Best tip in this thread. Especially if you don't have as many pairs of socks and aren't hiking alone.

For underwear I have used synthetic fabrics exclusively. While they start to smell faster you can just wash them with your fancy hiking soap and they are dry and good as new in 1-2 hours.

30 minutes to set up?! Lol tarptent ftw

yeah, nothing beats the feeling of freshly talced feet. Johnsons makes a baby powder with corn starch thats the best IMO. Keeps feet dry and not stinky.

When I car camp (usually for a week+ at a time) where there are no showers, baby whipes and talc powder is better than sex after like day 5

I believe it was the eastern route. I don't understand Swedish so I really didn't know what was going on. Just put my head down and follow.

After 5 days without showers, I think most things would be better than sex.

Just got back from a quick 2-night hike.

Whoever recommended the baby wipes is an absolute god. When I bought them my boyfriend was like "I'm not using those, they're meant for your ASS" as if this was in some way a criticism against them. He changed his mind when he observed me using them to clean my feet though, it felt like heaven. A++

New boots were amazing as well. We went before the season opened and the trails are barely existent right now, there was a lot of snow still melting and the runoff had washed away huge portions of the track + lots of snow fields to walk through. Really the worst trail I've ever followed in terms of track quality, extremely muddy so my feet were being sucked in all the time. If I had walking shoes my feet would have been wet all the time guaranteed, but in my boots I wasn't wet at all. In parts there wasn't even a track at all, we were just walking through marshy fields up to our ankles in mud.

Walking sticks were fantastic as well, omg. I can't even picture how I would have completed the hike without them, so many situations in which they are awesome - walking through snow, walking downhill, walking across rocky ground, crossing streams, etc. Just great for everything.

So yeah thanks for all the advice in this thread

The only problem I'm having right now is in relation to temp. As soon as I start walking I get extremely warm almost immediately, even when wearing the bare minimum of clothing to protect from the wind/insects. But then as soon as I sit down I start freezing. On the last night I was wearing every layer I had - wool base layer on top+bottom, capris, t shirt, fleece, hoodie, beanie, 3 pairs of socks, inside a "mummy" bag and I was shivering and could barely sleep since my teeth were chattering the whole time. It was only like 10 degrees outside so not cold at all.

Not really sure what I can do to fix these issues bc like, it's really inefficient to wear almost nothing during the day and then at night have to wear 3-4 layers, it's annoying to carry huge piles of clothes JUST to wear when I'm sleeping. And I really have to make myself warmer at night otherwise I'm not going to sleep at all.

pro tip: if you have something that you're trying to dry overnight (socks, camp towel), lay it out flat between the ground and your sleeping pad. it may not be dry in the morning, but it will be better than just hanging it up in the tent or on a tree overnight.

saltine, as for your shivering, are you sure you got enough calories? your body is not going to be efficient at generating warmth if it is starving. also, this is what your boyfriend is for -- zip those bags together and get a-cuddlin'!

btw we don't have these shivering problems in the US because all of us are 50 pounds overweight, like walruses. and have you ever seen a cold walrus?

Smart. We had been discussing actually that we felt we hadn't eaten enough because we both felt very tired and out of energy the second day. Makes sense that could have also caused the cold. As for zipping bags together, we unfortunately have bags like this which make sharing of body heat impossible

In general, women are colder than men. The same sleeping bag that might be just enough for a guy might not cut it for a girl.

My thinking when it comes to sleeping bags is that I don't want to wear too many layers as it's your trapped body heat that keeps you warm.

If you don't need the clothes other than when you're sleeping you could invest in a better sleeping bag. Light weight down bags are the nuts!

This next tip is maybe a bit Bear Grylls TMI but if you don't go to the toilet, your body will have to use energy to keep it body tempered. Some people refuse to take a dump in the wild if the trip's 2-3 days.

10 is pretty cold IMO (unless you mean Celsius, which doesnt make any sense cuz thats pretty warm). But either way, sounds like you just dont have a bag thats rated for the cold, or your bag is old (synthetic bags dont last forever, and the fibers in them compress over time and basically causes them to not work as good at insulating you....which is also why you shouldnt store your bag in the compression sack)

get a nice zero degree bag and youll sleep like a baby.

Yes I'm talking about celsius which is like 50F, and yes I agree that it doesn't make sense that I feel so cold. Will look into getting a new bag.

If you can spare the extra weight, bring a hot water bottle. Not that they are heavy, but every ounce counts on long hikes. Heat some water before you go to bed and pour it into the bottle and bring it in the tent w/ you.

I didn't see the brand/model of sleeping bag you have listed in this thread - what are you using? A silk liner in the sleeping bag will warm things up about ten degrees. I know someone who was cold in seemingly normal weather, turned out she had some sort of thyroid issue and was prescribed supplements to remedy the problem. Just something to think about.

Silk liners are the absolute nuts. Not only do they keep your sleeping bag clean, so you just have to wash the liner. NOT ONLY THAT, but if your legs are sticky or sweaty, the silk is much nicer than having your legs stick to your polyester sleeping bag or each other. And apparently now I'm hearing they add 10 degrees? Silk liners: well worth the cost AT ANY PRICE.

Some suggestions.

Sleeping bag liner (easier to wash, even a silk one adds a surprising amount of insulation, more comfortable).

Ground insulation. The ground is cold. If you don't have a sleeping mat, get one. If you have a thermarest, add a cheap foam one to go underneath. If you have a cheap foam one add a thermarest (or another cheap foam one if budget is an issue). Traditional air matresses are awful in cold weather.

I'm not completely sold on the old "sleeping naked is the warmest" claim (although just wearing boxers to avoid scaring the natives if I get up in the middle of the night is how I roll) - I think it depends how well insulated your bag is.

Eat more, especially complex carbohydrates. I've never felt cold after destroying a saucepan full of pasta and meat.

if you are cold in 50 degree weather with all those clothes on, a silk liner isnt going to do anything for you. You should post what kind of bag and ground pad you have, (and how old the bag is). I would think the most likely thing is youve got like a really old 40 degree bag and a crappy ground pad. So to avoid misery at night youll prolly wanna upgrade to a better bag. If your bag isnt the problem then its something internal. Either dehydration or you didnt eat enough, or something else maybe? Maybe its a combination of all of the above.

But yeah, you know first hand how miserable not sleeping and being cold is (which is why I said id take a nice pad and pillow over a nice tent in terms of luxury), so if you fix that problem youll enjoy everthing a million times more.

yeah, thats like an old wives tale. Sleeping naked is definitely not warmer, and it doesnt matter what kind of bag you have. Its also way better for your bag if you sleep in some kind of layer because your skin oils and dirt and crap are bad for the bag, and you are pretty much better off if you never have to wash your bag

I have a Marmot Never Winter (http://marmot.com/products/never_winter?p=117,71,146) and a foam sleeping pad. The sleeping bag is rated for about 10 degrees colder than what it was where I was. Looking at the temperature graphs for the area where I'll be walking from this time last year, the temp was consistently 10-15 for the period that I'll be walking.

I don't really have the budget to pick up a new sleeping bag before we leave now, I had to buy a bunch of other stuff for this trip so it's not really feasible to drop more cash on this. And personally I think the issue is a lot more to do with me than with my equipment, because I've had problems with shivering and feeling extremely cold at home in my own bed, so.

I have a sleeping bag liner type thing that I've not used before, I'll try that out and see. Hopefully will have time to go camp on one more small trip before we leave on the big trip to test it out.

Esp. with the comment about not eating enough, that definitely rings home for me because we both felt like we hadn't consumed enough. All we really ate was some soup for breakfast + lunch and some pasta thing for our dinner. As well as a bit of chocolate throughout the day. Probably something like 1500 calories total, which is not enough really. The trip was way more tiring than we anticipated because of the track being so bad, so that was poor planning on our part.

edit: will also pick up the heat packet things people were talking about, that's smart.

In my experience if I'm in a bag with no liner and it gets to within 10 F of the bag's rating I'm cold. If it gets to the bag's rating I'm miserable. I always plan on bringing a bag that's at least 20 degrees warmer than I'm expecting I'll need.

I've used the Thermarest Ridgerest and always found it to be a good insulator. I definitely agree with mjkidd about bag temps, most manufacturers tend to fudge the temp ratings as well as the weight of the bag.

I'd try the bag liner, sleeping in one layer of silk or capilene underwear, and putting the rest of your garments on top of the bag to add loft. Consume more calories, too! Mountain House chicken and rice meals are good for about 800 calories and if you add a little olive oil it will not only boost caloric content but it will make bathroom trips a little easier. Cashews, cheese & salami, and Moose Goo are excellent sources of calories as well.

The rating of the bag is basically jsut the temp the bag will keep you relatively safe from hypothermia and **** in, not the actual temp you will be comfortable at. So the manufacturers arent really fudging anything.

If its 20 degrees and im in my 20 degree bag, im ****ing miserable, but im not going to die. If I know its going to be 20 degrees out I bring my 0 degree bag so that I can be comfortable and sleep all night.

Which pad do you have? The pad is a huge deal as you lose most of the heat to the ground, especially since the sleeping bag under you does nothing to warm you because you are compressing all the down so it doesnt work. So you might get a big boost just from getting a better pad which could be relatively cheap. Like if you are just using one of those cheap egg shell foam pads, then even buying a cheap ass $40 thermarest will make a MASSIVE difference

Def use the liner if you have one, and def try and drink more and eat more as it sounds like you didnt eat all that much.

You can also get old school and if you guys have a fire in the evening heat some rocks up by the fire and then stick them in a sock and put those in your bag

So we're off next week on our 2-week hike and I'm feeling pretty nervous.

Is there anything I should do in the day/s preceding eating/energy wise? Like should I eat a big breakfast before I go or?

Alobar, sorry for not replying before I have some generic nameless foam pad, I have no idea where it's from (it's from my boyfriend's family's collection of random hiking ****). You probably have a good point about the pad. A problem I have is that I roll over a lot during the night and often wake up sleeping on the floor w/o my pad :|

saltine,

You mentioned night time coldness as a problem previously in the thread. If you are waking up on the floor without your pad your tent is too big. It's a double loss of heat, because you put a lot into the ground from your body, but you also have to heat and maintain a larger volume of air in the tent. If you have a two person tent with two people I find it's almost impossible to end up without sleeping pad underneath you. Though if you are especially devious you may seek out the crack in your sleep.

I think you will sleep better if you get a Thermarest, and they aren't that expensive (~$80). I can see why you might not get one in time for this trip, but if you end up doing a decent amount of camping they are much much better than a foam pad. They are much easier to pack, though they do weigh 2-400g more depending on the model and the foam you are comparing it to. Most importantly Thermarests are much more insulating. The Prolite Plus has an R Value of 3.8, whereas most foam pads are around 1.5-2. That's twice as insulating!

Yeah it's a bit too late right now and besides I can't really afford to spend more on this trip. I will look into it when I get back, seems like it would be good for future trips. Shopping for good quality hiking gear gets expensive really fast, spent so much already on new tent/clothes/shoes/etc, our trip to Austria is actually working out cheaper.

It's a 3P tent which we bought intentionally. I could probably wedge myself in between my boyfriend and my backpack to prevent myself from moving in the night.

I am going to be camping this weekend for midsummer so it'll be a good opportunity to test out my new strats for warmth (heating pads, sleeping bag inlet) although I'll probably be too wasted to notice the cold.