Winter activities in general and especially camping just takes more stuff – planning, equipment, clothes, space, etc. A big part of these winter activities is protecting your gear and clothing from becoming wet either from sweat, water, or especially snow. Although hammocks provide a nice sleeping system and tarp systems, provide shelter for the hammock and hammocker, they do not provide the same kind of protective environment for the other gear and clothing in general.
This last weekend, we took the scouts out for some snow shelter building practice. The temperatures where nice (teens both nights) and weather conditions in general were nice with about 2 feet of snow on the ground. The hammock was comfortable, the quilts kept me warm, the tarp in winter configuration stopped the wind and snow, so the sleeping part was great.
As anyone who has dug quinzees, snow caves, and built igloos knows, by the time you are done, you are soaked head to toe, so there is a lot of wet (soon to be frozen) gear to deal with.
I found myself really missing the floor space of the tent. Being able to spread out wet clothes, break out boot liners, etc. in a protected area out of the snow. I ended up having to use my bag as a shelf to keep things out of the snow, so they would not freeze into a ball and be unusable later. That made it a real pain to access the rest of by gear and not get snow into the bag.
How are other winter hangers handling their gear and keeping it out of the snow?
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