HERMANTOWN, Minn. — Rudy Hummel hasn’t let one of the coldest winters in decades, drenching rain or clouds of mosquitoes prevent the 17-year-old from sleeping outside every night for a full year.
Hummel was preparing Friday to spend one last night in a treehouse at his family’s home near Duluth, making it 365 straight nights outside. The Boy Scout has endured 76 subzero nights in a snow cave, would pitch a tent while traveling, and by his count slept outdoors in 30 different places, an experiment that evolved into a $4,000 fundraiser for Habitat for Humanity and the Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory in Duluth. He invited friends over to sleep in his yard for his last night.
“The worst nights of all were actually during summer, the really hot, humid nights” that often turned stormy, he said. “I would be completely drenched with my own sweat.”
His mother, Gail Johnejack, laughed at the suggestion that she might be happy to have him back safe inside: “If he pulled this off, I’m pretty confident he could pull whatever off.”
