Damp Walls In The Tent While Camping

 

When camping I always experience a conundrum when it is cold outside. When it is cold outside then the inside tent walls perspirate and dew drips down the sidewalls. If I removed the tent fly then hot air I breathe out while sleeping would not turn into water dripping down the tent walls but when the tent fly is removed it makes it too cold.

I have also simply opened up the tent door part way and this helps keep the tent from perspirating water onto me while I sleep. The problem with this is bugs, snakes and baby bears can crawl into the tent.

The next best option is to simply unzip part of the tent door but keep the no-see-um mesh fully zipped up. This works pretty well but the drafts tend to give me frostbite on my face.

No matter how I sleep I always seem to end up lying curled up with one of the tent walls and the perspiration from the tent gets me extremely cold. Even when I sleep in my large 8 man tent all by myself I end up against the damp and moist tent wall.

One thing I have found that’s works good is to use my large tent and just one foam cushion for under my sleeping bag. I rarely roll off of the foam cushion and when I do I rapidly relocate my body back onto the foam cushion. The foam cushion keeps me centered and away from the tent walls and the large tent used only by myself does not allow the tent to heat up as much which keeps the tent walls from becoming damp and wet. This however provides a new problem.

The tent now does not heat up so I must use a lower rated sleeping bag so I swap out my 40 degree rated sleeping bag for my 0 degree rated sleeping bag. Now no matter how cold it gets I will be warm. This presents another problem.

At about 9:30 in the morning the cold mountains have heated up to about 75 degrees and the inside of my tent with the sun beating down on it is heated up to around 90 degrees. I am out cold sleeping in my sleeping bag designed for ARCTIC TEMPERTURES AND I AWAKE covered in sweat and severely dehydrated.

No matter what I do I always seem to have one problem or another with my sleeping situation. This is part of the fun to me. It is like a logic problem with multiple variables. I always try to get it just right and never quite succeed. Regardless of my complaints, a bad night camping is better than a great nigh in prison.

Part of the fun of camping is buying new equipment for camping to help make your night more enjoyable but it is also a lot of fun to take current equipment and adapt it to your environment.

Buying used camping equipment at a yard sale and adjusting it to fit your needs is more fulfilling then ordering some new equipment from Campmor.com. I love camping, even when I am shivering cold from the moist sidewalls on my tents.