Winter Camping

So me and Andrew got to go winter camping while he was back for a conference. I got off work at 4, drove home, changed and headed out. Got to about Hill City and realized I was about out of gas and didn't have enough to make it home - AND we both forgot our wallets. Luckily the lady at the gas station was kind enough to take my credit card number over the phone so we would have enough gas to get back to civilization in the morning. We got the Sylvan at about 6 and started hiking. It was interesting to hike all of Harney in the dark, along with the ice. Funny enough we did pass one couple that was coming down. The hills really aren't that big. We got to the top and were both really hungry. We wanted to make a snow fort in a drift and found one big enough to make a hole big enough to sleep in. So we started digging. Then got hungry and ate, then dug some more, and more, and more. Finally got done with the fort, set up our sleeping gear and started sliding down the huge drift we had made our fort out of. Got to bed about 11:30, temp outside (thanks Aunt Barb for the temp gage you gave Andrew, its sweet) was about 23 and temp inside our fort was 41!!! The wind was crazy all night but we stayed nice and toasty in our fort. Woke up to 33 degress in our fort and it was like 20 outside. Again we were toasty. Picked up our sleeping gear and made breakfast inside out of the wind. Hiked down without stopping and got home by 10:30 and was at work by noon!!