Trekking in winter

[birchwood]

I take a tent footprint , this gives you a dry place to set up your tent. When taking it down , wipe the fly off with a microfiber rag, take the flysheet off and fold up the inner on the footprint, put in one of the lightweight dry bags.
Fold up the fly after giving it a good shake and put in another bag, I use tough bin bags if car/ canoe camping. Pack all your kit and then fold the footprint up with wet side innermost.
I also take a square of lightweight waterproof material to prep food and put my kit on .
Also take a good thermal "space blanket" to insulate you from the ground under your sleep system.
Keep yourwater and gas in the tent and wrap well to minimise freezing.

 

[ianmbetts]

Some rucksacks have an outer rear mesh/stretch pocket or side mesh pockets that allow the fly to drip dry as you walk. I personally don’t like to have anything loose on the outside because Sod’s Law says I would catch it on something sharp!

A couple of my rucksacks have molle webbing through which I have laced an elastic cord from side to side across the pack, like giant boot lace.
Good point, about potential to snag it on something though, that would be a disaster.

 

[ianmbetts]

I take a tent footprint , this gives you a dry place to set up your tent. When taking it down , wipe the fly off with a microfiber rag, take the flysheet off and fold up the inner on the footprint, put in one of the lightweight dry bags.
Fold up the fly after giving it a good shake and put in another bag, I use tough bin bags if car/ canoe camping. Pack all your kit and then fold the footprint up with wet side innermost.
I also take a square of lightweight waterproof material to prep food and put my kit on .
Also take a good thermal "space blanket" to insulate you from the ground under your sleep system.
Keep yourwater and gas in the tent and wrap well to minimise freezing.

Thanks for the advice. To take the edge off the cold floor, I have been using a sheet of "foil bubble" insulation (the kind people use to insulate under rafters in a roof space). It's cheap and it weighs next to nothing. I got a 7mx1m roll for less than €40. I cut a piece the length of the inner tent and it pretty much covers the whole floor.

 

[birchwood]

Thanks for the advice. To take the edge off the cold floor, I have been using a sheet of "foil bubble" insulation (the kind people use to insulate under rafters in a roof space). It's cheap and it weighs next to nothing. I got a 7mx1m roll for less than €40. I cut a piece the length of the inner tent and it pretty much covers the whole floor.

No worries. I managed to get an original space blanket, not the tinfoil ones, as a spare as I have had mine for so long I am sure it is going to wear out one day. But the bubble stuff you mentioned sounds good. I made some 'pot cosys' with some that seems to be similar. Stuck it together with aluminium tape. Good for keeping your curry warm while heating the rice

 

[nigelp]

A pot cosy is very useful in winter. I have one for my dehydrated food pouches and also cover it with spare clothing and waterproofs. Piping hot meals for the win!

 

[Kav]

What is your stove? A Kelly Kettle boils water faster Than any system I’ve messed with from a campfire to Four Dog Volcano gasifier. This can be critical if tired or becoming hypothermic.a cuppa always lubricates the brain cells with caffeine to engage smoothly. AND
If you carry a steel water bottle, fill with boiling water, slip into a heavy wool sock and place between your legs ( femoral artery) feet or other cold spot. This will give you five hours of heat. TEST to make sure the socks insulate from burns.

 

[nigelp]

The OP wanted advice on folding and managing a tent in winter.
These are some photos of typical UK moorland and hillside wild campsites. Exposed, treeless and not the place to be messing about with any sort of wood stove.

What are you burning in a Kelly Kettle? Sodden heather?

 

[TLM]

That does look a bit bleak, in tundra I have often had a small fire, meaning tea or coffee, from dry juniper, fresh birch or willow are not much good. Unless you are a Lapp, they apparently with some magic, burn fresh birch.

 

[Erbswurst]

If the area looks like in the photos above, a military poncho may still be a practical thing but not as a shelter of course and also not instead of a Goretex suit. Equipped with only poncho and bivvy bag one would end up in the bivvy bag alone and just protect boots and rucksack with the poncho, what can be done and is save in every wind speed, but compared to a good tent everything else than comfortable of course, because you are locked into your sleeping bag the entire long night.

I would choose there a Hilleberg tent and additional and inside a bivvy bag with central zipper. If the tent is wet inside the bivvy bag keeps your sleeping bag dry and comfortable.
Should your tent break in a storm you will survive in your bivvy bag.

Bivvy bag with poncho shelter are especially nice in dry cold conditions without wind because you can sit protected by the poncho next to your camp fire. If there is no fire wood you don't have this advantage and the modern double wall tent is the better choice without any doubt. And if the area looks like that and if you have to count with strong winds a Hilleberg tent is the right choice and worth the money due to its incredible strength and durability.

I own a nice collection of cotton tents in all existing sizes but would choose none of them for camping in the circumstances that are shown in the photos above. For such areas and weather conditions the modern double wall tent was developed and nothing will be more comfortable there than a Hilleberg tent, if you don't come with a 4x4 camping car.

 

[Kav]

What I Burn? To start, not other posters. I’ve camped in deserts, oak riparian woodlands, arctic tundra, Mayan Highlands, the redwoods, northern great plains
AND inside a USCG barracks.
The reality, is in the desert you BRING water or die. Ditto in sensitive areas where A. Using fragile resources is a no no and B.
Conversely packing in firewood may introduce exotic boring insects.
WHAT I pack is a product called DURAFLAME, some processed fat wood and petroleum soaked cotton balls. I have, in fact packed a few bricks of imported Irish peat briquettes for the memory of my great grandmother. Oh, and you can burn scavenged bones ( gave us bonfire) dried dung, old birds nests andTom Brown books.