After such a cold night I decided to take down camp today and come home 🥶

With over a foot of snow expected tonight up in Rensselearville and temperatures all day hovering around the single digits and the breeze now gentle but still bone chilling and expected to pick up as snow came in this evening, I decided to call it quits.

It really was a hard decision on my part, ☃️ knowing this was the end for Big Red. There will be no more camping, no more trips with Red. But I also realized while the book may be closing on Red, Rensselearville State Forest, the hills and hollows – and other trips will not be coming to an end. I won’t have truck this winter, I won’t be embracing the bone-chilling cold up at camp, but I will most certainly be getting a new truck come spring. 🛻 Probably another Big Red truck – a SuperDuty most likely and installing a cap on it. With more solar, more batteries, and by next winter, getting a diesel heater so those nights under the cap winter camping won’t be so frigid. It was so cold yesterday, all I really did was set up camp, gather firewood, then started campfire for warmth. I can’t understated how much the wind was roaring up there on the hill. Truth is I wouldn’t have even gone out on this trip based on the forecast, except I wanted to go out one last time to say bye to Big Red.

With snowfall rates expected over two inches an hour, ☃️ and the wind picking up, it would have been another bitterly cold night. Maybe not as bad as last night, but there is a lot of appeal to the warmth of that heated blanket at home. Last night was the coldest night I’ve ever camped, between the wind chill and mercury which dropped below zero. Tonight will not be much warmer. Indeed, it actually wasn’t a bad thing that I came home today – when I got home I discovered my bedroom was 40 degrees. I turned off the heat when I was loading my gear yesterday to head up to camp. Ran around, turned up the heat and a space heater in my bedroom, and checked for frozen pipes and faucets. All was good and things warmed up quickly.  🚰 With the hard cold, all my camp water was pretty much frozen, as was my milk, eggs, maple syrup and likely my beer.

The more immediate concern too was I was concerned about having enough fuel ⛽ especially should the snow be heavy and unable to leave until Sunday. I only put in 10 gallons of fuel a week ago, but besides Rensselearville drove to work one day, to my parents house, Walmart, and obviously the state forest. Been keeping the fuel level down, as I don’t want to waste fuel or park the truck full of expired fuel, and because the beam that holds up fuel tank is rotted out and I don’t want excessive weight on it. It was cold and I would need to idle the truck a fair amount to maintain a safe charge on the batteries and stay warm. Plus more alarming was after four nights camping, 🏮 the propane tank was getting light and while I might have a gallon left, after another cold long night, it would be pushing it to make it Sunday, and I didn’t want to exhaust the propane in the cold. Plus the wind and cold left my toes, hands, and face wind burnt and dried out from the cold. Still, I knew it was the end for Red. Plus I wanted to drive home with no risk of snow or ice, and I figured if Red hit a bump and broke apart, on a Friday, it would be much easier to summon a tow truck and a ride home. It was fine, but I can really feel the truck falling apart, especially when it was so loaded down with all the camp gear.