Preparing For This Winter: Tips and Tricks (layering pt. 2)

Last post, we learned a lot about layering and conditioning for the winter trips. In this post, I would like to continue some of that and give some tips for hiking and camping in winter that will make your trip more enjoyable. These will simply be some tricks and techniques that you may find beneficial.

Electronics such as phones and cameras hate cold. The cold will eat up batteries and if the electronic is on, the battery will suck down quicker than you would think. Something else I learned recently is that iPhones REALLY don’t like cold and the battery can be very fickle. I started my hike with a full battery to take a short video. After 5 minutes of taking video, the phone shut off. I found that even if the battery is not dead, it will shut off when cold. After I warmed it up and turned it back on, it had 60% battery left. After 2 minutes of video, it dropped to 20% then shut off and was dead. If you don’t need to use the electronic while hiking, put it in your pack, wrapped in clothes to keep it warm and turn it off when not using it. If you will be using it on the trail, put it in the pocket of the layer closest to your body. It my case, I would put it in my jeans pocket, or my fleece sweatshirt pocket. This will help keep the battery warm. If you are using it while hiking, you can put a hand warmer on the back side of it to help warm the battery. Something to remember is, when hiking, you warm up and don’t feels the cold, but it’s still there and can hurt your electronics.

If you wear glasses, you can buy anti fog spray to keep them from fogging over. This can be found in sports stores, dive shops, paintball shops, etc. If it is cold out, you will want to have a neck gator or balaclava over your face which will fog up your glasses (or ski goggles). This spray works very well. Also, if you will be in a wet area, you can put RainX on your glasses to allow the water to run off.

If you layer just right for our hike, you may want to add an extra layer in your pack. When you stop to set up camp and fix dinner, you will cool down significantly, so you want that extra warmth. I suggest building a fire first thing, before you cool down. You can put your pack close to the fire or hang a clothes line nearby and put your extra layer on your pack or line. When you begin to cool down and need that extra layer, it will be nice and warm.

If you haven’t read some of my previous posts, you may learn a cool idea for space blankets. If you place a space blanket on the ground and stake it down, between the fire and your shelter, the heat will reflect into the shelter to warm it up. You can also place your pack on the edge of the space blanket nearest the shelter and the fire will keep your pack warm.

When hiking, the general rule is to take your first break after 30 minutes of hiking, then every 50 minutes after that. But in winter, it is crucial that you keep sweating to a minimum. If you start feeling yourself heat up or sweat, you can start by opening your layers to cool off. But I suggest taking a short break once you start feeling like you’re about ready to sweat. Sit down, get a drink, unzip your jacket, and hang out for about 5 minutes before continuing. When you feel it is starting to get too cold to leave your jacket unzipped, it’s time to keep going. Remember, too, that if there is more than one person in your party, you need to accommodate to everyone. You should take your break when the first person needs to. As soon as one of your buddies says it’s time for a break, take a break. You may feel fine, but if he is starting to sweat, it’s time to stop.

When hiking in snow, I recommend only having one bottle of water with you. You don’t really need any more than that. Yes, you burn more calories in the winter and water consumption goes up, but you really only need one bottle. Keep a Nalgene bottle in an insulator and this is your drinking water for the hike. When you need more water, you can pull out your cook pot and melt snow. Not only can you melt snow, but you can heat it up and add hot cocoa or tea! You already carry more gear in the winter than summer and that extra water only adds unnecessary weight. Not only that, but if you are on a long hike and don’t have insulators for all of your bottles, they could possibly freeze.

Speaking of freezing, you want to carry your water bottle upside down when on long hikes, especially when it’s REALLY cold out. I have an insulator that goes on the outside of my pack, but is still keep the bottle upside down. If your water starts to freeze, it will freeze on top first. If your bottle is right side up and begins to freeze, you will have an ice layer to break through. But if the bottle is upside down, the water will freeze in the bottom of the bottle. Also, another word of advice: leave the Camelback at home! You can get insulators for the bladder and hose and keep the water warm, but it’s more work than needed and a bottle works just as well. If you use a Camelback, you have to blow that water that’s in the hose, back into the bladder to keep it from freezing and even then, the bite piece can freeze.

These are just a few tips to start off the winter. There will be plenty more during the season along with specifics on hiking, packing a gear sled, building a gear sled, skiing, snowshoes, and more. I hope you are ready for your first winter hike and if you are a seasoned hiker, I hope you can take something away from this post. Please comment any questions or suggestions.

High Trestle Trail pt. 2

Riding the High Trestle Trail was my first actual self-contained, overnight bike trip. Therefore, I learned quite a bit in regards to bicycling. But this is also the first trip where nothing went wrong and I still learned a lot. Anything from simple camping hacks, to improvements on setup techniques. Most of these are fairly simple, so I won't put much time into them and others may be a little longer. 

1. When camping with a tent or hammock, it's quite common to get dew on your shelter. When we were out on this trip, I only got dew on my rain tarp and ground cloth. My biggest concern with packing up wet gear in the morning is mold, especially if riding the whole next day in the sun. 

Oftentimes, when riding in the sun, that moisture will evaporate and condensate on inside of the stuff sack. A great trick I learned is to simply turn your stuff sack inside out before packing the wet tent or tarp. As you ride or hike and the moisture gathers on the inside of the bag, turn it right side out again and let it finish drying. It's an easy way to dry out your gear if you will be out for a couple more days. 

2. Another thing I learned was in regards to my ENO hammock. You can set the hammock up in many different ways. On this trip, I had my bug net on, as well as my Housefly. When you have all these on, you begin to have a lot tied to the trees. Something I found out is that, if you put the fly low enough to reach the ground and tighten it, it will push on the straps of the hammock and they will also tighten. If you put a tarp on, don't tighten the ridge line too tight or it will mess with tension of your hammock. 

3. The ENO Housefly has lines that come from each corner to stake it down. These lines connect to the tarp with a plastic piece that allows you to tighten to rope. I like to tie a figure 8 and put it over the stake, then tighten as far as it will go. Unfortunately, no matter how tight you get it, the tarp will still be several inches off the ground. Fortunately, though, there are loops that the plastic pieces connect to, so that an even tension can be obtained. You can use these loops to stake the corners directly to the ground. 

There are some downsides to this technique though. When you are used to setting up, using the lines on the tarp, you can figure out the tension needed on the ridgeline. If you use this method, you have to adjust the tension because staking the corners directly to the ground will tighten up the sides. 

If you use this method, also consider hanging your hammock a little lower. When I was in my hammock and had the corners of the tarp directly staked to the ground, I noticed that the tarp would rub again the hammock. It's not that big of a deal, but in the middle of the night when it gets humid, it makes you much warmer. 

3. When in the hammock, I noticed that if you lay in line with it, the sides tend to fold in on you. This isn't bad in winter because it holds in almost all of your body heat. But when it's warm and you want a good breeze, lay at an angle with your feet almost hanging off one side and head right on the edge of the other. This opens the hammock and allows air to breeze by. 

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5. The camp area we stayed at did not have showers, so we had to use a shower bag. This is not big deal and we found these are really easy to use. We used a 5 gallon one and found that we didn't even use half of it, so if you are considering getting one, remember that you probably won't need a huge one. However, if you get a cheap bag, the hose is really weak. When I got one, the hose came kinked and the one we used on this trip kinked at the connection point on the bag. It's a thin hose so it kinks easily, which made it difficult to get water flow. If you get one, consider getting a thicker hose to put on it. 

The one we used had a valve at the bag. This made it a little inconvenient, having to reach out to turn it off. When you get one, get a push-pull valve at the nozzle. 

6. Our campsite was in a fairly open area, so we had to make a shelter for our showers. We found that the ENO Housefly works great. We set it up high enough to stand, but to also conceal the "stuff". We hung the shower bag next to the fly using a climbing carabiner and an ENO Atlas Strap (which worked amazingly well). We pulled the hose into the fly and there you have it, a shower! However, if you get the shower bag and a new hose for it, get a hose a little longer than the one that came with it. It would have been nice to have a longer hose to stretch farther into the tarp. 

7. One thing I learned on this trip was actually from my buddy I went with. I have been using a lightweight tarp from Wal Mart for a ground cloth (which is ideal for a floor when using a hammock). However, if you are looking for a ground cloth for a tent, you can use Tyvek. I would have never thought of using a Tyvek sheet, but it is lightweight and folds up fairly small. If you just need a ground cloth for a tent, that's a good option. 

8. Bug spray is good to have!

9. My buddy got a Eureka Apex tent which he brought along. This is an awesome 2 person tent that I have considered getting. However, it does have one flaw. It has medium-sized vestibules and the idea was to open them up and the window on the door to get some ventilation. The whole tent seems to be a screen except for the door and it doesn't even have a window to unzip so you can't really get optimal ventilation. You can angle the tent right and use the vestibule as a sail to guide the air in, but you still won't have a window on the door. Something to consider. 

10. This trip was the first one I took that I relied solely on my solar charger to charge my phone. It worked great and charged it quite quickly. Unfortunately, it was overcasted on the trip back. My solar charger battery will charge when it's cloudy, but charges optimally in direct sunlight. 

Something I did not know is that if you are trying to charge your phone with strictly the solar panel, it won't charge when it's cloudy. We were hitting clouds, then sun, continuously. In direct sunlight, my phone would charge, but when it clouded over, it would quit charging. I came to the conclusion that my phone died faster doing that than if I just unplugged it. If you need to charge your phone and it's cloudy, put the solar charger in the sun and let the internal battery charge up first. Then you can charge your phone off the charger battery. 

11. Make sure to have the right pump/adaptor for the type of valve you have on your bike tire.  

12. Remember the external speakers for your iPod! 

13. Something I learned on the trip really helped, but seems a little mundane. If you are using your hammock as a chair and have the bug net on you can throw your sleeping bag and pillow under your hammock, but keep it in the but net. This will make it more comfortable to sit and also keeps the bugs out of your sleeping bag. 

If the bugs are bad, but you still want to sit in your hammock and talk to the  other person, you can stick your head out of the net and use the two zipper to seal off the net around your neck so bugs don't get in, but can still converse with the other person. 

14. When I initially packed for the trip, I threw my sandals in the bag. Before we started out, I decided to just wear the biking sandals and leave my regular sandals behind. Unfortunately, our camping site was mostly mud with some grass patches. When you wear biking shoes with cleats, mud will pack tightly into the cleats and make it hard to clip in when riding. So you have to spend 20-30 minutes digging the mud out. 

To solve this, you can do what I did and walk barefoot in the mud (but have to clean your feet before bed). Or... You can simply bring the sandals. There are also shoe covers for biking shoes. If you don't want to carry an extra pair of shoes, you can get these rubber shoe covers that keep the mud out. If you go on any trip (biking or hiking) I recommend just taking a pair of lightweight sandals. 

15. Speaking of mud... There are many brands and styles of backpacking chairs out there. I personally have an Alite Monarch chair which only has two legs with plastic balls on the ends. If you are going to be in a muddy area like we were, I recommend something like this. My buddy brought his Big Agnes Helinox which has poles for legs and dug into the mud. If you have something like this, you may want to get some kind of cap to put on the ends. 

16. There are many ways for tying off a ridge line for your bug net or tarp. I have seen many different knots for tying your line to the tree, but while on this trip, I found an easy way to tie it. 

It's similar to a slipknot, but instead of it being a simple overhand knot, it's a figure eight. Let me try to describe it. When you wrap the line around the tree, take the free end and tie it to the end going to the ridgeline. Normally, when doing this, it's second nature to just tie a simple overhand knot. But instead, tie a figure eight. After tying the knot, you can tighten the line on the tree. The advantage to tying the figure eight is the ease of untying it. If you tie an overhand knot, it tightens on itself and is hard to untie. A figure eight is much easier to untie. There are many other knots out there that can be used, but I found this one to be very efficient. 

17. When hanging a bear bag, make sure to throw it over the exact spot on the branch that you want. Otherwise, it's hard to move it up the branch once it's over (depending on the bracnch). 

18. Something I learned a while ago, I applied to this trip (and every trip) but could use restating. When packing clothes, fold them into a strip, then roll them up tight. This makes it much easier to pack more clothes into small spaces of your pack. 

There is a lot to be learned on each trip and more to be learned in the future. These are some things that mad out trip easier and some of these may change depending on the type of trip. I hope this post has been a help. Comment below what you have learned you think would be a help.