How do warm blooded people cope
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When I first started out on motorcycles I had a WWII flying jacket handed down by my dad, don't know where he got it from but he was a miner in the war, not a flyer. It was lined with sheepskin and it was really, really warm for my first couple of months on the bike (I started riding on the roads in Derbyshire in February 1969, when there was six inches of snow everywhere) but it was terrible if it got wet. It stank, and it took ages to dry. One weekend I went to a party a couple of miles from my home and when it was time to leave I found that somebody had stolen it. Never saw it again. I replaced it with a police mac from the army surplus, I think it cost ten shillings. It was absolutely waterproof and what it lacked in insulation I could compensate for with another jumper or two.
Last time I saw JonathanD of this parish he had a reindeer pelt with him. Only time I've ever touched anything reindeer. It was absolutely gorgeous, it made me want to run my fingers over it all night. Like my German shepherd cross only more so. I could tell how warm it would have kept the animal when it was wearing it.
But it must have been a small one, it wasn't anything like big enough to wrap around me, and I'm on the skinny side.
The thing that would bother me is how long it would last. A while back I bought the SO a fur coat. Going out in winter she wore it all the time. Whenever she sat in an armchair or anything like that if she was wearing it there were always quite a few hairs left on the upholstery when she got up, but it got worse and worse and after a few years it started to moult big time. That left some unsightly balding patches. I think in the end we used it for baggywrinkles. There would probably be ways to treat it to make it last better, but then you have to worry about moths and that sort of thing too.
I think a synthetic product will be more durable, it will be easier to care for, there'll be a lot more choice, and it's likely to be cheaper to replace it when the time comes.
Last time I saw JonathanD of this parish he had a reindeer pelt with him. Only time I've ever touched anything reindeer. It was absolutely gorgeous, it made me want to run my fingers over it all night. Like my German shepherd cross only more so. I could tell how warm it would have kept the animal when it was wearing it.
But it must have been a small one, it wasn't anything like big enough to wrap around me, and I'm on the skinny side.
The thing that would bother me is how long it would last. A while back I bought the SO a fur coat. Going out in winter she wore it all the time. Whenever she sat in an armchair or anything like that if she was wearing it there were always quite a few hairs left on the upholstery when she got up, but it got worse and worse and after a few years it started to moult big time. That left some unsightly balding patches. I think in the end we used it for baggywrinkles. There would probably be ways to treat it to make it last better, but then you have to worry about moths and that sort of thing too.
I think a synthetic product will be more durable, it will be easier to care for, there'll be a lot more choice, and it's likely to be cheaper to replace it when the time comes.
Fine wool layers also use heat reflective foil (the kind they put behind radiators) placed under the inflatable mat or use 2 yoga mats with foil backing. Works wonders. If nothing else a wool blanket inside your bag. Wool is king!
There's a lot to be said for heat reflection - the classic camp fire will use it for example - but bear in mind that if your reflector is a solid layer of (usually) aluminium foil it won't allow water vapour to pass through it and so it can collect a lot of condensation. Water is pretty good at removing heat from your body (that's why we sweat) so if you want to be warm you really need to keep yourself and your insulation dry. It doesn't just happen, you have to attend to it. One way is to keep a hot water bottle or two in the bedding during the day, while you're not in there filling it with moisture, and stir it all around now and again.
I have a Jerven Bag ("Thermo Extreme") which has a kind of reflective layer on the inside of the outer shell. At -15C in a blizzard I've even been able to feel it reflecting the heat my body is generating back onto my legs. It's curiously reassuring. I've often woken up in it buried in snow. But while it is very good, it doesn't really breathe out the moisture so if you're using it regularly it does need airing thoroughly every day. It unzips to a flat sheet so it's easy enough to hang it over a line if the weather's dry (it's pretty dry if it's sub-zero) but I wouldn't want to use it for extended periods in wet weather unless there was available - or I could make - some sort of shelter big enough to air it in. The tarp I usually carry wouldn't be big enough for that, so in wet weather, unless I wasn't moving around much and I planned to have a semi-permanent base camp with a good shelter, I'd take something else for sleeping in. An army issue breathable bivvy bag is ideal for me.
Having said that I'm one of those people who will sweat a lot if I overheat in my sleep. You have to take it all into account, the individual as well as the kit. My wife would happily live in temperatures around 30C - I'm not sure about 40C, I think even she would complain at that - but she was born in Nairobi in the summer. Anything above 25C starts to get pretty uncomfortable for me. When I was born it was routinely below zero for weeks so I suppose I'm more of the Eskimo persuasion.
