This past weekend myself and a buddy(groundling )got out for some cold weather testing. I live beside a tidal river surrounded by woods so it made sence to stay close to home for our first time with winter weather, so we set up next to the river in my homemade campground. I had lots of new gear to try out on this outing in hopes it will keep me warm for future trips. The first piece of untested gear was my diy "warbird" made from plans found here at HF. The secound piece was a new Golite 40 deg 1+ season ultralite down quilt that I picked up during the 40% off sale. The third piece was a 2/3 under quilt I made awile back from salvaged down and some ripstop I had left over from other stuff, this is nothing special but It worked awesome. The under quilt has sewn thru baffels and weights under 2 pounds with a simple 1/8 bungee suspension. The last new piece of gear that I made was a door(more of a wing) that fits on my maccat standard. I wanted something to help block wind from coming in the end of my tarp and depending which way it is coming I am able to move it to that corner.
The night was going to have a low of 23 deg so I set up with basic gear that I could carry backpacking but had extra gear on hand in my pulk sled if it was needed. We stayed around the fire until about midnight and after boiling up our hot water bottles we hit the hay. I was wearing polar long underwear, a pair of hiking pants and one pair of standard hiking socks with a light fleece top and my light lands end down jacket.I had a fleece hat and my buff on my head and my wristes and mitts on hand if needed. all of this gear that I had on is stuff that is taken with me on all my trips so it was a test of my cold limits. My hammock setup is the double layer DIY warbid with 1/4 pad between the layers and my underquilt under me. On top was my new golite quilt and I didn't no what to expect from a 40 deg bag in 23 deg weather but I had high hopes. I used two hot water bottles,one 16oz at my feet and a 32oz in between my legs and these babies do wounders for comfort in the hammock. On hand I had another summer syn. quilt and another larger down jacket for that just in case moment but thankfully they were never needed as the golite quilt, 1/4" pad and my diy under quilt was all I needed for the hole night and we hit the low of 23 deg. I slept warm all night, hot water stayed warm and I didn't need to add any extra layers. All of the gear that got me thru the night will fit into my Golite Peak backpack which is small so I am very pleased with the out come.My buddy stayed warn to but he had to sleep on the ground
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