Hey gang,
I thought I would give an update on our cool weather camp trip. I had posted a while back asking for advice/thoughts on how to stay warm in a tent when the outside temps drop. I received some really good feedback. Some of the advice/ideas we made sure we did....and some of them we brought...and didn't use or need to use.
But...after all of that....we had a change of plans and instead of a romantic getaway for two to a primitive, no electric site...we ended up with my son and his friend coming along. So I ended up getting a site at Turkey Run State Park (it's a great state park)...but with electric. Not many tenters at the campground...12 out of perhaps 100 campers.
Ultimately, my wife and I slept in the cold weather Cloud Peak 4 (without heat) and my son and friend slept in the draftier Slumberjack (but using an electric ceramic heater). After all the cold weather camping prep...my wife and I were determined to not resort to a heater (although I will admit Plan B was to retreat to the heated tent if she got cold). lol. Our low's got around 40 at night/morning.
Some thoughts:
The Thermarest LuxMap's sleeping pads were excellent. No cold from the ground, comfortable. We had a wool blanket on the tent floor, then the pad, then our 20 degree bags. Brought the fleece bag liners...didn't use them. We did change clothing for sleep, wore wool socks and a cap. We also ate, took a good walk, and hit the "comfort station" prior to calling it a night. That was it. Plenty warm at night. No complaints about being cold.
While doing better....I still brought too much "stuff". Food mainly. We never eat as much as I bring. And bringing two preteen boys really took our pre-planned menu for 2 adults into chaos.
I really need to get a different pillow....or get used to my arm. My wife got a new Thermarest compressible pillow for the trip. I decided to be cheap/thrifty/value oriented and not spend $16 on myself and instead use our current Coleman pillows (we've had them for a couple of years). Big mistake. As I was packing, I noticed how flat the Coleman pillows were (just like she said). No problem...I'll just take two of them for me. Well....let's just say I found out, throughout the night, that two of these together have a tendency to slide apart. Leaving me constantly laying on one or the other...and waking up...searching for the other one trying to stack them back up. My wife refused to "let me try" her pillow for one night during the trip. I don't blame her...she looked really cozy each time I glanced over her way while I was searching for one of my slippery pillows.
I tried to play around with and use the Kelty Noah 12 tarp as an additional vestibule/covered space out in front of the two tents....and also cover the picnic table. Just not quite big enough and still have protected walking space. But the extra 4 feet in a Noah 16 would make it very doable. We only got a sprinkle very early am so we didn't need the rain protection. I did angle the Noah into some steady 15mph winds. It held steady and gave us some wind break (we were out in the open). I did have it tied down/guyed out securely. Gonna keep playing with tarp set-ups.
One of my projects will be to replace the guylines on the tarp. Let's just say they are hard to see at night.
All in all it was a very successful venture into the "cold". We are already planning our next one and hope to get it in before Thanksgiving. Thanks to all of you that offered your advice and thoughts on cold weather prepping/equipment/techniques. Experience is valuable. Sharing your experience was greatly appreciated.
Few pics of the campsite:
I thought I would give an update on our cool weather camp trip. I had posted a while back asking for advice/thoughts on how to stay warm in a tent when the outside temps drop. I received some really good feedback. Some of the advice/ideas we made sure we did....and some of them we brought...and didn't use or need to use.
But...after all of that....we had a change of plans and instead of a romantic getaway for two to a primitive, no electric site...we ended up with my son and his friend coming along. So I ended up getting a site at Turkey Run State Park (it's a great state park)...but with electric. Not many tenters at the campground...12 out of perhaps 100 campers.
Ultimately, my wife and I slept in the cold weather Cloud Peak 4 (without heat) and my son and friend slept in the draftier Slumberjack (but using an electric ceramic heater). After all the cold weather camping prep...my wife and I were determined to not resort to a heater (although I will admit Plan B was to retreat to the heated tent if she got cold). lol. Our low's got around 40 at night/morning.
Some thoughts:
The Thermarest LuxMap's sleeping pads were excellent. No cold from the ground, comfortable. We had a wool blanket on the tent floor, then the pad, then our 20 degree bags. Brought the fleece bag liners...didn't use them. We did change clothing for sleep, wore wool socks and a cap. We also ate, took a good walk, and hit the "comfort station" prior to calling it a night. That was it. Plenty warm at night. No complaints about being cold.
While doing better....I still brought too much "stuff". Food mainly. We never eat as much as I bring. And bringing two preteen boys really took our pre-planned menu for 2 adults into chaos.
I really need to get a different pillow....or get used to my arm. My wife got a new Thermarest compressible pillow for the trip. I decided to be cheap/thrifty/value oriented and not spend $16 on myself and instead use our current Coleman pillows (we've had them for a couple of years). Big mistake. As I was packing, I noticed how flat the Coleman pillows were (just like she said). No problem...I'll just take two of them for me. Well....let's just say I found out, throughout the night, that two of these together have a tendency to slide apart. Leaving me constantly laying on one or the other...and waking up...searching for the other one trying to stack them back up. My wife refused to "let me try" her pillow for one night during the trip. I don't blame her...she looked really cozy each time I glanced over her way while I was searching for one of my slippery pillows.
I tried to play around with and use the Kelty Noah 12 tarp as an additional vestibule/covered space out in front of the two tents....and also cover the picnic table. Just not quite big enough and still have protected walking space. But the extra 4 feet in a Noah 16 would make it very doable. We only got a sprinkle very early am so we didn't need the rain protection. I did angle the Noah into some steady 15mph winds. It held steady and gave us some wind break (we were out in the open). I did have it tied down/guyed out securely. Gonna keep playing with tarp set-ups.
One of my projects will be to replace the guylines on the tarp. Let's just say they are hard to see at night.
All in all it was a very successful venture into the "cold". We are already planning our next one and hope to get it in before Thanksgiving. Thanks to all of you that offered your advice and thoughts on cold weather prepping/equipment/techniques. Experience is valuable. Sharing your experience was greatly appreciated.
Few pics of the campsite:
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