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  1. #81
    cougarmeat's Avatar
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    I find my body gets cold as it’s incentive for me to get up. Hat off to you for going back outside. I KNOW how difficult that can be. The phrase in skydiving is, “Why jump out of a perfectly good airplane?” It comes to mind when I return to the hammock thinking, “Why leave a perfectly warm house.” But being toasty warm and feeling the brisk, fresh, chilled air on my face is such a treat. It almost smells sweet (could be the nearby honeysuckle in the summer).

    It’s great that you are dialing this in. Check that your socks aren’t so tight that they’d constrict blood flow. To me, it seems your body create this envelope of warmth held around you by the TQ (and sock if you use one). Wear pj’s (and socks) to keep the down gear clean. I always have something to put on my head (balaclava) if needed. Hands are cold to start - but quickly warm up inside the TQ.
    In order to see what few have seen, you must go where few have gone. And DO what few have done.

  2. #82
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    It’s too much of a tonic to not keep dialling it in...fresh air, natural sounds, ache free sleep!

    The socks I use for hammock time are possum merino and quite loose, I think the issue is poor circulation, but an awareness stops it being a spoiler.

    Still no HG incubator but patience is a well rewarded virtue’

  3. #83
    TxAggie's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by arutha View Post

    However I have made my own experiments and so far it seems to have been over-insulation close to the body. I used to sleep in shirt, sweater, down vest and sometimes fleece jacket over that and long johns plus pants as well as wool socks.
    I’ve tried making this point off an on thru the years that wearing too many clothing layers while sleeping actually makes you colder. Your primary heat source is your torso, and when you wear heavy clothes it restricts the heat generated by your torso from getting to your legs and feet. There also the issue that with layered clothing, your legs are trying to keep themselves warm independently. With just a thin base layer, your legs are able to share the warmth when touching.

    I just wear one single base layer and an old pair of LOOSE wool socks while sleeping and I stay nice and warm down to the 20° rating of my TQ. The idea is to allow your body to create a warm air zone between you and your top quilt. The rise and fall of your chest naturally helps circulate this warm air so it reaches your arms, legs, and feet.

    Some have argued with me that this approach means you’re warming up a larger space and it takes longer to get warm. Maybe, but only by a few minutes at most. The plus side is that you stay warmer longer and with less effort from your body to stay warm.

    If I’m in sub freezing temps for multiple nights I start adding in a vapor barrier layer over my base layer, but still no additional insulation.

    My $.02


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  4. #84
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    Quote Originally Posted by Norfolk Yeti View Post
    It’s too much of a tonic to not keep dialling it in...fresh air, natural sounds, ache free sleep!

    The socks I use for hammock time are possum merino and quite loose, I think the issue is poor circulation, but an awareness stops it being a spoiler.
    Absolutely! And just added a Superfly today. Quit work early so I could set it up in daylight Looking forward to the weekend. Supposed to get rain/snow mix. Perfect testing grounds.

    FWIW regarding the socks, even my very loose wool socks aren't making it better but worse. They're so loose that they usually slide down towards my feet, so I doubt that those are too tight. But I could definitely tell how my regular socks are definitely a problem because they're too tight. Goes to show how great we all have it in our heated houses nowadays.

    Quote Originally Posted by TxAggie View Post
    Your primary heat source is your torso, and when you wear heavy clothes it restricts the heat generated by your torso from getting to your legs and feet.

    Some have argued with me that this approach means you’re warming up a larger space and it takes longer to get warm.
    What you say makes so much sense if you ask me. Why would a person heating up a UQ and TQ be different than a baseboard heater heating up a room. If you under-size the baseboard or cover the large one in a big room with insulation only leaving a smaller one uncovered, it's never gonna get warm. Covering the large baseboard is like putting on my down vest covering my chest. Sure the base baseboard will be warm, but not the room. And forget about my feet heating up the whole cocoon.

  5. #85
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    So testing continued.

    Yesterday evening I didn't dare just go in PJs. So I did put on my down vest and had a merino under-shirt as well. But I stayed the course on the feet. No long johns and no socks! Barefoot! This was shortly after 11 pm when I went outside to 'go to bed':

    20210118_231918.jpg

    I woke up around 5 am because I needed to pee. I was cozy warm all over. Warm feet, warm everything. I didn't want to go but finally snapped this when I gave up and went so that I could fall asleep again (I had this in my outer pocket and man that temp drops fast from the time you look at it and when you actually manage to take a picture):

    20210119_051522.jpg

    It took a bit after that to get warm feet again, but I did get warm feet and warm enough overall as well. Not as warm as when I had woken up though but I managed to sort of fall asleep again (I'd call it more 'dozing off').

    I think what may have played a role in that is something that you guys have mentioned again and again (especially for the feet): sweating. Since it's that cold outside it's probably harder to actually sweat inside the hammock. I think what might be happening is that at higher temps I should just trust my 0F bag more and not put the 40ish one on top. I did have both yesterday!

    Anyway, when I woke up from the alarm clock around 7:30 am I was still warm enough, not really as warm as when I woke up at 5 am, but definitely not colder than on some 30F nights.

    20210119_072543.jpg

    Very intriguing these experiments!

  6. #86
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    That’s so looow temps there, makes it all the more satisfying and cozy getting the insulation dialled in.
    May have mentioned it further back but I get similar with gloves, my hands can get so cold that it feels like gloves just insulate that cold in, take them off and they seem to acclimate and warm up!! Possibly wouldn’t happen at the temps you guys experience though.

    I’m still waiting for my HG quilt/s....added a 20* burrow to the order as well, so hopefully a full surround of 20* goose down will see me sorted for most of the UK winter....so looking forward to their arrival!

  7. #87
    Senior Member BillyBob58's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by TxAggie View Post
    I’ve tried making this point off an on thru the years that wearing too many clothing layers while sleeping actually makes you colder. Your primary heat source is your torso, and when you wear heavy clothes it restricts the heat generated by your torso from getting to your legs and feet. There also the issue that with layered clothing, your legs are trying to keep themselves warm independently. With just a thin base layer, your legs are able to share the warmth when touching.

    I just wear one single base layer and an old pair of LOOSE wool socks while sleeping and I stay nice and warm down to the 20° rating of my TQ. The idea is to allow your body to create a warm air zone between you and your top quilt. The rise and fall of your chest naturally helps circulate this warm air so it reaches your arms, legs, and feet.

    Some have argued with me that this approach means you’re warming up a larger space and it takes longer to get warm. Maybe, but only by a few minutes at most. The plus side is that you stay warmer longer and with less effort from your body to stay warm.

    If I’m in sub freezing temps for multiple nights I start adding in a vapor barrier layer over my base layer, but still no additional insulation.

    My $.02


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    There is obviously something to all that you mention, because more than a few succeed with that approach. And the mitten principle, with one part of the body warming the other, is probably a factor. For an even further example of that sort of thinking, I recall Wiggy's bags saying the reason there was no neck collar in their bags was to keep the head warmth from being separated from the body warmth, for the benefit of both. I always wondered about that one, since I have often struggled against obvious loss of warmed air around the neck area, depending on how big my hoods breathing hole was. And, I certainly had an easier time being warm once I added a separate down hood, as opposed to just the various hats or jacket hoods that I was using with my TQs before the added hood. But, I can see a potential benefit of heat generated by my head helping to warm my body and vice versa. I may have benefited from some of that when I used to use my Speer Pea Pod. With the entire thing closed around my hammock from foot to head, with variable size vent holes in front of my mouth.

    Also, interesting about the VB.

    So, obviously there is something to what you are saying. OTOH, I have always taken what I suppose is an opposite approach of layering, very often layering to extend warmth beyond the lower limits of the gear I am using. With or without VBs. Probably the closest I have come to a less is more approach is using 25F rated(I think the same quilts now are rated at 20F) JRB top and bottom, with JRB hood in a JRB bridge. My base layers were cotton PJs. At exactly 25F, I slept toasty warm all night. But, I can't remember what socks, if any, I was using. But I certainly could have gone lower.

    But more typical for me is the opposite extreme, such as(for example) using layers of mostly 25-40F rated items to be very toasty at +6F. Which included a hammock sock(HHSS) with 6" diameter breathing hole near my face. And over heating feet with VB socks, thin wool socks I think, and Polarguard booties inside the foot box of a 20F rated Golight TQ. (People used to say this TQ should have been rated more like 30F than 20F) So that was a lot of layers on my feet, and it was for sure too warm at 6F. If I had the opportunity to test that exact same gear at that same temp again, I would be tempted to remove all insulation and VBs from my feet and see how that worked in the foot box of that TQ at 6F.

    But honestly, over these 14+ year of occasional winter hanging, I have never had cold feet, no matter what I have done. Cold butt, back, over all cold, yes. But I do not recall being adequately warm overall but suffering from cold feet, or even noticing cold feet ever. At least not when sleeping in a hammock. Now, hiking can be a different story. This is in contrast to people who report being OK everywhere except their feet.

  8. #88
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    Those are very interesting insights. I especially resonate with the "never cold feet". I see in a lot of posts or videos, people recommending down booties. For use _inside_ the actual hammock. From my experiments (sure, in the garden, no on the trail), I don't get that at all.

    In my bed, I used to (and can still) have cold feet a lot and I'd have to go into fetal position to get them warm again. Mostly can't get them to stay warm if I stretch out after that. And that's inside, in a heated room (sure, window's open but overall the room's still at like 60-ish).

    After my last post I finally got my 0F the other night too 20210121_005210.jpg Now on that particular night, my feet were never cold and since it actually warmed up from when that picture was taken to morning (8F), I woke up to sweaty feet and a wet footbox. But still toasty warm feet and also overall.

    I also really need to get a frost bib now. On these close to 0F nights, I usually have condensation dripping down my face now, since I tend to pull my outer sleeping bag sort of over my face and use it as the frost bib, as it has like a 'flannely' inside that can absorb the moisture well (since I'm just in the garden I just dry it all out inside during the day), but it tends to 'unfurl' and then the synthetic outside of that doesn't really absorb it much and some goes up to my 0F synthetic bag's hood too and it all is still so warm that only some of it freezes and some of it drips down

    Also totally get what you're saying about the gloves there @NorfolkYeti. I have the same with any regular gloves. Mittens are usually warm but regular finger gloves just keep the cold in like you said. I can usually get the fingers warm again by pulling them out of the fingers of the glove and basically use them like mittens. But as soon as I stick them back out into the fingers of the glove, they get cold again.

  9. #89
    Senior Member cmoulder's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Norfolk Yeti View Post
    That’s so looow temps there, makes it all the more satisfying and cozy getting the insulation dialled in.
    May have mentioned it further back but I get similar with gloves, my hands can get so cold that it feels like gloves just insulate that cold in, take them off and they seem to acclimate and warm up!! Possibly wouldn’t happen at the temps you guys experience though.

    I’m still waiting for my HG quilt/s....added a 20* burrow to the order as well, so hopefully a full surround of 20* goose down will see me sorted for most of the UK winter....so looking forward to their arrival!
    I try to keep in mind the old axiom that when we get cold the problem isn't the cold getting in, it's the heat getting out. Among my most useful pieces of kit are the MLD eVent rain mitts, which I use far more often as simple wind shells for the hands, which very effectively prevent most of the huge convective heat loss to which hands are particularly susceptible.

    I'm not prone to having cold hands, but when it does happen I use my breath to warm up my finger tips and then immediately don the rain mitts, which always provide immediate relief. The eVent material has excellent vapor transfer so there's no condensation.

    The nice thing about these is that they're also very lightweight and low volume. My typical winter glove system — which for me is adequate down to around 0°F/-17.7°C — is a pair of thin polyester liner gloves, some Polartec 200 gloves and the MLD shell mitts, with a combined weight of about 5oz.
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  10. #90
    Senior Member BillyBob58's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by arutha View Post
    Those are very interesting insights. I especially resonate with the "never cold feet". I see in a lot of posts or videos, people recommending down booties. For use _inside_ the actual hammock. From my experiments (sure, in the garden, no on the trail), I don't get that at all.

    In my bed, I used to (and can still) have cold feet a lot and I'd have to go into fetal position to get them warm again. Mostly can't get them to stay warm if I stretch out after that. And that's inside, in a heated room (sure, window's open but overall the room's still at like 60-ish).

    After my last post I finally got my 0F the other night too 20210121_005210.jpg Now on that particular night, my feet were never cold and since it actually warmed up from when that picture was taken to morning (8F), I woke up to sweaty feet and a wet footbox. But still toasty warm feet and also overall.

    I also really need to get a frost bib now. On these close to 0F nights, I usually have condensation dripping down my face now, since I tend to pull my outer sleeping bag sort of over my face and use it as the frost bib, as it has like a 'flannely' inside that can absorb the moisture well (since I'm just in the garden I just dry it all out inside during the day), but it tends to 'unfurl' and then the synthetic outside of that doesn't really absorb it much and some goes up to my 0F synthetic bag's hood too and it all is still so warm that only some of it freezes and some of it drips down

    Also totally get what you're saying about the gloves there @NorfolkYeti. I have the same with any regular gloves. Mittens are usually warm but regular finger gloves just keep the cold in like you said. I can usually get the fingers warm again by pulling them out of the fingers of the glove and basically use them like mittens. But as soon as I stick them back out into the fingers of the glove, they get cold again.
    Very interesting that (without socks, right?) your feet were toasty warm at about 0ºF, but you woke up to sweaty feet and a wet footbox. It is impressive that your feet stayed warm at those temps in a wet foot box. But it seems likely that on a multiday trip, particularly if having to pack up every morning along with inadequate sun and/or time for drying, that wet foot box would end up being trouble, as I'm sure you already know. Most likely loft would be noticeably decreasing every night. Although, the new treated down or any synthetic would probably save you. (and indeed, you are using synthetic?) Although being warm in a wet foot box- even if full loft is maintained- is impressive! Because of all of the evaporative cooling that was probably taking place. Though I suppose it is possible that the moisture did not accumulate until neqr wake up time?

    I have always suspected that one reason that some folks have so much trouble with cold feet is that our feet tend to really crank out the vapor and/or liquid sweat. And that this gets into the foot ox and drops loft and or adds greatly to evaporative cooling. I remember when the Backpackinglight(sp?) folks used to go on those UL, long Alaskan trips, the first problem they would have with their down bags was collapse of loft in the foot box, all without any external moisture getting on the bags. I have a buddy who woke up with a soaked down foot box, with no apparent moisture inside our tent. Only the foot box was wet. Was that due to sweat and/or condensation? Don't know for sure.

    In my personal experience, I woke up one morning in the 40s with a soaked foot box(synthetic bag) and underpad(open cell foam pad of the HH Supershelter used without the space blanket/VB) But I was totally warm all night, didn't notice it until I got up. There was no apparent loss of loft, and all was dry by the time I made camp the next night(I used the space blanket/VB from the on and had no more problems like that).

    Anyway, I'm thinking a wet foot box has some potential to be a problem after the first night, especially having to pack up every morning. Still, impressive how arm you remained!

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