A few years ago when I was in the Royal Marine Reserves I went to Norway for 2 weeks artic warfare training. We were 150km into the artic circle and used cross country skiing to get everywhere carrying all our gear on our backs.For 6 days we camped outdoors skiing from one location to another location gaining altitude until we went above the tree line. The last 2 nights it went down to minus 25 degrees (-25!) even having things in our pockets like toothpaste etc froze. One night we dug a snow hole into a snow bank and slept the night in there just on some thin roll mats and our sleeping bags (just like in the current TV programme '71 Degrees North').
We finished off the exercise with 'ice breaking drills' minus 6 degrees (-6) ice 2 foot thick on a big lake was cut open and we had to go for a little swim hehe!
I was outdoors for 6 days in a row in sub zero temperatures with artic winds and never got frost bite or hypothermia etc so 50 minutes outdoors in our country is a walk in the park!
Some photos of me in Norway are here: http://www.getfitbootcamp.co.uk/client-marines.html
