A change of socks will always be of help. Daytime perspirational accumulation may not appear to be much, but intensifies your cold sensitivity at night!
If the coldness is persistant, you can always use your backpack as an outer protective additional piece to warm your feet also.
I like to do two things,
1) put my jacket at my feet for insulation
2) Boil some water, put it in my bottle and shove it down to my feet (this is the best and will warm your entire body up. It will also heat up your bag quickly)
Another thing that will help is not to drink alcohol. Yes it is shocking ain't it?
This is not a moral thing. There are medical reasons.
But it does have the effect that it widens your blood vessels in your extremeties (hands, feet etc) and more blood passes trough, making you feel warm. But what in reality happens is that you just severly increased your bodies heat loss as the cooled blood from your extremeties will return to your core, with the result that you have an increased risk of hypothermia.
Other effects of alcohol is that you will shiver less. But shivering is one of the bodies defence mehanisms to create heat to warm you up. It is also an impiortant warning signal.
And last, because more blood flow trough your extremeities, amking you feel warm for a while, also makes you sweat. And I don't have to tell you what happens next.
Rune
I'm still dialing all of this in, so I'm trying a bunch of different things.
-Making sure my feet are warm before I get in the hammock
-Small sit pad under my feet (I like it inside my bag, to avoid chasing it)
-Loose socks, if it is real cold, I've worn my moccasins
-Extra down coat on top of my sleeping bag/feet. I put it inside my footbox this trip & liked that.
I haven't tried the hot water / Nalgene trick but I'm sure that works also.
Although I have found I don't need it with my bag I have done the boiling water in an evernew collapsible water bottle and I lay it between me and the hammock bottom and can't even feel it there. It is between my butt and knees btw. If in the foot area it's toasty! I have found with all the down surrounding my water bottle it is still warm in the morning making that morning coffee and oatmeal a quick boil.
When Lars Monsen, the Norwegian adventurer spent three years crossing canada by canoo and dogsled, he slept with the liner of his pack boots on. That way he always had warm boots, and he just put his feet straight into the outer pack boot in the morning.
He carried sevral liners though. So he always had a dry pair to put on for the night.
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