First-timer's instructions

For a list of required equipment (and another list of the things you will really wish you had) as well as menu advice, and a discussion of what to look for in long-johns, fabrics and rain gear, go to: Snow or rain camp must-haves We put info about any cheap rentals and other budget minded clothes ideas there.

Snow Camp is the main trip page.

Some winters a few Yosemite valley bears never go into their winter dens, but stay active and looking for food all winter.

Bears in Yosemite break into vehicles and tents that have food or toiletries in them.

This photo is from a Yosemite visitor center video. It shows a man trying to fold his car door back into place after a bear pulled it open, climbed in and trashed everything in his car:

So the Park service put bear-proof metal food storage lockers in all the campsites. (But they are bear-proof only if used properly.)

Using a campsite food storage locker has this advice and more: Bears break into vehicles (including car trunks), tent-trailers or tents to get at food or even containers shaped like food seen through the windows, so campers need to put all food, ice chests, toiletries, stoves with spilled food, water bottles that had are now empty but had lemonade mixed in them, trash that didn't quite get to the bear-proof dumpster, pans and dishes in the bear box.

You can't trust your own nose; look around the car, including under the seats, and in the glove compartment, thoroughly. Take the gum wrappers out of the ashtray. Hey, no scented air fresheners hanging from the rear-view mirror!

No bottle of brake fluid or spray can of deicer showing, the bears don't know it's not food and will break into your car because they see an item the shape of a food container.

A daypack/backpack is also a food container to a bear, so you should not leave even an empty pack visible in the car.

The best policy is to leave your car cleaned out of gear visible through the windows.

Air out your vehicle if you eat burgers/pizza on the way to the park.

Bears can get into locked rooftop car storage pods.

Setting your car alarm will not keep bears from getting into your car, but it can wake up everyone in the campground.

When camping with a large group of people we have found that some complain there is not enough room in their shared bear box for all their gear. (For many years the Rangers let us use bearboxes in closed campsites in the rest of the campground, but in 2004 a Ranger said we would need to buy more campsites instead and that has been the policy ever since.)

There won't be room for everyone's gear if we don't plan ahead. Each person on the trip must agree to use only the space in one sixth of a bearbox. A paper bag used to hold food in the bearbox will disintegrate from melted snow or rain. More on the logistics of using bearboxes is at Using a campsite food storage locker.

Your tent doesn't have to go up in the site your car was assigned to park at, you might put it in another one of ours. But we must be sure we only have tents pitched for a maximum of six people per site, (Yosemite park rules) and not disturb the ground "digging, trenching and leveling of the ground is prohibited,"

Where you pitch your tent within a site is important..

When we arrive and set up camp, there might not be any snow on the ground in some parts of our campsites, or very little.

If you pitch your tent in an area with trees, and it snows, the trees will catch some of the snow as it falls, putting less weight of snow on your tent. But when the clouds clear, and the sun warms the snow on the branches, it will melt and come down off the branches, sometimes right down the back of your neck if you are unlucky in where you happen to be standing. In most campsites this will be your only choice, but some have space clear of trees where you'll have less snow falling off tree branches, but more weight of snow on your tent itself.

Pitch the tent with the front door facing towards sunrise to have sun flooding in the entrance in the morning. Or pitch it with the entrance towards the best view, so you can unzip the door in the morning and enjoy the view while still snug in your sleeping bag.

The easiest way to pitch a free-standing two- or four-person tent during precipitation is to pitch a dining canopy first, pitch the tent under the dining canopy and then move the tent to where you will sleep.

Late arrivals can usually find earlier arrivals (if they are still awake) to help them pitch their tent:

Pitch your tent by yourself when you arrive after dark and in the morning you might discover you put the rain fly on upside down:

Yosemite campground regulations also say "driving nails, stakes or other objects into trees is prohibited." But we can tie ropes or lines to trees, just be careful about not breaking branches or stripping off bark in the process. If you want to use a hammock, protect the tree by putting something (a sock?) between the rope and the tree bark to protect the bark.

Don't dig trenches around your tent. Even if it's really, really, really wet.

If you are pitching a tent on bare ground with no layer of snow, it's okay to remove any pebbles, stones, pinecones, etc. from where you will pitch the tent.

If you pitch a tent in snow it's a good idea to get a group together to stomp down (compact and flatten) deep snow, but you don't need to shovel it all away to bare ground. In the picture below you can see where people walked back and forth in the snow to make a circle to put up the tent in, and a walkway to the campfire area/restroom/parking space for easier walking after dark.

This camper made a layer of branches under his tent as he was taught in the Marine Corps. It would be against park rules to cut up tree branches to do this, but on this trip there were a lot of recently downed trees already cut up by park crews. And, yes, he also slept with real insulating sleeping pads.

If you brought one of our pop-up dining canopies on the trip you can use it overnight near your tent, especially if it's raining instead of snowing. After everyone is done with dinner, move the dining canopy from the picnic table to your tent to turn it into a front porch.

Set it up where the door end of your tent (and maybe other people's tents) just sticks out under the canopy. Then when you come and go at night you can stand under the canopy and shake water off your rain jacket before you get into your tent. No, it's not fair to rent a club dining canopy for the trip just for your front porch, it will need to be used over a picnic table most of the day.

Be aware, in high wind you should just take down the canopy. Heavy snow will collapse it. Rain in the evening often turns into snow later overnight when it gets colder.

Upon arrival at the campsite snow needed to be cleared from the picnic table and out of the firepit, so it was a smart idea to set up a dining canopy and put a tarp over the firepit when the work was done. But it was not smart to leave the canopy up overnight in the heavy snow as the snow partially collapsed the roof:

Below, the right way to leave a canopy when you are not actually using it, standing under it, and pushing snow off it. Next to that photo, the result at a neighbor's campsite who left their canopy up all night, all the canopy poles were bent and mangled:

(Yes, the amount of snow you see on the picnic table was one night's snowfall during this storm. Most snow storms in Yosemite do not dump that much snow in Yosemite valley during one day.)

If you use a tent or dining canopy that needs tent pegs in the ground, please put some pieces of kindling or other small wood pieces in the ground or in the snow sticking up next to the tent/canopy pegs. In low light or no light the pegs and the (usually) white guy lines will be nearly invisible. Help prevent people tripping on your guylines. (The faculty advisor usually has bright pink tape to tie on guylines.)

In the picture below of one of our campsites, with a coyote walking through, you can see a piece of pink tape on a guyline, but otherwise you would not be able to spot the line:

Below: these people made a front porch for their tent from a tarp with poles that needed guylines. They put a piece of kindling where the guyline peg went into the snow (lower left section of the photo). The kinding is quite visible, but the guyline isn't.

Your lantern mantle may have disintegrated during transport to the park. It's easier to put on a lantern mantle in the daylight. At least find your lantern and flashlight before it gets dark.

Before you settle down for an evening's campfire or a night hike, get dinner cleaned up, trash deposited and your gear in your tent ready. If the weather is lousy you can mop up dirty dishes a little, store them in the bear box and deal with them when you get home. Yosemite rules say to dispose of all trash in the dumpster, not to store it in the bear-proof.

Please use the clip on the trash bin to lock it:

Put away miscellaneous pieces of equipment even if we don't expect a fresh snowfall to cover and hide them from us in the morning.

Below: people left gear out on this table overnight. They didn't expect overnight snowfall because the sky was fairly clear. It would have been a lot easier to pack things up the night before.

This includes things sitting on picnic tables under dining canopies. Heavy snow overnight can make the dining canopy collapse and your potholder, etc. you left out will get soaked and frozen. In the morning you'll find the lantern frozen to the table top.

The canopy below didn't collapse from weight of snow, it just wasn't pitched properly. It had a lantern burning on the table under it when it collapsed and the hot top of the lantern burnt a hole in the canopy.

Before you put away the stove, heat up some water to fill your hot water bottle and a thermos for overnight drinking water. You could make hot chocolate or soup for a midnight snack, but store it in the bearbox, not in the tent or car. A thermos by itself may not keep things warm, so you might want to wrap it in a towel. Also wrap up propane tanks.

When you take off your gloves/mittens to do work, stuff them inside your jacket to stay warm instead of putting them down in the snow.

Moisture in your car trunk lid and door jams may freeze overnight, and you might not be able to thaw them and open them until it warms up, so store things you might want right away in the morning in the bear box. Breakfast equipment and the stove may have some food residue so they should be in the bear box. Store your can of spray de-icer in the bear box instead of the car.

Also be sure your kindling (the smallest pieces of firewood) supply stays really dry. Experience shows that you can't start a fire with damp cardboard, (we have seen people try, because that's all they had left the last morning).

On Friday evening, plan ahead for Saturday morning. Pack your day pack the night before (or a large backpack that will fit everything you'll need to bring, which you can borrow from the club if you are a member). (Except put the lunch and trail snacks, sunscreen/chapstick, etc. in the bearbox overnight.) Details are at the hike section of the summer Camping equipment checklist

You should have stored your sleeping bag in your car during the day (thefts occur in parks). Take out down bags and fluff them up at least a half hour before bedtime. Be certain down bags, vests, jackets, etc. never get wet --wet down is useless.

It's going to be cold in the morning and hard to drag yourself out of that warm sleeping bag. But you'll probably want to get an early start, especially if you want to have time to make and eat a good enough breakfast. Set an alarm. You don't want to miss the free bus to Badger ski area (snowboarding, cross country and downhill lessons and/or equipment rentals, the ranger snowshoe walk). You'll want enough time to do a long hike before dark.

Smoking campfires cause a lot of pollution. How to build a campfire that doesn't smoke too much is at: Campfires You need good firewood that you bought or brought from home. Green sticks off the ground won't work (and it's illegal to collect firewood in Yosemite Valley). Most experienced campers build small campfires that can actually keep people warmer than huge blazes you have to stand away from. If your campfire is smoking a lot, get some help.

When it's time to put out the fire, Yosemite campground regulations say it needs to be put out with water, because a fire that's just left to burn out or buried in dirt will smolder and pollute the air. "Fires must be extinguished with water so that coals are cold and no smoke is visible."

But, if you just pour a bunch of water on a blazing campfire, you'll create a cloud of steamy smoke with a bunch of ash particles that may bother people two campsites away.

Instead, plan to take the time to put the fire out properly. Don't put on extra wood really near bedtime. When it's time to put it out, pull the logs or remaining chunks of glowing charcoal apart, let them die down a little, and then finally sprinkle water on. If it makes huge clouds of steamy smoke, you need to let it die down before you put on more water.

To be sure it's out completely, move any lanterns away from the area, turn off any flashlights, stir the campfire debris around, then sprinkle more water on any glowing coal bits. Don't let anybody dissuade you because they say they won't be able to build a fire the next day (they're wrong). If you visit Yosemite valley often enough, you will notice the smog and be glad you didn't contribute to it.

If you've been sitting awhile by the fire you'll want to move around and warm up a little before going to bed.

Check around the campfire area and under the picnic table with a flashlight for stray M&Ms and potato chips. Hike to the trash bin with the last of the trash, or do some sort of exercise to warm up. If you go to bed cold, you'll stay cold longer because you need to be warm to warm-up your sleeping bag. But, don't get too sweaty, unless you have a change of inner layer clothes in your bag.

Leave your shower kit in the bear box, not the tent or the car. The mint toothpaste and Caribbean sunscreen really smell like food to the animals, and there will be coyotes in the campground on and off 24 hours a day, whether people are around or not.

Double check that your daypack and jacket pockets are empty of candybars and snacks. We've had people who didn't and raccoons got into the tents. Picture crushed Cheetos in your sleeping bag. Picture how happy your tent mates will be with crushed Cheetos in their sleeping bags.

(No, putting a 'lock' on the tent zipper will not keep thieves or raccoons out, they will just tear the tent material to get in.)

Is your inner layer of clothes really sweaty? If so, put a dry set in your sleeping bag to change into, especially socks. Also put two large plastic leaf bags in the tent, a cloth to wipe moisture off rain jackets, a cloth to wipe condensation from the inside of the ceiling and walls mid-night in the morning, and a cloth, sponge (or one of those small super-towels that soak up a lot of water) to mop up water (rain... melted snow you tracked in on your boots) from the tent floor.

To get into a small tent, shake the snow off your jacket and sit backwards into the tent rather than walking in. (But don't sit on your sleeping bag with wet clothes on.) After you sit down, tap your feet together outside of the tent to knock the snow off your boots. Wipe excess moisture off your jacket and put it in a plastic bag, folded so the wet places don't touch the dry surfaces. Loosen the laces on your boots and put them in another bag.

The bag with your boots should go under the foot end of your sleeping bag or in the foot end if it fits, to keep your boots from freezing. Any removable insoles could go into the sleeping bag.

(Some tent mates decide in advance that no one can walk inside the tent with boots on, to keep snow (and melted snow, dirt) from accumulating inside. In this case you might want booties or slippers of some kind for hanging out in the tent playing cards, etc.)

If your jacket is dry, you can spread it out on top of your sleeping bag, with the inside of the jacket facing down towards the bag, to keep it from getting so cold, but don't spread wet things over your bag. Why would this work? The thing that makes a sleeping bag warm is you. Your body heat warms the clothes you are wearing, the sleeping bag liner or an inner blanket, the sleeping bag, and a little might go out of the bag into a jacket on top of it. There are limits to how much dispersed warmth can do, though.

Position your sleeping pads and bags so they don't touch the inside walls of the tent. This means a '6 person' tent which really could fit six people (without much gear) in the summer, should only have 3 or 4 people in it on our trip.

Wrap a knit scarf around your face to pre-warm air by breathing through it. Resist burying your face in your sleeping bag because your moist breath will soak that part of the bag. Leave your knit hat on to make a HUGE difference in how warm you stay. You might also want a bandanna on under the hat to be sure your ears stay warm.

If you're using a sleeping bag without a hood, and with a wide opening at the shoulders, bring an extra blanket to wrap around the opening, so the bag won't be drafty. Another blanket inside of a wide, non-mummy shaped bag will also be warmer.

Don't wear too many clothes to bed. You'll be warmer if you wear fewer, looser clothes. Tightness around your armpits or the tops of your legs can slow down blood flow. Plus, you'll sleep better if you can move easily in your sleeping bag. Piling on lots of layers and a jacket and stuffing yourself into your sleeping bag really won't work.

Leave some tent zippers open part way for ventilation. Yes, even if it's windy and cold, or else you will have lots of moisture on the interior of your tent caused by your steamy breath condensing -- in one night, the average adult exhales a pint of water. If you can, arrange for a low air intake and vent a high outlet.

Store your flashlight and your contact lens kit (in screw top containers instead of pop-open-any-time containers) in the sleeping bag to stay warm. If you will need a mirror to put in the contacts store it in or near the sleeping bag so you don't have to go hunting for it in the morning.

It's not good to have your toiletries kit in the tent, the various smells will attract animals, but it's okay to have a hair brush or comb.

If you have a thermos that has never had anything but hot water in it (and therefore didn't pick up any food odors) you could fill it with warm water for overnight drinking. If you don't have a thermos for your in-the-tent overnight water supply, wrap your water bottle (a water bottle that also never had anything but water in it!) in a sock for extra insulation, and set it on its side or upside down. If you leave it sitting right side up, the thin layer of ice that forms in it on top of the water will keep you from drinking, and/or the moisture around the threads will freeze and you won't be able to open it.

Before getting up in the morning or at night, do some isometric exercises (do crunches, wiggle around and stretch in your sleeping bag) to get blood moving and warm your muscles. Have a rag or dishtowel in the tent to wipe moisture off the inside of the tent walls.

This way, you won't get up and bump the tent and make it drip or 'rain' on you (or snow on you, depending on how cold it was). But also have a spare blanket over your bags for the possibility, and leave some tent zippers open part way.

If you've been drinking enough water to stay healthy, you will need to get up in the middle of the night. This gives you an opportunity to check the tent for snow accumulation. A little insulation is okay, but knock a bunch off if it's been snowing heavily. On one club trip a tent collapsed from too much snow (nobody was hurt).

If it isn't cloudy, take a minute to check out the stars.

The bathrooms are heated, so the first water out of the sink tap might be warmed in the inside pipes and less cold than the flow of water a couple of minutes later; refill your water bottle first.

Hand or toe or foot warmers ...small packets of chemicals, which when activated, will produce heat for hours, can be a worthy investment. If you figure out who in your tent will probably get up first in the morning, as soon as you wake up you can put a set of them in the toe end of their boots first to make them more comfortable, then move them to other people's boots. (Some kinds can be boiled to be reused. They are more expensive in the short run but can be reused for years and are much more earth-friendly. Mel Cottons (287-5994) had the best local price just before our 2007 trip and Steven's Creek surplus had sold out of them.) Those for sale in the park have in recent years cost twice as much as those at home.

When it's time to put in your contact lenses, do it while still in your bag. Sit up and lean over the top of the bag. Spread the bag material at your lap out smoothly with a depression in the middle. Then if you drop the lense it will fall on the surface of the bag and head towards the center where you will be much more able to find it than on the ground outside or the muddy bathroom floor.

If your car lock is frozen in the morning, hold a lit match to your car key to heat it a little (watch out for your fingers and meltable polypro glove liners! And if it has a security code device in the key, or a plastic key fob, don't try this). Gently pushing down on the trunk lid or against a door a few times may break up ice crystals so it will open. Also try de-icer in the locks. Don't try breathing your hot breath into the lock, the moisture in your breath will just refreeze. Sometimes you just have to wait until it warms up a little, or have everyone climb in the one door that will open.

Invest in enough de-icer. The Centers for Disease Control website warns:

"Never pour water on your windshield to remove ice or snow; shattering may occur."

You will want deicer for your car windshield, windshield washer nozzles and door locks. A real windshield ice scraper works better than a fabricated one.

On a budget? The Yosemite Daily report said: "Top off your wiper fluid reservoir with freeze-proof fluid, a few tablespoons of rubbing alcohol added to standard fluid works as well."

___________YOUR VEHICLE____________

If you didn't pack enough proper gear to stay warm overnight on our snow camp trip, and you decide to try sitting in the car to warm up, with the engine running in the middle of the night, not only will you risk waking up everyone else, you could make it difficult or nearly impossible to start the car later when you want to go home. Prepare for winter driving has the reason why, a link to bad weather driving tips, tips for using tire chains, tricks for dealing with frozen car locks, how to prepare your vehicle for winter driving, a winter survival kit for your car, what to do if you get stranded, how to keep windows from fogging up and tips for driving in snow and ice.

Tent walls are thin. You can wake up everybody in the vicinity when you want to get into your car and you use the keyless (remote) door opener and the car makes the usual loud beep. People don't think to just use the key to open the door or don't know that if you look in the owner's manual you can find a way to disable the beep. On De Anza Outdoor Club trips you are required to either disable the beep or not use the remote (remove it from your key chain during the trip). This advice and lots more is at: A problem and its solution

Clean the snow off the whole hood or it will slide and blow up on the windshield as soon as you drive off. Clean any snow out of the windshield air intake on the hood. Spray a little deicer on the windshield washer nozzles. Snow left on the roof will slide down on to the rear window, blocking visibility and the use of any rear wiper, or slide on the windshield the first time you hit the brakes. Clean any snow away from the exhaust pipe. Clean off all the lights. If you must bring some snow home for a snowball fight with your roommates, fill a now empty ice chest. (This advice is from: Prepare for winter driving which even passengers should read in advance of the trip.)

Safe driving in rain and fog includes info about driving in fog, on black ice, driving in rain, driving in floods (don't) and chain requirements, with lots of links to follow.

You might also want to read Snow chain rentals, wildlife jams or How to not collide with a deer

Road trip advice and etiquette has links to radio station guides and gasoline prices across the country.

The roads in campgrounds are not plowed as often as the main roadways, but if one of us with four wheel drive goes around the campground loop a couple of times we can make it easier for others to get out at the end of the trip:

__________EQUIPMENT RENTALS___________

from the club will go much more smoothly if you have read the Outdoor Club Sample Rental Agreement

For pictures and a list of some of the equipment we rent click on this link:Outdoor Club Equipment

If you intend to borrow an eight person tent from us for a trip, and you don't have much experience at pitching tents, copy the photo page at How to pitch the Cabela eight-person tent and bring it with you. And try pitching it at the on campus pre-trip meeting.

Here's the fast way to clean out a tent before you pack it up:

Remember to unpack the tent right away when you get home, wipe it down with a damp sponge as needed and spread it out or, even better, pitch it, so it can dry out. A tent that is even a little damp that is stuffed into a tent bag and forgotten will mildew and smell bad and basically be ruined.

_______________________

You can eat out at the cafeteria, but most people try at least one dinner in camp. Snow or rain camp must-haves has menu ideas along with the details about gear and any boots/jacket/sleeping bag rentals we know of.

You really need to read Snow camp weather, hike safety and first aid considerations

Snow camp carpools and driving directions also has the answer to the question: Which campsite do I park at?

There's easy camping info at: Have more fun camping

Camping solutions for women answers typical questions.

Things to do during a Yosemite snow storm besides hiding in your tent

Learn to build Campfires that don't smoke too much.

How to pitch the Cabela eight-person tent

For a laugh and for pictures of tents to NOT take on our trips scroll down to the bottom of Camping Blunders

For the answer to the question: How do I convince my parent(s)/guardian that I can go on this trip? or How do I convince them to pay for some gear for the trip? Go to: Snow camp FAQs

How bears break into cars, what to do if you see a bear and more is at: Bears

_______________________

photos below by Quang-Tuan Luong/terragalleria.com, all rights reserved.