Some great advice all thank you, much appreciated and will be putting it all to good use.
Some great advice all thank you, much appreciated and will be putting it all to good use.
Getting up and moving around after peeing of course. It's a roll of the dice, move around too much I'm woke up, but that's alright I don't mind being up as the forest wakes up. I'd miss that otherwise. I certainly don't mind getting back into my hammock a little later and catching another couple hours if that's what it takes.
Usually I can climb right back in and with my body back up to temp the insulation kit works much better.
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For me, it’s the pee call. My body says, “Cougarmeat, I’m gonna freeze you out until you get up and take care of this.” Once that job is done, I’m back in the hammock and usually fall right back to sleep. Knowing this event will happen, it’s best to plan a place and route ahead of time. The less stumbling around, the better. If you are going to take care of this within the confines of your tarp, make sure you know where your shoes are. Just Say’n.
In order to see what few have seen, you must go where few have gone. And DO what few have done.
I do not know your insulation set up.
If you’ve been using a 20* underquilt, maybe switch to a zero* underquilt.
Maybe keep using 20* topquilt and if you get a chill or think you will be cold, lay a coat or jacket over your torso and under your topquilt.
If you get too warm, remove jacket that was laying on your chest and gut. It’s easily pushed off. Absolutely, you do not want to overheat—bust a sweat and then get real cold.
And as they posted, if you wake up in the night—water the grass, then you will sleep better.
Once asleep maybe you won’t feel cold and as you sleep on top of your zero* underquilt, you will probably get warm.
It’s all guesses here...each rig is different in general, and it’s a bit different each time it’s set up. And each person is different and sometimes a bit different on different days?
I set up my hammock
I set up my underquilt, hanging on both ends of hammock
I pull my underquilt to the front side. Now they are attached to each other and parallel. But underquilt is in front of hammock and not under hammock.
Underquilt should be six inches to a foot higher than empty hammock through entire length of underquilt. That is, I can see six to twelve inches of hammock below underquilt.
Then when I pull underquilt back under hammock so that it envelops hammock—it lifts hammock six inches to a foot along its entire length.
Get a friend to lay in your hammock, while you check underquilt for any air gaps. You can correct immediately while your friend lays in your hammock.
A good friend of mine is full of hot air
He got in his hammock, yawned a few times and exhaled too much hot air as he fell fast asleep.
Even though night time low was 65* Fahrenheit, he almost froze to death—icicles dripped from his nose as he drank his first mug of hot coffee around the campfire just before sunrise!
This happens to me even at home. When camping, I don’t go to sleep in my down jacket (so I still have an emergency layer and so I don’t get the down full of body moisture) but when I get the early morning wake-up urge, this is when I pull the down jacket on and leave it on when I climb back into my hammock.
I also sometimes bring a CDT when car camping in places that have really big temperature swings from bedtime ‘til dawn as it is easy to just pull this up over me.
I get this too. I rip open a pack of chem hand warmers and put it in my booties. Usually when I get up to pee at 3 am.
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"Courage Grows Strong at a Wound" - Stewart Clan Motto
It is pretty common for the early morning hours to be the coldest of the night in the 10-20* cooler than bedtime. A change in that range is when you would typically want to change layering to account for the change.
I would advise to dress and quilt for the temperature when you go to bed and have a layer available to add in the early morning. This will keep you from getting too hot early from being over-insulated causing sweating. If you sweat early, you will never get warm throughout the night regardless of additional layers.
When you start to feel cool, add the extra layers - socks, pants, jacket, beanie, etc. - as appropriate for the new temp and you will be comfortable all night.
We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately. - Ben Franklin
(known as a win-win on this forum)
I'm so glad I found this thread. I was having issues with my 20F UQ and 0F sleeping bag (in TQ mode) and thought it was the gear. There's a thread on here.
I've since been outside in a bit colder temps but with less insulation on the body when going to bed and I've stayed basically the same if not warmer. But I still get cold early in the morning just like described here.
Are you able to wear down booties when going to sleep or do you just keep the extra insulation for putting on in the morning? I sometimes can't even stand going to bed with not even socks on in the 0F bag. It's just too warm.
That is my technique, and it has worked for me for many a year. But for others: YMMV.
My fav trick was with my old Speer Pea Pod, which I don't have anymore. It was rated 20F on bottom. It had 2.5+" loft bottom AND top, full length at a mere 40 oz or so. 900 FP down. But Ed Speer, a notoriously cold sleeper, only rated it to 50F on top, because of the tendency, particularly with his wide, deep hammock, for the hammock's sides to lift the top quilt part up by a few inches to creates a cold gap, particularly if using a vent hole of any size. Which was both good and bad. The gap(which varied with hammock used, almost none with my Claytor No Net) kept it from reaching the 20F rating normal for that amount of loft. (Though Ed rated it 50F on top for himself, for me it was more like 30-40F) OTOH, that gap provided a wonderful spot to place a TQ of whatever rating which would have a compression free space to loft up and fill the gap, in which case it was now- in my experience- was now much warmer than 20F, even with just a 40-50F rate TQ. Or, it could be filled with clothing. More than once, I would take my thick down vest, put it on backwards so that my front faced the inside back of th vest, with my arms thru the arm openings. Then I would place my 12 oz polarguard hooded "Parka" over that, also backwards, arms in the sleeves. That would puff up like crazy on top of me, filling any gap and acting like a neck collar to block warm air from below escaping out of my face vent hole. Then, just using the clothing I had with me, I was able to easily us that pod in the 20s, no problem. And with a 50F synthetic liner bag from the 1980s, and a space blanket down below in the pod, I did fine at 10F. (and this was before I started using the JRB down hood!) Which was the lowest I ever got a chance to test it. We southern boys don't get much opportunity to test below 10F, or even 20F.
The JRB down hood was a game changer for me. With synthetic REI down booties over wool socks over vapor barrier socks, I have had overheating, sweating feet all night at +6F. I have never had cold feet while sleeping in my hammock.
"I sometimes can't even stand going to bed with not even socks on in the 0F bag. It's just too warm." sounds like you might be producing sweat which can get wicked into your bag which can make you cold later on. At what temps are you using that 0F bag?
Last edited by BillyBob58; 11-29-2020 at 22:35.
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