The Coldest 48 Hours of My Life

I’ve always considered myself a heat guy. I once ran through Death Valley when the region was flirting with the all-time high of 133 degrees. I’ve been inside sweltering refugee camps, desert conflict zones, and hot tin-roofed market towns with no breeze and plenty of sweat. Heat I can handle. But cold? Cold cuts different.

The coldest I’ve ever been was during a 48-hour stretch in the high desert of the eastern Sierra Nevadas, in the middle of a December storm. I had the right gear—a -20° bag, layered clothing, and plenty of grit—but none of it could soften the sharp edge of that cold. Temperatures dropped well below zero, and the wind blew hard enough to erase your tracks as you made them.

I wasn’t there by accident. I had intentionally set up camp in the storm's path to watch it roll in from the mountains. There's a particular kind of awe that only comes from witnessing weather like that from within it. Heat may exhaust, but cold invades. It narrows your world to the essentials: warmth, shelter, movement. You sleep with your camera batteries to keep them alive. You boil water just to feel your fingers again. And the idea of stepping outside your tent to take a leak at 2am? Forget it. You hold it or suffer.