Winter Camping at Night

Using a bivouac sack (also known as a bivy sack) with your sleeping bag will increase your comfort while sleeping. Since you will lose much heat to the ground, it is very important to use a sleeping pad, perhaps even two. This will insulate you from the ground and keep you warm.

If you have a mummy sleeping bag make sure you close it up so your eyes, mouth, and nose are exposed. Breathing into your sleeping bag, will wet it and decrease its ability to keep you warm. If you have another style of sleeping bag, sleep with a hat on.

Don’t close up your tent completely. You may worry about losing heat however a closed tent will allow condensation to form on the tent walls. This will lead to possibly wet clothese, sleeping bag, and gear.

Bottles of warm water are useful in a couple different contexts. By putting a warmed bottle in the bottom of your sleeping bag, it will help keep your feet warm while you are sleeping.

Also, placing a warm water bottle in your boots will help prevent them from freezing during the night. Another tip it to place your boots in a gear or stuff sack as opposed to laying on your tent floor.

Making Water From Snow

Drinking water is crucial to preventing hypothermia during your winter camping trips. What follows are some tips to help you stay properly hydrated in the winter.

Although lakes may be frozen solid, a stream or spring might still be flowing. Since low temperatures don’t kill all possible parasites, the water still needs to be boiled or filtered.

However, melting snow to water form takes time and energy, make sure you fill all your water bottles whenever you are near a running supply.

You can melt the snow over a fire or your stove. Once this gets going, start by warming some existing water in your pan. Then slowly add snow and wait til that warms up and melts. Then repeat until you have enough water. If you only start off with snow and no existing water, you will probably end up with scorched burnt water.

Also instead of putting ground snow directly into the pan, you can scoop some into garbage bags and then set them in the snow. This will result in melted water or at the worst snow that will melt very quickly when heated.