Make Your Own Balaclava

[Steve Gillman]

Make Your Own Balaclava – 1,2,4

Find an old polypropylene thermal underwear top or bottom. Cut off a leg or sleeve, pull it over your head, mark where your eyes and mouth are with a pen. Cut the holes. You just made a balaclava.

Mine weighs an ounce. Sew the top shut or just shut it with a safety pin. Making clothes doesn’t get much simpler than this.

Any other easy backpacking clothes ideas?

Steve

[Scott Ashdown]

Use one of the spare hiking socks you carry as a sack to keep you titanium mug in. The springyness of the material will keep the lid and whatever bits and pieces you have inside.

Use your spare socks as gloves if needs must.

Placing a clean plastic food bag inside a sock, you can then use the plastic bag to hold water as a temporary water carrier. The sock will support the bag and prevent splitting.

Use the pullout insoles of your boots or shoes together in one of the side pockets of your (Pants – US) (Trousers – UK)in the thigh area to provide just a little bit of extra protection from an uncomfortable ground when sleeping on your side.

Stuff another piece of clothing into a sock and use it as a neck support.

Remove the insoles from inside your boots / shoes and place one in each of your socks. Then put the socks on and you have a pair of lightweight footwear for around camp. (Your socks will get dirty though!!!!!)

Remove both your boot laces and tie the ends together and then tie between two sticks etc for a mini washing line.

[Rodney OndaRock]

I made my own balaclava following the idea posted above, with a polyester undershirt short sleeve. I did not sew the crown top.

PRO 1:
it kept me nicely warm at night, since generally 90% (CORRECTION EDIT 10%, not 90%) of heat loss is from the head.

PRO 2:
in the morning, I used the rag to dry out the condensation from the fog.

CON 1:
make sure you warn your camp buddies that you are wearing this. You will look like a bank robber or a psycho killer terrorist. because your bicep is smaller than you head, it reshapes your fat face, and you look insane. makes for good laughs and photo ops. I will not post my photo. be careful you do not get stabbed or shot if you forget it on your head and surprise someone with it.

CON 2:
wilderness mosquitoes can still bite through the thin stretched sleeve on your head.
Your friends are scared, but the bugs are fearless.

I like this MYOG. it is very functional, very cheap, very ghetto. I like it.

[Rob Hubbard]

since generally 90% of heat loss
is from the head.

May start something inadvertently here but that is false. Your arm loses just as must heat as your head. The problem is we always cover our arms and not our heads. If we walked around with a hat on but short sleeves we would perceive that we loss large amounts of heat from our arms compared to the rest of our body.

[Rodney OndaRock]

Thanks (Rob Hubbard) for the correction. While I generically threw out there the 90% guestimate, I googled it, and the Mythbusters show did in fact test this. Heat loss from the head is a continuous 10%.

My experience – yours will vary – is that on 32F nights, in my mummy bag, my body is warm, but my face is exposed and freezing. This thin shirt sleeve poor-man balaclava, helps contain the heat loss from the head. Granted 10% not 90%.

but how about 10% for 9 hours, isn't that 90? I'm joking ;-)

[Joe L]

With that math thinking, you could work for big corporations, like my former employer (Why can't you work 10% faster every year, year after year?) or big institutions including the biggest one, headquartered in D.C.

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