7 mistakes EVERY new camper makes in COLD WEATHER🥶

what's going on everybody dan becker here thanks for coming back to my channel we're in the third season of the year fall like you didn't know that already but it's colder this time of year so in this video i've got seven seven cold weather tips for you guys especially if you are the new camper backpacker or hiker although speaking of cold i'm actually a little chilly i think we should really quickly uh go sit by the fire because it's cold weather tips what do you think i like that idea let's go do that [Music] that's better welcome to fireside transfer it's dan becker this might not have been a good idea so as a new camper cold weather you're gonna make a lot of mistakes the first mistake that you're probably gonna make is sweating when it's cold outside now that's very easy to do it actually sounds like it's not easy to do but it is especially when you get to camp uh you're working hard to get camp set up you're working hard to get a fire started maybe you hiked to get to camp if you're a hiker or a backpacker so you worked up a big sweat there but when it drops in temperature you're going to get very cold and it can actually get dangerously cold especially in the fall time depending on where you're at and what your climate is like if it dips below freezing that's a recipe for hypothermia one of the biggest mistakes you can make is getting sweaty and how you can combat this is by just simply not working as hard or making sure that you understand when you are starting to sweat and so that way you uh maybe just stop what you're doing try to cool down a little bit i know it sounds counterproductive because it's cold out but you definitely don't want to have hypothermia in the backcountry or while you're at camp all right the second mistake that i see new campers make is that and this is going to help with the first mistake is they're not layering properly and maybe you don't know what that even means to layer properly or what layering is but what i do is i will actually wear very thin layers and layer them up into one big bulky layer for myself at camp when i get really cold or when it gets cold and i actually bring five layers in the winter time i wear a t-shirt i wear two mid layers i wear a puffy and then i also bring a hard shell like a rain jacket something that's kind of old that i can you know sit outside in front of a fire not worry about the embers hitting my nice expensive puffy jackets and and what that is going to do is it's going to help you regulate that temperature it's going to help you when you are very cold to bundle up nice and thick or if you are hiking or moving around at camp getting things done you can take off a bunch of layers and you can you can take off a bunch of layers and you can uh you know cool down and hopefully release some of that moisture and not have so much uh sweat and smoke i gotta move i gotta move is that better yep i am definitely working up a sweat okay the third mistake oh my gosh third mistake that i see so the third mistake that i see people make is believing what the temperature rating is on a sleeping bag now just as a rule of thumb never believe what the temperature rating is on a sleeping bag um there's a maybe a little known fact among most people who camp it's that there's actually a standard it's called an en rating for temperature ratings on sleeping bags and not all companies use it there's no law that says companies have to use it but good companies will use an en rating and what that does is it keeps companies honest and there's really three ratings in that en rating you're going to have a comfort rating you're going to have a transition rating and you're going to have a risk or a survival rating and what most people want is the comfort rating but what people may not know is that companies can decide which of any of those three ratings to put on the sleeping bag so you may get a sleeping bag that you bought that says that it's a 20 degree fahrenheit sleeping bag when in reality maybe that's the risk rating or maybe that is the comfort rating you really don't know until you dig deep into the website but as a rule of thumb don't believe it and every time you see a rating on a sleeping bag just go ahead and add 10 15 possibly even 20 degrees of that bag so you know how comfortable you're going to sleep at night and what you could do is you can dig into the website learn more about the manufacturer and find out is that company being honest are they using an en rating on their sleeping bags and if so what rating is the correct rating that's on the bag all of the gear that i'm showing you you can actually buy it over at backcountry.com and a really cool thing about backcountry is that you can actually go on there and talk to their gearheads who are former olympians former athletes and former trail guys and you know that if you are talking to a trail guide they have more than likely slept at cold temperatures if they've more than likely slept at cold temperatures they can more than likely help you purchase the right gear so i would jump online at backcountry ask them about the gear also jump on and talk about my coupon code dan b15 it it's going to give you 15 off 15 off not only fifteen percent but fifteen percent of the smoke coming out of this fire that's what i wish some exclusions do apply but please make sure you look in the description below because that's where you can click on the link and it'll take you directly to the back country to the back end it won't take you to the back country i wish i wish but it will take you to backcountry.com and uh hopefully it'll save you guys a couple bucks mistake number four um let's just stick with insulation and sleeping because i think that's probably where jiminy what number four the big mistake installation under you new campers don't even think about insulating underneath you when you're sleeping most people think uh especially as a new camper that if you buy a properly rated sleeping bag and uh you've got that temperature rating that's gonna you know meet the temperature that's forecasted that night that you're somehow gonna sleep warm but what people don't understand is a lot of people don't understand is that if the ground is cold which it's probably going to be cold that's gonna suck that heat right out of you and so you actually have to have an entire sleep system not just a sleeping bag but an entire sleeping system which means that you also need a properly rated sleeping pad this one just happens to be the season summit ether light this is a i want to say this is like a 6.2 r value pad now if that's totally confusing to you that's totally fine just know that that means that this is a deep winter pad i could probably lay this on snow lay on top of it and be toasty warm that's what this pad is rated for so this would be a proper pad for me to take out in cold weather to stay warm all night all right number five mistake number five that i see new campers make all the time and actually a lot of veterans i see make this mistake all the time is that they actually blow up the pad with their lungs they will breathe the moisture out of their body into the pad and the problem with that is that moisture inside of the pad is actually going to reduce the r value because it's going to create cold air inside of the pad so what you're going to want to do is either use the most pads are going to come with an included pump sack just like the ethelite does or you're gonna go out and buy yourself a pump that inflates your pad like this one and i'll put a link in the description below for this and all of the gear that i'm talking about today but what that's gonna do is it's gonna blow uh dry air inside of that pad so you're not gonna have to worry about that moisture and it's gonna help that pad to be more effective as you're sleeping at night will keep you a lot warmer all right number six mistake number six um and this is just something i learned on my own nobody told me this at all i just kind of did this through experience and woke up one day and went man i probably should have done this instead and the mistake is is that in the wintertime guys will bring something like this an inflatable pillow and while this does work and it can be comfortable and it can be warm depending on what um you're using to insulate like your head if it's got a big hood or sweatshirts or whatever you're using um but this is gonna have the same problem as a poorly rated sleeping pad and that most pillows that i'm aware of don't have insulation inside of them so they're not rated for temperatures at all there's no r value to this at all so the mistake is using an air pillow and but what you can do is use something like this just a regular pillow um and this is the therm-a-rest compressible pillow it's my favorite pill of all time it feels like a regular pillow i've talked about this many times in other other videos this is actually going to be obviously insulated because of all of the foam that's inside of this right here and uh this is for sure going to keep you a lot warmer underneath you it's not going to suck that air right out of you uh the air you have an airhead if you have air in your head you've got more problems than staying uh warm at night but use a real pillow really seriously that's gonna be a lot better so that you can stay warmer at night when you're sleeping mistake number seven that i see people making is that they forget to put their water filter inside of their uh tent at night and it freezes and then they have to throw their water filter away because it's not gonna work now if you read the directions on most water filters similar to this one and this is just a catadyne be free if this freezes at night it can crack the membrane especially if you used it the day before and it's got water still in it which is pretty likely that water is going to freeze and it's going to make this water filter absolutely useless and very dangerous to use you don't want to do that so you can keep this water filter you can keep the water filter inside of your sleeping bag you can keep it in a pocket some sleeping bags actually have built-in pockets on them where you can put things that you want to keep warm at night not even just a water filter but you can also keep battery bank in there you can keep your cell phone in there anything that you want to make last longer but this is probably the most important for you because you obviously need water filter now in the winter time if there's snow you're obviously you're not going to bring a water filter necessarily you might be boiling snow or that kind of thing but i always bring a water filter anyway just in case i can't find snow or if it's not that cold and it's fall like this there isn't going to be snow and i'm going to be filtering the water so i want to make sure that this doesn't freeze overnight that is the mistake number seven all right guys hopefully that helps you guys out if you guys have tips please put them in the comments below always helpful and yes i understand this is not a be-all end-all to uh tips this is not an all-comprehensive uh mistakes list at all let us know some of those mistakes that you guys have made in the comments below and hopefully it'll help everybody out all right we'll see you on the next one [Music]

Channel: Dan Becker

Views: 172,712

Rating: 4.8682961 out of 5

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Id: tWQa7SKzC90

Length: 10min 51sec (651 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 27 2021