clothes or no clothes in the sleeping bag

i dont know if i am just more warm bodied than most, but i am actually warmer in the sleeping bag with the less clothes i wear. i usually will wear just a pair of shorts no matter how cold it is outside and after about 5 minutes, i am all toasty in the sleeping bag. i have tried wearing fleece "jammies" but i dont seem any warmer, in fact i feel colder sometimes. i might go buy some underarmor and try that...

so am i just a freak or what?

I think you would have to have two consecutive nights of similar temps and follow a similar evening routine to be able to accurately determine.

I have wondered the same thing but have not had consistent enough conditions to test. Three weekends ago, I was out and it got down into the upper 20's F. I wore most of my clothes to bed that night (sleeping in my hammock with little wind). This past weekend, I was out and the temperatures were in the mid 30's and I wore just poly-pro long johns and socks(same sleep system).
Comparing the two nights, I did not get as cold wearing just the long johns, but we're talking at least a 10 degree difference in the temps.

So, I really don't know what is the answer.

Tango61

I'm not sure it would matter whether you're a freak. What works for you is what works for you and the only important thing is that it works.

As for me, when the temps dip near or below my bag's rating, I find I am warmer if I wear fleece inside it. It also helps immensely to do a bit of blood-moving exercise before getting into the bag, and being well-fed and hydrated.

A sleeping bag, as we all should know, can only trap our heat. If you are cold when you enter the bag, you'll stay cold quite a long time.

That depends whether yer in that bag alone or with another camper... If you're alone I think you'll be warmer in long underwear so you have a warmth layer that stays next to you. Nylon gets cold and when ever you roll over its cold on your skin. Long underwear will go a long ways toward keeping body oils off your nylon and keeping the bag way cleaner in the long run, and cleaning any sleeping bag is about the most destructive thing you will do to it except maybe putting it in a compression stuff sack. Oh yes, if you have to get out of that sleeping bag naked you'll be much colder. Often in winter I take a lighter sleeping bag and sleep in a down jacket and down pants of bibs, so when I get out of it, I'm warm.
Just my $.02
Jim

I normally sleep in at least socks, long johns and a merino shirt - but that's just what I'm comfortble in.. also because I tend to be using a nylon lined bag, and tend to often be out in temps that are cooler at night - ya gotta get out and pee sometimes...

Most bag producers suggest clothes---not only for the additional layer of insulation, but also because those clothes will absorb the body oil and perspiration that can slowly work its way into the fabric and fill of your bag, further reducing its loft and effectiveness.

Jim: I know I speak for most of the other folks here when I say that I hope the "other camper" isn't Bigfoot.

Kidding aside, I also tend to sleep in clothes, for much the same reasons you give. In particular, I also tend to use a lighter sleeping bag and sleep in a down jacket when it's chilly (and down pants and booties when it's downright cold); one of the attractions, as you point out, is that you are wearing some insulation when you leave that nice warm bag.

In summer, in the East, I tend not to sleep "in" a bag at all - it's too hot, even for my "summer" bag. I tend to leave it pushed into the foot of the tent until the middle of the night, when it cools down enough that I pull it loosely over me like a blanket. (I use a WM Mitylite for a summer bag, but the MSR Ventra also works well.)

thanks for all the info folks, much appreciated. i just bought some "tech weight" thermals and i am going to give them a go.

I use a 18 oz sleeping bag and alway wear a Patagonia top and bottom plus
socks. I only wear these clothes in camp so they help keep the inside of the
bag clean. I bear can wash them after about a week. If it is really cold for
my bag I add my down liner jacket.

I always sleep with clothes on in the bag. Warm/mild weather I will just wear my Capilene 1 with a generic pair of boxer shorts and dress socks. Colder weather I may switch it to a Capilene 2 or 3 and a pair of generic wool bottoms.

It is very rare that I need to sleep in my down vest or a fleece during the three-seasons; but winter camping is generally a different story.

MoTiger,
I too have had to take clothes off to get warmer, or maybe its just more comfortable.

I usually wear clothes because (1) they are a part of my sleep system and they keep me warmer and (2) I don't want my dirty hide touching my relatively clean sleeping bag.

Exception: Summers in the desert when it's freakin' hot even at 1AM. I'm usually not hiking then. I'm kayaking. I won't use clothes......or a bag....or even a shelter....until the cooler predawn hours. That's when I'm solo

Minor clarification needed: how are you kayaking in the desert?

Sorry, just being a wise a...er, donkey. I'm assuming you mean that, in the summer, you stay out of the desert and go kayaking instead. Just couldn't pass up the straight line.

I wear out lots of paddles pulling against all that sand!!!!

Nah, I kayak on either Lake Meade or Lake Mojave in the summer. Both have been created by damming the Colorado River as it flows through the desert. It can be 110 degrees+ on shore a few feet from the water. You can step off your boat from a man made lake right onto the desert in its pristine state. Quite a contrast.

There is also great river kayaking on the Salt River just above Phoenix

I have found that I am much more comfortable wearing cotton boxers and a light undershirt while using a sleeping bag and I always try to find a way to take them on my trips solely for that purpose.

Just so you know, the sleeping bag ratings (at least the EU's EN13537 ratings, the only "official" ratings around) assume that you are wearing a base layer and a hat inside the bag and are using a sleeping pad with R value of 4. Wearing less may mean the bag isn't as warm as its rating. For me, a cold sleeper, a bag is never as warm as its rating anyway. Individual "thermostats" can differ a lot.

I personally prefer wearing my base layer in the bag to keep it clean and me warm.

Your mileage, of course, may and probably will vary.

This came up on another thread. For winter, I wear a Capilene base layer, socks, sometimes even booties, light gloves and a balaclava because my bag is only +23F rated. I have used an overbag or just toss my parka (in my picture) on top for extra warmth. Two pads-a Ridgerest and a Thermorest-full length. If I had a warmer bag, I'd still wear the Capilene-keeps the bag cleaner.

I wear a poly-cotton layer to bed. It feels nice.
However, when people want to borrow my sleeping bags, I ‘warn’ them that I sleep naked in the bag. Then they don’t ask anymore.
I don’t mind loaning out my tents, but I’m a little more personal w/ my sleeping bags.

Just useless info…
-Barry

That's what I had heard is that you are warmer naked. Don't know why, very counterintuitive, but seemed to work. So that's what I do a lot of the time. Naked is too much for me so I wear shorts.

Hey Tom how's it going, Barry good tip! Tom and I were discussing this on another thread.

I'm a warm-blooded guy, and I've always found that I sleep warmer (and better) when I only have shorts on. I'm always a bit cold when I get in the bag, but I warm it up fast.

In the morning, I will put some light clothes into my bag before I wake up so they warm up a bit. Then I put them on while still in the bag. This keeps me from getting out of the bag directly into the cold in only shorts.

I just got a new bag (Big Agnes) so I'm curious about how it works.

I think somebody hit it on the head earlier. Do what works for you.

Hey Mike. Very funny Barry. Got to remember that one.

I always choose clothes (though light); this keeps the bag cleaner (unless you bathe before each sleep) and helps me regulate body temp. better than simply a bag alone.
Just a personal preference.

I wear less or none on warmer nights and more and more on colder and colder nights. Long wool underwear are particularly good for capturing and recovering heat from body vapour, as long as you get them dry again the next day. Wool sweaters are particularly good for acting as an extra baffle and heat exchanger for any cold air or warm air finding its way down into or up out of the lower part of the bag from the head and neck area. Wool hats and neck tubes and insulted hoods in the head and neck area add alot of warmth on extra cold nights. Breathing through a knit wool neck tube or scarf is important for heat recovery when it gets really really cold, like sub zeroF.

All that said, there is no substitute for a well designed and well fitted bag built for the temperature range you need it for. Nothing like wearing next to nothing and getting a very good sleep with little effort on a very cold night. Still working on that. My bag is good to close to 0F if I have had a good meal and not too exausted, but below 0F it gets interesting, and a long night below -20F gets horrifying, even in my back yard. How folks manage -50F is beyond me.

You know at -50 deg. F, walking to/from car, to/from building and driving are scary. Going in the ditch at that temp even scarier (been there, done that.)

I don't intensionally do much at -30 F or colder...

Does anyone?!

JAK - (welcome back, by the way - haven't seen you post for a while!)

Have you ever read The Worst Journey in the World, by Apsley Cherry-Garrard? It's an account of his experiences with the Scott expedition in the Antarctic. He and a couple other guys took a side trip on skis for weeks in winter, sleeping in bags of caribou fur (if I am remembering correctly) that got heavier and stiffer with frozen condensation each night (temps got down to -77F). Every time I am cold in the mild SF bay area, I think about that book.

Thanks.

I've heard of such horror stories, even recent ones. We can get a few days in a row each winter with daytime highs of 10F and nighttime lows of -25F, but only 3-5 days in a row at most. Still wouldn't want to be caught in that unprepared. Imagine a day and night of freezing rain before that. Haven't checked out the statistics on that. At least we have some trees to burn here. Still, good in theory, but practice usually takes some practice.

Remember the scene in Never Cry Wolf where he falls through the ice after getting dropped off. Now that would be terrifying.

I prefer sleeping in the nude, especially since my guy and I zip our bags together, but there have been a couple of trips when it was so cold we kept our base layers on.
It all boils down to your own personal comfort. And no, that doesn't make you a freak. Anyone who thinks you a freak for that is the one with the problem.

I do not sleep well in clothes. I have had to wear long johns and a fleece to bed when temp dipped way below my bag rating. I normally prefer just shorts or undies. As for dirt I carry a Kitchen sink. I cut the top off a Gallon milk jug and take a nice sponge bath after supper. This is better than slepping in my dirt! My long Johns wouldnt smell realgood to sleep in after hiking all day! I am a warm sleeper though.

That book blew me away. His teeth were chattering so hard that he broke most of them. Just to grab a few penguin eggs. The part where his frostbite blisters freezing was brutal too.
I don't do clothes either as my girl just mentioned above.

Get a room!

Just teasing.

In summer, I use a lighter bag (or even a bag liner), and I sleep in just my undies. In winter, I wear longjohns and socks, and occasionally a toboggan. I've yet to experiment with bag liner and clothes inside my bag, but from what I've read it won't make much difference. If you compress the insulation too much it won't work right so you'll end up colder.

I'm not a big fan of a bag liner for warmth (might make sense to keep the bag clean, but IMO doesn't do that much relative to the weight and hassle factor for warmth).

But I do like to augment my sleeping bag rating with insulated clothing that I'm carrying (and wearing) anyway. Just under a year ago I was using a down parka inside my 20F rated sleeping bag to sleep comfortably down into the teens --- I'm completely certain that it made a big difference, given that my sleeping bag was sufficiently large that it didn't constrain the insulation of the parka.

I'm do think that if the only criteria is to have a warmer sleeping bag for X weight, then it's more efficient to put all of that weight into the sleeping bag insulation. But given that we often want some relatively warm clothing too, it only makes sense to me to factor that in when selecting the sleeping bag.

I normally do just as you are doing, and augment the bag with warm clothing. it often means I'm carrying a lighter bag..

But I have thought long and hard about this - my *clothing* is proabably heavier than a warmer bag. - so just suppose for a minute that instead of carrying two merinos and a fleece, in addition to my walking around clothing, I only carried one merino, my long johns, and resolved to dive into my (warmer) bag when I got cold..

I know the difference between my -3C and my -15C rated bag for weight is a lot less than the weight of that clothing.. which I don't wear when I am moving around... If I'm content to hike all day and just dive into the bag at night - food for thought..

I think we're seeing this exactly the same, just articulating it slightly differently. My point here is that the one merino and one set of long johns you are going to be wearing can be factored in when deciding how warm a bag you need on that trip.
For a person that is relatively more willing to "hop into the bag" when cold, the "worn" warmth layers can indeed be reduced. OTOH, for a person who prefers, or for a situation that demands relatively more warm clothing, then the weight hit from that can at least be somewhat offset by a lighter bag.

That, of course, assumes sufficient granularity of choices between various sleeping bag options at home --- something that more normal (sane) people likely have less of! :-)

- Normal people don't sit around on the internet buying gear all day...

- Oh really?.. ready normal people...

The internet is for gear..
The internet is for gear...

(Think Avenue Q people...)

Yeah, it doesn't take nearly all day - you can order 3 sleeping bags and 2 tents in less than an hour...

My factor isn't so much where I use my insulation as much as it is where I use my money and how many items I have. I own three sleeping bags. One was purchased for "camping out" in my parents' living room when I go to visit. It is a heavy, rectangular bag that may or may not keep me warm down to +25 or so. I will probably never take it out, unless it's an overnight car camp. The second bag is a North Face down-filled which I got from a friend. I haven't cleaned it or tried it out yet, but it is a long, and I am short, so I am not overly hopeful.

The third bag is a Coleman +20 (which means +30-35, right?), which I got on clearance for $5. With synthetic longjohns, in a hammock but no tarp, I got it down to +15 with only cold toes. I think that, were I to add a layer of insulation below the bag (between bag and hammock), my tarp, a pair of socks, and a toboggan, I could get it down to +10 or perhaps even +5. Crazy, I know, but I can't deny what the thermometer said that morning. I've had it out in +25-30 temps with no problems, either.

The thing is, even though I know that there are some really great down bags out there, I cannot justify plunking down the Benjamins for one, when I have one that will do what I want. Also my usual haunts are rarely that cold. In summer it *might* get down to 85 at night, which means I won't even be taking a bag. Just a light blanket and a sheet. If I think I need to get it down colder, I can either take an additional layer of clothing, or maybe a bag liner (which serves the dual purpose of being a warm-weather bag -- a win-win for me).

From what I've read, bag liners are more hassle than help. So I may buy one for a warm-weather bag, and experiment with it in my back yard come winter.

Just my two cents. That an a couple dollars will buy you a mocha latte.

Having survived a night at -40 in the open at altitude in a light sleeping bag and snowmobile suit, I now have the attitude of carrying MORE vs less sleeping bag. I HATE to be cold in my sleeping bag. So anyway this is what I do, YMMV: WM Super Kodiak

Getting into my bag is a process. First I may need to get in with everything I have on and wait to warm up. I basically prefer to sleep completely unencumbered at home (Read nude), but in a tent I do wear a light pair of insulated long underwear and a fleece jacket and sleeping gloves and balaclava. thats all

I then get out and pull off my down bibs and tuck them under my head, then I have to get the underpants off and the longunderwear back on which generally means another dive into the bag to warm up. Then its time to remove the big coat and strip down to a thin warm layer on top and then the final dive into the bag. no socks... A quality sleeping bag should keep your legs and feet toasty warm without socks. In fact if your feet are cold in the footsak of a mummy bag it means the blood getting to your feet is cold: Insulate your legs more, but put your big down jacket over your sleeping bag in extreme cold to insulate your torso. For that matter a cord tied lightly around your sleeping bag say just above your knees, will make your bag warmer by dividing it up into compartments that closes off drafts inside your sleeping bag. been there, done that...
The only requirement for my system to work is a pee bottle. If I had to get out of the tent in the night I would wear the down bibs to bed, then reach for my big coat, put it on, dive into the bag and when I was warm I would get out and put my boots on and leave the tent.

I'm not certain that thick leg insulation as in pants or bibs, actually makes you warm because your legs can't warm each other up. I'd rather pull the down bibs into the bag to take up air space and add insulation, say behind my back, especially in extreme winds.
Jim

Jimshaw,

Maybe instead of thick leg insulation in pants or bibs you need to buy an insulated skirt instead...

They are all the fashion rage here in Fairbanks...

Gad, he'd fit right in when he goes hiking with bigfoot...

Wow, they even have mini's.

I wonder if you can get a down filled skirt with a long, fold down cuff, down filled lower with a zipper that will go around the feet to make a sleeping bag, and a zip off mini dress for those fun times in camp... it looks more useful to me than a tartan. and reasonabley priced too...
Jim

Remind me never to go hiking with y'all.

I dunno, it could be worse.

Back to the question of clothes in the sleeping bag: Just a note that the EU's EN13537 ratings assume the sleeper (a test dummy) is wearing a base layer and a knit hat inside the bag. For 10-20* F bags, they also assume a sleeping pad with an R value of 5 (warmer than most 3-season pads). Of course most of us are not "average," and hopefully none of us are dummies!

"Hopefully none of us are dummies..."

It all depends on the day, the trail, and the weather...