Cleaning bottom of tent/bivy etc

Given the you are from Brissie you will know what Super Chux is.
That is what I use . (BTW one for the tent, one as a towel and one for the "kitchen')
This is Super Chux :

0.5 oz

Yeah, Super Chux is what happens to the idiots on my street every Sunday morning :)

In hindsight, my question was a bit stoopid. I've just never seen anything mentioned on any of the gear lists I've been reading.

Shake it off, and stuff in your pack.

I drape the item over a low hanging branch or bush and sort of drag it back and forth a few times. This gets most of the dirt/moisture off.

"I drape the item over a low hanging branch or bush and sort of drag it back and forth a few times. This gets most of the dirt/moisture off."

I can't tell if this was meant to be sarcastic…

I guess my post could be considered as multitasking!

For plain old soil and dirt, I shove it into a stuff sack, and then sometimes wipe dirty hands on my pants.

For non plain old soil, like if I accidentally camped in a pile of cow manure, I would resort to more than a sponge or tiny wipe.

I would definitely not wipe it down, to avoid getting socks or towels dirty. I would sit it facing the sun to dry out a bit, once its dried, shake off the dust, and stuff it into a stuff sack. I'm talking about a tent here, as I don't use a bivvy, but it is just a small tent.

In the SE, we have a lot of rotting leaves mixed with mud so Bivy bottoms get caked with gross. I'll drape my bivy over a low branch or clothes line made from my bear bag line and I'll wipe the bottom clean with my "everything" microfiber rag. Everything gets covered with the stuff. Not place for a neat freak! Lol

But, I think a lot of people carry a rag, it's just quite often a cotton bandana. Lightload towels seem to be popular as well.

Moist bandana.

Shake it off and keep going. If you get a change to rinse it off and dry it somewhere, go for it. Give it a good bath and dry it thoroughly before storing at home. I use a polycryo window film groundcloth regardless, which saves a lot of dirt and damage.

Frankly, most people probably do nothing. Or at least nothing more than shake it off and slap it a few times. Seems a bit OCD to worry about the cleanliness of the bottom of your bivy. That's kind of like worrying about your shovel getting dirty.

"Seems a bit OCD to worry about the cleanliness of the bottom of your bivy." For me it's more a matter of not allowing abrasives or sharp bits to accumulate and slowly degrade the fabric. I agree with Dale about a polycryo ground sheet. 1.5 ounces of prevention, plus a few swipes to get the odd bits and pieces off, goes a long way toward keeping an expensive tent in the field for a long time. Seems like a reasonable trade off to me.

That's why I said to shake it off and slap it a few times. But I certainly don't wipe it off with my bandana or (heavens forfend) carry a dedicated bivy-wiping cloth.

"That's why I said to shake it off and slap it a few times. But I certainly don't wipe it off with my bandana or (heavens forfend) carry a dedicated bivy-wiping cloth." We're getting the same thing. I'm just a little more fastidious, I guess, and willing to carry the extra 1.5 ounces of polycryo, not surprising considering what I paid for that Skyscape X. I tell myself I'm offsetting the weight of the polycryo by using the ultimate multipurpose piece of gear to do the wiping, my hand, instead of some piece of fabric. ;0)) I do confess to a reluctance to shake it off, though. I get uneasy when guy lines and bits and pieces of debris are flying around in the vicinity of my eyes, but I guess that sort of comes with being an old wuss.

I thought we were talking about bivy sacks? But though the discussion was about bivies I see that the OP's title does say "tent/bivy," so that may have been a bad assumption on my part. Though I guess it really makes no difference to the discussion. If I'm being honest, I'm in the "you don't need a footprint for your tent" crowd. Easy enough to dab some SilNet on any pinholes, which is worth the extra cost to me to not have to fuss with a groundcloth every night. Doubly pointless to get bent about even that, though, since I use a floorless mid for just about everything nowadays. So I sort of think of my bivy as the groundsheet, and why put a groundsheet under a groundsheet? Of course, I'm also not from the northwest where miracles like water falling from the sky are a common occurrence. Though perhaps not this year. :)

"Though I guess it really makes no difference to the discussion. If I'm being honest, I'm in the "you don't need a footprint for your tent" crowd. Easy enough to dab some SilNet on any pinholes, which is worth the extra cost to me to not have to fuss with a groundcloth every night." I might feel the same if I was using a less expensive tent with a heavier duty floor. But in the past, I've found that pinholes are typically detected after waking up with water inside the tent, not my preferred way to start the day. The other issue with the Skyscape X is that the floor is very light Cuben, and if water accumulates under the floor hydrostatic pressure will force it up through the floor into the tent. I've had that happen twice during a heavy storm when I didn't tuck the polycryo far enough back under the edge of the floor and water accumulated between it and the tent floor. With a floorless mid that could be a real issue under the right conditions if you didn't have some protection, in your case a bivy, which I'll wager weighs more than my 1.5 oz cut down polycryo ground sheet. "Doubly pointless to get bent about even that, though, since I use a floorless mid for just about everything nowadays. So I sort of think of my bivy as the groundsheet, and why put a groundsheet under a groundsheet?" See above for my take on the weight trade off between a bivy and a polycryo ground sheet. But, hey, I hate debating the finer points of gear. If we're going to argue, let's go over to CHAFF and duke it out over Ukraine. ;0)) "Of course, I'm also not from the northwest where miracles like water falling from the sky are a common occurrence. Though perhaps not this year. :)