Cold Snap Camping Hacks

Imagine you go camping and are hit with a cold snap in the middle of the night and you wake up shivering in your sleeping bag. It happens to the best of us and you can't just get up and go buy a warmer sleeping bag, so you'll need to know these cold snap hacks so you can warm up and go back to sleep.

1. Get some calories: trail mix or hard candy, any small snack to spark your metabolism. Do this first and then while your body is generating more heat,

2. Take all your extra clothes and put them inside your sleeping bag. They'll be cold but will gradually warm up and add to the insulation of your sleeping bag.

3. Put your hat on. Tons of heat goes right out of the top of your head, and a hat traps a lot of it.

4. Put your rain-gear over your sleeping bag to trap even more heat.

5. When your clothes have warmed up, put the softest ones on. You'll be warmer.

6. Stay inside your tent if you have to urinate. (See my video: Cold Snap Camping Hacks)

7. Practice using your sleeping bag before you go camping so you won't be fumbling around in the dark.

8. Breathe inside your sleeping bag to capture all the warm air you're exhaling. (If you feel you're suffocating, its time to come up for air.)

9. Don't breathe on your glasses if they're cold or they'll steam up and be useless.

10. Keep things you don't want to freeze inside your sleeping bag. I keep baby wipes, (which will freeze together if you let them), electronics, (cellphone, camera batteries, etc.) a bottle of water, since if that freezes you have nothing to drink. Suggest other items in the comment section below.

I hope you never wake up freezing when camping. It happened to me and I barely survived. Here's a video of me recalling that fiasco: I Went Out Alone and Got Lost It happened 20 years ago and I still shiver when I think about it.