I was down in the big ditch a few years ago and some old school boatmen showed me how to dry my wet socks. You arrange some sticks around the fire pan and hang up all your stuff on them and basically cook them dry. OR you can simply throw all your wet stuff in your sleeping bag and it will dry overnight. Does anyone have any other cool pointers like this?
Drying socks by a fire should be done on a stick held as if one was doing marshmallows. You leave it without a timer and there can be melted/burnt events.
In some places during the summer there can be very low humidity recoveries at night. Dry air with socks strung and held to a tent fly cord clothes line can work at times. The further from the river the better.
Hanging inside the tent is a poor choice as humidity from breathing means a humid microclimate.
Inside the sleeping bag means the moisture is transferred to the sleeping bag.
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Doing wash on the raft then hanging as soon as camp is started, in the sun if possible can work sometimes.
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The two sock system with a very light inner sock can work well because you can pack a lot of very light inner socks.
Either in the morning or soon as I hit the beach, I find the best sunlight and put my damp stuff there. Often times hang them on a bush or on the boat.
Humidity so low on most western rivers, drying does not take long in direct sun
During the summer, its not too complicated. For winter trips, the first thing I usually do at camp is set up the tent and get a strong fire going in the stove. (I do this because I usually bring a big tent and fold up tent stove. Meanwhile, everyone else is busy with other camp tasks.) Then I make a call for drying out gear, and we all hang and arrange our items. By the time we need to roll out beds, most of our gear is totally dry because it gets so dang hot in there.
Did this trick years ago on the pct. Put boiling water in smallish (pint?) nalgenes. Place your socks on the bottle like a foot. Worked well for backpacking, made your water bottle a bit iffy for a day.
The best way Ive found is after ringing out socks and foot beds place them on your bear chest under your base layer before going to bed. It is the only place that gets hot enough to dry them. If you just throw them in your sleeping bag they are still wet in the morning. Fire drying often leads the crispy sock syndrome.
I think the point really is what other cool river tricks do people have? Not necessarily sock related...
Something that always seems to be a revelation to newbies on my trips is we don't buy block ice, we fill half gallon containers mostly full and freeze them. That minimizes melt water and we can salvage drinking water late in the trip, or even break one open and make fresh cocktail ice if needed)...
I know this is nothing new to most, but I'm thinking this is the kind of thing the OP is looking for and it's definitely why I'm following it...This old dog can always learn something new .
Really? I feel dirty and trolled responding but here goes.
Warm rocks. Drop them in the socks, booties, shoes and put under the firepan.
No burn. No fuss. No mess. No char marks.
Now for the hard part. Do not use rocks from near the river. You want the driest rocks you can find or they will EXPLODE. Maybe. If the rock is too hot to hold in your hand it is too hot to put in your stuff. I usually place them in or on the corners of the firepan and turn them a few times until they are quite warm, but not hot.
If you need to dry a sleeping bag out (and clothes you have on) use a much larger rock ( bread loaf sized) get it to the same temp. Warm but not hot. It will dry yo stuff.
The warm rock trick is good. another thing I've done (when I flipped my raft in December and got my passenger's "drybag" and all her warm clothes completely soaked) is to put up a drying line near the fire with an emergency blanket (one of those shiny reflective blankets) behind the gear. It reflects all the fire heat and dries stuff out twice as fast.
On a particularly cold and wet weeklong trip, my tent completely shit the bed by the third night. I first lost the rainfly zipper and then the door zipper. I brought my umbrella up from the raft and set it inside a 20mm box full of rocks to block the rain from coming in the door. I then heated rocks in the fire pan and put them inside my dutch ovens which I brought into the tent. I set the lids ajar and draped my sleeping bag over them. I stayed warm and dry and slept well even with the rain pounding on the tent.
Now that there's some river ingenuity. Kind of a dutch oven tent river sauna sort of thing. Good for you Gremlin. Bonus points for the creative use of the umbrella. Why do tent zippers always bite the dust on rainy trips?
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