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So I'm sure most of you know and practice wearing your clothing in layers to help stay warm. One of the ideas of this is that as you warm up from exercise, you add or remove clothing to keep your body at a comfortable temprature. I have been trying to do this for many years of outdoor activity with mixed success. Here are some rambling thoughts.
An adage I usually forget (because I've been cold for and extend time and didn't like it) is if you are going to do exercise, dress for a temprature of 20f warmer than it actually is.
The though behind this is if you dress for a warmer temp you won't sweat as much, and thus won't have to stop to adjust the layers as often. This sometimes works for me, but I find that I can only take off so many clothes and still be legal, or I don't have enough discipline to stop before I get all sweaty and adjust the layers.
So what my solution has been is to dress a lighltly as possible. For example for Elk Hunting last week with temps in the high 30s in the morning and high 50s in the afternoon, I wore a lighweight Merino wool sweater, light weight Merino wool long underwear(Iwould take them off about 9am) & lightweight wool pants. I carried a 15lbs backpack, rifle & shooting sticks. I covered anywhere from 3 to 5 miles with lots of vertical elevation changes. So I sweated like a pig.
I have faced the fact that my baselayer wool sweater is going to be wet when I'm walking. I have 2 extras in the pack that if I was going to stop for more that a few minutes I would take one out and put on and take off before moving on. I always having at least one dry baselayer in the pack.
So while I use the layer system i have never come up with a combination of clothing that will keep me totally dry & warm while out doing this kind of stuff. I've have and have tried all of the synthetics and have the same results. But I find I like the merino wool much better. I can wear the sweater all day have it be completly soaking wet with sweat, ring it out & hang it up to dry & it won't STINK the next morning. BTW if you check your local thrift stores you cn often find Merino wool sweaters cheap, like $4 vx $90 new at the backpacking store.
So while I use the layering method my experience is that I'm going to have a wet layer that I need to deal with or I just not disciplined enough to use it properlly.
An adage I usually forget (because I've been cold for and extend time and didn't like it) is if you are going to do exercise, dress for a temprature of 20f warmer than it actually is.
The though behind this is if you dress for a warmer temp you won't sweat as much, and thus won't have to stop to adjust the layers as often. This sometimes works for me, but I find that I can only take off so many clothes and still be legal, or I don't have enough discipline to stop before I get all sweaty and adjust the layers.
So what my solution has been is to dress a lighltly as possible. For example for Elk Hunting last week with temps in the high 30s in the morning and high 50s in the afternoon, I wore a lighweight Merino wool sweater, light weight Merino wool long underwear(Iwould take them off about 9am) & lightweight wool pants. I carried a 15lbs backpack, rifle & shooting sticks. I covered anywhere from 3 to 5 miles with lots of vertical elevation changes. So I sweated like a pig.
I have faced the fact that my baselayer wool sweater is going to be wet when I'm walking. I have 2 extras in the pack that if I was going to stop for more that a few minutes I would take one out and put on and take off before moving on. I always having at least one dry baselayer in the pack.
So while I use the layer system i have never come up with a combination of clothing that will keep me totally dry & warm while out doing this kind of stuff. I've have and have tried all of the synthetics and have the same results. But I find I like the merino wool much better. I can wear the sweater all day have it be completly soaking wet with sweat, ring it out & hang it up to dry & it won't STINK the next morning. BTW if you check your local thrift stores you cn often find Merino wool sweaters cheap, like $4 vx $90 new at the backpacking store.
So while I use the layering method my experience is that I'm going to have a wet layer that I need to deal with or I just not disciplined enough to use it properlly.
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