General tips to stay warm?

[LuvmyBonnet]

For cold nights I use a nalgene bottle filled with hot water in a sock and keep that between your legs. Helps warm the femoral artery. I also eat a couple of chunks of coconut oil.

[mistone]

The only thing that bothers me in the cold is my feet depends how cold it gets! and if i have to get up at night and pee! I use a bottle done it many times on cold night's Better than getting out of the hammock i think.

[aka.cyberman]

I would say easy on the alcohol. A little physical activity to get your insides warming up. Then wear every stitch of dry clothes you have to help keep you warm. For multiple days, proper nutrition help too.

[ken_c]

A relief bottle... may make the idea of hydrating before bed a little easier to put into practice. I've got plenty of reflextex to make a pad for my footbox. So there's two cheap possible solutions.

[WanderingBob]

Hot water bottle, or a hot rock wrapped in clothing or a towel have both worked well for me. Going to bed warm and hydrated with something in the ole stomach to generate more heat help as well. I also find it helpful to do your best to prevent getting cold in the first place. Add extra layers preemptively and sit closer to the fire (or just make a bigger fire).

[waredbear]

I see several people mention a hot water bottle between your legs for warmth. To me that would be uncomfortable and keep me awake. I don't see any mention of hand/body warmers. That to me would be a perfect solution. I know this wouldn't work for a long term camping trip because you would have to bring to many of them and the "ounce" counters wouldn't like that. Where as the water and the bottle will be reused. Thing is I have some old hand warmers that are reusable. You boil them to make them liquid again. Any reason that I'm not aware of why you don't use the hand/body warmers?

[WalksIn2Trees]

There's mention in other postings regarding hand/foot warmers... The gist was: use hand warmers but NOT footwarmers... Foot warmers got too warm... Doesn't hurt to try it out yourself though. Granted, you can reuse a bottle, and melt snow for more water, but there's no hand warmer trees out in the woods as far as I know

[questionmike]

I just returned from an overnight backpacking trip near the rim of sycamore canyon in Arizona. The overnight low was 28*F. I was with a group and we stayed up late and I was nodding off and trying to keep myself awake. Eventually I staggered over to my hammock to sleep. I brought along three underquilts, mostly for demo purposes, and to test the lower limits of these quilts. I had my full-length IX underquilt, a DIY PLUQ, and my new crowsnest from stormcrow. I started with the IX, which lasted about 10 minutes. It was down in the low 30s at that point. I decided to jump right to the crowsnest as I've spent cold nights in a hammock before and I didn't want to mess with it out in the field. I was surprised at how cold I was so I pulled all three UQ and an insert to my burrow top quilt and I slowly started heating up.

This is odd for me because I've taken just the burrow and crowsnest down to 15*F before. It got me thinking about other tips on staying warm. I think what happened in my case was that my body was slowing down for the night and not producing as much heat. I wondered if I had gone to bed when I was more active I would have been okay.

I know exercising a little before getting into bed has been suggested, along with eating something so your body has something to burn. I don't think 28*F is all that cold for the gear I brought--I don't fault them. I'm more curious about the situation I put myself in if that contributed to the chill.

What other tips are out there to get your body prepped for cold weather sleeping? I'm not talking about additions like hot water bottles; but rather how to best prep your body before hitting the sack. I think I wore my body down that night, which led to a difficult night.

Seems to me that all you can really do is perform some light exercise and eat a high calorie food (warmed up if possible). I know you said not to talk about additions however i feel i should mention (due to my experiences as a novice) that having something on your head is one of the most important tricks to keeping you warm.