UKC

Heading north of the border in an unbelievably far off four weeks, and we'll be camping for five nights. Assuming that we don't cheat and go back to the car to stick the heater on full-blast, how do you advise drying things out overnight? Particularly thinking of gloves!! I expect we'll have a few to dry out ready for the next day. Is it a question of hanging them over the cooking pot in the evening, or is there a better way?

Many thankings

Rich (nop longer in Wales, but not sure how to change my log-in...)

In reply to rich in wales:

Under your arm pits when you are sleeping.

In reply to rich in wales: wear them whilst asleep if you dont feel too cold.

In reply to rich in wales:

This might well be a silly question, but wouldn't that be horribly uncomfortable and make you cold? (sorry if I'm sounding like a wussy winter virgin here.....)

In reply to rich in wales: Not really. Just put them in the bag with you if you don't want to wear them. But wearing them is the best way. I have tried drying stuff with a stove before, but it never works great.

In reply to fishy1: Oh, and wring them out first if they're really bad.

In reply to fishy1:
One set of gear to wear one to keep dry. Put stuff in a plastic bag and put it in with you, otherwise you end up with a wet sleeping bag, then you get cold and....

Rob

In reply to rich in wales: You don't, really - unless the weather is fantastic everything slowly gets a little damper and colder as the week goes by; and if everything happens as normal sometimes they get a lot damper and colder. There is also a (low) limit on how much you can dry in your bag overnight beyond which life gets horribly damp and miserable. For me, in a down bag, that means wearing thin wicking layers with a pair of dry socks on to stay warm, plus one or two of gloves / socks / balaclava etc max. If you get in to a down bag in really wet stuff you just get a miserable night in a soggy bag, as the heat produced by body temperature just drives damp into the down.

Depending on the temps and degree of dampness for 5 nights I'd seriously consider an additional bag over your sleeping bag eg a rab survival zone or similar to give extra protection from outside spills as well as shifting the dew point away from your bag.

Inner gloves are easy - take 4 or 5 pairs, they weigh nothing and you can keep them dry easily whilst attempting to dry other stuff. Use stuff that dries quickly and feels warm when damp.

To get things really dry you need dry warmth, which is rarely the case over a boiling pot. Direct sunshine sometimes gets there eventually but is rare in midwinter. To be honest I occasionally sacked the tent if the weather was poor or I was too knackered to do much and drove to the nearest launderette, where the damp stuff ended up in a 50p fumble dryer trip until dry (if a little smelly). Use drybags to keep dry things dry in the damp tent - clothes left out will get more moist as the day goes on.

Have a great trip - where are you off to?

HTH

Ben B

In reply to rich in wales:

Provided you are going to be active, the rule I was taught was, you sleep in your dry kit, you can let your wet stuff freeze if you are particularly perverse, your stow your dry kit again in the morning, and put your wet stuff on, it will dry on you if you are working hard enough.

If your wet gear is in the tent it shouldnt be solid in the morning.

In reply to Jason123: Memorable KIMM sometime in about 2003 - retired to the tent and hung up sopping wet leggings, removed fell shoes and climbed in to a 1 season down bag on a bed of bubble wrap. When I woke from blissful sleep I couldn't work out what the hideous cries all around were. Overnight it had dipped below freezing, and everything was frozen stiff. I had to put the frozen leggings back on, and use my feet to thaw my way into iron hard frozen walshes... it wasn't good

B

PS my admiration for the PHD Minimus down bag was never higher...

In reply to ben b:

Its called character building

In reply to rich in wales:
LOL

You don't. Shocker eh!!!

In reply to rich in wales:

For drying gloves I found this works quite well:

Cook your dinner with a big pot with lid on, put the wet gloves directly over the lid while cooking. Watch it steaming all over the place.

When the dinner is cooked, use the semi dry gloves as insulated pads under the hot cooking pot they will dry even further.

After your meal you'll have nice warm gloves even if they're not fully dry.


Don't have a good treatment for wet sleeping bags though. If it's cold but dry and sunny like the Alps you can put them over the tents in the afternoon after your climb (some bags have black lining which helps absorbing solar heat). In Scotland I just accept the dampness! On one very wet occasion I experimented sleeping with a foil Blizzard bag over a thin synthetic sleeping bag, rather than my down bag. It did kept me quite warm but it was soaking wet inside with the trapped condensation!

In reply to rich in wales: if i was planning to be sleeping within a couple of hours from the car i would probably just retreat to the car for nice warm and dry gear...

i've never really seen the point in suffering unnecessarily

if you do need to dry gloves and socks over night it is better to dry them next to your torso rather than on your hands and feet by the way - better circulation and they will dry quicker.

In reply to rich in wales: Take them to the local laundrette and put them in the dryer.

In reply to rich in wales:

Half fill a Sig bottle or two if you've got them, with boiling water and wrap your gloves around them. You can bring them into your sleeping bag and the Sig bottle also makes a nice hot water bottle.

In reply to rich in wales:

I always put my wet clothes under my mates sleeping bag once he's gone to sleep. They dry out pretty well.



J

In reply to rich in wales:


You don't basically

That's why camping is a pretty poor option for a skiing holiday. If you are in an area where the sun shines in the day time you can dry things out after a cold night on warm boulders and so on, but in a damp climate with rain all day and little sun there's not much you can do. As said it's best to keep slightly damp clothes on and they will dry out over night, but if they are really drenched it's best to make sure that you can at least keep your sleeping gear dry.

If you're not too far from civilization, an hour or two in front of a pub fire in the evening is the best bet.

In reply to rich in wales: Where are you camping?

In reply to rich in wales:

The basic answer to your question is 'you don't'. When camping in winter everything tends to get damp. The best thing to do is not get wet in the first place, or only get one set of everything wet. The only way I know of drying anything when camping wild in winter is to wear it when I sleep or to put it in my armpits/groin. This works pretty well but isn't the most comfortable thing to do and also puts the moisture into your sleeping bag (not ideal if it is down).

In reply to rich in wales:
I just can't understand why you'd want to suffer so, when the SYHA is £15 a night, with all the facilities you'd need to at least enjoy the time off the hill?
Spring to autumn maybe, or if it was a huge walk-in, I could understand....

In reply to rich in wales:

I notice nobody has mentioned the Dampires?

Could you not use these in a dry bag with your clothes?

Stu

In reply to JohnnyW: Depends on where you are, thats why I asked! Sorry, did I miss the answer?

In reply to rich in wales:

Why is that cheating?

In reply to rich in wales:

Sorry to sound negative, but spending multiple days in a tent in winter does not sound like a lot of fun to me, unless you either get blue sky days every day or are prepared to carry extra clothing for every day! Cold and damp nights are likely to erode your resolve and energy to push yourself the next day!

Where are you planning on camping? Unless you are somewhere seriously remote I'd argue that there is more to be gained from walking a bit further at the end of the day and getting to somewhere warm where you can properly dry out and recover.

In reply to rich in wales:

I remember reading Pen Haddows book; he said he had a plastic brush and rigerously brushed every last piece of snow and ice off his gear. Might be worth carrying something absorbant to mop up moisture too.

It's so warm in this country ice and snow will melt so quickly. Aviod brining wet gear into the tent, you need to work on a rather military 'wet and dry routine'.

In reply to Jamie B.:

I find it fun!

It just takes a little care to maximise your warmth and look after yourself.

In reply to rich in wales:

My tent has a drying rack above the log burning stove.



I kid you not.

In reply to rich in wales:

I've found that if there is down involved, it becomes really difficult. If, however, you have a synthetic sleeping bag things are an awful lot easier as your insulation won't be overly compromised.

I tend to wear wet clothes in bed and they dry out really quite fast. Gloves tend to go between layers: if they are just in the bag, they wander off inot a corner and stay damp. If you lie on them, it's uncomfortbale and unpleasant.

I tend to avoid direct heat, as mini-bonfires cause cold toes and fingers the following day. The temptation to warm fingers up by the stove should also be avoided for similar reasons. The Sigg hot water bottle sounds like a good scheme though.

If it starts to get cold, a fleece used as a blanket inside your bag is warmer than wearing it as a jacket. Keep your feet, hands and head warm.

Snowy, frozen ropes are the pits - I have no reliable solution for them.

In reply to rich in wales:

I've had some success with letting wet clothes freeze and then batter crap out of them once the water has frozen solid. It's not perfect, but they're drier than they were and the exercise is good for you.

Camping in the wet isn't much fun in winter, but if it's relatively dry you can have a great time. I wouldn't wear wet stuff in my bag - it can really chill you down and you'll feel worse for a crap night's sleep than any benefit you get from briefly dry clothes. Just be rigorous about not bring wet things into the tent and keeping dry layers for the evenings. With gloves and hats you may be surprised by how warm they are, even when wet - my gloves are always damp when I put them on during multi-day walks, but within ten minutes are toasty warm.

In reply to rich in wales:
understand:
there is wet and cold, wet and un-cold, and frozen.

things get get wet - period. where they go from just wet is a matter of application. wet and warm is what you aim for. wet and cold and frozen are both unnecessary.

think of it as serial process, beginning by chucking the whole lot in your bag with you is the key, or into the space between your bag and a bivvy bag if its really sopping.
as said above, chuck your dry(est) layers on to sleep and steam the wet layers with your body heat. keep in mind that sleeping in gortex/conduit/event etc stuff keeps you clammy. if you can, sleep in as breathable textiles as possible and just have the gortex etc stuff around you. also with down - it dries/warms better if you layer it on top rather than wear it and compact it down.
then in the morning continue the process by getting into your wet-and-dry stuff and keeping it warm with body heat generated by exercise.

unless youre mad, you will have at least 2 sets of gloves, so keep whatever youre not wearing in an inside pocket.

consider too the timing of when you put your wet-but-warm stuff back on in the morning.
i like to do it after packing everything else so i can head out and start moving to keep my body temp up. as little time in clammy clothes the better.

warming stuff over stoves is asking for a world of problems - from wasted fuel to fumes from burnt gortex.

In reply to rich in wales:
Gloves when winter camping? Two pairs of Polyprop liners and two pairs of Dachsteins. Winter camping is 'usually' damp and miserable in the UK

In reply to rich in wales:

Anothing thing, ideally you need a tent where the fly pitches fist.

This gives you the advantage of being able to put up the inner and take it down sheltred from the elements (by the outer which would pitch first); therefore keeping it dry. Then you can store this seperately in a dry bag away from the soggy fly sheet.

There's a fine art to it; by shifting everything/one into the porch you can undo the toggles. Your mate might have to go and wash the breakfast pan outside to give you enough space for a few seconds.

In reply to rich in wales:

Unless you are going somewhere really remote where you really NEED to camp, my advice would still be DONT!

In reply to Merlin:


I don't think I agree with this. The majority of the mountain tents that I have used have been inner first pitching and I have never had any problems.

In reply to rich in wales:

Many thanks people, some great advice in there. We're camping for the novelty of it really - both of us are experienced wild campers three seasons of the year and just thought it would be a nice challenge to extend that to four seasons. We've got all the kit we need, so I'm not worried on that front, it was just a few practicalities I was unsure about (like the drying gloves thing).

Personally, I'll be carrying about four pairs of gloves - two polypro inners, one insulated leather pair for rope and axe work and a pair of gore-tex / pile mitts for if it really hits the fan. The tent is a four-season Lafuma mountain tent (I think it's a Camp Sup??). Sadly it pitches inner first which isn't ideal, but I've got it down to a fine art now.

Any recommendations for good pub grub and a log fire, just in case?? Sorry - probably helpful if I told you we're going to the Ben area!

In reply to Monk:


I always pitch the two layers together to protect the inner tent from rain and to speed up the process (i.e. velco the fly to the inner before threading the poles). I've use this method on all sorts of tents from A frame, single pole to geodesic winter tent. It reduce the chances or anything being blown away and also makes packing simpler.

In reply to jamestheyip:

Sounds like a good idea that James. I'll have to give it a try

In reply to rich in wales:
did my first proper winter camping trip last year, had good weather and it was great fun until we ran out of petrol - take plenty of fuel - loads of brews = good morale.

I took several pairs of gloves, but most of the time was wearing my tried and trusted buffalo mitts plus or minus a pair of shell mitts on top - worked nicely, as even if damp the buffalo's dry out quickly when worn without a shell.

we bagged our wet clothes - if its properly cold keep them in a dry bag inside the tent - frozen gaiters very hard to put on.

we had a small towel to mop up condensation/brush off snow in the tent - this worked well.

enjoy!

In reply to rich in wales: The Ben, Ah, back to my original suggestion, there are numerous laundrettes in Fort Bill, all equipped with dryers, you can take your pick if you google Fort William Laundrettes.

In reply to Al Evans: Has anyone here used the complete Buffalo system in anger, i.e. full set of clothes, worn inside a Buffalo bag?

Theoretically that should cope with winter camping but it just doesn't seem as warm as a nice down bag to me.

In reply to Siward:

I've not tried the full system (or for that matter an actual Buffalo...) but I do rely heavily on my Mardale Alaskan pullover in winter. I decided to get a hood as well, and I find it's unbeatable. I was reading a thread on here the other day about how people wear this kind of clothing even in heavy rain as it's as warm wet as it is dry. Haven't tested this theory, but I have walked through the Black Mountains in -10C and been warm as toast. Proper freezing when I stopped walking though!! I'd be interested to try out the whole Buffalo sleeping bag idea if anyone wants to post me one for a free trial??

In reply to rich in wales: The nights will seem very long if you're not near a pub.