Keeping Dry - Appalachian Trail

imported
#1

Previous posts seem to suggest that a lot of hikers hike in the rain during Summer, Spring, and Fall w/o rain gear. Reasons: rair gear too hot cause you’re generating a lot of heat hiking. The rain/wet clothes fell good/okay as long as you are hiking and generating that heat.

But you have to deal with those wet clothes at night (and the next morning too) when you stop hiking/stop generating all that heat and of course at the same time the air temperature drops.

So any suggestions on how not to get wet or in dealing with this problem.

See you out there.

Maintain

#2

Well, most of us change into something dry at camp and hang up the wet stuff. Or carefully lay them on you in your bag and they’re dry in the a.m. Since we’re talking sythetics and not cotton they often dry in an hour after you get out of the rain so wear them dry. On the foggy mornings when the clothes won’t dry I quietly slip in to the wife’s jog bra and warm it up for her. Extra style points.:cheers

Bushwhack

#3

As long as you have warm, dry clothing to slip into when you stop hiking for the day, you should be fine.

Once you get your hiking clothes wet, it’s very probable that they won’t dry until you get a good day with no humidity and complete sunlight to dry them in…or find a dryer in town.

my clothes were hardly ever completely dry. There’s just usually too much dew in the air at night for them to dry while hanging.

bearbait

#4

I have done the wet clothes in the sleeping bag to dry by morning thing. This was when I was using a synthetic bag. Have recently switched to a down bag. Is it still cool to do this with a down bag? Will it get the too wet to be warm or too wet to dry by itself?

P.S. (Re: Bushwhack in Brambles sports bra)… AHHHHHHHHHH!!! My Eyes! They are burning!! :eek: Burning from seeing the mental image that post created in my mind!!! Bramble, please keep your sports bra…well, to be safe, all of your clothes…away from BW. Otherwise, things might prove to risque for the trail

P.P.S. Do either of you have a picture of that I could borrow. Purely for academic reasons, of course. Its not like I am strangely turned on or anything.:slight_smile:

Tim “The Toolman” Taylor

#5

Here’s how I dealt with a soaking wet down sleeping bag in Maine during October on my northbound AT thru-hike. Some of you might be able to use this method if you couldn’t get to a town and wanted to dry out wet clothes while on the Trail. Works very well for drying out a soaking wet down sleeping bag.

I was carrying one of those Space brand emergency mylar type sleeping bags (thank God I didn’t send it home from Monson). Weighs about 3 ounces and the weight is the only thing that kept me from sending it home.

When my down sleeping bag got soaked (a snowstorm had come in overnight and put several inches of snow on top of me while I was sleeping in a shelter), I retrieved the mylar sleeping bag from my backpack and, with a couple of Pepsi bottles full of hot water, shoved the whole mylar/Pepsi concoction and myself inside my soaking wet down sleeping bag. What a bone-chililng glopping mess that down sleeping bag was at the time.

Oh, I forgot to mention. There was a blizzard and I was in the 100 mile wilderness so I needed to get my down sleeping bag dried out pretty quickly since it was 24*F and the snow was too deep to leave the shelter to find whatever civilization existed in nearby central Maine.

The vapor barrier of the mylar sleeping bag kept all the moisture from the Pepsi hot water bottles inside the mylar sleeping bag while the heat from the Pepsi hot water bottles escaped and dried out the down sleeping bag from the inside out.

Although my skin was wet inside the mylar sleeping bag, within about 8 hours my sleeping bag was dry enough that I didn’t need to use the mylar sleeping bag to dry it anymore.

Here’s the Space brand sleeping bag I used at the beginning of the three day period when I was caught in the blizzard (link may wrap):
http://www.rei.com/online/store/ProductDisplay?storeId=8000&catalogId=40000008000&productId=244&parent_category_rn=4500522

Datto

Datto

#6

Hey, i keeps my woman happy. What ever it takes. Sides, I got a home gym and I been woykin’ out. Mens can be buffly buff too. All those Lemon Luna Bars are making me way too sahnsative. RAINDOG!!! Put some lotion on me again would you?

BW

#7

Well Bushwack you are a G.D.Jewel as they used to say! My consultant (that’s another story) advised me to put my damp/wet sox in my armpits or stomach when I retired. I preferred the stomach. Really worked fine and is only uncomfortable for a few seconds. The sox (Smartwool) were actually warm to put on! Damp synthetic (only what I used) worked the same. I had a down bag, too. One must be careful, if you have to get up in the night for a people break, not to drop your clothing out on the ground. :eek:

Lady Di

#8

I prefer to keep my raingear since it keeps me from being totally soaked. Sure, I stay damp due to sweat but never to the point of being drenched and my damp cloths dry a whole lot faster than soaked ones. Same goes for my Goretex boots. I was talked into some non-waterproof boots at Walasi Yi and regretted it over the following 4 days of rain when I almost got trenchfoot.

Nooga

#9

I keep hearing advice on putting wet socks in your sleeping bag to dry them. Sitting around the fire one night I brought this up to the other hikers and it was agreed that none of us would even put those stinky things in the tent never mind in our sleeping bag!! After the first week does anyone actually do this?

Big B

#10

We wash ours out every night so they really don’t funk much. Usually they get dried by the fire if they don’t catch fire first. Fox River X-Statics are like gasoline.
When we tent we hang the wet stuff, after a good stream wash, from a clothes line inside the tent and they’re often dry by morning.

B+B

#11

all i had on my thru hike for rain gear was a jacket and gaitors. i also had a down bag. i slept in my wet clothes most of the time and by the morning i was dry and so were my clothes. i never had a problem with my bag getting wet and last year it rained almost every day. socks never dry and they are nasty to put in your bag. i would just live with wet socks and change them every couple of days. eventually you will get a nice dry couple of days.

dirty bird

#12

Good to know the water I’ve been drinking serves as a washing machine for some people.

nobody

#13

Then you’ll be even happier to know it serves as a sewage pipe for some animals.

somebody

#14

And occasionally a repository for dirty diapers. ew

FS

#15

Well, I guess it depends on how much your feet sweat. I use coolmax liners under the smartwool. Also would wipe the feet down pretty near every night, and used bag balm on feet in the morning. The damp sox were tucked under my waist band, turned inside out. The liners get stinky, but they get rinsed out (not in the stream) and rotated. :oh

Lady Di