Drying out layers in a tent in the winter

Drying outer clothing layers in a tent….in the winter on snow

Last update: November 18, 2024

Drying out in the tent:

Even if you start out dry, when it's snowing or raining heavily your outer layers will get wet, even soaking wet inside and out depending on how far you go and how hard you work. Carrying a winter pack requires a lot of extra energy, and generates a lot more sweat. Once the parka is covered with wet snow or rain, it does not breathe much if at all. The latest Gore-Tex will not completely solve this problem.

When you expect the skiing to be good the next day, having dry pants and parka make the difference between enjoyment and just tolerating the conditions. Although temps while it's snowing east of the Cascade crest are often near freezing and thus a setup for getting everything wet, once the front passes and it clears off, it can cool off very rapidly. This week for example, at my 3100 ft camp it was 29 degrees and snowing heavily when I arrived. During the night it cleared off and the temp dropped to a low of 17 degrees. If I were on the other side of the valley, and heading towards Jolly, the temps could easily have been in the low teens further up. Starting out before dawn with a wet and now frozen parka sucks your body heat right out. Only for the young I guess.

Here's how I dry out the outer layers: when I'm ready to get into the tent, I brush the snow off my pants with homemade snow brush, then swab off any excess water with an absorbent towel. I've tried quite a few different types, and by far the best are Kimberly Clark Wypall automotive shop towels. They are hard to find, but well worth it for summer as well as winter use. Wash them once or twice with the laundry and they become soft and even more absorbent. [These towels are still the best for the purpose.]

Then I take the parka off, shake it out quickly, briefly swab the outside to remove water droplets and then bunch it up and toss it in the tent where it will not get anything else wet. (See the addendum at the end of this article for a better way.) Then I duck into the tent, hopefully not having gotten the intermediate layer that wet in the process.

The next step is to get organized inside the tent and get the stove running. Running a stove inside the tent makes a huge difference in how much moisture you can get rid of, but it’s dangerous if you are not familiar with the process. My only advice would be that if you don't already do this, and know exactly what you are doing, don't start based on reading this material.

Once you have some heat going you can strip to your base layers and start allowing them to dry. It takes forever if they are covered with another layer of clothing. Don't put the sleeping bag out yet; It will only get wet at this point.

Now get the soaking wet parka out and swab off as much water as you can with the absorbent towel. Try not to get water all over the place, especially on the sleeping pad. Turn the parka inside out and swab the inner surface, wringing out the towel as necessary. You can easy swab off a ounces of water from the inside, an amount that would take ages to simply dry off.

Hang the parka inside out over a clothesline inside the tent. Repeat the process for the ski pants. See the pic below. The parka may still drip from the sleeves and hems, so arrange for the drippy areas to drain onto the tent floor, not your stuff. If necessary you can cover things with the pack cover or a plastic garbage bag so the water will run off.

Now it's safe to get the sleeping bag out, fluff it up, and have something to eat. Following this I usually take a nap to help rest up for the next day. It feels so good to get nice and warm in the sleeping bag too.

The next chore is to melt water for the evening and the next day, something I also do inside the tent. Running a stolve in the tent is not for everyone. Even a slight error can result with a pot of half melted ice water all over the tent floor or worse.

The outer layers are not by any means dry at this point, at best they are just thoroughly damp. As I'm melting water, a process that takes me about 45 minutes, I do a bunch of household chores, take my old person meds, brush my teeth, etc, and while I'm doing this I drape my parka over my shoulders still inside out. By the time the water is done, the inside of the once soaking wet parka is almost completely dry. If the pants are really damp on the inside, I put them on inside out too. Wearing the damp clothing is very chilling as your body heat is used up vaporizing the water, so the heat from the stove is a necessity for me.

When the pants and parka are dry on the inside, I turn them right side out, ready for the evening routine of getting out of the tent and looking at the stars, or the snow falling, or maybe just the fog. The outsides are probably still damp to wet, but not to worry.

I use a small lightweight umbrella (about 6 oz.) when it's snowing or raining. This makes standing around outside so much more pleasant. In the two hours or more evening hours I spend this way the insides of the pants and parka will finish drying if they are not bone dry already, and the outsides will dry off too, ready for the next day.

The dry pants get stored inside the sleeping bag for the night, arranged in such a way so that I can put them on inside the bag before I get up. The parka is just folded up at the back of the tent.

So that's it. I really don’t think about all these details as I'm doing them. It's just habit. By the way, this is just one piece of the puzzle, the solutions to which make year around camping enjoyable no matter what the weather.

Larry, December 2007

Here’s a little addendum from a 2010 TAY trip report:

By the way, I forgot to mention a trick Jane and I discovered a while ago. It’s one of those ‘why didn’t I think of that before' ideas. Maybe it’s common knowledge. For years I’ve used fresh snow to sop off water from things I’m putting in my tent as I set up. New snow is much better than any absorbent towel; it sucks off all the liquid water, leaving things just slightly damp.

But I had never tried it with my parka. When it’s snowing heavily around 32 degrees, parkas get covered with slushy snow, and can get soaking wet. I used to just shake the parka off, and then swab it off with an absorbent towel in the tent . Why not just flop in the new snow and make a snow angel? Toss some loose snow on the hood too. It works great. Very quick and easy, and it gets the parka far drier than my previous method. [It still works great.]

March 2010 Revised 2024

This was originally written as part of a trip report for Turns All Year in 2007. Minor revisions in brackets, 2024. What’s here applies to the weather in the Pacific Northwest. Things may be done quite differently in other winter climates.

After quite a bit of trial and error, I haven't changed what follows that much over the last 2 years, so I'm reasonably happy with it. This may all be common knowledge; — oh well.

Starting out:

Starting out dry is a big plus, but it's all too easy to get quite wet just getting out of the car and getting the gear ready to go. Here's a fairly easy solution as shown in the picture below. I originally used something like this over the driver side door of my old 2 door Honda Accord. It's a 6 x 9 foot piece of 4 mil plastic with a cord through a pocket along one edge. The cord has little hooks that catch under the wheel wells. There are grommets on the two opposite corners, one of which has a loop of shock cord to attach to the door. The other grommet is used to locate an old ski pole shaft so that a little tent is created.

Besides getting ready to go out of the rain or snow, you can also cool the skis down before you put them right from a warm car into the snow and risk icing up. And when you get back to the car in the midst of a snow or rain storm, it's a delight to be able to take off wet gear and pack up without getting further soaked.