Today, we will share our tips and tricks from our personal experiences on how you can sleep comfortably and stay warm in a tent, hammock, or any shelter you will remain in extreme freezing conditions, probably below freezing point.
Some of the readers may have already planned their winter trip, and it is on the calendar, and you are freaking out about it. You are like, how in the world am I going to stay warm in the temperatures below freezing point. So keep reading the article to get some valuable and easy-to-implement tips and techniques. We will help you out with this.
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10 Best Tips and Tricks To Stay Warm in a Tent
The two things to consider when you are planning to go out in the insane world for winter camping, backpack camping, or cold weather camping are the shelter and sleeping system inside the tent.
You shelter the only place that will help you stay and keep yourself warm with all the other additional items and tips you apply for keeping the tent warm in cold weather conditions.
Pick the right Tent for yourself
As there are many different kinds of tents, picking the right tent type is crucial. Pick the tent you are comfortable with when residing in during the warmer months because you don’t want to switch up your entire tent set up when dealing with cold weather and then have to worry about being just uncomfortable on top of it. Because being warm in the winter season does not mean you will be comfortable in the cold weather season.
Pick the tent that not only keeps you warm in serve cold weather but also makes you comfortable managing the tent and all other stuff and things.
Underneath Insulation To Stay Warm
One thing that most people forget is the insulation underneath them. It is very important to have something that gots a lot of insulating value underneath you. It’s typically called the R-value. The higher the R-value, the warmer the insulation values that the sleeping pad or whatever you got underneath you. It’s very important because the ground can suck that warmth right out of you.
So make sure to make your camping tent insulated from the elements of weather like rainwater and cold breeze in order to avoid any inconvenience.
Sleeping Bags
Another essential item is your sleeping bag. Always bring a temperature-rated sleeping bag or quilt at least 20 degrees below what the weather says as it will be lower temperature, especially in the colder seasons. One of the worst scenarios that can happen is that you get out into the backcountry and realize that the forecast was wrong, 10 degrees colder than what is said to be.
And if you know anything about comfort ratings on sleeping bags or quilts mentioned on the tags by the manufacturer brands is not the actual rating that you will be comfortable at. So make sure to have a sleeping bag with a rating that makes you feel comfortable in the colder season.
Have a meal To Keep Your Body Warm
Now it’s time to go to sleep, and you are ready to jump into your bed. Here are a couple of quick tips to tell you to do before going to your bed. The first is to eat a meal; it’s always good to have something in your stomach working all night long, keep that core temperature moving.
The other thing is that pee before you get comfortable inside your tent. The worst thing in the world was it like three-four clock in the morning when you got to relieve yourself because you are letting all that heat out that built up all night long not easy, so make you your have done pee before getting yourself into the bed.
Warm Yourself Just Before Getting Into Bed
You might want to save a camp chore until right before bed or do a couple of jumping jacks before you get into your tent, you know, work up some heat warmth before you jump in there.
But make sure you don’t get wet; in other words, don’t get sweaty. There is nothing worse than getting in your tent when you have sweat on your body, or your clothes are wet, and you freeze all night long.
Hand Warmers To Stay Warm
Get some hand warmers along with you also. Make sure they are long-lasting hand warmers that can last for more than eight hours. You don’t want to have these things not working in the middle of the night, and all of a sudden, that radiant heat does not work.
Don’t just use these hand warmers for your hands. Put them on your legs, on your body inside the sleeping bags and clothes to get radiant heat all night long. This will help you greatly in staying warm and sleeping comfortably.
Properly Insulating Your Body
Make sure that you are evenly insulating your body. Often, we tend to wear those really big puffy jackets, and maybe we neglect our legs and feet. What you want to do is to have that upper body works for the rest of your body, so sometimes you might feel colder in the middle of the night.
What you can do is unzip a little your jacket and let that radiant heat out to make its way down to your legs and feet and make your lower body warm as well.
Wear Warm Clothes
The best way to keep yourself warm during winter camping is to wear clothes that keep you warm inside and not allow the breeze winds to pass through them. Wearing warm clothes does not necessarily mean wearing heavy bomber jackets or stuff like that. Many warm clothes are lighter in weight, but their stuff is of very high-quality material that keeps you warm in a real sense.
One of the best things to wear is a Polartec fleece jacket. It is a lightweight, highly durable jacket with a waterproof rating of 10,000 mm and windproof with 99% wind blockage.
Additionally, you can wear some merino wool buff underneath the jacket to have an additional layer of protection and put the upper part of the buff to cover the face to have some warmth built up.
You can also put a down beanie with 650 fill power goose down for maximum heat retention built up on your head and keep your body warm down. On the bottom, you can wear your hiking pants, and underneath, you can wear long john by mountain Hardwear to keep your bottom part warm and block any cold getting inside the clothes, along with some big woolly socks to keep the feet warmer.
Portable Tent Heater
Another thing you can do to keep yourself warm inside a tent by using a portable gas-powered heater before you get into your tent and turn it off after warming the tent and leaving them outside the tent.
Please don’t use a heater when you are in bed; you might leave the heater on without turning the heater off because you may fall asleep due to the warmth surrounding you. This is because the byproducts produced by burning LPG may put you to sleep forever.
You can also choose an electric heater over a gas heater if you have a power supply available at your campsite or otherwise arrange. Electric heaters are safer than gas heaters as they don’t release poisonous carbon monoxide gas.
Use Hot Water Bottle
The next thing to stay warm in a tent inside the sleeping bag or pad, whatever you are using, is to use a water bottle. Bring a couple of good-quality water bottles made up of high-quality stainless steel insulated bottles.
Fill up these bottles with warm water before you go to bed and put them inside the sleeping bag, maybe 10 minutes before getting inside the bag to preheat it. You may even lay down the bottles nearby your feet to make them warm.
Conclusion
Last but not least, don’t get to be comfortable. By being comfortable, we often mean warmth, and by warmth, we mean comfort. But that is not necessarily true. One can be nice and warm in the fall but not comfortable. So if you like to bring two pillows in summertime or fall months, bring two pillows in the winter but don’t neglect your comfort.
