Drying gear in relentless wet winter weather

I do that with wet socks at night. I have two nalgenes, fill them with boiling water, and put my socks on them.  I usually put them in my sleeping bag with me for extra warmth. They are almost always dry by morning, and my bag doesn’t gain appreciable weight from whatever moisture comes off. I’m sure that over a trip of 1+ weeks it might become an issue, but up to a week it works well for me. Other clothes I try to wring out as best I can and then put them in a plastic bag in my sleeping bag. They don’t dry out that way, but they’re at least warm the following day and body heat finishes drying them during the day.

If they’re not too wet, just wear them at night in sleeping bag… body heat dries them out…

Another idea would be to string a tarp up between trees to shelter from snowfall, then build a small fire under for drying cloths…

My first observation is to avoid moisture accumulation as much as possible.  Avoid too much insulation (run cool) and control activity level to avoid sweating.  When it’s cold enough use vapor barriers. [For me that is below 0F].  Second, use clothing that minimize water absorption. For example, fishnet base, EPIC, shell, Alpha Direct, etc.

So long as I am well fueled and hydrated I can typically dry my clothing with body heat.  I haven’t had a problem with too much moisture accumulated in my bag… but part of that is that I don’t think any of our winter trips had more than 4 days in a row without the sun coming out long enough for us to air our bags out in bright sunlight.

The boiling water in bottle and wrapped in wet clothing dried the cloths and preventing being burned by the bottle. [don’t know if it’s still true, but Gatorade bottle were one of the few really light bottles that boiling water wouldn’t melt]

The luxury is a pyramid/tipi with wood stove… never owned one, but have a few times been with someone who had one.  Wow, that was nice,

Spend a decade or three and learn  g Tum-mo https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2002/04/meditation-changes-temperatures/

. Ultralight in the Icebox: Post-Trip Report .

Vapor Barrier Liners: Theory & Application .

If it is below freezing, how can it be relentlessly wet? My experience is that things don’t get very wet when it’s below freezing. Some perspiration perhaps. So, we do put vapor barrier liners between our liner socks and heavy wool socks. Then, put the liners in a jacket pocket that we’re wearing to sleep in, and the liners are dry by morning. And the heavy wool sox, of course, never get wet since they are shielded from perspiration. We don’t sweat very much on winter trips cause we dress on the cool side.

If it’s just below freezing your body heat melts snow. The sun will actually melt snow in these temperatures. Also it often heats up to above freezing when it gets sunny mid day. In my area we have what are called chinook winds that cause wild temperature fluctuations (20-30 degrees in 24 hours) in the middle of winter.

All of this aside I’m asking for methods to dry gear that gets wet for whatever reason in the winter. Just trying to get some ideas. I appreciate any useful info anyone has.

I have read all of skurkas winter hiking stuff. I have not really used any vapour barrier clothing. Usually I strip right down during the day and ski or snowshoe cold keeping my other layers for the night or when I stop. Again this is off the topic of the original post. Just looking for ways to dry gear below zero without lighting a fire.

looking for ways to dry gear below zero without lighting a fire.
So you go to all that bother of drying your daytime clothing in the evening, only to have it get wet again in the morning when the weather is still bad?

We don’t bother. We keep our in-tent clothing DRY in our packs, until we put it on inside the tent. That is a near absolute. We keep that clothing DRY.

In the morning we sigh and put our wet daytime clothing back on. If it would get wet anyhow, we have lost nothing. If it turns out fine, the wet clothing can dry on our bodies as we travel.

Cheers

So you go to all that bother of drying your daytime clothing in the evening, only to have it get wet again in the morning when the weather is still bad?

I would probably not plan on doing that. Except maybe to push a bit of moisture out of down insulation. Or if I screwed up and somehow got something important wet. Really just was curious if anyone had a method.

We don’t bother. We keep our in-tent clothing DRY in our packs, until we put it on inside the tent. That is a near absolute. We keep that clothing DRY

Yea I am doing the same thing right now. Although admittedly I have not done too many overnights in real winter conditions. Just seeing if there is a method out there to dry things without a fire.

Awesome stuff thank you.

I will try putting boiling water in Gatorade bottles. Use one nalgene and platypus water bags right now. Have used the boiling nalgene trick a bit in my sleeping bag. I usually don’t need it but sometimes it’s nice.

As for clothing I could probably use faster drying base layers as you mentioned.

Roger’s observation triggered a number of memories from trips before my gear addict stage in the the 200xs. We also split or dry camp vs wet daily/active clothing. We dropped the wet clothing in a dry bag and either slept on top of the dry bag or with it in the sleeping bag so it wouldn’t freeze over night and wasn’t quite so painful to put on in the morning

Last time I think I used a grocery bag for this. I struggled to find the will to put the clothing on. When I did I broke down camp as fast as I could and got skiing to try and warm up. Kind of unpleasant.

Hopefully I will get better this winter. Maybe spend less time at ski resorts and more time backpacking.

Thank you, Roger.  I was going to make a remark about not getting it wet in the first place; but you covered not only that, but also how to do it.

I like Mark’s suggestion of caching the wet clothing in a plas bag under one’s quilt. Granted, under some conditions that might be a bit cool at first, but it would be nice in the morning.

We don’t normally bother too much with that, but we do store our XC ski boots and socks in plas bags at our feet under the quilt. Putting sub-zero boots on in the snow – yeah, well . . .

Cheers

“We don’t bother. We keep our in-tent clothing DRY in our packs, until we put it on inside the tent. That is a near absolute. We keep that clothing DRY.”

Me too.  Same protocol.  This clothing is packed with sleeping bag in a nylon stuff sack, placed inside a trash compator bag cinched at the top and put in the bottom of my pack.  The pack could  fall into a stream (briefly) without the contents getting wet.

1)  When actually backpacking…..I do what several others have suggested.  I have hiking clothese that get damp from perspiration and dry clothes in dry sack that are only worn at night in the tent.

2) For long term base camping and going for a shorter hike in to set up a base camp or using sleds to base camp in  Michigan (hike into a fishing spot along a river or lake for a week), we’d take larger and heavier artificial fill sleeping bags and wear wetter clothes that we wanted to dry in the early evenings while hanging out (usually dry in a couple of hours) or we’d  place them in the bag or wear them through the night depening on how wet they were.  Don’t do this with a down bag.   It will quickly be overwhelmed by the moisture and stop lofting.