Call us crazy, call us whatever, but for the past two years the family has gone camping at Christmas time.  For all you Southern Hemisphere people, that probably doesn’t sound like a very big deal.  For all us Northern Hemisphere people, just one word.  Snow.  And lots of it.  And did I mention, we camp in tents?

Last year we camped at Zion National Park, where the days were bright and sunny, there was a little snow on the ground, and it was quite cold at night.  Well, below freezing actually.  We ended up buying a few more blankets and other winter gear while we were camping out.  So this year, we wanted to try another National Park, and chose Bryce Canyon.  Now, Bryce is at 8000 ft elevation, so is definitely higher than Zion.  Strike one.

The weather forecast when we were planning on going showed the first two days with snow, clearing to the blue sky and sunny skies for the next two days of our trip (but considerably colder – maximum temperatures not even reaching freezing).  When we set off, it was snowing.  The roads had snow.  Lots of snow.  But we were holding onto the belief that the snow would clear after the first day.  We set up our tents in the snow.  We made a camp fire in the snow.  Henry made a path in the snow from our campsite to the amenities block … you get the picture.

The second day it was still snowing, but there was about an hour or so of sunshine and blue skies.  And then the snow came back.  With fog.  We did go for a hike – we were told that the fog was not as dense lower in the canyon – see for yourself!

Yes, that is Grant and me, standing where the fog was the least!  We ended up sticking it out for another night, when a huge winter snowstorm came through and almost buried our tents.  We ended up having to crawl through our tents that collapsed under the weight of the snow.  Packing up was probably the quickest we have ever done it, and it was very good to get back home.  So we missed out on two days worth of camping … but the forecast showed more snow and more fog for the rest of the time.  And it really wasn’t that much fun hiking in the snow to not see anything.  The kids were troopers, though, I was so proud of them!

What has this got to do with a cooking website, I hear you ask?  Well, let me share with you what we ate while camping.  I managed to stay relatively on the Whole30 plan (i.e. no sugar, grains, legumes, dairy, gluten) with just a few exceptions along the way.  Here’s what our main meals were:

From the top left clockwise: taco soup, ham and potato soup, beef stew and satay chicken (obviously these aren’t the actual photos of what we took camping, but you get the idea!).  Our breakfasts consisted of eggs and either bacon or sausages – I also brought some sweet potato toast and avocado so I could have my all time favorite breakfast (recipe here).  And our lunches were basically sausages, or pulled pork or burgers (recipe here) with salad for me (bread-type stuff for the rest of the family).

So we ate pretty well – I cooked up all of the main meals before we went so it was just a matter of reheating … which was very convenient considering it was snowing every time!

Anyway, thanks for reading this far – feel free to let me know in the comments on whether you think we are seriously crazy, or whether we should continue camping in the winter!

Until next time, enjoy cooking at home (or while camping … in or out of the snow!)

Sarah