Aborted an AT thru hike this year, but I was able to get enough time on the trail Georgia to experience the full might of early Spring conditions down there (Wet, wet, and more wet).
This quickly exposed some problems that I haven't had to deal with before, and now I'm looking on the brightside of being forced off the trail: maybe I can solve these issues before going back out.
I can set up and take down my hammock in pouring rain without too much struggle; one night of rain is not a problem. The problems arose when wet conditions persisted for days on end, without any opportunity for a reset dry in the field.
The first issue I had was after it rained, when a dense, wet fog came in and lingered for upwards of twelve hours. When I woke up in the morning, everything underneath my tarp was wet, including my top quilt and the hammock itself. I wiped down my sleeping bag as best I could, but there was nothing I could do about my hammock, which was just damp. I had to pack up my hammock and quilt, and the next night was miserable because everything was still wet.
The next issue was my tarp itself. The first night of rain, it does its job; the top of the tarp gets wet, and the underside stays dry. The problem is, I have to pack up the tarp in the morning, and all that wetness seeps around when it gets packed up, completely covering the tarp. At the end of the second day when I pitch it, it's wet underneath as well as on top. I tried wiping down the underside, but it's impossible to get it completely dry. Consequently, the second night, because it was still raining, my hammock and top quilt (and my face) were getting misted on all night long, when rain hit the tarp and knocked off some of the wetness on the underside of the tarp. And I woke up the second day with a damp hammock and top quilt.
Third issue: Underquilt protector. Same general issue as the tarp: it works perfectly for the first night of rain. After the first night, it is wet on the outside, dry on the inside. But trying to dry off the outside "in the field," while it is still raining is futile, and in the process of packing it and carrying it to the next site, the inside gets wet, too. Then, the next night, I'm putting a wet underquilt protector on a dry underquilt, which defeats the point of the underquilt protector.
These are obviously general problems with managing the rain, but in my case I'm specifically looking for advice on managing consecutive days of nonstop rain, with no opportunities to dry out gear. I'm guessing there is not much to be done about being stuck in fog for twelve hours, but I was hoping for some advice on mitigating the problems I had with the tarp and the underquilt protector getting too wet and and spreading that wetness to things that must stay dry.
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