbow when they were all combined together. It was as if this rainbow was following me as I walked along the path.


I slept that night in a snow trench, someone in a previous class had dug it out so I didn't have to do any work. It was probably about three feet deep and fairly wide. It was an eerie place to sleep. I knew that there was no way the trench would collapse on me but could I really be sure? This is the entrance. It went probably four feet to the left and three feet to the right. It would have been better to have the entrance at one end of the trench rather than in the middle.

This is a picture from my sleeping bag looking straight up. The snow was about 6 inches to a foot above my head and was probably a foot deep.