How to freeze in the woods

[Muddy Creek]

I completely agree. It may well be that I would have woken up earlier if I hadn't been drinking the two glasses of wine for dinner.

Physiological thing also. Alcohol dilates blood vessels, increasing heat loss through the skin.

Wayne

[echinotrix]

Physiological thing also. Alcohol dilates blood vessels, increasing heat loss through the skin.

Wayne

The basic problem was not that I lost too much heat, but that I woke up much too late (which also is a physiological effect of alcohol). Not already when I started to shiver, but only when I was already a bit undercooled. My setup is (if it stays dry) easily good down to 20°F. In this regard, it doesn't matter if I have two glasses of wine for dinner. However, if I sleep so deeply that I don't notice how snow soaks my quilts and I cool down, that's bad.

[bloop]

Glad the night turned out to be a learning experience rather than something more serious.

[tennistime99]

Scary how fast the simplest trip can get dangerous. Glad you got out to tell the tale.

[TrailSlug]

This is why I never leave home in the fall/winter/spring without my winter tarp with doors. Had you had doors you would not have gotten your gear wet and problem adverted. We'll nearly adverted except for the under quilt snafu. This could have turned out much worse than it was and you were lucky you were as close as you were to your car. I'll bet it will not happen again
For the poster that was looking at synthetic to solve this I can tell you if you have wet synthetic insulation it too will freeze you to death and is not the fix in this situation. Try wetting your synthetic insulation sometime and see how warm you stay. Moisture will bring a man to his knees in cold weather.

[whistle_norvell]

Good point on the tarp doors. I do that as well, and also use my bugnet in the winter which helps to keep the precip from getting in, even though it seems like over doing it.

[kitsapcowboy]

This is why I never leave home in the fall/winter/spring without my winter tarp with doors...

You just can't beat full enclosure...

[Watertooner]

Cold does weird things to your mind. This weekend at a very cold hang (got down to -15º), I decided to change my headlamp batteries. The replacements were the wrong kind - must have grabbed the wrong packet - and I fumbled around with putting the original batteries back in, but failed because my hands were getting cold. But really it was my brain that failed. My brain just decided to not care about light and focused solely on keeping the hands warm. Nothing bad happened - this time - since I could easily see my snow path from the campfire back to my hammock and its Luci Light beacon. My lesson learned: Over-prepare for cold nights while camping. 1) Keep two lights on your body; 2) double check the spare batteries; and 3) practice swapping them out when it is warm. The cold is unforgiving.

[echinotrix]

This is why I never leave home in the fall/winter/spring without my winter tarp with doors. Had you had doors you would not have gotten your gear wet and problem adverted.

Usually I have my minitarp with me, with it I can close one side almost completely. Unfortunately, I forgot it that day. It won't happen to me again.

For the poster that was looking at synthetic to solve this I can tell you if you have wet synthetic insulation it too will freeze you to death and is not the fix in this situation. Try wetting your synthetic insulation sometime and see how warm you stay. Moisture will bring a man to his knees in cold weather.

I agree with that. With a little bit of moisture over a longer period of time, synthetic is easier to handle, down lumps together at high humidity. But once Apex and Co. are really wet, it's over.

[snwcmpr]

I would add ... Underquilt Protector.

Was the hut a place that you could have used to get warm?