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  1. #17
    cougarmeat's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2012
    Location
    Bend, OR
    Hammock
    WBBB, WBRR, WL LiteOwl
    Tarp
    OES, WL BullFro
    Insulation
    HG UQ, TQ, WB UQ
    Suspension
    Python Straps
    Posts
    3,781
    There are lots of schools of thought. First - night clothes. The phrase is, “Cotton Kills.” That refers to using cotton for outer garments. If it gets wet, it stays wet and increases heat loss by conduction and convection. If even a small part gets wet, like the cuff of your jeans, it will tend to wick to the rest of your garment. That said, I’m a big fan of cotton pj's. Nothing makes a hard day (or easy day) endurable than a comfortable night in soft cotton pajamas. Also, it is much easier to throw pj's in the wash than to properly wash and loft down. For similar reasons, I wear light ankle socks and in mild weather maybe a balaclava. As the weather gets colder, I wear the balaclava more often. My early one was silk from mountain climbing days but now I have a variety of inexpensive ones courtesy of Amazon. I also found a nice thicker fleece model with a front panel that directs warm breath passed my nose - keeping it warmer. So I’d go for single layer but cover your feet/body/head.

    Now - a bit of controversy - heat: Your quilts don’t make heat; you do (or don’t). If you have a good running car, but don’t start it up, it’s unfair to say the car doesn’t work. The quilts job is to capture/maintain the heat you make. But you have to make the heat. As an aside, you could add some heat by using those handwarmer packets or a nalgene (or other brand) bottle of hot water. Two caveats. Sometimes those packets leak; it can get messy. So you might want to kept it/them in a small bag. But they seem to need oxygen to work so maybe not “ziplock” style. If the water is too hot, it can distort the threads on the nalgene bottle so your tight fitting lid might leak later. These are things you can practice with at home.

    Also at home, there are suggestions of the kinds of camp food to eat for dinner, and you can try them out. Here’s the problem. We are taught, “Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dinner like a pauper.” But when hiking/camping, we want those calories at night. But then, we also - depending upon age - don’t want to be “bothered” too much at night. If some urge is waking us up, we prefer it only to be to pee and nothing more complicated. So it’s good to try different food ideas at home and see how they work.

    But to me, most important is acknowledge that you make the heat. I learned this when I was homeless one winter. I had a station wagon I could sleep in and a sleeping bag but I would be cold. Soon it dawned on me that I had to make the heat. This gets into other philosopies like Ying and Yang, soft and hard. A personality will tend more one way than the other but the important thing is balance. You need to be able to roar. ARRRRRH. Make some internal fire. . There’s a cartoon strip, A Rose is a Rose. The woman in the panel usually is portrayed wearing yoga or “mom” clothes. But sometimes her “biker” persona appears. As an adult, you need both. Looking at your friends, you may know some that are all hard and fire where others are all soft and cool - all the time. You need both, to be used appropriately depending upon the circumstances.

    At night, outside, in cold temperatures, you need to have more an ARRRRRH attitude than a La Di Dah attitude.

    Back to more conventional ideas - you do need to have adequate insulation underneath the hammock to prevent convection heat loss. Notice I said under the hammock, not (directly) under you. Because if you are lying directly on your insulation, like a sleeping bag, you are compressing it’s loft. It’s what’s under the hammock - your underquilt, that needs to be snugged up correctly. I also use an underquilt protector because I switch quilts and hammocks and often have to set up alone. I can’t see how well things fit while I’m in the hammock and the UQP allows my setup to be not as precise.

    If you are using a pad of some kind, that could go under you in the hammock but it would probably feel better and not shift so much if you used it with a double layer hammock.

    If you have a friend that can come over, put them in the hammock and see how things fit. Make sure the UQ is snug, but not so tight that it’s compressing its loft. If you don’t use an UQP, you might want to make sure your tarp side are pulled down at night to minimize that heat robbing air flow under the hammock.

    I usually like a 10 degree cushion in temperature rating. I know my 20 degree quilts will keep me warm at 30 degrees. Your 0 degree quilt seems like it should work for you at 20 degrees. But again - it’s a team sport. It’s the cooperation between your top and bottom quilt (or pad) with backup by an UQP or the way your rig your tarp (with doors). And - that you have devoured the calories to make heat and your body knows that’s its job.
    Last edited by cougarmeat; 10-23-2020 at 16:01.
    In order to see what few have seen, you must go where few have gone. And DO what few have done.

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