Is it even possible to stay dry in a rain forest? Should I just give up?

[Will Elliott]

If it's raining, all your gear is wet already, no? I just wouldn't worry about it too much. That being said, a larger mid will allow the condensation to run down the sides instead of falling on you. Body heat will dry your synthetic bag and baselayers. In the morning, put all your wet stuff on and warm up by moving. Pretty soon you'll be soaked, either from rain or perspiration, but you'll be warm. The animals don't stay dry either. I think just accepting it will save you some money and also dissatisfaction with shelters that keep you dry but are heavy and expensive. For example, if you want a solid interior tent that pitches without getting the inner wet, all that comes to my mind is a Hilleberg Anjan, which is going to be super expensive. (I'd be curious what other alternatives people might suggest, though.) I don't know if you can build fires where you are, but that makes everything different, and is another great reason to use a tarp.

[Inaki Diaz de Etura]

Sew webbing loops. 6 of them would do, maybe just 5 if you can already suspend the head area: you'd need one on each corner at ground level that you would stake down, two on the top, feet and head area. You would need to hang these latter from a vertical support, ideally giving it some tension, not only upwards, also lenghwise. Something like on the pic below but on both head and feet area

[Philip Tschersich]

That's the key tool right there: fire. You can actually stay dry standing outside in moderate rain if you have a nice big fire going and not much wind. At some point you will have to retire to your wet shelter, but while by the fire life is pretty good. I will admit that this strategy works best when you are sea kayaking or otherwise hanging out along the coast where endless driftwood is available.

[Eric Blumensaadt]

TENT-> Tarptent Moment DW W/ ripstop inner tent (DWR treated)

BAG & mattress-> WM Megalite down bag W/ Revivex DWR treated shell Thermarest Prolite mattress. OR, for very constantly wet weather -> old, "flat" PrimaLoft mummy bag (and synthetic over quilt if colder weather)

PACK-> Osprey EXOS 58, dry bags and very light pack cover (EXOS "trampoline" net suspension keeps rain off back of pack)

BOOTS-> Merrill Moab GTX W/DWR treatment

RAIN SUIT-> REI Kimtah eVent parka and pants, GTX ankle gaiters, TNF DWR treated nylon ball cap to protect my glsses, thin neoprene gloves if in colder temps (below 60 F.)

PACK TOWEL-> synthetic type (wrings out well and is light even when damp. A must for wiping down tents & other gear.)

FIRE STARTERS-> 2 BIC lighters & a FireSteel kit & good tinder like Vaseline soaked cotton balls (for ESBIT or wood fires)

HEADLAMP-> Princeton Tech waterproof (I have several models)

CLOTHES-> ALL synthetic pants & shirts except wool/synthetic blend socks. Polyester hiking and sleeping T shirts & thin long john bottoms if in colder weather.

FOOD-> hot breakfasts and dinners – it's a morale thing.

STOVE-> Canister type if rain is a sure thing. It's the best & safest for cooking under a tarp or in a vestibule.

[Dihnekis]

Used some leftover cordage and tenacious tape and rigged up a suspended bivy setup. Still definitely going to touch in the footbox, no way to avoid that, but this is worth a try. If it works I'll settle on a more permanent solution.

[Buck Nelson]

There have been some good suggestions here that will help, no doubt, but simple tolerance is equally important.

I spent 70 days in the rain forest of SE Alaska last summer. Needless to say there were periods of relentless rain and humidity. My ball cap got mold on it at times.

Those conditions could be annoying, but I was fine. I'd be putting on wet clothes in the morning as often as not. But my body heat dried my down bag each night even as the damp tried to wet it. I slept warm and comfortably even in the worst stretches. If I sleep well it's amazing what I can put up with during the day.

Eventually the sun would come out and I would dry everything out nicely.

[Sam Riggle]

If you are worried about condensation being knocked loose, but don't want to carry a bivy then go to wal mart and pick up one of those really cheap Frogg Toggs UL ponchos( as a previous poster mentioned) and use that as a bag topper. You can trim it down to a smaller size to drop it under its 4oz weight. I've used one this way several times. very cheap, very light. Works very well. Used one in below freezing conditions, there was a small amount of ice frozen to the under side of the poncho, but because it's a fuzzy texture, it holds the moisture or ice away from your quilt/bag.

Just my $0.02

Sam

[Dihnekis]

I'm going to try the suspended bivy thing this week. I messed around with it some more and got it hanging even better than in the picture. It still touches my bag in a few spots, but all in all it's much, much more airy inside the bivy so I hope that will help out. Supposed to rain tomorrow when I'm heading out so lets see.

[Sam Riggle]

That should work very well. I just got a bivy recently and I've been working on a way to suspend the foot end as well. The head end has a tie out loop but I'm going to add one to the foot. Should help a ton with condensation inside the bivy as well as feeling more open. Good luck with it.

[Yoyo]

From a cursory glance at the replies here, it seems that some seem to favor synthetic insulation to deal with sustained cold, humid conditions, whereas others stick to down. Does anyone know if the new "water resistant" down help any in these circumstances?

[Bradley Danyluk]

I live in Vancouver and I still don't buy the arguments for synthetic.

The thing is, high-fill-power down is just so much more insulating per weight that it still retains more insulating ability for its weight when damp than a damp synthetic insulation does. It loses a much higher *percentage* of its clo when it gets damp than synethic does, but its clo-to-weight is so high in the first place that it's still above or around synthetic in those situations.
It's only when the insulation is truly soaked, and the down bunches into useless clumps, that synthetic wins. But if that actually happens, your trip is probably over even if you have a synthetic (but totally soaked) bag. Are you really crawling into that lump of water? And how in the world did that happen?

[Mark Parry]

Thanks Bradley. I was basically sold on down, until I realized that the down quilts for the temp ranges I was looking at, 50F/actually ordered 40F/18oz, don't weigh much less than an APEX synthetic quilt, and cost twice as much. I'm also nervous that I'm going to ruin the down as soon as I get it wet a couple times–many have reassured me that my concerns are completely misplaced on this front since I'm not going on extended trips.

Don't get me wrong, I love down, and I want to own a down bag, but I refuse to buy one for any higher temp rating than 20F/30F, and that's pretty much unusable in Hawaii. I have no justification to buy one here, maybe if I start sleeping on top of the volcanoes here I will buy one, but so far I think the 40F and a down jacket are going to handle the intermediate ridge lines.

Are we talking about warm rainforest? Or cold rainforest? I think my use is just a lot less extreme than most.

[Diane “Piper” Soini]

In Kauai two of us shared one 45 degree sleeping quilt and I had a bivy. I slept in the bivy with a corner of the quilt.

[Mark Parry]

Thanks Diane, I imagine myself using a corner of my 40F quilt also, hopefully it doesn't melt me where it's on top because I sleep hot. I'm going to try a tarp shelter (10' long two person A pitch) with solo inner bug net/bath tub floor, and hope to visit Kauai soon!

Would you have gotten soaked without the bivy? What other shelter did you use in addition to the bivy? Tent or tarps?

Chase Norton's Koolau Summit traverse gear list is also interesting to note for Hawaii ridge line camping. He was using a tarp tent (zpacks hexamid solo), M50/silnylon borah bivy, and goes out of his way to specify MSR groundhog stakes… Hopefully I do not regret skipping the bivy, but Chase was handling harsher conditions and protecting a down bag for longer trips.

[Will Elliott]

+1 for Buck Nelson's comment, and check out his blog. I was just about to say "You should check out this guy who spent all summer on Admiralty Island last year" but he beat me to it!

[Hamish McHamish]

After a recent very wet hike I'm freshly interested in this topic.

Craig said:
"Some trip reports from Amazon rain forest goers suggested they relied on setting high tarps that they could build a small fire under to warm up."

Intriguing. Anybody tried this? I was thinking about maybe carrying a piece of 'sacrificial' 2-mil or 3-mil plastic rigged with sheet bends to use as a fire tarp. Something just enough to protect the fire some, and if it got scorched it would not be a disaster. This would be a separate item from my sil-nylon tarp. Haven't tried the idea, though.

Eric said:

"BOOTS-> Merrill Moab GTX W/DWR treatment"

Can anyone recommend a specific product for this, that will minimize 'clogging' the boot fabric?

Also, how do you guys deal with macerated feet? One time in the Smokies it didn't even rain on me, but after a morning on the trail where wet grass was on either side, soaking me, my feet got very wet. Within a few hours the soles began to hurt terribly. It took a couple days for the pain to fully dissipate.

[monkey]

40f and wet can be quite cold, especially if wind starts blowing. It might be possible to justify a small wood burning stove? This would necessitate a slightly larger tent which some people were suggesting anyway. Something along the lines of:

Duomid XL (22oz) + stove jack (3oz) + TiGoat small wifi stove with 4.5ft pipe (20oz) + using the stove to cook + being able to dry gear and clothes + comfort and fun of warm crackling fire in the evenings.

As opposed to:

Duomid XL (22oz) + solid inner (14oz) + cooking system (e.g. ti-tri 3.5oz) + going to bed wet each evening + things will gradually get wetter and wetter with each day passing.

On this comparison a wood burning stove would only “cost” an extra 5-6oz :)

 

[James holden]

heres an exceptionally simple way to keep your down bag mostly condensation free even on multiday no sun freezing rain PNW weather ….

put a bedsheet over it …

microfiber works better, but even the humble cotton bedsheet will work if your smart about it

as to WHY it works ill put up another post about it sometime

its an old school trick, along with a few other tricks ill write about

;)

[Author]

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