Lake Champlain is frozen solid again this year which makes the conditions perfect for snowshoeing out to the islands.  We started our hike from Hero's Welcome bakery in North Hero, VT.  (The owners of Hero's Welcome let us park out back overnight and were very gracious.)  My hiking partner carried a pack while I used a pulk to carry our gear out to Knight Island which is about 1.5 miles from shore.  Saturday was incredibly windy out on the lake with temperature about 19 degrees.  The lake looks completely flat from the distance but is actually full of snow drifts which made the trek more difficult than we imagined.  It took us about 1.5 hours to make it out to Knight Island where we headed to the North side to find a place to camp that was sheltered from the wind.  We found a pond that was at a lower elevation and protected from the wind where we decided to set up camp.  We shoveled snow and set up camp directly on the ice.  After we set up camp we explored the island on snowshoe and which was a lot of fun.  Lots of animal tracks which appeard to be fox and rabbit and we spotted a few large birds that may have been hawks.  About an hour before sunset we built a fire directly on the ice which helped warm our hands and dry our gloves.  It started to snow as we were building the fire and we got about 5 inches of snow in the evening and overnight.  I found that my +20 degree sleeping bag was not quite sufficient sleeping on ice at about +20 degrees.  We both survived the night and had a great time!  It was quite an adventure and I can't wait to do it again before winter slips away.  Sunday morning was sunny and a bit warmer with very little wind.  We broke down camp and headed back to Hero's Welcome for some hot coffee and breakfast.  Sunday morning the woman at Hero's Welcome told us she had watched us with her high powered binoculars on Saturday and was relieved when she saw that we reached the island safely.  She also didn't quite understand our motivation to camp in such cold and windy conditions.  Great overnight winter camping trip on Lake Champlain!