Is sleeping without a shelter safe for health?
- Thread starter Merkeller
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If it's safe to sleep out with a shelter then it's just as safe without.
As for both you have to just take sensible precautions in choosing your campsite
As for both you have to just take sensible precautions in choosing your campsite
Just watch out for the killer slugs! 
Bivy bag for some is enough but I prefer a tarp and bivy. No fun when it rains through your hood. If you are thinking thermal properties then a tarp or a tent isn't going to add any warmth so there iwll be no change there from under, in or out.
Bivy bag for some is enough but I prefer a tarp and bivy. No fun when it rains through your hood. If you are thinking thermal properties then a tarp or a tent isn't going to add any warmth so there iwll be no change there from under, in or out.
Far too many homeless people do so all year round, so it just depends on your state of health and street smarts or what kit you have (or bushcraft skills) with you.
Rob
Rob
Embrace your inner child and BELIEVE! that your bivvy bag is zombie proof
There's a lot of IF's involved , wind chill can be be bigger problem than rain so location becomes a factor.
Hands up who's ever froze their butt bivvied in the dunes on a beach.
By contrast In the middle of a Pine forest rain has to be seriously belting it down before it gets unpleasant at root level.
Coat over the head or a poncho with a bivvy bag is enough for a quick overnight camp.
There's a lot of IF's involved , wind chill can be be bigger problem than rain so location becomes a factor.
Hands up who's ever froze their butt bivvied in the dunes on a beach.
By contrast In the middle of a Pine forest rain has to be seriously belting it down before it gets unpleasant at root level.
Coat over the head or a poncho with a bivvy bag is enough for a quick overnight camp.
Sleeping out under the stars is a wonderful experience - especially if you don't need to take your eyeglasses off to sleep (darn!). But it takes some getting used to.
I've slept in my sleeping bag with just my sleeping mat and inexpensive tarp underneath as a groundcloth. The sleeping bag and the light clothes I wore were all the "shelter" I needed. This was usually at about 5,000 feet in the Sierras.
I tend to worry about snakes and predators (the two and four legged kind). But I've never been disturbed and neither have my friends who do it more often than me. If you try it for the first time, get some buddies to do it with you. This will assuage your concerns and it will be a lot more fun.
- Woodsorrel
I've slept in my sleeping bag with just my sleeping mat and inexpensive tarp underneath as a groundcloth. The sleeping bag and the light clothes I wore were all the "shelter" I needed. This was usually at about 5,000 feet in the Sierras.
I tend to worry about snakes and predators (the two and four legged kind). But I've never been disturbed and neither have my friends who do it more often than me. If you try it for the first time, get some buddies to do it with you. This will assuage your concerns and it will be a lot more fun.
- Woodsorrel
Done this in the winter as well as all summer. Great fun just your common sense and the tips already given will help. Good idea to sleep out with friends first to look after each other.
Used to do it quite a bit as a teenager. The only real problems we ever had (assuming good weather) were 1) mosquitoes, and 2) it could be hard to get to sleep on a full moon night.
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"No risk of raining" on Dartford Heath in "September - October"?? Things have changed since I went to school with Mick and the boys!
That said I would respectfully suggest that partaking of 5 pints of ale in the company of no fewer Bexley Mental Hospital nurses on Friday night posed a far greater risk to ones health than an Autumn shower so why not live a little dangerously.
All the best
K
"sleeping outside in September-October, when there's almost no risk of raining."
If you have never slept outside before in this manner you will be quite unusual if you actually sleep very much at all, that is unless you've done a 10 miler the day before with a big bergan..
Health effect nil if you stay warm and dry. If it rains you'll find keeping your face and head dry a real pain if you have to start wrapping yourself up in ponchos or waterproof coats. Buy a second hand umbrella (from a charity shop perhaps ?) Cut the 'J' handle off leaving just a short length of handle. The handle shaft will almost certainly be hollow...tubular. Cut a piece of stick or dowel and ram it in the hollow end then sharpen a point on it.
Take the brolly with you and if it rains in the night, open it up and stick it in the ground near your head. Result...instance overhead cover in about 2 seconds. Night.. night...
It does work...(well it did on a Portugese beach with an old beach umbrella )..
If you have never slept outside before in this manner you will be quite unusual if you actually sleep very much at all, that is unless you've done a 10 miler the day before with a big bergan..
Health effect nil if you stay warm and dry. If it rains you'll find keeping your face and head dry a real pain if you have to start wrapping yourself up in ponchos or waterproof coats. Buy a second hand umbrella (from a charity shop perhaps ?) Cut the 'J' handle off leaving just a short length of handle. The handle shaft will almost certainly be hollow...tubular. Cut a piece of stick or dowel and ram it in the hollow end then sharpen a point on it.
Take the brolly with you and if it rains in the night, open it up and stick it in the ground near your head. Result...instance overhead cover in about 2 seconds. Night.. night...
It does work...(well it did on a Portugese beach with an old beach umbrella )..
Where is this place? Almost no risk of rain in September-October....... I don't think I could pick a single month.
Do we live in the same country?
Go for it. If you're concerned, take a tarp, set the ridgeline but keep the tarp furled. If it starts raining all you have to do is peg it out.
I don't see any problems with it. I did it quite a few times in my younger days. I never used a tent back then just a tarp and for me the biggest thing to get used to was waking up and not seeing a "roof" above me. I used what I now know as a bivvy bag but my mate who got me into this called it a sleep-sac. A sleeping mat, bivvy, couple of wool blankies and my pack as a pillow and I was set for the night.
I woke one morning bursting for a pee I went for my boots and found a small hedgehog curled up asleep in one. Didn't have the heart wake him so barefoot I went. From then on I would hang my boots off a Y stake.
I woke one morning bursting for a pee I went for my boots and found a small hedgehog curled up asleep in one. Didn't have the heart wake him so barefoot I went. From then on I would hang my boots off a Y stake.It is a lot cooler than being in a tent. A tent is worth maybe 5C of air temp or more.
It is fun. With the right weather much, much nicer than being under any sort of a roof. I don't like doing it in midge country.
It is fun. With the right weather much, much nicer than being under any sort of a roof. I don't like doing it in midge country.
Aye Up Merkeller,
No issues re sleeping out at this time of year so long as you take the advice already posted here. (I did it last night! - Hooped bivvy bag, tarp over and no sleeping bag, just the spare mid layer thermal jacket that I carry draped over me and a pair of 'tent' boots).
BUT! as I often preach on here - make sure you have good ground insulation. We've had some torrential rain here last few days and the ground is quite wet. Good old Mother Earth will suck the heat from you if you don't prepare well.
I stuffed the plastic Ebag that I carry with fern for an improvised palias mattress beneath my folding kips mat and then set the bivvy atop.
I was as warm as toast and slept right through to sparrow's f*@"s.
No issues re sleeping out at this time of year so long as you take the advice already posted here. (I did it last night! - Hooped bivvy bag, tarp over and no sleeping bag, just the spare mid layer thermal jacket that I carry draped over me and a pair of 'tent' boots).
BUT! as I often preach on here - make sure you have good ground insulation. We've had some torrential rain here last few days and the ground is quite wet. Good old Mother Earth will suck the heat from you if you don't prepare well.
I stuffed the plastic Ebag that I carry with fern for an improvised palias mattress beneath my folding kips mat and then set the bivvy atop.
I was as warm as toast and slept right through to sparrow's f*@"s.
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