PEAX Equipment

Preventing frozen boots overnight?

Boots get wet from moisture. Examples of moisture would be water and snow and sweat. It can come over top the boot on a crossing, seep under your gaiters in wet brush and run down your leg or simply penetrate the leather and/or membrane of the boot- which wears out overtime, faster if the boots aren’t sufficiently greased.
A new way I discovered to get boots wet is to accidentally pull out an eyelet early in the hunt.

Said moisture will then freeze when it reaches a temperature of 0C, or approximately 32F.

That is how boots both get wet, and freeze.

Somebody had to jump on it.
 
Old School!! As soon as U R back in camp: wet boots off, stuff them w dry newspaper, single sheets, wadded up and packed tight. Very absorbent. Change newspaper when damp.
 
One of my friends went back country skiing and did not put her boots inside her sleeping bag.
Result was the hospital with frost bitten toes....

For backpacking with leather boots, try to minimize feet moisture by frequently changing
socks during the day and make sure the exterior is treated so waterproof.
Before putting in sleeping bag when boots are still warm, stuff with paper towels or newspaper to
wick as much foot moisture as possible.

Rapidly warming expensive frozen leather boots by the fire can ruin them,
so best to prevent that by keeping them unfrozen in sleeping bag.
 
I’ll never forget tent camping on public land in Arkansas for a week in late January. We were hunting mallards in the flooded timber reservoirs. Every night our wet waders would freeze solid. Every morning it was hilarious watching each other warm them by the fire and attempt to put those on knowing they were freezing cold!
 
Back in the dark ages of the 1970's, winter backpacking, I learned to:

Boil a pot of water just before bed. Pour that water into a watertight bottle, toss it in the foot of the sleeping bag.

Boots went into a waterproof bag (often the sleeping bag stuff sack) then into the foot of the sleeping bag as well.

So.. I used an extra long mummy bag, and it was a little uncomfortable sleeping with a pair of boots and a water bottle inside my bag, but I was tired enough that it worked.

Wake up in the morning with boots that are easy to put on, and with a quart of water, which was valuable for making coffee or just for drinking water.

I still use those same tactics today, when I'm going to camp in an unheated tent in winter. Works well.

Guy
 
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