Never approach wildlife. Wild animals can be strong and fast. They especially get agitated when defending themselves or when they feel their offspring are threatened. Cornering a wild animal will definately increase their feelings of vunerability so back away slowly. If you’ve got young children along, make sure you keep an eye on them and teach them to call for help if necessary.

Sick or overly aggressive animals may be affected by rabies. If you’re in a campground, it’s a good idea to report these animals to a park ranger or someone else in charge.

It’s also really important to never keep food in your tent. Throw away all waste product immediately and pack away any leftovers. Hanging it in a tree is one option - make sure the food is at least 10 feet off the ground and about 3 or 4 feet away from the trunk. Ensure you use good plastic containers animals can’t get into. You may also store these containers in your car for extra protection. My scouting group uses a big footlocker type trunk to store food. The cool thing about it is that is also functions as a bench, footrest, or small table that is good for playing card games on.

Speaking of food, never feed the animals. This can result in unpredictable behavior and puts you in a dangerous situation. Besides for encouraging them to return later for more food, this will lessen their natural instincts to take care of themselves.

Keep these general principals in mind and hopefully your next camping trip will be safe and you’ll have an enjoyable time watching the wildlife.

Instructions: Cube ham, potatoes, and apples. Then wrap each serving in foil. Make sure it is tightly closed. Throw on your campfire’s coals and cook for about half an hour. Turn halfway through for even cooking. Apples add to the sweetness and replace butter in the recipe. They also give some moisture so the food isn’t so dry.

Instant soups and stews are quick and easy to make and come in lots of flavors to satisfy everyone. You can even use your insulated mug to eat or drink the soup out of. 

Pasta for supper works well. Using ziplocks, drop in a bag of frozen spaghetti into your pot with boiling water and wait for it to thaw.

Follow dinner with a hot drink and can consist of hot chocolate, tea, tang, or jello. Yes jello - it can make a sweet hot drink - just mix hot water with jellow packets.

In the winter, all you need in your personal mess kit is a big insulated plastic cup along with a plastic spoon. You can clean them after eating, by scraping out the leftovers with snow. This may be obvious to some, but don’t bring alone metal utensils while winter camping.

Aluminum foil as usual will prove its worth especially for packing. You can wrap your breakfast bagel sandwiches in individual servings ahead of time. Wrap up your bacon by meal in foil and just throw on the coals.

You can prepare this ahead of time and provide each person with a personal lunch they can snack on throughout the day. You’ll want to cube or slice the cheese ahead of time so you’re not biting into a big frozen chunk. The meats can come from lunch meat or any leftover breakfast bacon. Peanut butter on crackers or a bagel sandwich (lunch meat or peanut butter) will provide you with some protein, fats, and carbohydrates. If you are staying at your camp, as opposed to going on a hike, you could actually do some cooking and have a hot meal. This will provide the campers with a rest period however make sure to keep everyone warm during this time as people may get cold if they just lull around camp for too long. If you want to go with a hot meal, take a look at the simpler dinner ideas such as soup as supplement additional food as needed.

It can be rather simple to cook a good dinner that will serve a lot of people by making a stew. Begin with some base soup or gravy and add in some carbohydrate starches such as noodles or rice. Then throw in some frozen vegetables such as green beans along with some meat for protein. The meat can be canned tuna or fish or maybe even your deli meat. Cheese can be added as well. Don’t forget the seasonings so your dinner is not bland.

One dinner option is to use freeze dried foods which you only need to boil in water. They also weigh less so they are easy to carry into camp. Less effort is needed to cook them and that is a bonus too. However cost, as compared to rice and noodles, is relatively higher so make sure you shop around. Also take a close look at the serving sizes listed and then think if that would really fill a person as sometimes companies overestimate how many people each meal pack serves. if you go this route, order extra if you are unsure as consuming enough food is crucial in winter camping.

You may need to encourage yourself and those in your care to eat. The best way to do that is to plan an appealing menu. So let’s talk about what to pack.

You generally want to stay away from fresh food in the winter. Fresh foods such as fruit and vegetables contain water and will freeze. Dairy product such as cheese and butter are okay.

For breakfast, keep it simple. It may be hard enough to get out of your sleeping bag and you’ll want to get warm quick. Instant oatmeal or granola in hot milk is an easy choice. Hot milk can be made easily by mixing hot water and dry or powdered milk. Throwing in some margerine, will enable you to sneak some extra fat calories into the bodies of any children who may have trouble eating enough food to reach the higher caloric total needed.

Eggs (which may freeze) and pancakes get cold very quickly and generally lose their taste and appeal when cold. However bacon is still a possibility and a great source of protein. It can also be used later in the day for sandwiches or snacks. To cook bagels or english muffins, simply melt butter in a pan and toss in your bread!

Be very careful with coffee on your camping trip. Because caffeine is a diuretic, you’ll lose water which can lead to dehydration and possibly hypothermia. If you still must have coffee, go for decaf.

Please see tomorrow’s post for lunch and dinner trips plus more!

If you have a mummy sleeping bag make sure you close it up so your eyes, mouth, and nose are exposed. Breathing into your sleeping bag, will wet it and decrease its ability to keep you warm. If you have another style of sleeping bag, sleep with a hat on.

Don’t close up your tent completely. You may worry about losing heat however a closed tent will allow condensation to form on the tent walls. This will lead to possibly wet clothese, sleeping bag, and gear.

Bottles of warm water are useful in a couple different contexts. By putting a warmed bottle in the bottom of your sleeping bag, it will help keep your feet warm while you are sleeping.
Also, placing a warm water bottle in your boots will help prevent them from freezing during the night. Another tip it to place your boots in a gear or stuff sack as opposed to laying on your tent floor.

Although lakes may be frozen solid, a stream or spring might still be flowing. Since low temperatures don’t kill all possible parasites, the water still needs to be boiled or filtered.
However, melting snow to water form takes time and energy, make sure you fill all your water bottles whenever you are near a running supply.

You can melt the snow over a fire or your stove. Once this gets going, start by warming some existing water in your pan. Then slowly add snow and wait til that warms up and melts. Then repeat until you have enough water. If you only start off with snow and no existing water, you will probably end up with scorched burnt water.

Also instead of putting ground snow directly into the pan, you can scoop some into garbage bags and then set them in the snow. This will result in melted water or at the worst snow that will melt very quickly when heated.

Instructions:Apply peanut butter on tortilla shell and throw on some chocolate chips. Add some marshmallows and then roll up like a burrito. Wrap individually in foil and cook on grill for about 5 minutes.

Instructions: Spray cheese whiz on a slice of bread and cover with another piece to make a sandwich. Spread butter on the outsides of each slice of bread and grill on your skillet. When one side becomes golden brown, flip it and cook the other side.

Helpful tip: Make earlier in the trip before the bread gets a chance to become too scrunched or not so fresh. Also leftover cheese whiz can be eaten with crackers as a snack.

Avoid low laying areas as that is where the coldest air will settle. On the other hand, you also want to avoid high ridge tops where the winds may wreak havok with your tent and possibly create snow drifts.

South facing areas will result in more sun and thus longer days - take what you can get! If streams or lakes are nearby, you will be spared from having to melt snow for all your water needs.

Although it’s winter, level ground still makes for the most comfortable night sleeping. Lastly be cautious in choosing your site to avoid risk of avalanches.

Just keep in mind this criteria next time you are planning your winter camping trip, and you’ll be starting out on the right foot.