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  1. #31
    Crash's Avatar
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    I get really cold feet sometimes. Take baby wipes to get the sweat off of them. I use fresh socks with chemical hand warmers between 2 pairs of loose socks.

    Plus the food trick: a bag of potato chips! Dual purpose: campfire starter!


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  2. #32
    Senior Member BillyBob58's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JayArches View Post
    Hello all,

    I must be a very very cold sleeper because I thought for certain I's be sleeping roasty this weekend and instead was on the cold side. Temperatures only got down to 26°F so it wasn't excessive at all and I've tent and car camped down to -40°F before.

    Here's my problem, I'm not warm enough to be comfortable. I have the Blackbird XLC hammock, superfly, scandi wookie uq (no overfill), scandi diamobdback tq (no overfill), Warbonner winter cover instead of netting, was wearing Buffalo Wool Co's thickest socks with Darntough mountaineer socks overtop, microfleece full body long johns, fleece pants, wool long shirt, a flannel jacket lined with fake shearling, hat, and gloves. All of that and I'm still cold at 26°F.

    What am I doing wrong? What do I need to add to sleep warm? I love camping in winter in Montana, Minnesota, Wisconsin. I had thought with the UQ and TQ rated for -20° I'd at least be warm at 0°. Do I need some sort of sock or cover? Is there lightweight packable intensely warm sleepwear I ought to switch to? I know LocoLibre sells gear rated for -40° do I just need to change from using Warbonnet quilts? Please help a new hanger who does not want to return to the dirt.
    Quote Originally Posted by mmveets View Post
    How did you manage when you tent camped to -40? What was your gear and clothing setup?
    Quote Originally Posted by JayArches View Post
    Basically same clothes, plus a down hoodie instead of the flannel and two pairs of bison socks instead of one and sheep wool. And an enormously heavy sleeping bag that was rated for -40° and a thermal sleeping bag liner.
    .........................
    OK, the great bulk of the advice here so far has seemed to lean towards the fact that you probably are cold at 26F (while using minus 20F quilts) because you are over insulated, i.e. sleeping in too many clothes. Though I am a layer up man myself- which sometimes leads me to being uncomfortably warm which leads to me venting or removing layers because I am too warm and NOT too cold, i must admit that many experienced folks believe fewer clothes = more warmth.

    But I can't help but wonder as I re-read your supplied info. You say that you have been warm enough at MINUS 40F wearing pretty much the same clothing, plus a minus 40F bag, rather than minus 20F quilts.

    So, something is not quite meshing. The same clothing that kept you warm in a minus 40F bag at minus 40F is now making you cold in minus 20F quilts at +26F? Sorry, though I admit it is possible, but assuming dry clothing(and you said this was all dedicated sleep gear, so should be dry), I can't buy the concept that the same amount of clothing that kept you warm enough at minus 40F is making you cold at +26F.

    But the great thing is: you can put it to the test, and get rid of all that clothing. And despite it seeming unlikely to me, you might just warm up as so many others have once they remove that excess insulation. So give it a go!

    But if that doesn't help much, you can go back to other possibilities, including the things I mentioned in my previous post. But also consider: all manner of experienced winter campers, who had a system which consistently kept them warm, switch to hammocks and start freezing. So, what is the primary change? Well, there are two.

    One: Cold air can circulate under you now, which might actually be colder than the ground, snow or ice. Or not. But, even the slightest breeze under you can at least add some windchill that you did not have on the ground. But I don't think that can account for such massive difference between warm enough at minus 40 vs too cold at +26.

    Two: zipped up sleeping bags with draft tubes, neck/draft collars and thick hoods, vs quilts. Over the last 14 years here, I have seen many, any threads where people are surprised by being cold 20 to 40º above their rating. The sleeping bag on a pad is virtually draft proof(as is a Speer Pea Pod type quilt), and the critical high blood circulating volume area of the head and neck(carotid arteries) is extremely well insulated. While quilts(TQs plus UQs) are at least potentially prone to drafts and/or gaps that can end up filled with cold air.

    It has long been my opinion that being cold in a hammock is most often due to some sort of quilt gap, draft or both(assuming the temps are at or above quilts rating, as in your case). Maybe aided by a bit of extra windchill under neath the cold person. And maybe aided by the loss of the bag hood's far superior insulation in the critical head/neck area, often replaced with a hat or two, no substitute for 2 to 4" of draft free insulation closed snugly around the head/neck. If I am correct about that, it would explain the 9,378 threads about being cold in new quilts in a hammock, by people who used to be warm on the ground with similar amounts of insulation at colder temps. For me, this seems to point to th likelihood that the problem is the quilts with a hammock.

    Adding to that way of thinking for me is the fact that early in my hammock use, I would be be trying to use my bag as a TQ, wearing plenty of layers, but find myself cold. It was a big struggle for me to get zipped up in my mummy bag in a hammock, but once I figured out how to do that, when I would give up on quilt use and get inside my mummy bag and put that hood around my head and zip up, it would take just a few minutes to go from being too cool to sleep to "ahhhhh, yes" and being toasty warm. And one thing was certain: no matter how many clothes I wore or did not wear, I was always plenty warm at or above it's 20F rating, in this draft free system known as Speer Pea Pod. Because, I had no drafts! :

  3. #33
    Phantom Grappler's Avatar
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    Hot tents with a wood stove (or other) and a stove pipe, can be 78 degrees inside during freezing weather outside.
    Use smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors for your safety and peace of mind

    If no hot tent, apply hot hands body patches to you clothes, but not too close to your skin

    If you are a cold sleeper, and temperatures are 20* to 30* Fahrenheit, it’s ok to use a zero* rated underquilt. And feel free to stack two underquilts together.

    Air gaps with underquilts are a big cause of sleeping cold
    When setting underquilt on hammock, pull underquilt out from under hammock, and have them hanging side by side, with underquilt in front of hammock
    Observe that bottom of underquilt should be six inches to a foot higher than bottom of hammock along full length of underquilt
    This way, when you pull underquilt back under hammock, underquilt will lift your hammock up
    And then when you lay in hammock, underquilt will be pulled up close to hammock—reducing chances of air gaps

    Use secondary suspension to stretch underquilt along shock cord of primary suspension—this will help eliminate accordion effect. Accordion effect can allow underquilt to sag towards center and make an air gap under your butt

    Do not over tighten short sideways end shock cords on underquilt. While well meaning, the horse shoe shape caused by hairpin curve will make—you guessed it—an air gap

    There are burners or hand warmers that use petroleum distillates, but I’m too skeeeerd to use or recommend them, because of possibility of burns to your skin. Or even burning you and your gear

    Further study, may be required, on your part

    Good luck

  4. #34
    cougarmeat's Avatar
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    One note that Phantom Grapplers technique for setting the UQ tension, resulting in lift of the hammock (also mentioned in Shug’s video), assumes that your UQ was made with a differential cut. That means there is a top side and bottom side to the underquilt with the bottom cut fuller. That way the UQ can fit flush and firm against the bottom of the hammock without compressing the loft. Most my UQ’s are from HammockGear and they are made with a differential cut. But I have a few from other manufacturers that are not.

    The short sideways shock cords look good tightened when no one is in the hammock. Problem is, when you get in with your diagonal lie, there is a push sideways that may cause that gap. Allowing those “sideways” cords to be looser allows the UQ to better “form fit” what’s in the hammock (you). If you want more lift to seal the ends, and you have a ridgeline on your hammock, you can use something like an S-biner to clip on to the ridgeline near the end and hold up the UQ suspension shock cord - while it is still attached to the ends of the hammock - giving it an upward lift.
    In order to see what few have seen, you must go where few have gone. And DO what few have done.

  5. #35
    Senior Member
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    Exercise before going to bed. I am surprised nobody has mentioned that one. I will go for a very short hike or do jumping jacks right before bed. Assuming I've also eaten high calorie food, those two things kick my metabolism into high gear. You can't GET warm if you don't START warm, pure and simple!
    Iceman857

    "An optimist is a man who plants two acorns and buys a hammock" - Jean de Lattre de Tassigny (French Army General in WWII)

  6. #36
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    Quote Originally Posted by iceman857 View Post
    Exercise before going to bed. I am surprised nobody has mentioned that one. I will go for a very short hike or do jumping jacks right before bed. Assuming I've also eaten high calorie food, those two things kick my metabolism into high gear. You can't GET warm if you don't START warm, pure and simple!
    I'm going to counter that.

    When i come in from a long hike or even an hour walk around the block, my body goes from "warm from exercise" to "sudden unexplainable core cold". I don't know why.

    So, yes, exercise will make me warm momentarily, but wears off quickly when i stop and is followed by an uncomfortable dip.

    Also, usually i just spent literally ALL DAY hiking up a maintain with a pack. I can't even sit up straight to eat. I am done exercising! ;-)

  7. #37
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    great tips in this thread! The lowest I've taken my gear is upper 30sF (at home) but going camping this weekend and should get in low 20s. Looking forward to trying out some of these ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

  8. #38
    Senior Member BillyBob58's Avatar
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    Just a reminder of another approach that has never failed me, though if DIYing might take some experimenting to get everything adjusted right. And bigger and wider with a 2 way zipper that allows opening flat is better than the opposite. Also, using a really light bag, even a 50F bag, will accomplish a lot of the benefit. Because no matter how thick(lofty) the pod- or not lofty- you will still gain the draft proof benefit of the entire hammock being surrounded and zipped closed, with the added support along the full edges/length of the hammock holding the pod up once it is zipped or Velcroed closed, which in turn helps hold up whatever UQ is already being used.

    Again, this is something for folks who just can't be warm enough to look into, as opposed to buying a new and much warmer rated UQ, or a 2nd UQ meant to be stacked with your original UQ. (or TQs for that matter, so easy to develop a draft with those) Of course, using a wrap around sleeping is also a form of stacking, except it is more draft proof and less prone to gaps due to being closed and all that extra support at the hammock's edge). IMO. YMMV of course, but might be worth trying if you are cold.
    https://www.hammockforums.net/forum/...02#post2065602

  9. #39
    New Member JayArches's Avatar
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    Thank you all. Lots of good ideas in this thread.
    Last edited by JayArches; 11-10-2021 at 16:06.

  10. #40
    Senior Member hutzelbein's Avatar
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    Another extremely cold (female) sleeper here. Like you, I use way more insulation than pretty much all (male) forum members would recommend. If I were to sleep outdoors at 26°F, I would also use insulation in the -20°F to -40°F range. I think what most men are missing is, that many women typically run quite a bit colder. And if you are on the lower end, it's getting extreme. What has helped me getting and staying warm over the years is:

    • Make sure that the down in your underquilt is distributed evenly. I haven often been cold only to find that the down had moved away from the torso. This is the main reason why I buy 3-4 oz overstuff: it keeps the down in place better and longer.
    • Make sure that the Wooki sits tight against you. The colder it gets, the more you will feel any little air bubble. I actually re-whipped my Wookis to prevent the sides from being too slack. That boosted the warmth quite a bit.
    • I have had good success with adding a thin layer of insulation between the Wooki and the hammock. When every gram counts, I use a thin sit pad (under the torso where I need it most), or a 3 mm Evazote (foam) pad. But that also adds some condensation. That's why I prefer a thin Climashield underquilt. A second down underquilt adds more heat, but also causes finer down feathers to leave the quilt.
    • I had no luck with top quilts. A zipped up sleeping bag holds the warmth in way more effectively. I know this runs contrary to male wisdom - but I have tried top quilts again and again, and a zipped sleeping bag is warmer. Period. By the way, I use semi-rec hoodless sleeping bags, which I can use in top quilt mode when I'm getting too warm.
    • The hot water bottle tip is great. I has spared me a couple of miserable nights.
    • So is the tip to eat something fatty before going to sleep. Unless it causes you stomach problems. Sugar also helps.
    • Good insulation for your head is important. I wear a hat and a balaclava at much higher temperatures without breaking a sweat.
    • Consider the Travel Sock XL instead of (or in addition to) your top cover. The top cover is much more drafty due to the net windows. You can regulate the air flow of the sock with the zipper.
    • If you know how to do autogenic training, it can help as well. Relaxing your body will also open the blood vessels, which warm up the insulation.

    Oh, and while too much insulation can cause problems, it doesn't sound like it is your problem. It has certainly never been a problem for me. Too much insulation causes me to overheat during the night - but not to be cold.

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