0 Degree night atop Bell Mountain

Bell Mountain is easily my favorite place to camp in the state of Missouri.  If you haven’t been there, it’s a great trip with lots of options on hike distance, elevation gain and difficulty.

See the map below the video to see your options but the short story is there are two different trail heads, one on the southwest side of the loop, and one on the northeast side.  You have three options:

• Enter from Northeast, and head down the east side of the mountain, 3.8 miles

• Enter from the Northeast, and do the full loop, almost 11 miles to the summit, and 3.8 miles out.

• Enter from the Southwest, take the trail counterclockwise, and you’ll have about 6-7 miles to the summit, and the same distance back out.

 This was an incredible experience despite the fact that I was pretty cold the majority of the night.  My Hammock Gear 20 degree under quilt and top quilt did the best they were designed for but the nearly 0 degree windchill was just too much.

I fell asleep at 7:00ish and woke back up from the cold at 11:45.  I knew the rest of the night would be a battle against the chill and made some adjustments to my setup such as adding my sit pad below my butt, and toe warmers in my lower back.  Despite my efforts, I was only able to sleep about 2 hours out of the next 7.

The sunrise was absolutely stunning and the weekend was well worth it, but I learned a lot by failing to stay warm.

If you have any questions about the trip, my gear or backpacking in general, hit me up on Facebook by searching Outdoors Podcast