Using A Hot Water Bottle To Stay Warm

[jlb2012]

Do you empty the pot afterwards??

no - its there for the next person in the group to use - in the morning it may mean warming the pot up a little to get the ice out however assuming one is packing up in the morning

[slowhike]

Of those that posted that their Platys leaked, what type were they?

(A side note: It's snowing in Covington!)

I can't find mine right now, but it was one of the smaller ones. I think it had a drinking tube on it.
Of course the tube could have been part of the problem. I've seen more than one type leak were the tube comes out of the bag.

[Preacha Man]

My friends Wal-Mart bag leaks all the time, but my new 2L evernew from Antigravity gear has not leaked yet.

Dwight

[Mule]

If you would put about 25% vodka or Scotch in the water bottle then it wouldn't freeze either. Hum......

[BillyBob58]

When I have been cold, that's when I have to get up to pee a lot. My coldest night ever was a night where I also had to get up and pee 3 or 4 times. And I was only about 35 yrs. old then. Don't know if it was coincidence or being cold and having to go are physiologically related.

I just found this in my gallery. Here is the morning after, June 27, 1985, the morning after the "night of much peeing"! No, we don't have large breasts, we are drying wet insulation! That's me, a much younger man, on the right, after nearly a month deep in the wilds. I still have that balaclaca, one of my favorites. The second picture is of me getting into camp near sundown, after hiking all day in this storm. Little did I know how long that night was going to be, and how much I would be up peeing!

[jaiden]

I use a 16oz naglene and put both my socks over it to dry them out for the next day and insulate it. It doesn't stay as warm as a 32oz would, but it helps a lot, and my socks fit over it. And in the morning, I know for sure I will have some unfrozen water.

Also, the need to urinate in the cold is one of the body's first reactions to being cold and an attempt to fend off mild hypothermia.

[Roadtorque]

I use a 16oz naglene and put both my socks over it to dry them out for the next day and insulate it. It doesn't stay as warm as a 32oz would, but it helps a lot, and my socks fit over it. And in the morning, I know for sure I will have some unfrozen water.

Also, the need to urinate in the cold is one of the body's first reactions to being cold and an attempt to fend off mild hypothermia.

or in my case it shows a failure in limiting the amount of hot chocolate I drank before bed

[Mule]

All three of us who camped out last night at 5 degrees used hot water bottles. Yeah!!

[kayak karl]

let me throw a wrench into this. it is a fact that hot water freezes quicker because the molecules are farther apart and in a better position to create ice. (water is the only substance that expands when frozen). the hot water pipe in the crawl space freezes first
has anyone found this a problem on the trails?

"The fact that hot water freezes faster than cold has been known for many centuries. The earliest reference to this phenomenon dates back to Aristotle in 300 B.C. The phenomenon was later discussed in the medieval era, as European physicists struggled to come up with a theory of heat. But by the 20th century the phenomenon was only known as common folklore, until it was reintroduced to the scientific community in 1969 by Mpemba, a Tanzanian high school student. Since then, numerous experiments have confirmed the existence of the "Mpemba effect", but have not settled on any single explanation."
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physic...hot_water.html

[Preacha Man]

Since the hot water bottles are kept inside a sleeping bag or quilt with you, there is very little chance that the water in the bottle would freeze. You would more than likely be dead first. My bottle stayed warm all night long, and was slightly above body temperature by morning.