We are camping in a snow survival shelter during an Alaskan blizzard. Winds reached 90 mph! Check out our cold weather camping adventure with me and Nate in deep snow. And dont forget to check out our camping adventure playlist:
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00:00Luke and Nate here with the Outdoor Boys YouTube channel.
00:08We're here in the Alaskan bush camping in a blizzard with no tent.
00:21It's a cold winter morning here in Alaska.
00:24The sun's been up for 30 minutes which means it's only 11 a.m.
00:28We've got about four and a half hours of sunlight left.
00:31So we got to find a spot to camp, build a shelter, get a fire, all that good stuff in
00:38a very quick amount of time.
00:47Oh, there's a lot of rabbit tracks around here.
00:57Look at that, big old fat snowshoe hare.
01:08All right Nate, what do you think about this spot?
01:13Okay, there you go, you've got snowshoes bud.
01:26I have no idea how deep this snow is.
01:29We've got some depth.
01:31The ground's going to take us years.
01:35Well that's pretty deep.
01:37Wait.
01:39You're tall as I am.
01:43I'm going to try to...
02:26All right, I think I need to cut some more.
02:55All right, I think I need to cut some stairs in this.
03:02Every time you dig one of these things, you never really know what's going to be under the snow.
03:06You could have big stumps or rocks or, you know, who knows what.
03:10Luckily we just got a few willow bushes, so we're going to get those out of the way.
03:25Let's get you a little snack.
03:27Oh, does that look good?
03:45You having fun?
03:46Yeah.
03:47Good.
03:48So you can see here, I'm making kind of an S shape to this trench.
03:52And I'm doing that to keep the wind from blowing straight down the trench.
03:56All right, now I just need to put a roof on it so that if we get a big dump of snow tonight,
04:01we don't wake up under a foot of snow.
04:03Let's go find some wood.
04:07Not a lot of standing deadwood around here, and anything on the ground is buried.
04:12Oh man, we're going to have trouble finding wood.
04:17I'm just not seeing any standing deadwood.
04:20There's a big moose print, see?
04:22That's the big moose.
04:25There's a fox.
04:28There's a rabbit print.
04:33Man, it's a beautiful area.
04:35Got a little dead spruce right there.
04:50I'm going to go see if this fits.
04:56Oh, not by much, but it fits.
05:20There we go.
05:43I hope I built this roof sturdy enough, because if we get a foot or two of snow, it's going
05:46to get really heavy.
05:48We've got a lot of cross members to try to distribute the weight, and we'll see what happens.
06:19A lot of these self-inflating mattresses don't work as well in the cold.
06:25The plastic gets too stiff.
06:27This one doesn't want to do anything.
06:30Oh yeah.
06:32There we go.
06:34Luckily, it's not so big.
06:36There we go.
06:46There you go.
06:47Got to take your boots off.
06:49We're going to put on your camp boots.
06:52These will keep your feet warm without getting your bag dirty.
06:55But just don't walk on the snow in these, okay?
06:58I got it.
07:00Blanky time.
07:02Okay.
07:03I got to get some firewood cut up.
07:05Okay.
07:24Oh boy, that's a pretty small pile of firewood.
07:26Just wasn't able to find much in the way of deadfalls here.
07:29I really want to have a fire right as I go to bed tonight and in the morning when we
07:33wake up.
07:34So I'm going to cook with my stove, just kind of save our firewood.
07:40Look at this.
07:42Nathan's already fast asleep.
07:44But I'm going to get him some food before I wake him up.
07:49Got some reindeer sausage here.
08:04Okay.
08:12The normal backpacking stoves you see a lot run off of pressurized isobutane.
08:16But it doesn't work in cold temperatures.
08:19So I'm using white gas, liquid white gas.
08:22But this stuff's actually kind of cool.
08:24This stove will run off of diesel, kerosene, white gas.
08:28You know, so you got a lot of different options.
08:34Okay.
09:04Nathan, buddy, wake up, we got dinner.
09:24Nathan, Nathan, Nathan, Nathan, we got dinner.
09:29There we go.
09:30Some reindeer sausage curry.
09:33Does that taste good, bud?
09:35Yeah, nice and warm food.
09:39Oh, my goodness.
09:41This smells so good.
09:43That reindeer tikka masala curry.
09:46Oh, that warms me up.
09:49It's probably just because I'm so cold and hungry, but this is the best tasting curry I've ever had.
10:03It is rough starting a fire when everything's covered in ice and snow.
10:14It's worse than trying to start a fire in a pouring rainstorm.
10:28All right, time to do the dishes.
10:33Okay.
10:41If you watch my shows, you know I swear by these 12-hour adhesive body warmers.
10:47They are great for keeping kids warm in their sleeping bags.
10:53Go ahead and hop in bed.
10:57How's that, Nathan? You warm?
10:59Well, this is Nathan's first time using his brand new winter sleeping bag, and it's a really nice bag.
11:05It's very hard to find good kids' bags, but Feathered Friends, which makes some of the best down sleeping bags on the market, they will customize the lengths for you.
11:15So I got him one of the women's bags, which are narrower than the men's bags, and I just had him shorten it a bunch.
11:22So this is about a five-foot, four-inch sleeping bag, and he's about four feet tall, so he's got plenty of room to grow into it.
11:30You like that, Nathan?
11:34The boy just burrows in there like a tick.
11:37We're going to put Nathan's boots and his coat up here so it doesn't get snowed on.
11:43I'm going to do the same thing with my coat.
11:45That's going to be my pillow tonight.
11:47Hey, Nathan, do you want me to put your blankie in your sleeping bag?
11:53Well, it's nine o'clock, so the sun has been down for five and a half hours already.
11:59But I think I am going to get ready for bed and hop in my sleeping bag, maybe watch a movie or something, just kind of take it easy.
12:07I'm kind of envying Nathan. He'll cuddle up right there.
12:10I don't have as much room as Nathan, so I'm going to put my boots under my mat like that to keep the snow out of them.
12:17You know, these big fluffy sleeping bags are great insulators, but they have one weakness.
12:22The part of the bag that's underneath you is squished by your body weight.
12:26And when your bag is squished, it doesn't insulate heat very well.
12:30So that's why it's really important to have a good mat to make up for that lack of insulation underneath you.
12:38And I've got this Mundo King Therm-a-Rest, and it's just kind of the best in the business.
12:44This thing is such a great, great insulator.
12:56Well, guys, I have slept better tonight than I have in a long time.
13:01We slept ten and a half hours. It's almost nine o'clock right now, and the sun's still not up.
13:07Well, we got a bit of a storm last night. We had this howling wind coming through the valley.
13:12You could hear it just roaring through the trees, but we're in a real sheltered spot.
13:16So only occasionally a gust would rock the shelter.
13:19But the wind didn't get in at all, so it's nice and toasty in here.
13:27Oh, yeah, we got some snow up there.
13:30I think there's a bit of snow on our roof.
13:32Hey, Nate, you cozy?
13:33Yeah.
13:34Good.
13:36Two thumbs up. Awesome, Eber.
13:38That means two balls.
13:40Oh, I don't want to get out of my sleeping bag.
13:43When I was a kid, our youth group from church used to go winter camping all the time.
13:46And one time we'd made a whole bunch of snow caves, and everyone was all tucked in their snow caves.
13:52And a big old moose came walking through and stepped through the roof of one of the kids' snow caves.
13:58And the hoof came through right next to his head.
14:02And he just went, ah, started screaming, and the moose freaked out.
14:06And it started dancing and ran off and trampled his snow cave in.
14:11Luckily, it didn't step on the kid, but he was sitting there in a pile of snow going, oh, gosh.
14:22I don't think we'll have any moose stepping on us today.
14:28All right, I'm doing it.
14:30Definitely got some snow last night.
14:32All the firewood's covered in snow. Yay.
14:35All right.
14:44Man, you can really hear the wind now.
14:46The snow insulates the sound so much, you just couldn't hear how loud it was.
14:52It's really roaring out here.
14:54Man, the snow's still coming down pretty good.
14:56I don't want to get all wet.
14:58I think I'm just going to bust the stove out and cook under the awning.
15:05I got a muffin here. You want to eat a muffin?
15:16A little trick for melting snow.
15:19You got to put a little water in the bottom of the pan or you'll melt your pot.
15:23It doesn't take much.
15:25Oh, Mekong oranges, my absolute favorite fruit in the world.
15:51Ready for some hot chocolate?
15:53You want your egg first? Okay.
15:59Here you go, there's your egg.
16:23I've got some brownie mix inside this mug.
16:35We're going to make steamed brownies.
16:42The brownies are almost done, so we're going to get some ice cream to go with our brownies.
16:46Just take some of the fluffy new snow here.
16:49Just a little dab of vanilla.
16:53And sweetened condensed milk.
16:56And it should be cold. You don't want to melt your snow.
17:05If it's really cold and dry snow, it works a little better.
17:08This is kind of wet stuff.
17:12There we go, vanilla ice cream.
17:17Does that taste good? Tastes like real ice cream.
17:24My fingers are so cold I can grab it right out of the boiling water.
17:28There we go, steamed brownie.
17:30When you steam a brownie, it comes out just like it was baked, only it's more moist.
17:35It's really nice.
17:39You know what this brownie needs? Some ice cream.
17:47Oh, you don't want any of this, Nathan. It doesn't taste very good.
17:53You like that?
17:55I got more reindeer sausage. That's my breakfast.
18:10I'm really glad we picked this spot.
18:13These trees are taking the brunt of this wind.
18:16Man, you can hear it just howling over there.
18:19Apparently last night around 1am there was 90 mph winds.
18:23And it's been pumping between 20-30 mph winds just a few hundred yards up the side of the valley.
18:30It's been really nasty.
18:32But we're down here in this little gully and it's just every once in a while we get a crazy gust of wind comes ripping through.
18:38But you can go and you can see the trees up on the side of the mountain are just ripping and moving back and forth.
18:44So Becca's been texting me trying to make sure that we're okay.
18:47And luckily I've got this little Garmin inReach Mini so I've been able to text her back and say,
18:51No, no, we're fine. We're fine.
18:53And it's really nice being underneath the snow.
18:56You just can't hear anything and the wind just doesn't affect you at all.
18:59I gotta get you dressed. It's gonna be cold.
19:06Alright, Nathan, shall we pack it up and snowshoot out of here?
19:09Yeah.
19:10Alright, let's do it.
19:12Weedle, weedle, weedle.
19:14It's sad to tear it down. It's been a great shelter.
19:16But I need my tarp bag.
19:28You okay back there?
19:34Oh, Nathan, I'm tired. How about you?
19:37Whew!
19:38Well, hopefully you guys enjoyed this video.
19:41If you want to see more extreme camping videos and winter survival videos,
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19:53Thanks for watching. Click subscribe!
19:56Nailed it!
19:57Whew! Let's go inside.
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