I have to say I wouldn't take them on the hill, but that again is my comfort choice and I prefer a quicker drying clothing choice.
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-the OP never mentioned being wet, but if he had been I suspect he would have had enough sense to take off the wet clothing. If he was dry, then the jeans would have only been an extra, superflous layer inside the sleeping bag (the bag itself would have been his primary insulating layer in his case)
-Concerning dressing appropriately (for cold) in the 1st place, how is wearing long johns for an underlayer innapropriate? How many people here switch to insulated cold weather boots in cold weather? Some do, I'm sure, but I suspect the vast majority of us keep the same boots and add warmer socks. My jeans are exactly like my boots in that aspect; they're my outer protective layer, not my insulating layer.
-Don't worry about offending me; as you say, we've argued before and I still respect your opinions. On occassion there has been at least one time when it seemed as if it were you and I against the rest of the thread (I vaguely remember a thread where the topic turne to re-homing confiscated baiting dogs) I suspect however we may both be grinding on the nerves of the others here and I apologize for that.
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And yet you haven't linked us to better alternatives?
A base layer under jeans does make a difference, I can assure you of that. I did several fied trips around Scotland wearing jeans some days. Coupled with long johns I never had any problems. Indeed a lot of the time my long johns remained relatively dry underneath. (not always) but I was certainly never cold.
Days to dry? Seriously bud?
Anyone in the position where their clothes take days to dry would surely have had the foresight to bring waterproof clothing or are practicing wet/dry drills.
The op had a cold night. This boils down to poor equipment and lack of knowledge. We should be pointing him in the right direction. Not getting arsey about jeans.
Andy
Well, there are some that feel that the jeans come under poor equipment and lack of knoweledge... If you don't, ok.
That was a tad flippant sir. I'm sure I need not draw your attention to the part of that sentence where I suggest pointing the op in the right direction, as I attempted to do in my earlier response to the thread. Indeed I have no doubt you are fervently researching the matter as I type.
Andy
There are several complicated veiws regarding clothing, gear, and knowledge but they can generally be oversimplified into these categories:
1. Purists who believe you should make everything from natural materials you foraged yourself
2. Traditionalists who like everything from some historical era; this group is conflicted as they cannot agree on what particular era or culture (for me jeans ARE traditional)
3. Auto campers who want the ultimate in comfort and don't care about weight or bulk.
4. Minimalists (a slightly less obsessive form of Purists)
5. Copyists who only want whatever gear (be it traditional, minimalist, ot the latest and greatest of the ultra modern) that is recommended by their particular hero (Ray Mears, Cody Lundin, etc.)
6. Working stiffs who wear and use whatever they can get. However they too usually fall into one of these categories (or a combination) and get the closest they can afford to that standard.
All of these categories have "snobs" who refuse to believe that any other gear could possibly even work.
This thread just gets better and better! Agreed Andy that we should be pointing this guy in the right direction not going round in circles discussing jeans. It looks to me as though people need to agree to disagree about the aspect of jeans and move on in a more helpful manner to advise on the original post. 
Martin
Martin
This thread just gets better and better! Agreed Andy that we should be pointing this guy in the right direction not going round in circles discussing jeans. It looks to me as though people need to agree to disagree about the aspect of jeans and move on in a more helpful manner to advise on the original post.
Martin
Actually I think the best advise for the OP has been posted in some of the earlier posts and can be summarized:
1. Get better sleeping gear or
2. Some people may never be comfortable camping; evaluate whether or not you are one of these (but don't give up based on a single bad experience)
You are absolutely right santaman2000.....
I'm just amazed at how far this thread had come along just on the issue of jeans and the climates they should or should not be used in and their merits or lack off depending on your point of view. Better mat, better bag and better clothing is the obvious conclusion in laymans terms. Lol.
Damnit I keep writing a post with good links and it keeps disappearing.
But yes, do some research, invest in a good matt, a good bag and some thermals.
Thermarest are good but there are cheaper options.
Use a bag liner for extra warmth.
If you are still cold and awake (shivering) it might be time to stoke up the fire and get a hot drink inside you. Do something physical, pushups star jumps etc. run around and get hot, then jump back in your bag.
Andy
But yes, do some research, invest in a good matt, a good bag and some thermals.
Thermarest are good but there are cheaper options.
Use a bag liner for extra warmth.
If you are still cold and awake (shivering) it might be time to stoke up the fire and get a hot drink inside you. Do something physical, pushups star jumps etc. run around and get hot, then jump back in your bag.
Andy
Well, yes, quite, but I think this whole crazy jeans thing is deserving of flippancy. All I meant was let it go and agree to disagree... Your blood is clearly up - I'm sorry
No need, I already made my contribution yesterday:
Yes - and eat too. If I wake up cold, I scoff a Mars bar or similar. Works for me.
So you gauge a persons ability by the trousers they wear? Denim has been the choice of outdoors-men for decades, long before any of these modern super fabrics.
There appears to be a lot of cross commenting going on with those talking about general outdoors not recognising others are commenting about mountaineering useage, and vice versa.
I've been involved in hill and mountain sports for 40 years or so and throughout all that time , and well before "modern super fabrics" , denim was recognised as a daft choice - for hills and mountains, which is different from "outdoors". Jeans may be great for working at low level where you need protection from rough ground and have a vehicle and a house to go to at the end of the day, but they are no use for performance clothing, which is why wool was the traditional choice before synthetics, either in tweeds or other cloth.
Cotton in any form is a very poor choice for outdoor clothing, as although it may be comfortable,it has a poor weight to warmth ratio, it is a killer when wet either through sweat or rain, gaining large amounts of weight, losing all of its already poor insulation properties and taking a long time to dry. If you are working or doing anything else where you have ready access to replacement clothing and brick shelter feel free to wear your Levis but when you are travelling at altitude and having to carry all your gear with you, these things automatically exclude cotton/denim as any form of practical choice.
Going back to the OP, wearing your clothes in a sleeping bag is not a good idea as they form a barrier between your body heat and the insulation of the bag. You need to let your body heat into the bag where it will become trapped and insulate you properly from the outer temp. Even in the very coldest weather I would not wear more than my thermals with socks, fleece hat and gloves whilst in my bag. I would use a closed cell mat only as ground insulation between the earth and my self inflatable.
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My personal experience in "moutaineering" only only goes back about 35 years. It is also limited in that I never climbed with pitons and ropes. However it does involve hunting, camping, hiking, fishing, and exploring (as well as unassisted climbing) the Eastern Smokys (average height 6500 ft); the Southern Rockies (average height over 10,00ft and highest over 14,400ft); The Humbolt Mountains (in particular Mt Charleston) and the Snake River Range (in particular Mt Wheeler) both at nearly 12,000ft. Hunting was obviously limited to Winter as that's just when hunting season occurs. All other activities were scattered throughout the year.
In these ranges, Denim is and has been the dress of the day for over a century and a half. Before that the traditional dress of the longhunters (the Eastern mountain ranges was either cotton, linen, or leather) and the trappers/mountain men who basicly lived outdoors (in the Western mountain ranges) was almost exclusively leather with wool reserved for their long capote coats (which I would love to have) or an occassional buffalo hide.
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You just need something that shifts the heat balance a wee bit so that you do get to sleep and then the body sort of self regulates.
I use the wee clicker heat pads, the ones that get boiled up in water to re-set them. A wee bit of warmth to curl round, or a quick easy warm up if you wake up muzzy and chilled.
If you don't mind feeling a bit middle aged about it, a hot water bottle at your feet is a very good thing
Wearing your daytime clothes to bed isn't such a good idea, it really doesn't let the warm air cocoon you but they do trap moist sweat that chills.
That said, socks and hat make for comfort when it's cold and damp when you're sleeping out.
Mitts too if you have cold hands.
The closed cell mats can be very good, but you do need to clear the ground underneath them, otherwise like the princess and the pea you'll find the lumpy bit all night.
Hammocks seem to be an either love or cannae be bothered thing
Dharma says she doesn't care about getting damp so long as she's warm, and she wraps her sleeping kit in one of the space blankets. No heat loss that way, but she can wring out her bedding in the morning
Everybody finds their own way, but maybe try sleeping in your kit in the house, and if you can't sleep comfortably there, then you need to change kit or how you go about things.
It's been a cold Summer with very few warm nights, so in some ways you were already going to find it a challenge. Loch Lomond is beautiful, but it can be blooming cold.
cheers,
Toddy
Sooooo... Your clothes stop your body heat from getting into the bag?...Interesting...trapping the heat... But making you colder. Trapping it you may say, against your body....But if allowed to run free into the bag further away from your body it has a warming effect?
Bunkum!
You cannot break the laws of physics. More layers == warmer - unless a layer is compromised by compression or damp.
Yes trapping it against the body. But not allowing all the parts of the body to share it. Each leg's heat will be trapped against that leg, each arm's heat against that arm as opposed to sharing it. Rather the same reason mittens are warmer than gloves.
True though that more layers mean more insulation. It's a trade off.
The human body will rob your extremities (fingers and toes) of heat if it feels its core is getting cold. So keeping the torso warm prevents this (warm blood then circulates around the body)- we also lose a huge amount of heat through our breath.
The mittens argument is an old one but I wear glove liners under my mittens which is the equivalent to wearing clothes in a bag. And always warmer.
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