Back in sometime like January, 1972, I spent the night in a tent with another winter hiker pitched on the frozen and snow covered Eagle Lake on the side of Mt Lafayette, close to the closed AMC Greenleaf Hut. It was a cold night so we closed the two ventilation openings at the top two corners of the tent to retain the inside heat.
There was four of us, in two tents, there on the frozen lake, with one guy, not me, being the leader of our winter hiking group.
Sometime in the middle of the night, like maybe 2-am, we both woke up a minute apart and were both very short of breath. Turned out our breath had condensed and froze on the inside surface of our A-frame winter tent and we were short of air. Opening the vents while out of breath and placing face up tight against the corner tube vents quickly restored my shortness of breath problem back to normal. That was a wake-up call, being out of breath like that!
Checking the temperature on a small hiker's thermometer showed it to be minus-17 degrees.
A foam pad and good sleeping bag were very important items, plus wearing most of my clothes, too.
Made the big mistake of not keeping my rubber mouse boots inside the sleeping bag, overnight, and had big problem with cold, cold feet the next day while hiking up the mile to the top of Mount Lafayette, and back down. My two feet never really thawed out while wearing the cold Air Force boots till got back inside the heated car but had no further issues such as frost bite. I had assumed my feet would simply warm-up by walking uphill while wearing the dry boots which is usually the way it goes.
Big winds atop Mt Lafayette changed our hiking plan for hiking Lafayette and Lincoln to just laying, face down, behind the old foundation stone wall atop Lafayette and then going back down same way we went up. The leader wanted to go for it but got out-voted by the three other guys, as I recall. Talk about a fearless leader with a blue felt, face mask! .....
