color of pack, sleeping bag,…

Personal preference however there are reasons for some.

"Sleeping bag, rain jacket,… should be dark colored, like black."
A bright sleeping bag is a lot nicer to look at particularly when the weather is bad.
Yellow/yellow green or red works for me.
BTW, most sb are black inside for faster drying in the sun as well as to hide some dirt.

"Tent – normally dark color"
A dark colored tent is …dark inside.
Visually I prefer yellow except that it attracts bugs (so does blue)
Light grey works for me because it is neutral so I have no colour cast from the tent fly.
After a prolonged stay inside a tent with a strong colour when you go out your eyes will see things with an exaggerated complimentary colour.
(red-green/blue -yellow)
Having worked in the photo industry (including printing) for 30 years I notice that, many will not.

Most people I see on the trails prefer subdued colors – greens, reds, earth tones… Perhaps they're still recovering from the 90's pallette.

I prefer a highly visible yellow, orange, or red pack. This helps pick me out of range photos, makes me visible when I want to be, and reminds me where my campsite is if I wander off. A light or neutral colour tent because I don't want to be bothered or obstruct the natural scenery of others. But in winter I have a bright red Hilleberg Jannu. And the sleeping bag interior should always be black so it can dry in the sun faster… The shell colour could be used to match with your other equipment if you're like me and don't want to look like a box if crayons.

I take the color on sale, and I like it.

"Seems like a pack should be light colored" Why?

Fabric does not retain heat. My black pack is no hotter than any other that I've experienced.

"I take the color on sale, and I like it."

LOL.

I prefer an orange backpack just because I do a lot of fall and winter hiking during deer hunting season. For shelter colors I prefer earth tones or muted greens, for sleeping bags something livelier on the outside and charcoal on the inside.

If pack is white or aluminized, and it's in the sun, it'll be much cooler because it absorbs less sunlight. Pack is often in the sun as I walk along.

Tent, sleeping bag,… normally aren't in sun so it doesn't matter – unless you're trying to dry them. Good point about dark colored tent not being good to be inside of.

I have to make a new pack and I have some black fabric, but thinking about getting some white instead. I believe Ryan has a white pack, and there are a few others I've seen here, but not usually.

My silnylon pack has started ripping on the top where it's in the sun. Probably UV damage. 30D silnylon isn't really strong enough for a pack but I've done many days with it so it's marginal.

For my quilts, one side needs to be black for quicker drying. For summer packs I prefer a subdued color (right now "grid gray" or "black") as to blend in mostly for wildlife but other types of blending in.

Still deciding on winter pack color.

the 2 basic theories of out door gear color :

1. blend in with the terrain so you won't be found.

2. stand out from the terrain so you will be found.

take your pick depending on your confidence level …

The main reason I prefer light colored backpack is that it makes it easier to see what is inside. I have a black pack by ULA and hate trying to find small things down inside that black hole!

B

"the 2 basic theories of out door gear color :

1. blend in with the terrain so you won't be found.

2. stand out from the terrain so you will be found.

take your pick depending on your confidence level …"

You can have both… get a pack color that blends in… and get a rain cover that stands out. That way you have a choice.

b

If you want a color to stand out, like flourescent orange, sometimes you want it on a tent in case you're stationary, hoping someone will come and rescue you. Sometimes you're walking out. Sometimes it's cold and wet so you want to wear a jacket. Other times it's warmer so you just want to wear a shirt.

Maybe the best thing is to have a sheet of fabric, like maybe a space blanket. Put it outside your tent/clothing in an emergency. Also gives wind and water protection and a little warmth.

"If you want a color to stand out, like flourescent orange, sometimes you want it on a tent in case you're stationary, hoping someone will come and rescue you. "

Well… I for one hope not to visit any beautiful meadows or lakes dotted with flourescent orange tents scattered about…

just sayin….

Billy

Two other theories of gear color:

1. Use really bright colors so everyone else in the valley can see you and your campsite.

2. Use muted, more natural colors so as to have less visual impact on other hikers.

I generally practice 2, just like I don't litter, create new campfire circles or cut live trees; but during hunting season, in truly remote areas (i.e. see no one else in 20 miles of hiking), or on more extreme solo trips (where I'm at greater risk of needing to be found), I've got brighter outwear for those times.

Back to one of the OPs thoughts:

A black tent is warmer WHEN IN THE SUN and a white one is cooler. But black tent fabric is cooler on a cloudless night because higher emissivity goes both ways – black objects absorb AND EMIT more infrared radiation. So, other things being equal, the fabric of a black tent will be cooler during a calm, cloudless night and get more condensation on it. You can counter that by camping under a tree or (partially) by setting up next to a cliff or large boulder so your tent doesn't view as much of the clear sky.

Another factor for clothing is mosquitos. I've taken to counting mosquitos on different people's clothing and dark/black clothing always has significantly more mosquitos on it than white/light clothing does. Caveats: While this is great evidence for wearing lighter clothes than other people around you, I'm not sure if, when solo, it makes a difference. I suspect it does, but I don't have the data for that. Also, while a dark tent might attract more mosquitos than a light tent, I don't know how it would effect the ratio of bugs on you versus on the tent. And while dark colors attract more mosquitos, there are far easier to see and kill on light surfaces, so I'd lean towards a light tent for (1) seeing and killing bugs and (2) reduced condensation on clear, cold nights.

Edited because I swapped 1 and 2 in one sentence.

"I generally practice 1, just like I don't litter, create new campfire circles or cut live trees…"

Er… David, did you mean to say 'I generally practice 1'? or did you mean to say 2 ?
Because to me the sentence would make more sense if it read, '2'.

No criticism here… just thought that might be a typo…

Billy

I disagree about black tent being cooler at night.

It's black in visible light and white is white, but in IR, they're about the same.

The emmisivity is maybe 0.9 for both black and white tent. According to internet sources and my measurements.

Even if the tent is reflective in IR, it's a fairly minor effect. There's a lot of energy in sunlight, but a human body emits relatively little energy in IR.

If you use a regular tent of high emissivity material, you can lower the temperature you're comfortable at by maybe 10 degrees F, compared to sleeping under the clear night sky.

If you use IR reflective material, maybe 20 degrees. But there's no good material available. Space blanket is too flimsy.

"A black tent is warmer WHEN IN THE SUN and a white one is cooler."

I'll disagree. That may be true with shelters made of opaque materials, but With silnylon shelters, I have found that darker colored silnylons block sunlight better than lighter colored silnylons. So as long as I am a foot or so away from the silnylon tent wall, I remain cooler with darker colored fabrics. This was easy to see when hanging out in my Megalight in the sun in an effort to escape mosquitos: sit under the blue panels, sun is mostly blocked, and I was relatively cool; sit under the light gray panels, sun goes right through, I get hot.

"I'll disagree. That may be true with shelters made of opaque materials, but With silnylon shelters, I have found that darker colored silnylons block sunlight better than lighter colored silnylons…"

I have to go with John on this. My dark green colored Hillebergs have been much cooler in the sun than the light sand or bright red colored ones. The darker material definitely helps provide more shade.

My favorite tent color is Hilleberg's newer "sand" color, which is really more of a bronze, very dark sand color. It blends into the surroundings very well, and yet is bright enough inside to be more cheery than the dark green.

For packs, I've really come to like foliage green. It is a nice subdued silver-ish green color, but it doesn't scream "military" like OD or coyote brown do. For quilt color I like charcoal on the inside and bright orange on the outside…again for the cheer factor.

The plural of "anecdote" appears to be "BPL".

Seems like there's some room for actual testing here. Though there are so many variables it might be tough to put together a worthwhile test.

Billy: Yes, I got 1 and 2 flipped. I edited that.

Jerry: Okay, now you've got me thinking carefully about what I know and what I only THINK I know. Time for for actual experimentation. I should know better than to extend my/our extensive experience in the visible-light range to other frequencies. My experiments with painted pot bottoms showed, much like Jerry reports, that white, black and red paint were all about the same – i.e. black in the IR, while bare metal was markedly different. So unless we're talking about aluminum-foil tents, maybe the only difference is on a spectrum of translucent to opaque, rather than color-based differences in emissivity.

John and Doug: So you find dark colors provide better shade and that shade dominates (for the human inside) over the fabric temperature? Sort of a green-house effect – more visible and higher energy light gets in through light colors, but IR from inside the tent doesn't get out nearly as well. Good point. I was mentally modeling it as an opaque material, but really, very few of my tents (and none of my UL shelters) are very opaque.

Has anyone played with different tarp pitching schemes to keep it cooler inside? Something that spills the highest, warmest air to the outside (maybe inverting the prow/vestible it doesn't trap warm air at the peak?).

"My favorite tent color is Hilleberg's newer "sand" color, which is really more of a bronze, very dark sand color. It blends into the surroundings very well, and yet is bright enough inside to be more cheery than the dark green."

Interesting, because is the yellow of the inner not for that ?

Hi David, yes, that's been my experience. Whether its only a perception or not is almost moot since it feels cooler to me when I'm inside on a sunny, hot day. :)

It first came up in the Hilleberg tent thread when someone asked about the interior temp of the light sand colored tent (which they don't even make anymore) vs the dark green. That's when I actually started thinking about it and realized that I did "feel" cooler and more shaded in the green tents.

Now on the flip side the dark green feels noticeably less cheery and cozy on cold winter nights/ days.

Of course these are all anecdotal, and not based on any testing. I'll go on being blissful in my ignorance for a while longer. :)

"…Interesting, because is the yellow of the inner not for that ?"

Yes, to a point. The yellow interiors do make a huge difference in cheer, but the outer color does affect the mood inside IMHO. Hilleberg says the outer colors all permit the same level of brightness to enter the inner tent, and far be it for me to argue with them about their own products, but I do find the mood varies according to the outer tent fabric. The bronze, sand, and red tents have definitely felt more cheery, both in the inner tent or in the vestibule, than the green.

As I mentioned in my previous post, the biggest difference is when working in the vestibule (cooking, spending time, etc.). On a cold day the green vestibule feels dark and cold. The others do not. So it's really a trade off. If most of my camping was going to be in a hot climate or the desert, I'd go with green. For everything else I'd chose one of their other colors.

Well, a darker color like that green might be nicer to sleep (I use several tents with a light colored fly for now and there just too light for me).

EDIT: for me color matters and for a shelter, the fabric should let pass light as little as possible as for me it should be as dark as possible to get good sleep.

I seldomly use my tent when it's in the sun. So it's not important how well it provides shade – doesn't need to be a dark color to better absorb sunlight.