A couple things I learned during this hunting season...

[welderguy]

Instead of my usual one or two weekend hunting trip, I was talked into helping guide the whole season Nov 3rd thru Jan 6th regular season and Jan 7th thru the 20th for Doe only.
our accommodation was an old 8x10 nylon tent , ok no problem I have two sleeping bags an intermediate and a fair weather bag , together there good too 20 to zero degrees ( or so thats what I was told) Ive never used them in that cold of a weather ( till this trip) it dropped down to 16 deg. well they lied I froze my A** off .my Partner had an extra military mummy bag he let me use ( I now own a modular sleep system Mil surp) .

Next thing I learned was nylon tents that are older than noahs ark tend to leak A LOT! that problem solved with the tarp I had with. we are now going to build a camp shack with a stove in it .

I also remember why I live in a warm state and have lived in an even warmer state ( arizona) I hate being cold!!!! I need recommendations for good cold weather cloths that are light weight and comfy. Gloves that I can shoot with while wearing are top of my list.

I also learned that DEER HATE ME!!!! everyone that came to hunt got a DEER !!! My partner tagged out I on the other hand saw 1 ( ONE UNO SINGLE) Doe about the size of a poodle and not even a standard size poodle !!!!!!!! we got to hunt on the days no one was scheduled to hunt so I got a total of maybe 6 or 7 days of hunting in.
I did find several 5 and 6 point sheds SO there are some 10 point plus Bucks out there.

The good things I learned was , I can get a fire going with out using a match or a lighter. I did a little snare setting and caught a rabbit . Best part was I got to have my Son spend several days out there with me. we went on a hike and I walked him in circles several times to try and confuse him , he stopped me and said hang on dad let me check my compass, he pointed and said this way dad, I followed him right to camp Talk about being proud. BTW my son turns 7 in february. So he does listen to me when I talk I was impressed.

[crashdive123]

Learning is good, and it sounds like you taught your son well.

[welderguy]

I found that no matter what I know I always learn something new.

[SQWERL]

it's pricey but merino wool long johns aren't too heavey and they are warm. also if they get wet you will still stay warm. wool retains something like 75-80% of its warm even when wet. you can find some online places like academy sports and amazon.com i think at academy it was about $50 each for the long unerwear bottoms and top. i know right now online they are having a sale on the light weight down jackets. i think $30.

[welderguy]

it's pricey but merino wool long johns aren't too heavey and they are warm. also if they get wet you will still stay warm. wool retains something like 75-80% of its warm even when wet. you can find some online places like academy sports and amazon.com i think at academy it was about $50 each for the long unerwear bottoms and top. i know right now online they are having a sale on the light weight down jackets. i think $30.

thanks for the tips.

[WolfVanZandt]

My impression is that, when they say something is good down to, say, 0 degrees, they mean that you won't die at that temperature; you'll freeze you're a** off but you'll survive (sans a**).

And, yes, deer probably do hate you - you're trying to shoot them. I have similar problems. Maybe they smell the venison on my breath.

[crashdive123]

Yep. Temperature ratings on bags are not comfort ratings.

[prariewolf]

In regards to cold weather gear...Tents need to be made out of canvas ..That allows them to breath , so they'll be no ice on the inside of them in the A.M. ...A company called Minus-33 makes a merino wool long underwear in the weights..Light, medium and expedition...I use the light until it's below zero in the Mornings then go to Mediums ..never had the need to use the Expedition weight... Sleeping Bag go with Wiggy's out of Grand Junction , Co. They have a -40 model that I use that is two bags that " marry together to make one bag good to -40 or two bags ...One thats good to 0 degrees the other is good to +30....Also you need insulation underneath you...I use a 4" foam pad.....For outerwear In cool weather I wear Whipcord wool shirt and pants and as the temps. drop I go with heaver weight wool ....I see every year hunters show up withthe latest and greatest in technology super clothes and have yet to see them not get cold before the hunts over.. This is just my opinion....My proving grounds are the Rocky Mtns. of Wy. and Mt........Your needs and desires my be different.

[crashdive123]

I must disagree on tents needing to be canvas. While I like it just fine, and for staying put for extended periods I think it is great - especially with a small wood stove in it - I've used lightweight tents often (admittedly not recently - currently in Florida) with temps often below freezing.

[welderguy]

Hi Prariewolf.

Thanks for the info on the clothing I will be googling them soon, I bought a mil spec intermediate cold weather bag right after that trip LOL. I have the outer bag and bivie sack on order so ill be good to 30 below.. then again if im sleeping out side in 30 below weather its not because im camping it means im homeless. The tent problem will be solved for next season, we are going to build a pallet shack ( I will try and get pictures if I remember my camera)

[welderguy]

I did a little research on tents and why that one was so dang cold. found three possible reasons. first and most obvious its a fair weather tent ( I dont know if it is or not just seems to be the most obvious) second the size of the tent its a 4 man tent with only two bodys in it. third after time nylon breaks down and has runs in it like pantyhose allowing wind in and heat out.
what ever the reason that thing is history for next season.

[hunter63]

Yup, thats why they call it deer hunting, not deer shooting.
Having the boy along is the priceless part....he will remember this forever.

[welderguy]

Yup, thats why they call it deer hunting, not deer shooting.
Having the boy along is the priceless part....he will remember this forever.

It was his first hunting trip with DAD , I think it ment more to me than him LOL. We didnt see a thing but it was a great time anyways. he asked me so dad when we going hog hunting.

[WolfVanZandt]

I second sleeping on insulation - the ground will suck all the warmth right out of you. At one Howl, I awoke, freezing to death, and I couldn't figure out what was wrong until I started feeling around and noticed that my pad was....over there. I wiggled back on to my ground pad and was fine for the rest of the night.

Also, although I sleep nude, I have started sleeping with socks on. It seems that feet don't have quite the self heating characteristics as the rest of the body and, one snowy March at Mt. Cheaha, I thought I had frostbitten my feet (I couldn't feel them).

More than what the tent is made of, the size of the tent is important. The smaller the tent, the easier it is to conserve warmth. Big spaces and high ceilings tent to let all the warmth get away from you. Tents should be just large enough to accommodate what you have to put in them (if they're going to be used for sleeping).

[crashdive123]

You, my friend, were suffering from the Thermarest Squirts.

[prariewolf]

The smell of a brand new nylon ( synthetic tent ) is the ordor of the tents material breaking down.. Not that they don't have there place and are the most practical for the job , If you use one and it has a fly.....just a suggestion take they fly off and let it dry during the day when the temp. goes up ....IMO

[Wildthang]

The girls and I camped in Michigan a couple of years ago in late fall. It was around 60 in the daytime, but that first night it dropped to 28 degrees. We had a good tent and a new huge sleeping bag called the Teton Sports Mammoth sleeping bag. It held us all 3 and all of that body heat made it amazingly warm inside. We had a good closed foam sleeping pad, and a couple of large wool blankets over the top of the sleeping bag. I am pretty sure we would have been comfortable even at 0 degrees or below. I was so warm I had to open up the top a little to keep from getting too warm!

If you need a good double or in this case triple sleeping bag, this is it, and it isn't very expensive!

http://www.amazon.com/Teton-Sports-M...ags+for+adults

[Winnie]

I'm no expert at cold weather camping.. but a couple nuggets I learned. 1) Always keep a layer on in your sleeping bag. 2)Hotties disposable hand warmers make mighty fine sleeping bag warmers.
To prevent Thermarest squirts... paint a line, or artiscally scatter dots of silicone sealant on both sides of the pad, no squirty.

[hunter63]

Wear a stocking hat, ......have night clothes, and day clothes, wear your night clothes, but keep your day clothes in the bag with you.....

[PineMartyn]

Welderguy,

I'm a cold-camper from Ontario, Canada who favours snow shelters and thought I'd offer some feedback on the most likely causes of why you were cold at night. Some of this will echo what others have already mentioned. I also want to mention a something about cold-camping in tents and clothing.

Regarding your sleeping system:
Doubling up sleeping bags only works well if the outer bag is significantly roomier than the inner one, otherwise you just end up compressing the loft of both bags. You can actually end up being colder in two bags than in one because you've negated the insulating loft of both bags. A fleece liner inside the warmer bag is usually a better approach, unless your outer bag is quite a lot roomier than the inner bag.

More important is proper insulation from the ground. Your bag has virtually no insulating quality from below, because your body's weight compresses it flat. Heat loss through direct conduction to the ground is very rapid. When sleeping in cold temperatures in a tent, the cold you will feel will most often will be where your body contacts the ground with the most weight (buttocks, lower back, upper back). If you're a side sleeper, you'll feel the cold spots on your ground-side shoulder and hip. If that happens, immediately put a heavy garment, such as a fleece jacket, sweater, wool shirt, etc) beneath you inside the sleeping bag where you are feeling the cold. Don't ignore this. A cold spot beneath you never warms up - not ever - and it will lead to feeling cold all over. It has to be addressed right away, before you lose more heat, by putting insulating distance between you and the ground. If you find you can't conquer it because you don't have enough spare clothes or can't get enough insulation beneath you, you're in for a cold, sleepless night. So, you need proper insulation from below in the form of closed cell-foam padding or Therm-A-Rest pads or the like. In a survival situation, a thick layer of soft boughs will help enormously to get you off that endless cold sink that is the ground.

I should perhaps stress that this business of insulating against heat loss via ground conduction applies equally to high quality sleeping bags no matter what the quality of the bag is. Even in the most expensive bags, the underside of the bag is compressed flat at the body's heaviest points: buttocks, lower back, upper back, hips, and shoulders, so proper insulation beneath the bag is a must-have in winter. A layer or two of heavy wool beneath you actually offers more protection from ground cold than the best sleeping bag. However, a good bag with a good pad or two beneath...nothing beats that for a deep, uninterrupted sleep all night.

Just to underscore this point, here's a video my wife and I made last spring when, against everything I know, I neglected to bring the usual amount of ground insulation. Sometimes ya just gotta re-learn an old lesson the hard way.



Regarding cold-weather tents:
I need to correct one statement made by an earlier poster. It was stated that cold-weather tent needs to be made of canvas in order to breathe. Even a canvas tent will only breathe in sub-freezing temperatures if it's heated, otherwise the moisture will simply condense on the freezing cold fabric as it would in a nylon tent. If a tent's not heated, what's needed is ventilation. 4-season backpacking tents have all sorts of zippered openings to permit moisture to escape from the tent and condense on the underside of the fly instead of inside the tent. By contrast, hot-tents (traditional canvas tents in which one uses a small wood stove) do breathe, but that's because the inside temperature is high, the tent fabric is warmed, preventing condensation when moisture reaches it, and so the moisture is forced out through the cotton canvas by the high-pressure warm air inside the heated tent.

In the case of 4-season nylon tents, they are designed to trap a bit of heat (not much), vent out a lot of moisture, and above all, keep you dry from external moisture sources and out of the wind. Typically, a cold-weather tent is only a few degrees warmer inside than the outside temperatures. Your sleeping system keeps you warm, not your tent. Your tent keeps you dry and out of the elements. And even in a hot-tent (which does keep you warm), traditionally one sleeps cold, which means the stove is left to go out at night, and a proper and undisturbed sleep is ensured by the sleeping system, not the stove, so on isn't up very couple of hours relighting the stove for warmth. In cold temperatures, if you don't get long, uninterrupted sleep, you will find it hard to keep warm the next day and you will find it hard to motivate yourself to move around energetically as needed to warm yourself.

Regarding clothing:
I've visited Texas in winter and did some tenting in Big Bend Nat'l Park, but what I have to say is based upon camping in a much colder winter climate, so it may be overkill. Nevertheless, I too would recommend merino wool as a base layer. It's not any warmer or better at wicking moisture than the less expensive poly base layers, but it has several advantages. First, it breathes really well, which will keep you dryer in the long run. Second, it doesn't get as smelly after days of wearing it, and when it eventually does get smelly, the smell washes out. Even the new poly base layers with their new coating that supposedly doesn't retain odors...they still retain odors...which means when you put on a clean pair the next time you go out, they reek the moment you begin sweating in them even a bit.

I also recommend wool pants and shirts. How thick you get them will depend on how cold it gets where you are, but again, wool breathes beautifully, doesn't hold body odours after you wash it, doesn't absorb moisture the way cotton does, and it's highly resistant to sparks and embers, unlike fleeces and other synthetics, which will get burn holes if you tend fires when you're out in the bush.

Hope this helps,
- Martin

Edit: I want to echo the suggestions of others here and add a few more.
- Unpack and fluff up your sleeping bag hours before you crawl into it, allowing the fibers to uncompress and achieve maximal loft.
- Sleep with a hat on.
- A good practice is to snack heavily just before bed. If nuisance bears and cats are not a concern, keep snacks or gorp in your tent and nibble whenever you awaken.
- One trick my wife and I use year-round is a pee bottle (a Nalgene bottle works beautifully), so you we aren't tempted to hold it in because we don't feel like leaving the comfort of the tent when we have to urinate. Holding it in when you feel the urge to pee always interferes with sleep and makes you cold as your body must expend calories all night to maintain that volume of fluid at body temperature. The warm bottle of pee can be put in your sleeping bag to help warm it up, especially at the toe box. Remove it when it loses it's heat. This is an old mountaineer's trick.
- Lastly, you can pre-warm your sleeping bag by filling a Nalgene bottle with hot water and putting it in the bag 20 minutes before you crawl into it. Besides preventing the initial discomfort of crawling into a cold bag, you don't waste calories bring up the bag to body temperature.