I agree that sleeping with less clothing keeps you warmer, but one trick I've found is to put some clothes in the sleeping bag with me, just kind of off to the side. In the morning, the clothes will already be warm and easier to wear.
@@loudowning3393 yes! While rolling around in your sleeping bag getting dressed, throw the hand warmers in your boots. Once dressed and getting your boots on, the warmers can be put inside your outer jacket to warm it up. It's a process but anything to stay warm some mornings is worth it in my books lol
Even for people who never plan to do winter camping, an awareness of some of these things would be helpful for people who lose power during a winter storm and suddenly find themselves "camping" in the cold inside their homes. Thank you.
Houses in freezing temps are COLDER inside than the outside air. I was a realtor doing foreclosure work in Mn, and houses without heat were ALWAYS much colder. We always had to go outside in the winter to get warmer. All the walls, floors and ceilings were ice blocks. Fine in warmer climates, just not freezing ones. FYI.
My personal favorite tip for cold-weather camping is when you do get to camp and set up, pull your sleeping bag out and let it loft up BEFORE you get in it. Compressed down doesn't insulate well. It's something small, but can decrease that discomfort of getting into a frozen sleeping bag.
@@lightwalker4558 Too true. Maybe I should have said that I give it a little bit of a manual fluff before hand, but I thought most people did that anyways.
@@samn5362 For sure. I don't roll or fold my tents either. It prevents creasing which can cause weak points, leading to tares or holes. They're called stuff sacks for a reason. Lol.
In regard to the hot water bottle I learned something that may be applicable to others too. I am not a particularly cold guy at night so I don't need a lot of heat but I do like placing hot water in a thermos, it will leak warmth only a little so it provides minimal warmth over a very long period. Sometimes I place teabags or some fruit in the bottle before going to sleep and in the morning I still have a warm tea or other beverage to drink and get that heat directly in my body to be ready for the day. I hope someone gets some use out of this
5:49 YES Plastic will react with HOT Water... I was having bad stomach problems.... couldn't find anything wrong... then I realized for awhile I had been using PLASTIC Spoons in my HOT Coffee... I stopped and immediately my stomach was better... I never COOK with anything Plastic... I only use Glass, Wood, Cast Iron etc... You might be asking yourself... why is a 68 year old woman watching this... I am getting ready to move into my Vintage Travel Trailer (50 years old) and remember the times when I lived up in the Mountains of New Mexico (US) how cold it could be... I thought I needed a refresher course so I'm watching your video. This is just incase something happens... and in life... anything can happen... Thank you for sharing this great video... You may have saved a life...
As someone who does quite a bit of cold weather camping (I live in Finland so if I don't want to just stay inside half of the year I have to) I can confirm that this is some solid advice. From now on when I go out in the cold weather with less experienced cold weather hikers I will show them this video first. Imo you went over all of the most important tips to staying comfortable while sleeping in the cold.
As a winter camping Canadian. I agree. Only thing I would add is make sure the pee bottle is VERY VERY well marked. Best to even have it a different colour then your water bottle.
@@thankmelater1254 You're right. The main thing is that all these definitely help, as I have used all or some of these over the years and they definitely helped to keep me warmer than the first couple of times when I went winter camping as a young Boy Scout. The more items and skills in your toolbox the better.
Camped in -20 F ( -29 C ), in norther Michigan once. Hand warmers were very helpful. Things I learned; batteries don’t work that cold so flashlight very dim. Face gets cold from breath condensation freezing to any fabric. If you bump your tent it snows inside like a snow globe. Water in containers freezes from top down so store upside down or keep some water in sleeping bag. Going to bed at 7 pm cause its been dark for 2 hours wakes you up at 3 a.m. if you want 8 hrs sleep, so plan on sitting at a fire at 4 in the morning 😂 but had fun and made for good adventure story. Didn’t know to tap down snow with snowshoe’s and then wait for 30 or so minutes to set tent otherwise have very lumpy sleep, or could shovel down to ground I suppose.
Twenty years in the Army, taught me much of you've said, except for some the newer products that weren't available to me. Sweat kills!! well said. No matter how cold and uncomfortable, I alwaysundressed before getting in sleeping bag.
Hi I am a traveller and I travelled in Siberian mountains. In this video everything is all right, simple, correct and no bullshit. It is difficult to find the same in UA-cam. People trying to look as very cool servivers but there is a difference- to look or to be. Thanks.
I've been watching this channel for maybe a year or so and all I can say is this is what the "internet" was supposed to be all about. Dunno how the rest of y'all feel but unbiased opinions/commentary are really refreshing! Thanks for posting!
Glad to hear u bring up hand warmers. I leave this experience on videos like this. I survived a winter in New England, homeless, living in a tent with hand warmers and a sleeping bag. I used 2 at a time, and usually woke up once in the night to change them out. So about 4 a night. With the dark times we are going into, I hope this helps someone. Obviously the #1 point is trying to not to get in that situation, but even for those in a house without power, the bag + hand warmers kept me alive. I put them inside socks, then put one around my calves, and the other up by my chest. Be safe everyone.
Great tips. My contributions... - I've been cold in a truck and warm under just a tarp. The difference? Tarp was a confined space which slowed down loss of heat. Shelter size makes a huge difference. - Use a heat source. Be mindful of wind direction and distance not only to avoid smoke, but to avoid embers burning holes in synthetics. - Don't forget to erect a wind break if needed. - Use a moisture barrier on the ground such as painter's plastic. - Consider how you'd stay cool in summer and do the opposite. Everything from site selection to insulation, moisture, weather, fire prep, to wind need consideration in order to be comfortable. -Understand how insulation works and fails. Know how to capitalize on pros and cons of natural vs synthetic material. Choose wisely and use layers appropriately.
On cold mornings, I like to have my stove, water and oat meal next to my bag so I can boil water, make a hot breakfast and digest it an hour before I get out of my bag. It's a total game changer IMO!
Last time I went car camping, two weeks ago or so, it was so cold in the morning I ripped the window coverings off and headed to Hardee’s for breakfast. I couldn’t take it.
I am from Sweden and in extream cold (when using both foam and air sleeping mats) we use to fold the foam sleeping mat in half and put it in line with the upper body, because it is over that area you are heaviest and need most isolation from ground.
As an avid winter person, the only thing I would add is that the sweating thing is also vital for when you're out and about. You will play the layer game and it's crucial to learn. The cheaper your clothing generally the more of an expert you have to be at the layer game. The colder it is the better you must be at the layer game. It's easy to practice this walking around your neighborhood in winter or in a relatively safe and reasonably close location to heat or shelter. You can pretty easily practice with your clothes and gear before getting out into real winter conditions to see how well it fairs and see how the layer game works if you've never done winter hiking before. Also, good wool socks are 100% worth it.
Agree! When I first started winter camping and hiking I was on a limited gear budget and my base layers were primarily low cost acrylics. They weren’t the greatest in extreme temps. Over time I have replaced all my base layers, socks and sweaters with 100% wool and it has definitely been a game changer! Also invested in wool pants as well. Well worth the expense, and have even sourced some of my wool clothing at thrift shops.
Awesome tips, Luke. After 60 years of backpacking world wide experience is key to survival. At almost 75 I am a van lifer traveling throughout our nation. Your tips also apply to us who camp in our vehicles and even to those who experience lengthy power outages in our homes. Proper preparation is vital.
As always, Good job of explaining. Remember the bag does not warm you. Your body heat warms the trapped air in the bag so the smaller the space the less air to heat. The most important job of the body is to preserve the vital organs. If your body temperature drops all the warm blood will be diverted to the vital organs. Only excess warm blood is diverted to the fingers and feet. Think of your extremities as the radiator fins that cool an engine. When you over heat exercising remove your gloves, don't uncover your head. Your brain is a vital organ. Let your radiator fins (fingers) cool your body. If your fingers and toes are warmish you are taking care of your core. Just don't get too toasty. The ideal way to inhale warm air while in a sleeping bag would be through a fur ruff like on a mountain parka which creates a warm dead air space. The body expels one pint of water during night. That is two cups (one pint) If you are overheated and sweating you can easily add another two cup of water. Four cups is a quart of water in the down of your sleeping bag. A damp bag is a cold bag. I have designed my modular sleeping system so when I roll over it expels small amounts of warm moist air keeping my bag dry. Don't forget to shake out the down for maximum loft, before you climb in. Turn the bag inside out in the morning to hang to dry.
Great advice! One more tip - Luke is correct, before crawling in your sleeping bag, take off your outer layer of clothing, like your field shirt and pants, to let your sleeping bag do its work. Except don't leave your shirt and pants you will be wearing tomorrow laying out in the cold tent. Lay the shirt and pants out flat, on top of your air mattress, and under your sleeping bag. That will add another thin insulating layer under your sleeping bag to help retain body heat and also results in a nice warm shirt and pants to put on in the morning!
"Let the sleeping bag do its work" is a point people get weirdly attached to and it makes no sense. There is nothing magical about a sleeping bag it's just a layer of insulation that follows the same physics as a coat or a baselayer. More layers equals more space to slow down thermal movement away from the source of warmth. If you were worried about getting cold in a sweatshirt you'd be insane to wear LESS layers under or over it. You'd obviously add layers because the more layers the warmer. If you're worried about the cold you should wear as much as you can fit without being constricted enough to reduce circulation of your body or tight enough to flatten insulating layers.
@@DL-ij7tf the purpose of the sleeping bag material is to not allow heat to breathe through. It’s not the sleeping bag materials that keep you warm like it is with clothing, but rather the air within your sleeping bag that is warmed by your body heat. If your cloth fit absorbs the warmth your body creates, the space within the sleeping bag can’t be warmed up as easy.
@@allussin2076 If your clothing absorbs the warmth the heat will be closer to you and you will be warm. In that instance the heat isn't even making it to the sleeping bag and thus it wouldn't really even be needed. All a sleeping bag is, after all, is an additional layer of clothing in the shape of a tube. In real life your clothing won't stop 100% of the heat so the sleeping bag will slow whatever heat escapes your clothing, exactly the same as more layers of clothing would do. This is really obvious I mean just walk it though in your head.
I have 40 years of outdoor experience and work at REI. This video is awesome. The details you go into are perfect. I couldn’t have said anything better and agree with all you said.
Not sure if it’s been mentioned in the comments below & it may be common sense. But if you’re going to use the metal water bottle trick make sure it’s a single walled bottle. Most these days are double walled & the heat will never get to your body. It only stays in the bottle like it’s designed. Can be harder to find the single walled ones these days. Just my 2 cents 😉
Great video - I lived in the arctic and did multi day camping trips but still found some great tips here - good job mate! My favourite tip - keep on top of your hot water situation. Always have hot water in a thermos, even if you aren't going to use it until the morning - if things go wrong and you get super cold overnight heating up some tepid water is way quicker than melting snow for fresh hot water, and a hot drink and hot food can save your life! Keep posting mate 👍
Sound advice. I just came back from a camp where I took gear that was under-gunned for the conditions. Nobody got hurt but lets just say its the first time I have had to bust out Mylar space blankets in a few years. We went expecting 10c, and we got -2c with rain, sleet and snow. I now realise that so many truisms exist for a reason. Ground contact. My main pressure point was my hip and I could feel the cold ground sucking heat out of me. I had to stuff my door mat under my hip area to insulate that point Moisture. Radiating outwards from my face, condensation formed on every surface, including my bedding, tent inner and electrical devices. Hot water bottle. You are right, between the legs. I stuffed mine down by my feet and found i couldn't manipulate it without literally getting out of my bag. Wet clothes. Strangely, wet clothes actually dry a bit even in cold conditions. So leave them aside and dont take them to bed. Hats are godly. I didn't take gloves, didn't need them, but gear for your head and face is amazing for keeping you warm. My biggest take away is that there is a load of advice that you regularly hear but you ignore: You lose heat through your head Zips and closures on your bedding leak heat Moisture and damp diminishes insulation Cold ground leaches heat out of you Mylar blankets are insanely effective at keeping you warm..... and condensing moisture... This might sound crazy but actually going camping where things got bad actually made me experience this stuff for real, and it was incredibly useful. I could literally feel where the zipper was on my sleeping system because it was a cold area. There is something to be said for going out at least once, in under-rated gear, and having a bad night just so that you can see where your weakest points are.
One additional piece of gear has proven very effective in keeping me warm. I use a flannel sleeping bag liner. I place the hardwarmers between the flannel liner and my sleeping bag.
One other important one a lot of people get wrong is to make sure the tent is well ventilated. A lot of people close up all the vents thinking it will make the tent feel colder due to air movement but in reality it just traps moisture and cripples the sleeping bag’s insulation.
If you're in a cold-weather situation where your boots will get wet, take a sleeping bag with some extra length in it so you can put your boots in a drybag at the bottom of the sleeping bag when you go to bed. If wet boots freeze overnight they can be impossible to put on. Also, the hot water bottle is a good idea if water is going to freeze overnight even if you don't need it to keep warm - you'll want liquid water for breakfast.
@@terryt2910 I have never brought all my outdoor clothes into the sleeping bag with me, let alone my boots for God's sake. Why would I want them rattling around in my sleeping bag with me? I open my boots up (loosen laces as necessary) so I can get my feet into them in the morning. Some moisture in the liners will cause them to freeze overnight and be difficult to get my feet into if I don't.
One of the most important things during my time in the marines is taking care of your feet, clean and check them before you stick them in your sleeping bag and do make sure to stuff your boots in your sleeping bag as suggested correctly in an earlier comment, unless you like getting into cold and stiff boots in the morning!
I have 2 extra tips. - turn a down jacked into a foot-bag. Keeps the feet nice and war. - use a big microfibre towel to cover the sleeping bag. Kept me warm many times, when sleeping under the stars.
7:00 as an MD I have to say that the body will not divert energy to your urine to keep it warm.. By the time any fluid in your body becomes urine it's already heated to your body temperature and it will in fact help preserve warmth. However it is good advice to go pee when your body tells you to because holding in urine for too long can cause damage to your bladder and kidneys as well as bother you and prevent you from falling asleep.
Every cubic inch of your body radiates (loses) heat. Every cubic inch of tissue is metabolizing and creating heat. Every cubic inch of urine radiates heat but does not produce heat - thus holding your urine results in a net heat loss.
@@HoosierRallyMaster Yes urine radiates heat just like everything in your body. But it radiates outward, and since the bladder is fully contained within the body the heat energy is not lost it stays within the body. Heat is only 'lost' when it leaves your body. Your body surface area against the outside is wheere you start to lose it. Having a bladder full or empty doesn't significantly impact your body surface area in any way, thus it does not increase or decrease the amount of energy lost per time unit. However your body being at a certain temperature slowly losing energy over time would take less time to lose the same amount of energy if your body had less mass. This is where my statement stems from. Urine being part of the body does not significantly impact loss of heat (by affecting body surface area, sweating, vasodilation or any other factor involved in heat loss), as it is already at body temperature (by the time its urine it's body temperature, you need water to survive besides you could have drank a hot cup of tea and completely blown away this argument) it will help you body cool down slower because the total amount of heat energy your body contains is higher before you empty your bladder than after.
Great advice! Too often I see people adding layers of Cotton clothes to stay warm. However I also use the Phrase “Cold Killer Cotton”. When you sweat and most will at some point it absorbs the moisture and then will chill you possibly to the point of Hypothermia. I use Merino Wool almost exclusively in winter. And the hand warmers, definitely earn their keep. Stay safe and healthy!
Great, comprehensive content. I’m an experienced winter camper and have camped in some pretty crazy (-35C) temps in northern Ontario. Checked out your video to see if there was anything else I should be doing to stay warm, but you covered all the bases. Thanks for putting my mind at ease. Definitely good info for non-campers as well!
Good info. Don't forget the chest zipper pocket. In winter here in the Idaho woods I always sleep in my light puffy down jacket and like many jackets it has that zipper pocket on the chest which I always use for a hand warmer packet. Even if I have hand warmers in my socks I always have one in the chest pocket too. It really makes a difference. Also, in this video I might have stressed more importance of getting R-value underneath you. Even if you do everything else right if you are letting the ground zap heat from your sleep system you will be uncomfortable and it will be hard to adjust for that during the night. The best winter bang-for-the-buck for improving your sleep system is to invest in R-value underneath you. Keep up the good work Luke!
Back in the 80's when I first started to do a lot of winter backpacking in some very cold mountain areas out in the northwest US, it was very popular to use vapor barrier liners inside a winter bag (basically big waterproof nylon bags with drawstrings you'd pull tight around your upper chest). The idea being that as you sweat as you slept, as everyone does, it would keep the water vapor from wetting the layers of critical insulation of your bag. This was especially needed if you had a down bag as they just lose it if hit with moisture. And there was some thought that as moisture level roses within that vapor liner your body would decrease the amount of sweat. Of course you had to minimize the clothing you wore to bed, I would just wear a layer of polypropylene long underwear. I remember this being a game changer in terms of increasing the comfort level of the various sleeping bags I used. A few years later I added a flannel liner also. Still use both if it's going to be below 20 F .
My favourite "emergency" tip: Put your clothes around your sleeping bag. For example, if your feet keep getting cold, you can zip up your jacket and put the lower end of your sleeping bag in it. It can be tricky to keep everything in place and properly planning ahead is always the more solid solution, but sometimes it gets colder than you thought or you just made a mistake, happens to the best of us. And in those cases you need to make due with what you have at hand.
Great video. Something I will send new people that want to go winter camping with me. Just spent 2 nights under a tarp at -30c (-22F) and was super warm at night. I have a -9c winter bag inside a 0c bag with my Canada Goose parka zipped up and slid over my footbox on the outside. Baffin boot liners go inside my bag with a hand warmer in each. One goes to the feet and one in between me legs. Works like a charm.
This is going in the right direction. Don't use just one bag that seems to be 'good enuf'. Use at least 2 mats, 2 watchcaps, 2 bags, oil your face, and keep your clothes dry inside your bag.
Awsome video, I do a lot of long duration winter campouts. One thing to also remember is that sleeping bags do have different ratings. There is the survival rating and comfort rating make sure you are looking at that when you get your bag. -20 degree (survival) vs -20 degree (comfort)
Great advice. My little trick for winter camping is make a mattress on pine bows to lay on. Nice and warm and cozy soft layer between you and the ground. You can even cover yourself with them for extra warmth.
As someone who grew up where it was very cold I appreciate how much you emphasized sweat = dead. Could save someone's life if they are in conditions they are not used to.
6:02 If the lit is “super tight” while the bottle is filled with very hot liquids (water, coffee), you may have a super hard time opening it again later on when the metal has cooled down, espacially in winter. Just put it tight enough so it doesn’t leak.
@@OAK_MTN one thing you can do is warm up some water then pour it around the seam between the bottle and the lid. Working with horses most of my life we had to do this alot in the winter because of the water gets between the lid and the bottle and freezes. Next time try it my friend. GOD bless y'all!!!
@@tobystrickland5986 Would work for sure, if said bottle didn't contain the fuel needed to warm up water haha. I had my lesson, I'm not overtightening this lid ever again.
Great video. Good call on the pad below your mattress. I use two sleeping bags (a 20 & 40 degree) in winter camping instead of just one extreme cold bag; seems to work the same, with more flexibility if it's not as cold as expected. Also keep your bedtime socks in a plastic bag to ensure they stay dry and I will put them in my coat by the fire to warm them up before bed. Another technique is to heat up rocks in the fire and then bury them in the dirt below your sleeping area.
Hey guys I just wanted to thank you. I know it may seem a little silly but I was recently hospitalized and to say my nights since have been a little trying is an understatement. Every night when I get into bed I put on one of your videos and either let the trips keep me focused on something I love or let your hiking lull me into sleep. Maybe your reviewing trails and gear, but your also offering comfort. In God's name, please keep up the great job!!
Wool maintains most of it’s insulation properties even when wet, so it makes a good choice for a mask. On a somewhat related note, they use special immersion suits on some ships for surviving in cold water after abandoning ship. The suits have a system that captures the wearer’s breath to keep the suit warm, while also keeping them dry. The suits don’t hinder the wearer nearly as much as older “gumby suits” either, wearers can still move and perform tasks while wearing it. Wearers can even remove the gloves if necessary and heated cuffs will help keep the hands warm. They pretty much remove the threat of hypothermia in all but the coldest waters (In testing, subjects were immersed in 32 degree water for 24hrs 15min before the test was ended. The test subjects said they weren’t even cold). I’m surprised they haven’t made something similar for cold-weather camping.
Good video. Contains almost everything I teach my troop of Scouts. I use a couple of Nalgene HDPE bottles (the only rated for boiling water) inserted into an old sock. I also have several rolls of reflectix for my boys to use as a bottom layer under their sleeping pads. It is dirt cheep at Home Depot (or any other building supply store) and can be layered for additional insulation. +1 for also being really light. I personally use two 24 x 72 inch pieces side by side to insulate the bottom of my tent so I can "spread out" a little bit as I get ready for bed at night and get ready for the day the next morning.
Definitely the very best channel for anyone doing anything to do with camping, he doesn't go on about pointless things & stays on subject. Thanks for the tips sir, I'll definitely be using them as I'm thinking of moving into a tent permanent so ANYONE with any advice out there it would be greatly appreciated 😉
For cold weather camping, I pack a complete set of sleeping clothes. I have heard it said that a sleeping person will convert a pint of water into 'steam'. That water as a vapor is a lot of water that will make you very cold. If you sleep in your clothes that vapor will make you very cold in the morning when you get up.
@Karl Fichtenberg Yes, luckily it was an easy lesson. Found out by sleeping in the cab of a pickup truck during a snow storm. A friend and I went to run in a 'fun' motorcycle race. The two of us steamed up the cab and 'soaked' our selves. Getting up 'steamed wet' in the morning was a shivering experience until we warmed up and dried out. The same friend once camped out in the snow with his brother. They did not use any barrier between them selves and the snow and woke up soaked wet and dangerously cold.
Lots of good tips, Luke gives good advice. Once I used an inadequate sleeping pad when the temp got down to 20f. I was miserable all night. Then I got a Thermarest X-Therm which is very warm and solved that problem. I usually take a thin foam pad in addition to the X-Therm in case it springs a leak, but it has been surprisingly durable. It’s a little noisy but I would rather be noisy and warm than quiet and cold.
The tip about moving and doing exercises w/o sweating right before bed - use isometric exercises. They are basically slow flexing of any muscle group. I use these when I'm hunting and sitting for hours in frigid temps. You can do isometrics w/o much movement and warm specific muscle groups.
In the Army we generally take our wet socks (if we don’t have a second pair) an throw inside our sleeping bags as they’ll also dry from the loft inside our bags. You can also take your puffy down jacket and place your feet in it and then in your sleeping system for added loft as shell core effect can still take place while sleeping in your bag.
Along with the high fat and calorie food aspects, red meat is going to be one of the best things to incorporate for several reasons. The sock/ clothing layers while sleeping is a very important point, there is a contrast with how we have to do this in a Military/ Winter Warfare application for obvious reasons, but that is some sage wisdom-- change your socks folks! Great video and points brother!
Experienced a few awful Autumn(Fall) & Winter nights camping in Arctic Canada, Rockies & Scotland. But soon learnt from past mistakes. Several of your cold weather camping tips I was already aware of eg. bottle for urinating into, snacking before sleep, keeping mouth & nose clear of your bag, change into dry base layers & socks before sleep etc. and can confirm their usefulness. That’s the thing about bushcraft & wilderness survival. You can’t know it all & we learn something new everyday. Another great, instructive video. Keep up the great work guys!
All excellent tips. So far, I have been warm down to 17 degrees in a hammock. My tip for cold-weather trips is try to find a place out of high winds, especially when in a hammock. I had nice rocks and rhodies to block the wind. I woke up to a beautiful morning of sunshine and snow-covered woods in Cranberry Wilderness, WV. Your tips apply to many situations that folks might find themselves in. Good stuff.
Staying warm is the most important but be aware that exercising before bed can make it harder to sleep, and chocolate contains caffeine. Really appreciate all the tips!
Thanks Luke for these important tips on keeping warm and dry in cold weather camping. This actually needs to be stated more often as there is an increasing number of people who don't possess the common sense to properly protect themselves in these situations. Better to be safe than sorry.
The 'urine in your body making you colder' and the 'take clothes off to be warmer in a sleeping bag' are myths and are the opposite of common sense. If you're worried about being cold when you sleep, wear as much clothing as you can that won't reduce circulation and include as much clothing in your sleeping bag with you for insulation as you can comfortably fit without compressing the sleeping bag's insulation.
@@WoodsmokeSelf-Reliance I know exactly what I'm taking about in fact. The urine is heated to your body temp long before it makes it to your bladder. By the time it's there it's just a hot water bottle.
Great video! If you do another part, could you talk about other difficulties of cold camping? Things like preventing your water or boots from freezing, how to best deal with tent stakes and frozen ground/deep snow etc.
To prevent your water from freezing: 1) keep it in your tent with you if you can 2) keep it in your pack preferably with layers packed around it 3) add 99.9% pure food grade propylene glycol to it. You can find charts online that show what ratio of water to PG to use in order to pervert freezing to various temperatures.
For keeping boots from freezing - the most obvious way to achieve this is to try keeping boots dry as much as possible. Clean snow from top of the boots when you are coming close to campfire - melting snow will make them dump very quickly. Use gaters to prevent snow from getting inside the boot. If the boot is dump, you will have to dry it either next to fire or by putting something which absorbs water inside the boot (like toilet paper). If the boot is dump just a bit (say, from sweating feet), it is okay. Boots will anyways be a bit stiff at the morning, there almost no way to prevent this from my experience (the only way to do this is to carefully dry next to fire for several hours). In the deep snow: use "snow anchors" - bury the peg under the snow horizontally and pack it with your feet. It will take several minutes for the snow to harden and then the peg is secured. Don't bury too deep as you will have some hard times digging them at the morning through the hardened snow.
After removing your boots for the night, lossen the laces and pry them open as much as possible. Even though your feet feel dry inside of boots, the liners may be a little damp. They will freeze and be stiff in the morning. Or remove the liners. I am a self taught winter camper, wore Sorrels, and learned this the hard way my first time. By the time I finally (after lots of struggle)got my foot into my boot, I was all warmed up.
Great video. My young sons race motocross and we camp as a family in a tent beginning in mid April up here in Canada to late October. I found Gobi Heat battery powered blankets as essential as a layer over top my kid's sleeping bags to get through 3 celcius cold nights 🌙. I charge the small portable batteries for the blankets using solar panels during the day. I wear all merino wool layers as well along with Thermarest sleeping bags and mattresses with high R values for the whole family.
When it comes to the (hand) warmers, I have grown to appreciate the larger sized "body" warmers. The ones with an adhesive side that are made to stick to your base layer, and not directly contact the skin. I locate them a bit lower than suggested. At about the diaphragm, instead of just the chest. It keeps my whole core body temperature regulated pretty well, and can easily be removed, folded together, and slid down to my feet if I feel like my core temp is getting so high that it's going to cause sweating. It's also a good location for warming your hands, and can allow you to do work without bulky layers (or sweat) when setting up camp.
@@cholseng I never really timed them to an exact measurement, but they're usually good for a whole night's sleep. Some brands perform better than others.
@@SwazersC Because it's the most heavily censored and politically biased video platform on the internet and has been dying a slow death for a long time, youtubers don't make much money anymore and are abandoning ship for upcoming platforms that will inevitably take it's place.
One trick I learned camping in Northern Az. and Colorado was to light a single candle lantern and hang it with a small bungee about a foot from the top of the tent about an hour before you turn in. It will be in the 20’s & 30’s around the campfire, and it will be 60 in your tent. BTW, leave your sleeping bag open.
One key point that Luke overlooked is to drink something warm (not coffee or cocoa, both have caffeine.) Non-caffeinated tea is best; Chamomile or mint or lemon, are a few examples. I drink pine needle tea, especially in the winter, before turning in. The vitamin C is really good for energizing the body for the long, cold, night, and the warmth does two things: 1. Calms the body and relaxes it for sleeping. 2. Helps the body produce additional heat to keep you warmer throughout the night.
I just want to say spot on. I’ve never placed a water bottle in my bag personally. The rating on a sleeping bag is a survivable rating, not comfort. The only thing I would mention concerning hand warmers, as a former scout master, never place the hand warmers in your socks where it is in direct contact with your skin. I personally put one warmer at the bottom of my bag, and the second near my torso. For me, this keeps me warm even in the deep negatives. When explaining this to my scouts, along with all the other things mentioned in this video, I had one scout who thought I meant that the hand warmers be placed in his socks that he wore throughout the night. What ultimately happened, is that by next morning his feet had been burned. I would like to echo the sentiment on this video, that without utilizing all the methods mentioned, the hand warmers will not be near as effective, and it could lead to dire consequences. Winter camping is fun, but can be quickly deadly if not done properly.
Wrap your ground pad with a emergency blanket (foil looking space blanket) with the solid side facing you. This reflects your body’s heat back to you. Also, in the BSA we were always taught to go in almost nude, underwear on of course. This allows your body to heat the space inside the sleeping bag, and not the small space between your clothes and you. I found this difficult in practice but does work. I would also kick to the bottom of the bag my fresh clothes for the next day. This way you get to Don warm clothes in the morning. As mentioned about the bag temperature rating, I found the rating will protect you but not necessarily keep you warm. For me I go with a 20 degree bag rating higher than what I will be in, that is if temps are consistent (use a Zero bag in 20 degree weather). I do get colder than some, so my $.02.
When I was in the Army and sleeping outside in the winter I used to strip my uniform but stuffed it in the bottom at my feet. That helped in the morning not having to put on clothes thar were as cold as it was outside.
I was out this weekend for a hot tent camping trip. The first night the temp was 0C and it had rained from the time we arrived at around 2pm until just before dawn. The second night the temp was -20C and it has snowed pretty much all day! So you have to be prepared for *everything*! We went through so many weather patterns this weekend, it was crazy! Thank goodness we were in a nice big hot tent and out of the rain. It was a fun weekend though! Except when I lost my phone in the snow...that kinda sucked.
This is deep, exact and important. For all beginners LISTEN to what he says. It is the key to happy cold camping. I've done all the mistakes trough 40 years, and almost froze to death. And yes, most important, STAY DREY
I lay out my next-day clothes between my two sleeping pads. Adds another layer of insulation and the clothes stay warm. Avoids putting on sub-zero (Fahrenheit) base layers first thing in the morning.
@@johan.ohgren I suppose you could put them in a stuff sack and use it as a pillow or just pushed down by your feet. They would stay warm and fill up the dead air space in your sleeping bag.
I am not a professional anything, but, I am from Norway, and perhaps that matters some on this kind of video. When we (me and my family) camp in winter, we usually wear wool against the skin and layer on top of it. We do not use any artificial heat of any kind. We do change to our underwear when getting in the sleeping bag, and we do change to rough woolen socks when we are done walking. I think your advice is on point and probably very helpful to those not used to cold/freezing weather :)
Most bags are actually tested with clothing on. So a good reference for me is add 10F to its rating. Nalgene bottles work great for hot water or as a pee bottle. Great tips.
From what I can tell the "sleeping bags are designed to work without clothing" is an outright myth. I don't know where or why that idea got started but if you think about it it makes no sense. Unless your clothing is wet or something, it's just more insulation. The more clothing you wear in a sleeping bag the warmer you'll be just the same as the more insulation in your sleeping bag the warmer you'll be. Also, I don't understand why the myth about your body 'diverting heat to warm your pee" is so pervasive. Also makes no sense. Your body doesn't 'divert heat' at all, it can slow or speed up blood flow or constrict blood vessels in some situations but this isn't relevant to your bladder. The water that you ingest that will eventually be urine in your bladder is warmed to the temperature of your body within a few seconds of being consumed and that is the only time your body will lose energy heating it. After that it only adds to the thermal mass of your body and would actually help retain heat much like body fat (or any mass) would. This doesn't mean you should try to hold urine in because that's just a bad idea for obvious reasons (i.e. you can't). It's just basic physics and I hate seeing these myths perpetuated. The urine issue is kind of moot anyway because you should pee as much as possible before going to bed so you don't have to lose accumulated heat by getting up to pee in the middle of the night.
@@DL-ij7tf What it means is "no jackets or pants". You should/ or could wear long johns and a thinner wool shirt, you could have something on your head to like balaclava or something
@@johan.ohgren The laws of thermodynamics don't alter based on the name you attach to the insulation. Any amount of material between your body heat and the outside will slow heat transfer. Explain to me how it could possibly be otherwise.
@@DL-ij7tf because jackets and sleeping bags has a similar function. To retain warmth inside, but if you use a bulky jacket inside a sleepingbag you're effectively disabling the positives of a sleeping bag. Instead of having a layer of air to warm up you will have multiple layers, each divided by cloth and moist barriers.
@@johan.ohgren Yes you just described insulation and more of it retains more heat. There is no cancelling out. Work it through in your head, you'll see your claim makes no sense.
I tuck in the clothing that I’ll throw on the next day in the bottom of my sleeping bag. Helps keep my feet warm, and my clothing is toasty when I put it on. I also usually just dress while still in my bag, which also helps keep in my body heat. Doing so, along with the other tips you mentioned, keeps me super comfy during cold nights. If you put a hot rock from your fire (wrapped in something, of course, so your bedding doesn’t get dirty) into your bag before you bed down, it will get your bag all ready for you. Bonus if you also throw in whatever you’ll sleep in so that’s warm too. You can keep the rock in your tent to radiate whatever heat is left. I’ve kept it in my bag but often find it’s unnecessary-and can be annoying as you move during the night. Cheers!
My pupper is my personal heating pad. 😂 She is small enough to fit nicely in my sleeping bag. I completely agree … I usually have her sleep between my legs and it definitely help. 🐶
That is dangerous for two reasons: 1. Repeatedly re-breathing carbon dioxide (expeled air from the lungs) leads to hypoxemia (suffocation from lack of oxygen) by your pup in an enclosed sleeping bag without fresh oxygenated air to breathe. 2. Dogs, like humans, expel moisture when they exhale. Your pup is releasing moisture into your sleeping bag that will cause condensation and severely reduce the effectiveness of the insulation in your sleeping bag, which will cause cold spots and could lead to hypothermia.
I have a lot of experience in cold weather and these tips are fantastic - especially the ones about food and movement. I'm not sure how you'd word this one, but troops in the arctic will take off their shirts to wash and shave in the morning. It shocks your body into producing heat and feels very cozy when you put your warm kit back on.
I already left one comment, but the second thing that I would add to your list, is a good insulated ground cloth. I use a wool blanket, along with my foam pad.
Great episode! Hope I do not have to sleep outside in winter, but if I do..:) Trousers for the winter is another good subject for next episode. There is so many to choose from.
I wish I had see this video 40 years ago. I learned all this stuff the hard way. Great video. Very informative - spot on. Anybody that wants to winter camp should watch this video first, and then try it out in the back yard first.
Excellent tips, staying dry is truly the key to staying comfortable and alive. Having quick drying clothing is vital and knowing how to dry off. Thanks for the great tips. PS surplus Canadian Army cold weather sleeping system is amazing, solves the moist breath in sleeping bag problem. Check it out.
My wife got a mini palm dog. I noticed it would sleep in the snow. So I put her puppy in my sleeping bag. Stayed warm all night. Just loved her dog. The dog had plenty of air.
I put hand warmers in an elastic belt that’s for heat or ice on your back. If you wear it with the hand warmers over your kidneys. Your kidneys have a lot of blood flow and it heats the arteries that run down your spine. I came up with the idea because I was using heat on my back and kept over heating. I found that at 45 degrees I could stand on my porch in a tee shirt, shorts and a pair of crocs with no socks for 30 minutes and even my feet stayed warm. Started using this method probably 15 years ago. Everybody I’ve showed this trick is still using it so I’m pretty sure it’s not just a pickle of my imagination. If you have kidney problems or an infection please ask your doctor about applying heat to the area before you try this.
sitting here planning a trip to the Swedish mountain world at the end of January 2023 and happened to stumble upon this film. thought it was a bit of humor that I have a fjällräven kajka backpack och Carinthia defense 4 sleeping bag with A tropen as an extra accessory if it gets really cold. I think your channel is one of the best on youtube right now.
Thank you. I‘d like to add that plastic bottles made by Nalgene can take boiling hot water just as well. But unlike the stainless ones you’re less likely to burn yourself with it. I’m dropping a tea bag in it to have some of my favourite fruit tea instead of flat water.
The concern with adding boiling water to any plastic bottle is that plastics release harmful chemicals when heated. Any bottle, including BPA free ones. That was why he said to plan to not use the water after this. Your tea made in a Nalgene is a bad practice. Of course whether it is a risk acceptable to you is your decision. A few tea bags on a trip could be nothing in the larger picture.
Thank you. I always use a stainless steel water bottle. I get it as hot as I can stand it. Put wrap a little bit. It tends to warm even the tent or room, too. I even use them at home. Thanknyou for these great tips.
When I used to winter camp here in Canada, I would boil water just before going into my tent, place it in two stainless steel water bottles, put the socks I had been wearing over the water bottles to dry and then put the bottle in the sleeping bag when I went to bed. I found that the water would stay warm until 3 or 4 in the morning. You would also have ice free water to quickly make porridge and a hot drink in the morning. Snow is a great insulator, if you have it use it. Got to love the sound of snow sliding off your tent😊
For my Army/Marines out there, you can use your MRE heater to dry out your boots and socks. Also helps keep them from freezing if you leave them out side of your bivy.
I have found if you crack open the hand warmers and throw them in the bag at the beginning of your "getting ready for bed" process, it will be toasty for you. I also have preferred to not keep them in my socks because it's harder to get them in my mummy bag than if I leave them loose and can shake them back towards my waist. My other personal nuanced benefit for myself was keeping my mouth uncovered but covering my eyes, nose, chin, etc. My nose was purely about comfort. Eyes lose a ton of heat, and my chin/buff just helps seal up that opening into the bag to help cut down the draft. I have never figured out the correct air mattress /foam combo, I have read both ways.
Awesome video absolutely loved it🤜. I was in Finland this February just gone and the lowest temperature I experienced was -37C! Do not blow your mattress up by your breath otherwise the condensation will freeze inside your sleeping mat and no matter what the R rating is it,it will become next to useless and be very very cold! Either use a little electric pump or a pump sack which I did! I’ve since bought a small pump!
For anyone looking for a good value tent in the UK, I’ve had a Eurohike 3 Man Avon tent up in my garden all last summer through into this winter and during the recent storms. Not one leak, no damage and completely stable. I could not believe it for less than £100. They’re heavy, but man they’re built strong. And the waterproofing is 100%. We’ve had the worst our weather can throw at it and it took it like a champ. Well worth considering as a cheaper, robust option for casual camping.
The movement trick is good anywhere. Squats are fantastic to get blood flowing everywhere withiut touching snow or mud. They also help cold feet. Stomp around and wiggle toes aggressively as well. You can clap your hands and fingers to warm them up quick.
Thank you for the Really Good information in this video. Don't sweat! Don't Sweat!! DON'T SWEAT!!! Hand warmers are my sleeping bag buddies! One by my feet and a floater that I can put where I'm cold as needed. Closed cell foam pad under a good insulated inflatable pad is an absolute must have combo. Sleeping bags temperature rating can be survival rating not comfort rating. Plan sleep clothing layers accordingly.
I was homeless in central Nh one March and I will never spend another cold night in a tent if I dont have to! It sucks what a miserable experience and I had a Mr. Buddy tent heater and a a sleeping bag rated for 30 below. It never got colder than 15 degrees at night. I am so grateful to have a home! Please help the homeless if you can.
I would add, wear wool, then its does not matter if your wet or damp, when im skiing over short\long distance your gonna get freaken wet, good wool and cotton anorak, no problems, and you can always change your base layer befor going into the sleeping bag if your soaking, leave your wet clothes on the outside to freeze dry. Awsome vid thumbs up
Super good tips, exactly what I learnt in North Norway learning to survive in the Artic with British Army. ONE other tip have a flask of hot sweet milky tea ready so if you need a warm drink during the night to help warm up its there for you... mmmm tea. Nice
I agree that sleeping with less clothing keeps you warmer, but one trick I've found is to put some clothes in the sleeping bag with me, just kind of off to the side. In the morning, the clothes will already be warm and easier to wear.
I do this - soooo easy and comfy.
I have yet to remedy cold hiking shoes/ boots in the morning. Put hand warmers in them maybe?
@@loudowning3393 Good point, but I do have my socks in the sleeping bag with me, and that helps.
@@loudowning3393 yes! While rolling around in your sleeping bag getting dressed, throw the hand warmers in your boots. Once dressed and getting your boots on, the warmers can be put inside your outer jacket to warm it up. It's a process but anything to stay warm some mornings is worth it in my books lol
I do this 🙂 At least for my layer one and two.
Even for people who never plan to do winter camping, an awareness of some of these things would be helpful for people who lose power during a winter storm and suddenly find themselves "camping" in the cold inside their homes. Thank you.
Or car trouble during the winter.
With the added benefit of not having to worry about the wind or snow, etc
Houses in freezing temps are COLDER inside than the outside air. I was a realtor doing foreclosure work in Mn, and houses without heat were ALWAYS much colder. We always had to go outside in the winter to get warmer. All the walls, floors and ceilings were ice blocks. Fine in warmer climates, just not freezing ones. FYI.
@@scottc8152 I guess the cold air pours in overnight and is slow to get out as the day gets warmer.
Lol that's exactly why I'm watching
My personal favorite tip for cold-weather camping is when you do get to camp and set up, pull your sleeping bag out and let it loft up BEFORE you get in it. Compressed down doesn't insulate well. It's something small, but can decrease that discomfort of getting into a frozen sleeping bag.
I always fluff it up and fling it around a bit to fluff it up a little while before getting into the bed.
Good point. However, a sleeping bag will only self-loft so far. Better to loft it up manually by shaking it around.
@@lightwalker4558 Too true. Maybe I should have said that I give it a little bit of a manual fluff before hand, but I thought most people did that anyways.
I was taught to never Role up a sleeping bag when putting it away. I just always stuffed mine in the bag.
@@samn5362 For sure. I don't roll or fold my tents either. It prevents creasing which can cause weak points, leading to tares or holes. They're called stuff sacks for a reason. Lol.
In regard to the hot water bottle I learned something that may be applicable to others too.
I am not a particularly cold guy at night so I don't need a lot of heat but I do like placing hot water in a thermos, it will leak warmth only a little so it provides minimal warmth over a very long period.
Sometimes I place teabags or some fruit in the bottle before going to sleep and in the morning I still have a warm tea or other beverage to drink and get that heat directly in my body to be ready for the day.
I hope someone gets some use out of this
Excellent idea!
Goodball advice
Great tip!, thanks, I’ll be trying that for sure
5:49
YES Plastic will react with HOT Water...
I was having bad stomach problems.... couldn't find anything wrong... then I realized for awhile I had been using PLASTIC Spoons in my HOT Coffee... I stopped and immediately my stomach was better... I never COOK with anything Plastic... I only use Glass, Wood, Cast Iron etc...
You might be asking yourself... why is a 68 year old woman watching this...
I am getting ready to move into my Vintage Travel Trailer (50 years old) and remember the times when I lived up in the Mountains of New Mexico (US) how cold it could be...
I thought I needed a refresher course so I'm watching your video.
This is just incase something happens... and in life... anything can happen...
Thank you for sharing this great video... You may have saved a life...
As someone who does quite a bit of cold weather camping (I live in Finland so if I don't want to just stay inside half of the year I have to) I can confirm that this is some solid advice. From now on when I go out in the cold weather with less experienced cold weather hikers I will show them this video first. Imo you went over all of the most important tips to staying comfortable while sleeping in the cold.
Very true, I can attest to these tips as well.
As a winter camping Canadian. I agree. Only thing I would add is make sure the pee bottle is VERY VERY well marked. Best to even have it a different colour then your water bottle.
Agreed, these are spot on. Even includes the old Boy Scout hack of eating a Hershey bar before you turn in.
@@thankmelater1254 I think he ment that digestion is using energy that in turn causes heat that will help you stay warm.
@@thankmelater1254 You're right. The main thing is that all these definitely help, as I have used all or some of these over the years and they definitely helped to keep me warmer than the first couple of times when I went winter camping as a young Boy Scout. The more items and skills in your toolbox the better.
Camped in -20 F ( -29 C ), in norther Michigan once. Hand warmers were very helpful. Things I learned; batteries don’t work that cold so flashlight very dim. Face gets cold from breath condensation freezing to any fabric. If you bump your tent it snows inside like a snow globe. Water in containers freezes from top down so store upside down or keep some water in sleeping bag. Going to bed at 7 pm cause its been dark for 2 hours wakes you up at 3 a.m. if you want 8 hrs sleep, so plan on sitting at a fire at 4 in the morning 😂 but had fun and made for good adventure story. Didn’t know to tap down snow with snowshoe’s and then wait for 30 or so minutes to set tent otherwise have very lumpy sleep, or could shovel down to ground I suppose.
Twenty years in the Army, taught me much of you've said, except for some the newer products that weren't available to me. Sweat kills!! well said. No matter how cold and uncomfortable, I alwaysundressed before getting in sleeping bag.
Hi I am a traveller and I travelled in Siberian mountains. In this video everything is all right, simple, correct and no bullshit. It is difficult to find the same in UA-cam. People trying to look as very cool servivers but there is a difference- to look or to be. Thanks.
I've been watching this channel for maybe a year or so and all I can say is this is what the "internet" was supposed to be all about. Dunno how the rest of y'all feel but unbiased opinions/commentary are really refreshing! Thanks for posting!
Totally agree with this. Great channel, great content, agenda free.
@@WoodyAndy absolutely, nothing but pure knowledge for the unknown.
Bullfeathers! Al Gore didn’t even camp.
Actually Internet was created for scientists to share scientific documents
Glad to hear u bring up hand warmers. I leave this experience on videos like this. I survived a winter in New England, homeless, living in a tent with hand warmers and a sleeping bag.
I used 2 at a time, and usually woke up once in the night to change them out. So about 4 a night. With the dark times we are going into, I hope this helps someone. Obviously the #1 point is trying to not to get in that situation, but even for those in a house without power, the bag + hand warmers kept me alive. I put them inside socks, then put one around my calves, and the other up by my chest.
Be safe everyone.
Great tips. My contributions...
- I've been cold in a truck and warm under just a tarp. The difference? Tarp was a confined space which slowed down loss of heat. Shelter size makes a huge difference.
- Use a heat source. Be mindful of wind direction and distance not only to avoid smoke, but to avoid embers burning holes in synthetics.
- Don't forget to erect a wind break if needed.
- Use a moisture barrier on the ground such as painter's plastic.
- Consider how you'd stay cool in summer and do the opposite. Everything from site selection to insulation, moisture, weather, fire prep, to wind need consideration in order to be comfortable.
-Understand how insulation works and fails. Know how to capitalize on pros and cons of natural vs synthetic material. Choose wisely and use layers appropriately.
On cold mornings, I like to have my stove, water and oat meal next to my bag so I can boil water, make a hot breakfast and digest it an hour before I get out of my bag. It's a total game changer IMO!
Excellent point!
Last time I went car camping, two weeks ago or so, it was so cold in the morning I ripped the window coverings off and headed to Hardee’s for breakfast. I couldn’t take it.
Too much moisture for me.
@Ziggy S yes obviously I had the windows rolled down a bit.
Bear will eat me if I do this
I am from Sweden and in extream cold (when using both foam and air sleeping mats) we use to fold the foam sleeping mat in half and put it in line with the upper body, because it is over that area you are heaviest and need most isolation from ground.
Get a reindeer hide.
@@billcampbell1627 Whole reindeer is warmer.
@@haliputti gut it and climb inside.!
As an avid winter person, the only thing I would add is that the sweating thing is also vital for when you're out and about. You will play the layer game and it's crucial to learn. The cheaper your clothing generally the more of an expert you have to be at the layer game. The colder it is the better you must be at the layer game. It's easy to practice this walking around your neighborhood in winter or in a relatively safe and reasonably close location to heat or shelter. You can pretty easily practice with your clothes and gear before getting out into real winter conditions to see how well it fairs and see how the layer game works if you've never done winter hiking before. Also, good wool socks are 100% worth it.
Agree! When I first started winter camping and hiking I was on a limited gear budget and my base layers were primarily low cost acrylics. They weren’t the greatest in extreme temps. Over time I have replaced all my base layers, socks and sweaters with 100% wool and it has definitely been a game changer! Also invested in wool pants as well. Well worth the expense, and have even sourced some of my wool clothing at thrift shops.
Awesome tips, Luke. After 60 years of backpacking world wide experience is key to survival. At almost 75 I am a van lifer traveling throughout our nation. Your tips also apply to us who camp in our vehicles and even to those who experience lengthy power outages in our homes. Proper preparation is vital.
As always, Good job of explaining. Remember the bag does not warm you. Your body heat warms the trapped air in the bag so the smaller the space the less air to heat. The most important job of the body is to preserve the vital organs. If your body temperature drops all the warm blood will be diverted to the vital organs. Only excess warm blood is diverted to the fingers and feet. Think of your extremities as the radiator fins that cool an engine. When you over heat exercising remove your gloves, don't uncover your head. Your brain is a vital organ. Let your radiator fins (fingers) cool your body. If your fingers and toes are warmish you are taking care of your core. Just don't get too toasty. The ideal way to inhale warm air while in a sleeping bag would be through a fur ruff like on a mountain parka which creates a warm dead air space. The body expels one pint of water during night. That is two cups (one pint) If you are overheated and sweating you can easily add another two cup of water. Four cups is a quart of water in the down of your sleeping bag. A damp bag is a cold bag. I have designed my modular sleeping system so when I roll over it expels small amounts of warm moist air keeping my bag dry. Don't forget to shake out the down for maximum loft, before you climb in. Turn the bag inside out in the morning to hang to dry.
I can barely sleep when breathing in freezing cold air, now I've got to give a faux fur snood a try!
This guy just gave a life saving advice while out there in the wild in freezing temperatures. Bravo 👏
Great advice! One more tip - Luke is correct, before crawling in your sleeping bag, take off your outer layer of clothing, like your field shirt and pants, to let your sleeping bag do its work.
Except don't leave your shirt and pants you will be wearing tomorrow laying out in the cold tent.
Lay the shirt and pants out flat, on top of your air mattress, and under your sleeping bag. That will add another thin insulating layer under your sleeping bag to help retain body heat and also results in a nice warm shirt and pants to put on in the morning!
"Let the sleeping bag do its work" is a point people get weirdly attached to and it makes no sense. There is nothing magical about a sleeping bag it's just a layer of insulation that follows the same physics as a coat or a baselayer. More layers equals more space to slow down thermal movement away from the source of warmth. If you were worried about getting cold in a sweatshirt you'd be insane to wear LESS layers under or over it. You'd obviously add layers because the more layers the warmer. If you're worried about the cold you should wear as much as you can fit without being constricted enough to reduce circulation of your body or tight enough to flatten insulating layers.
@@DL-ij7tf the purpose of the sleeping bag material is to not allow heat to breathe through. It’s not the sleeping bag materials that keep you warm like it is with clothing, but rather the air within your sleeping bag that is warmed by your body heat. If your cloth fit absorbs the warmth your body creates, the space within the sleeping bag can’t be warmed up as easy.
@@allussin2076 If your clothing absorbs the warmth the heat will be closer to you and you will be warm. In that instance the heat isn't even making it to the sleeping bag and thus it wouldn't really even be needed. All a sleeping bag is, after all, is an additional layer of clothing in the shape of a tube. In real life your clothing won't stop 100% of the heat so the sleeping bag will slow whatever heat escapes your clothing, exactly the same as more layers of clothing would do. This is really obvious I mean just walk it though in your head.
I have 40 years of outdoor experience and work at REI. This video is awesome. The details you go into are perfect. I couldn’t have said anything better and agree with all you said.
Not sure if it’s been mentioned in the comments below & it may be common sense. But if you’re going to use the metal water bottle trick make sure it’s a single walled bottle. Most these days are double walled & the heat will never get to your body. It only stays in the bottle like it’s designed. Can be harder to find the single walled ones these days. Just my 2 cents 😉
Great video - I lived in the arctic and did multi day camping trips but still found some great tips here - good job mate! My favourite tip - keep on top of your hot water situation. Always have hot water in a thermos, even if you aren't going to use it until the morning - if things go wrong and you get super cold overnight heating up some tepid water is way quicker than melting snow for fresh hot water, and a hot drink and hot food can save your life! Keep posting mate 👍
Sound advice.
I just came back from a camp where I took gear that was under-gunned for the conditions. Nobody got hurt but lets just say its the first time I have had to bust out Mylar space blankets in a few years. We went expecting 10c, and we got -2c with rain, sleet and snow. I now realise that so many truisms exist for a reason.
Ground contact. My main pressure point was my hip and I could feel the cold ground sucking heat out of me. I had to stuff my door mat under my hip area to insulate that point
Moisture. Radiating outwards from my face, condensation formed on every surface, including my bedding, tent inner and electrical devices.
Hot water bottle. You are right, between the legs. I stuffed mine down by my feet and found i couldn't manipulate it without literally getting out of my bag.
Wet clothes. Strangely, wet clothes actually dry a bit even in cold conditions. So leave them aside and dont take them to bed.
Hats are godly. I didn't take gloves, didn't need them, but gear for your head and face is amazing for keeping you warm.
My biggest take away is that there is a load of advice that you regularly hear but you ignore:
You lose heat through your head
Zips and closures on your bedding leak heat
Moisture and damp diminishes insulation
Cold ground leaches heat out of you
Mylar blankets are insanely effective at keeping you warm..... and condensing moisture...
This might sound crazy but actually going camping where things got bad actually made me experience this stuff for real, and it was incredibly useful. I could literally feel where the zipper was on my sleeping system because it was a cold area. There is something to be said for going out at least once, in under-rated gear, and having a bad night just so that you can see where your weakest points are.
One additional piece of gear has proven very effective in keeping me warm. I use a flannel sleeping bag liner. I place the hardwarmers between the flannel liner and my sleeping bag.
One other important one a lot of people get wrong is to make sure the tent is well ventilated. A lot of people close up all the vents thinking it will make the tent feel colder due to air movement but in reality it just traps moisture and cripples the sleeping bag’s insulation.
I have an sol heat reflective tarp, and i use it as my footprint for my tent with reflective side up. Helps big time.
Best piece of advice is to "test your gear"! It's hard to go on adventures continuously, but it's easy to grab your pack and sleep in the back yard.
If you're in a cold-weather situation where your boots will get wet, take a sleeping bag with some extra length in it so you can put your boots in a drybag at the bottom of the sleeping bag when you go to bed. If wet boots freeze overnight they can be impossible to put on. Also, the hot water bottle is a good idea if water is going to freeze overnight even if you don't need it to keep warm - you'll want liquid water for breakfast.
I always bring my boots in for the night, but never cover them.
Good idea, I hate waking up to a useless brick of water.
@@terryt2910 I have never brought all my outdoor clothes into the sleeping bag with me, let alone my boots for God's sake. Why would I want them rattling around in my sleeping bag with me? I open my boots up (loosen laces as necessary) so I can get my feet into them in the morning. Some moisture in the liners will cause them to freeze overnight and be difficult to get my feet into if I don't.
One of the most important things during my time in the marines is taking care of your feet, clean and check them before you stick them in your sleeping bag and do make sure to stuff your boots in your sleeping bag as suggested correctly in an earlier comment, unless you like getting into cold and stiff boots in the morning!
@@nofascists ggg😅vgg
I have 2 extra tips.
- turn a down jacked into a foot-bag. Keeps the feet nice and war.
- use a big microfibre towel to cover the sleeping bag. Kept me warm many times, when sleeping under the stars.
7:00 as an MD I have to say that the body will not divert energy to your urine to keep it warm.. By the time any fluid in your body becomes urine it's already heated to your body temperature and it will in fact help preserve warmth. However it is good advice to go pee when your body tells you to because holding in urine for too long can cause damage to your bladder and kidneys as well as bother you and prevent you from falling asleep.
Every cubic inch of your body radiates (loses) heat. Every cubic inch of tissue is metabolizing and creating heat. Every cubic inch of urine radiates heat but does not produce heat - thus holding your urine results in a net heat loss.
“heated to your body temperature” this part here requires energy, which is absorbed from the body
@@HoosierRallyMaster spot on
@@HoosierRallyMaster Yes urine radiates heat just like everything in your body. But it radiates outward, and since the bladder is fully contained within the body the heat energy is not lost it stays within the body. Heat is only 'lost' when it leaves your body. Your body surface area against the outside is wheere you start to lose it. Having a bladder full or empty doesn't significantly impact your body surface area in any way, thus it does not increase or decrease the amount of energy lost per time unit. However your body being at a certain temperature slowly losing energy over time would take less time to lose the same amount of energy if your body had less mass. This is where my statement stems from. Urine being part of the body does not significantly impact loss of heat (by affecting body surface area, sweating, vasodilation or any other factor involved in heat loss), as it is already at body temperature (by the time its urine it's body temperature, you need water to survive besides you could have drank a hot cup of tea and completely blown away this argument) it will help you body cool down slower because the total amount of heat energy your body contains is higher before you empty your bladder than after.
@@user-pe6mv1kd5p read my comment to hoosierrallymaster to understand the physics involved in my statement.
Great advice! Too often I see people adding layers of Cotton clothes to stay warm. However I also use the Phrase “Cold Killer Cotton”. When you sweat and most will at some point it absorbs the moisture and then will chill you possibly to the point of Hypothermia. I use Merino Wool almost exclusively in winter. And the hand warmers, definitely earn their keep. Stay safe and healthy!
Great, comprehensive content. I’m an experienced winter camper and have camped in some pretty crazy (-35C) temps in northern Ontario. Checked out your video to see if there was anything else I should be doing to stay warm, but you covered all the bases. Thanks for putting my mind at ease. Definitely good info for non-campers as well!
Good info. Don't forget the chest zipper pocket. In winter here in the Idaho woods I always sleep in my light puffy down jacket and like many jackets it has that zipper pocket on the chest which I always use for a hand warmer packet. Even if I have hand warmers in my socks I always have one in the chest pocket too. It really makes a difference. Also, in this video I might have stressed more importance of getting R-value underneath you. Even if you do everything else right if you are letting the ground zap heat from your sleep system you will be uncomfortable and it will be hard to adjust for that during the night. The best winter bang-for-the-buck for improving your sleep system is to invest in R-value underneath you. Keep up the good work Luke!
Pre-heat your bag. When you get in, the warmth will carry you thru that initial chill and keep you from the urge to put more layers on.
Right. Put your hot water bottle in a while before retiring for the night.
Back in the 80's when I first started to do a lot of winter backpacking in some very cold mountain areas out in the northwest US, it was very popular to use vapor barrier liners inside a winter bag (basically big waterproof nylon bags with drawstrings you'd pull tight around your upper chest). The idea being that as you sweat as you slept, as everyone does, it would keep the water vapor from wetting the layers of critical insulation of your bag. This was especially needed if you had a down bag as they just lose it if hit with moisture. And there was some thought that as moisture level roses within that vapor liner your body would decrease the amount of sweat. Of course you had to minimize the clothing you wore to bed, I would just wear a layer of polypropylene long underwear. I remember this being a game changer in terms of increasing the comfort level of the various sleeping bags I used. A few years later I added a flannel liner also. Still use both if it's going to be below 20 F .
A positive mental attitude is arguably the most important tip.
Exactly
lol like the guy on Alone
My favourite "emergency" tip: Put your clothes around your sleeping bag. For example, if your feet keep getting cold, you can zip up your jacket and put the lower end of your sleeping bag in it. It can be tricky to keep everything in place and properly planning ahead is always the more solid solution, but sometimes it gets colder than you thought or you just made a mistake, happens to the best of us. And in those cases you need to make due with what you have at hand.
Great video. Something I will send new people that want to go winter camping with me. Just spent 2 nights under a tarp at -30c (-22F) and was super warm at night. I have a -9c winter bag inside a 0c bag with my Canada Goose parka zipped up and slid over my footbox on the outside. Baffin boot liners go inside my bag with a hand warmer in each. One goes to the feet and one in between me legs. Works like a charm.
This is going in the right direction. Don't use just one bag that seems to be 'good enuf'. Use at least 2 mats, 2 watchcaps, 2 bags, oil your face, and keep your clothes dry inside your bag.
Awsome video, I do a lot of long duration winter campouts. One thing to also remember is that sleeping bags do have different ratings. There is the survival rating and comfort rating make sure you are looking at that when you get your bag. -20 degree (survival) vs -20 degree (comfort)
Great advice. My little trick for winter camping is make a mattress on pine bows to lay on. Nice and warm and cozy soft layer between you and the ground. You can even cover yourself with them for extra warmth.
As someone who grew up where it was very cold I appreciate how much you emphasized sweat = dead. Could save someone's life if they are in conditions they are not used to.
6:02 If the lit is “super tight” while the bottle is filled with very hot liquids (water, coffee), you may have a super hard time opening it again later on when the metal has cooled down, espacially in winter. Just put it tight enough so it doesn’t leak.
I had that issue with an MSR White Fuel bottle, that thing was tight. Had to use the can opener as a leverage tool and help twist if off.
@@OAK_MTN one thing you can do is warm up some water then pour it around the seam between the bottle and the lid. Working with horses most of my life we had to do this alot in the winter because of the water gets between the lid and the bottle and freezes. Next time try it my friend. GOD bless y'all!!!
@@tobystrickland5986 Would work for sure, if said bottle didn't contain the fuel needed to warm up water haha. I had my lesson, I'm not overtightening this lid ever again.
Great video. Good call on the pad below your mattress.
I use two sleeping bags (a 20 & 40 degree) in winter camping instead of just one extreme cold bag; seems to work the same, with more flexibility if it's not as cold as expected.
Also keep your bedtime socks in a plastic bag to ensure they stay dry and I will put them in my coat by the fire to warm them up before bed. Another technique is to heat up rocks in the fire and then bury them in the dirt below your sleeping area.
Hey guys I just wanted to thank you. I know it may seem a little silly but I was recently hospitalized and to say my nights since have been a little trying is an understatement. Every night when I get into bed I put on one of your videos and either let the trips keep me focused on something I love or let your hiking lull me into sleep. Maybe your reviewing trails and gear, but your also offering comfort. In God's name, please keep up the great job!!
Which god?
@@ActiveArtisan It doesn’t matter which god. As long as this guy is finding comfort, in a rough time.
@@ActiveArtisan you care or looking to stir the pot? He wasn't talking to you - the comment was specifically made to the channel owner.
Wool maintains most of it’s insulation properties even when wet, so it makes a good choice for a mask.
On a somewhat related note, they use special immersion suits on some ships for surviving in cold water after abandoning ship. The suits have a system that captures the wearer’s breath to keep the suit warm, while also keeping them dry. The suits don’t hinder the wearer nearly as much as older “gumby suits” either, wearers can still move and perform tasks while wearing it. Wearers can even remove the gloves if necessary and heated cuffs will help keep the hands warm. They pretty much remove the threat of hypothermia in all but the coldest waters (In testing, subjects were immersed in 32 degree water for 24hrs 15min before the test was ended. The test subjects said they weren’t even cold). I’m surprised they haven’t made something similar for cold-weather camping.
Good video. Contains almost everything I teach my troop of Scouts. I use a couple of Nalgene HDPE bottles (the only rated for boiling water) inserted into an old sock. I also have several rolls of reflectix for my boys to use as a bottom layer under their sleeping pads. It is dirt cheep at Home Depot (or any other building supply store) and can be layered for additional insulation. +1 for also being really light. I personally use two 24 x 72 inch pieces side by side to insulate the bottom of my tent so I can "spread out" a little bit as I get ready for bed at night and get ready for the day the next morning.
Definitely the very best channel for anyone doing anything to do with camping, he doesn't go on about pointless things & stays on subject.
Thanks for the tips sir, I'll definitely be using them as I'm thinking of moving into a tent permanent so ANYONE with any advice out there it would be greatly appreciated 😉
For cold weather camping, I pack a complete set of sleeping clothes.
I have heard it said that a sleeping person will convert a pint of water into 'steam'. That water as a vapor is a lot of water that will make you very cold. If you sleep in your clothes that vapor will make you very cold in the morning when you get up.
@Karl Fichtenberg
Yes, luckily it was an easy lesson.
Found out by sleeping in the cab of a pickup truck during a snow storm.
A friend and I went to run in a 'fun' motorcycle race. The two of us steamed up the cab and 'soaked' our selves. Getting up 'steamed wet' in the morning was a shivering experience until we warmed up and dried out. The same friend once camped out in the snow with his brother.
They did not use any barrier between them selves and the snow and woke up soaked wet and dangerously cold.
i really appreciate the temperature given in centigrade on the screen for us across the pond.
great vid as usual friend
Lots of good tips, Luke gives good advice. Once I used an inadequate sleeping pad when the temp got down to 20f. I was miserable all night. Then I got a Thermarest X-Therm which is very warm and solved that problem. I usually take a thin foam pad in addition to the X-Therm in case it springs a leak, but it has been surprisingly durable. It’s a little noisy but I would rather be noisy and warm than quiet and cold.
with 27 year in Marine FORECON and 8 years of training the best, I have 3 words. "YOU NAILED IT"
The tip about moving and doing exercises w/o sweating right before bed - use isometric exercises. They are basically slow flexing of any muscle group. I use these when I'm hunting and sitting for hours in frigid temps. You can do isometrics w/o much movement and warm specific muscle groups.
In the Army we generally take our wet socks (if we don’t have a second pair) an throw inside our sleeping bags as they’ll also dry from the loft inside our bags. You can also take your puffy down jacket and place your feet in it and then in your sleeping system for added loft as shell core effect can still take place while sleeping in your bag.
Along with the high fat and calorie food aspects, red meat is going to be one of the best things to incorporate for several reasons. The sock/ clothing layers while sleeping is a very important point, there is a contrast with how we have to do this in a Military/ Winter Warfare application for obvious reasons, but that is some sage wisdom-- change your socks folks! Great video and points brother!
Experienced a few awful Autumn(Fall) & Winter nights camping in Arctic Canada, Rockies & Scotland. But soon learnt from past mistakes. Several of your cold weather camping tips I was already aware of eg. bottle for urinating into, snacking before sleep, keeping mouth & nose clear of your bag, change into dry base layers & socks before sleep etc. and can confirm their usefulness. That’s the thing about bushcraft & wilderness survival. You can’t know it all & we learn something new everyday. Another great, instructive video. Keep up the great work guys!
All excellent tips. So far, I have been warm down to 17 degrees in a hammock. My tip for cold-weather trips is try to find a place out of high winds, especially when in a hammock. I had nice rocks and rhodies to block the wind. I woke up to a beautiful morning of sunshine and snow-covered woods in Cranberry Wilderness, WV. Your tips apply to many situations that folks might find themselves in. Good stuff.
I'll be heading up to cranberry this weekend, hope the foliage is beautiful by now
Staying warm is the most important but be aware that exercising before bed can make it harder to sleep, and chocolate contains caffeine. Really appreciate all the tips!
Thanks Luke for these important tips on keeping warm and dry in cold weather camping. This actually needs to be stated more often as there is an increasing number of people who don't possess the common sense to properly protect themselves in these situations. Better to be safe than sorry.
The 'urine in your body making you colder' and the 'take clothes off to be warmer in a sleeping bag' are myths and are the opposite of common sense. If you're worried about being cold when you sleep, wear as much clothing as you can that won't reduce circulation and include as much clothing in your sleeping bag with you for insulation as you can comfortably fit without compressing the sleeping bag's insulation.
Don't listen to D L. He has no clue what he's saying in his post. His advice will get people killed.
@@WoodsmokeSelf-Reliance I know exactly what I'm taking about in fact. The urine is heated to your body temp long before it makes it to your bladder. By the time it's there it's just a hot water bottle.
I don't camp, nor do I have an interest in camping, yet I still love watching all these videos about camping.
It’s still good to know. If you live in a place that has winter. Keeping a winter kit in the car, can make a big difference one night.
Great video! If you do another part, could you talk about other difficulties of cold camping? Things like preventing your water or boots from freezing, how to best deal with tent stakes and frozen ground/deep snow etc.
To prevent your water from freezing:
1) keep it in your tent with you if you can
2) keep it in your pack preferably with layers packed around it
3) add 99.9% pure food grade propylene glycol to it. You can find charts online that show what ratio of water to PG to use in order to pervert freezing to various temperatures.
I use a steel bottle with hot water but wrap it in a towel in case it leaks. This gives you a warning, to prevent burns, if it does.
For keeping boots from freezing - the most obvious way to achieve this is to try keeping boots dry as much as possible. Clean snow from top of the boots when you are coming close to campfire - melting snow will make them dump very quickly. Use gaters to prevent snow from getting inside the boot. If the boot is dump, you will have to dry it either next to fire or by putting something which absorbs water inside the boot (like toilet paper). If the boot is dump just a bit (say, from sweating feet), it is okay. Boots will anyways be a bit stiff at the morning, there almost no way to prevent this from my experience (the only way to do this is to carefully dry next to fire for several hours).
In the deep snow: use "snow anchors" - bury the peg under the snow horizontally and pack it with your feet. It will take several minutes for the snow to harden and then the peg is secured. Don't bury too deep as you will have some hard times digging them at the morning through the hardened snow.
After removing your boots for the night, lossen the laces and pry them open as much as possible. Even though your feet feel dry inside of boots, the liners may be a little damp. They will freeze and be stiff in the morning. Or remove the liners. I am a self taught winter camper, wore Sorrels, and learned this the hard way my first time. By the time I finally (after lots of struggle)got my foot into my boot, I was all warmed up.
Great video. My young sons race motocross and we camp as a family in a tent beginning in mid April up here in Canada to late October. I found Gobi Heat battery powered blankets as essential as a layer over top my kid's sleeping bags to get through 3 celcius cold nights 🌙. I charge the small portable batteries for the blankets using solar panels during the day. I wear all merino wool layers as well along with Thermarest sleeping bags and mattresses with high R values for the whole family.
When it comes to the (hand) warmers, I have grown to appreciate the larger sized "body" warmers. The ones with an adhesive side that are made to stick to your base layer, and not directly contact the skin.
I locate them a bit lower than suggested. At about the diaphragm, instead of just the chest. It keeps my whole core body temperature regulated pretty well, and can easily be removed, folded together, and slid down to my feet if I feel like my core temp is getting so high that it's going to cause sweating.
It's also a good location for warming your hands, and can allow you to do work without bulky layers (or sweat) when setting up camp.
Never used the body warmers.do they last for 10 hrs as well? I’ve noticed the the feet warmers are only good for a few hours.
@@cholseng
I never really timed them to an exact measurement, but they're usually good for a whole night's sleep. Some brands perform better than others.
@@cholseng Now I see they have rechargeable hand warmers
Can you tell me 102 brands that are really good?
@@jenniferpetrellicarslearni2265 Vevor diesel heaters, those are really good 😉
I’m not a big UA-cam fan anymore, but I love this channel and your honesty. Please don’t sell out to manufacturers. Stay honest and objective sir.
There are billions of vids, why wouldnt you be a fan?
@@SwazersC Because it's the most heavily censored and politically biased video platform on the internet and has been dying a slow death for a long time, youtubers don't make much money anymore and are abandoning ship for upcoming platforms that will inevitably take it's place.
One trick I learned camping in Northern Az. and Colorado was to light a single candle lantern and hang it with a small bungee about a foot from the top of the tent about an hour before you turn in.
It will be in the 20’s & 30’s around the campfire, and it will be 60 in your tent. BTW, leave your sleeping bag open.
One key point that Luke overlooked is to drink something warm (not coffee or cocoa, both have caffeine.) Non-caffeinated tea is best; Chamomile or mint or lemon, are a few examples. I drink pine needle tea, especially in the winter, before turning in. The vitamin C is really good for energizing the body for the long, cold, night, and the warmth does two things:
1. Calms the body and relaxes it for sleeping.
2. Helps the body produce additional heat to keep you warmer throughout the night.
I just want to say spot on. I’ve never placed a water bottle in my bag personally. The rating on a sleeping bag is a survivable rating, not comfort. The only thing I would mention concerning hand warmers, as a former scout master, never place the hand warmers in your socks where it is in direct contact with your skin. I personally put one warmer at the bottom of my bag, and the second near my torso. For me, this keeps me warm even in the deep negatives. When explaining this to my scouts, along with all the other things mentioned in this video, I had one scout who thought I meant that the hand warmers be placed in his socks that he wore throughout the night. What ultimately happened, is that by next morning his feet had been burned. I would like to echo the sentiment on this video, that without utilizing all the methods mentioned, the hand warmers will not be near as effective, and it could lead to dire consequences. Winter camping is fun, but can be quickly deadly if not done properly.
Wrap your ground pad with a emergency blanket (foil looking space blanket) with the solid side facing you. This reflects your body’s heat back to you. Also, in the BSA we were always taught to go in almost nude, underwear on of course. This allows your body to heat the space inside the sleeping bag, and not the small space between your clothes and you. I found this difficult in practice but does work. I would also kick to the bottom of the bag my fresh clothes for the next day. This way you get to Don warm clothes in the morning. As mentioned about the bag temperature rating, I found the rating will protect you but not necessarily keep you warm. For me I go with a 20 degree bag rating higher than what I will be in, that is if temps are consistent (use a Zero bag in 20 degree weather). I do get colder than some, so my $.02.
When I was in the Army and sleeping outside in the winter I used to strip my uniform but stuffed it in the bottom at my feet. That helped in the morning not having to put on clothes thar were as cold as it was outside.
That’s a trick my dad (25 years in the Army) taught me….. clothes are toasty warm and you get dressed in the sleeping bag…..
I was out this weekend for a hot tent camping trip. The first night the temp was 0C and it had rained from the time we arrived at around 2pm until just before dawn. The second night the temp was -20C and it has snowed pretty much all day! So you have to be prepared for *everything*! We went through so many weather patterns this weekend, it was crazy! Thank goodness we were in a nice big hot tent and out of the rain. It was a fun weekend though! Except when I lost my phone in the snow...that kinda sucked.
This is deep, exact and important. For all beginners LISTEN to what he says. It is the key to happy cold camping. I've done all the mistakes trough 40 years, and almost froze to death. And yes, most important, STAY DREY
I lay out my next-day clothes between my two sleeping pads. Adds another layer of insulation and the clothes stay warm. Avoids putting on sub-zero (Fahrenheit) base layers first thing in the morning.
as someone who moves about alot while sleeping, how do you get the clothes to stay in place?
@@johan.ohgren I suppose you could put them in a stuff sack and use it as a pillow or just pushed down by your feet. They would stay warm and fill up the dead air space in your sleeping bag.
I am not a professional anything, but, I am from Norway, and perhaps that matters some on this kind of video. When we (me and my family) camp in winter, we usually wear wool against the skin and layer on top of it. We do not use any artificial heat of any kind. We do change to our underwear when getting in the sleeping bag, and we do change to rough woolen socks when we are done walking. I think your advice is on point and probably very helpful to those not used to cold/freezing weather :)
Most bags are actually tested with clothing on. So a good reference for me is add 10F to its rating. Nalgene bottles work great for hot water or as a pee bottle. Great tips.
From what I can tell the "sleeping bags are designed to work without clothing" is an outright myth. I don't know where or why that idea got started but if you think about it it makes no sense. Unless your clothing is wet or something, it's just more insulation. The more clothing you wear in a sleeping bag the warmer you'll be just the same as the more insulation in your sleeping bag the warmer you'll be. Also, I don't understand why the myth about your body 'diverting heat to warm your pee" is so pervasive. Also makes no sense. Your body doesn't 'divert heat' at all, it can slow or speed up blood flow or constrict blood vessels in some situations but this isn't relevant to your bladder. The water that you ingest that will eventually be urine in your bladder is warmed to the temperature of your body within a few seconds of being consumed and that is the only time your body will lose energy heating it. After that it only adds to the thermal mass of your body and would actually help retain heat much like body fat (or any mass) would. This doesn't mean you should try to hold urine in because that's just a bad idea for obvious reasons (i.e. you can't). It's just basic physics and I hate seeing these myths perpetuated. The urine issue is kind of moot anyway because you should pee as much as possible before going to bed so you don't have to lose accumulated heat by getting up to pee in the middle of the night.
@@DL-ij7tf What it means is "no jackets or pants". You should/ or could wear long johns and a thinner wool shirt, you could have something on your head to like balaclava or something
@@johan.ohgren The laws of thermodynamics don't alter based on the name you attach to the insulation. Any amount of material between your body heat and the outside will slow heat transfer. Explain to me how it could possibly be otherwise.
@@DL-ij7tf because jackets and sleeping bags has a similar function. To retain warmth inside, but if you use a bulky jacket inside a sleepingbag you're effectively disabling the positives of a sleeping bag. Instead of having a layer of air to warm up you will have multiple layers, each divided by cloth and moist barriers.
@@johan.ohgren Yes you just described insulation and more of it retains more heat. There is no cancelling out. Work it through in your head, you'll see your claim makes no sense.
I tuck in the clothing that I’ll throw on the next day in the bottom of my sleeping bag. Helps keep my feet warm, and my clothing is toasty when I put it on. I also usually just dress while still in my bag, which also helps keep in my body heat. Doing so, along with the other tips you mentioned, keeps me super comfy during cold nights. If you put a hot rock from your fire (wrapped in something, of course, so your bedding doesn’t get dirty) into your bag before you bed down, it will get your bag all ready for you. Bonus if you also throw in whatever you’ll sleep in so that’s warm too. You can keep the rock in your tent to radiate whatever heat is left. I’ve kept it in my bag but often find it’s unnecessary-and can be annoying as you move during the night. Cheers!
My pupper is my personal heating pad. 😂 She is small enough to fit nicely in my sleeping bag. I completely agree … I usually have her sleep between my legs and it definitely help. 🐶
That is dangerous for two reasons:
1. Repeatedly re-breathing carbon dioxide (expeled air from the lungs) leads to hypoxemia (suffocation from lack of oxygen) by your pup in an enclosed sleeping bag without fresh oxygenated air to breathe.
2. Dogs, like humans, expel moisture when they exhale. Your pup is releasing moisture into your sleeping bag that will cause condensation and severely reduce the effectiveness of the insulation in your sleeping bag, which will cause cold spots and could lead to hypothermia.
I have a lot of experience in cold weather and these tips are fantastic - especially the ones about food and movement.
I'm not sure how you'd word this one, but troops in the arctic will take off their shirts to wash and shave in the morning. It shocks your body into producing heat and feels very cozy when you put your warm kit back on.
"You sweat, you die" Les Stoud (I think) Thanks for sharing Luke. Love winter time adventures! Stay safe brother!
Ever since I was a kid I've been a sweater. I sweat when I think about exerting myself, I guess I'm screwed!
I already left one comment, but the second thing that I would add to your list, is a good insulated ground cloth. I use a wool blanket, along with my foam pad.
Great episode! Hope I do not have to sleep outside in winter, but if I do..:)
Trousers for the winter is another good subject for next episode. There is so many to choose from.
I wish I had see this video 40 years ago. I learned all this stuff the hard way. Great video. Very informative - spot on. Anybody that wants to winter camp should watch this video first, and then try it out in the back yard first.
Excellent tips, staying dry is truly the key to staying comfortable and alive. Having quick drying clothing is vital and knowing how to dry off. Thanks for the great tips. PS surplus Canadian Army cold weather sleeping system is amazing, solves the moist breath in sleeping bag problem. Check it out.
My wife got a mini palm dog. I noticed it would sleep in the snow. So I put her puppy in my sleeping bag. Stayed warm all night. Just loved her dog. The dog had plenty of air.
I put hand warmers in an elastic belt that’s for heat or ice on your back. If you wear it with the hand warmers over your kidneys. Your kidneys have a lot of blood flow and it heats the arteries that run down your spine. I came up with the idea because I was using heat on my back and kept over heating. I found that at 45 degrees I could stand on my porch in a tee shirt, shorts and a pair of crocs with no socks for 30 minutes and even my feet stayed warm. Started using this method probably 15 years ago. Everybody I’ve showed this trick is still using it so I’m pretty sure it’s not just a pickle of my imagination. If you have kidney problems or an infection please ask your doctor about applying heat to the area before you try this.
hey smart thinking! thanks for the tip, I'll have to try this out.
sitting here planning a trip to the Swedish mountain world at the end of January 2023 and happened to stumble upon this film. thought it was a bit of humor that I have a fjällräven kajka backpack och Carinthia defense 4 sleeping bag with A tropen as an extra accessory if it gets really cold. I think your channel is one of the best on youtube right now.
Sorry, but about 20 years ago slept with hand warmer on stomach got a severe burn
No need to apologise.
Thank you. I‘d like to add that plastic bottles made by Nalgene can take boiling hot water just as well. But unlike the stainless ones you’re less likely to burn yourself with it. I’m dropping a tea bag in it to have some of my favourite fruit tea instead of flat water.
The concern with adding boiling water to any plastic bottle is that plastics release harmful chemicals when heated. Any bottle, including BPA free ones. That was why he said to plan to not use the water after this. Your tea made in a Nalgene is a bad practice. Of course whether it is a risk acceptable to you is your decision. A few tea bags on a trip could be nothing in the larger picture.
Thank you. I always use a stainless steel water bottle. I get it as hot as I can stand it. Put wrap a little bit. It tends to warm even the tent or room, too. I even use them at home. Thanknyou for these great tips.
Lived in AK for 8 yrs and had much fun winter camping. Now, at 58, I have a 40' Class A RV that is nice and warm!!
Your are cheating! ;)
When I used to winter camp here in Canada, I would boil water just before going into my tent, place it in two stainless steel water bottles, put the socks I had been wearing over the water bottles to dry and then put the bottle in the sleeping bag when I went to bed. I found that the water would stay warm until 3 or 4 in the morning. You would also have ice free water
to quickly make porridge and a hot drink in the morning. Snow is a great insulator, if you have it use it. Got to love the sound of snow sliding off your tent😊
For my Army/Marines out there, you can use your MRE heater to dry out your boots and socks. Also helps keep them from freezing if you leave them out side of your bivy.
I have found if you crack open the hand warmers and throw them in the bag at the beginning of your "getting ready for bed" process, it will be toasty for you. I also have preferred to not keep them in my socks because it's harder to get them in my mummy bag than if I leave them loose and can shake them back towards my waist.
My other personal nuanced benefit for myself was keeping my mouth uncovered but covering my eyes, nose, chin, etc. My nose was purely about comfort. Eyes lose a ton of heat, and my chin/buff just helps seal up that opening into the bag to help cut down the draft.
I have never figured out the correct air mattress /foam combo, I have read both ways.
Awesome video absolutely loved it🤜. I was in Finland this February just gone and the lowest temperature I experienced was -37C! Do not blow your mattress up by your breath otherwise the condensation will freeze inside your sleeping mat and no matter what the R rating is it,it will become next to useless and be very very cold! Either use a little electric pump or a pump sack which I did! I’ve since bought a small pump!
For anyone looking for a good value tent in the UK, I’ve had a Eurohike 3 Man Avon tent up in my garden all last summer through into this winter and during the recent storms. Not one leak, no damage and completely stable. I could not believe it for less than £100. They’re heavy, but man they’re built strong. And the waterproofing is 100%. We’ve had the worst our weather can throw at it and it took it like a champ. Well worth considering as a cheaper, robust option for casual camping.
The movement trick is good anywhere. Squats are fantastic to get blood flowing everywhere withiut touching snow or mud. They also help cold feet. Stomp around and wiggle toes aggressively as well. You can clap your hands and fingers to warm them up quick.
Thank you for the Really Good information in this video. Don't sweat! Don't Sweat!! DON'T SWEAT!!! Hand warmers are my sleeping bag buddies! One by my feet and a floater that I can put where I'm cold as needed. Closed cell foam pad under a good insulated inflatable pad is an absolute must have combo. Sleeping bags temperature rating can be survival rating not comfort rating. Plan sleep clothing layers accordingly.
I was homeless in central Nh one March and I will never spend another cold night in a tent if I dont have to! It sucks what a miserable experience and I had a Mr. Buddy tent heater and a a sleeping bag rated for 30 below. It never got colder than 15 degrees at night. I am so grateful to have a home! Please help the homeless if you can.
There are many channels I distrust but this guys advice is completely 100% sound , great video bud thx
I've doubled my bag... One inside the other... Incredibly versatile...
I would add, wear wool, then its does not matter if your wet or damp, when im skiing over short\long distance your gonna get freaken wet, good wool and cotton anorak, no problems, and you can always change your base layer befor going into the sleeping bag if your soaking, leave your wet clothes on the outside to freeze dry. Awsome vid thumbs up
Super good tips, exactly what I learnt in North Norway learning to survive in the Artic with British Army. ONE other tip have a flask of hot sweet milky tea ready so if you need a warm drink during the night to help warm up its there for you... mmmm tea. Nice