View Full Version : Tell me your "got wet while sleeping" story
My first night camping on a cross country bicycle trip found me ill prepaired. It was back in 1980 and I was just a young sprout. I didn't know to "seam seal" the tent and my inflatable air mattress leaked and the tent flooded and ended up trying to sleep on the cold wet ground. It was miserable!
Ever since then I have been overly cautious on trying to stay dry and have a morbid curiousity with other peoples experiences and failures.
...........any horror stories?
My son and I did an overnighter to the Cohutta 3-4 years ago, it was our first backpacking trip. I left the rain fly at home. A thundershower came up about dark, we keep our bags, and extra clothes in garbage bags until the rain stopped. It was in August in Georgia, so we were not in any danger. About midnight the rain stopped, we poured the water out of the tent, changed clothes, slept warm and dry. I started making a list after that, so I don't leave stuff I need at home.
Was hiking/camping in the Wind River Ranges of Wyoming in 1982. No rain, warm weather, glorious. Came early evening I decided that a nice, warm, sponge bath would be nice, so after warming multiple pans of water from a nearby snow fed creak on my Coleman stove, then carefully pouring the water into a small colapsable(sp) bucket, I headed to the tent.
Unfortunately, I tripped going through the door and dumped the entire bucket of warm water into my open down sleeping bag :mad:
Oh, do I have a good one!
So, the first 700 miles of the PCT are desert. At that point, people ditch their desert stuff for the mountains. In Northern California, there's a long dry stretch (around 40 miles, I think), called Hat Creek Rim. The whole trip I PRAYED for a cold rain when I got to Hat Creek Rim.
I get there, and nothing but thunderheads. Great! My first day of rain, after 1200 miles of hiking on the PCT is about to happen. (I also hiked 800 miles on the AT and managed to never be hiking in the rain, and only had to camp in the rain once. Yay for watching weather reports and doing work for stay, etc. when they say bad things).
Things look nasty, and there's almost no trees around--the rim is too dry. I get close enough to the end of the rim that I could beat the lightening down the rim if I had to, and set up my poncho-tarp near a haggard, wind-beaten old tree. It sprinkles, and I stay dry. Around 4:30 AM I wake up It's light enough out to see enough to hike, phew. Time to beat the lightening!
I walk a couple of miles down off the rim. Now, usually my brain wakes up at least an hour after my body, so at this point I start to think, but not properly. I get the idea that it'd be wonderful to get a nap in so that I have a good 8 hours of sleep. The rain turns into on-off sprinkles, I find a small area sheltered by brush that's thick enough to keep the sprinkles at bay. I whip out my sleeping bag and fall asleep. I wake up to a little heavier rain, and still not thinking, wrap myself up like a burrito in my poncho-tarp. I wake up an hour later, refreshed but with a soaking wet down bag. I had to hike the entire day in a cold rain, looking forward to climbing into a cold, wet, sleeping bag at the end of the day.
It dried out completely after 2 nights of sleeping in it (the first underneath a properly set up poncho-tarp, which kept me dry, and the second under a clear sky). I actually wasn't even that cold those nights.
Frolicking Dinosaurs
02-04-2008, 22:56
The only time I have ever had a wet bag was in a KOA near Virginia Beach. There was a violent thunderstorm with a downdraft that wrecked the cabin-style tent next to my dome tent. Inside the cabin tent were a young couple from Quebec (who spoke very little English) with two small children -- I put the mother and her children in my tent with my (then 7 yo) son and helped the father get their gear in his van. The kids kept opening up the door of my tent and my bag got soaked due to the intense downpour in progress. I was car camping - had a synthetic bag and blanket in the car - so it wasn't so bad.
Unfortunately, I tripped going through the door and dumped the entire bucket of warm water into my open down sleeping bag :mad:I don't mean to laugh at you but THAT is funny :D :banana
Ok here comes my moment of shame. I'm hiking, and it's lightly raining. I keep hiking and hiking and can't find a place to throw down my tent. Finally, it's getting dark and I see a small place off to the side of the trail, just enough for my tent and right next to a stream. Perfect. After I set up and eat, I had to hang my foodbag which involved climbing a steep hill to get to a decent branch. All set, I go to sleep for the night. During the night, the rain kept up and kept up and kept up. I awoke about 5am, still dark, and notice that there is water under my tent, feeling similar to a water bed. I look out my tent, and notice that I had set up in a water run off. Water was streaming downhill right under my tent. I was basically camped in a stream. Thank goodness for my bathtub floor in the squall. Amazingly, the water hadn't gotten inside yet. I pack in a hurry, take down my tent and get it packed up in record time. Everything is packed and I'm ready to go. Then I remember my foodbag. I got about 3/4 the way up the hill when, you guessed it, my feet slide out from under me and I slide all the way back down. Now I'm wet and covered in mud. I climb again and slide down again. Now I'm pissed!! I finally get my foodbag and say screw it. I took off all my clothes, rinsed them in the stream, rinsed me off, and took off, all nicely bathed, all while it's still raining.
Wise Old Owl
02-04-2008, 23:15
Hmm, Never heard of the Verginey ground floods? I remember about age 11 or 12, Dad had the best of the best at the time, the Andre Jamlet tent with a five inch bucket. Back then we had crap cotton square sleeping bags and early three inch air mats. I don't remember the hike, I am told it was the Shanandoah, we were halfway up a mountain and it was pooring. We pitched jumped in and pumped up and passed out. We were on high ground and sheltered from wind. We awoke the next morning and I was told NOT to move, We were both floating in the top of the tent, only my dad by weight was below me, half submerged. He bent over went down and sunk his fists up beyond his elbows trying to find the zipper to get out. We swam out of our sleeping bags, Yea we bagged it, the rain was still coming down and it was bad. Interesting advantage to blow up pads, kept me dry till the morning.
Footslogger
02-04-2008, 23:26
My first night camping on a cross country bicycle trip found me ill prepaired. It was back in 1980 and I was just a young sprout. I didn't know to "seam seal" the tent and my inflatable air mattress leaked and the tent flooded and ended up trying to sleep on the cold wet ground. It was miserable!
Ever since then I have been overly cautious on trying to stay dry and have a morbid curiousity with other peoples experiences and failures.
...........any horror stories?
=================================
Talk to just about anyone who hiked in 2003 ...
'Slogger
angewrite
02-04-2008, 23:34
Worst got wet while sleeping story- woke up in 2 inches of water after passing out in my tent and forgetting to put the rainfly on!
:::: Knock Wood :::: I know I'll pay for this somehow. But I haven't had to deal with "wet" while sleeping for the last 25 years of hiking. Tent technology is pretty good, and has been for some time. Wet while hiking... that's another story.
Ramble~On
02-05-2008, 00:35
:D Three of us set up tents at a campground at the Outter Banks, NC.
Spread our mats and sleeping bags out and walked down to the beach for a day of drinking and trying not to drown or feed the sharks...it rained hard that day..we were already wet but when we got back to our tents we were suddenly reminded that we never put on the rain flys:eek: and that gave new meaning to "bath tub floors"
Almost There
02-05-2008, 00:48
Never got wet while sleeping, but I do have a good rain story. Hiking 3 years ago from Neel's Gap to Unicoi I was stuck in rain most of the afternoon. Finally stopped about dinner time, it was April, but warm, and I decided to eat dinner at Low Gap Shelter. I decided I would move on to find a place to camp. Well I finally managed to dry off while hiking and came up on the campsite before Blue Mountain, I was tired, it was late, and I was finally completely dry. I pull out my tent to set it up and just as I start to put the poles in...the sky opens up again!!! I managed to keep my tent dry, but by the time I got in the tent it looked like I had gone for a swim again. If I had stopped at the last spot like I should have, I would have been warm and dry.
Tell me your "got wet while sleeping" story
There have been way too many nights to relate them all to you!
And I’m sure there are going to be many more…
Pokey2006
02-05-2008, 04:11
My first night camping on a cross country bicycle trip found me ill prepaired. It was back in 1980 and I was just a young sprout. I didn't know to "seam seal" the tent and my inflatable air mattress leaked and the tent flooded and ended up trying to sleep on the cold wet ground. It was miserable!
Ever since then I have been overly cautious on trying to stay dry and have a morbid curiousity with other peoples experiences and failures.
...........any horror stories?
Got ya beat. My first bike tour, I didn't even bring a tent! Just an emergency blanket. And no sleeping bag. I actually thought I could sleep -- in Nova Scotia -- under the blanket, draped over my bike to make a "tent," and be fine. Luckily, I only had to sleep outdoors once. And it didn't rain. I was freezing, though, and ended up sleeping on the floor of the campground's bathroom. Ever since, I've been paranoid not about getting wet, but about being COLD.
Ah, the dumb things we do when we're "young sprouts!" Yesterday's idiocy makes for today's great stories.
I never allowed my sleeping bag to become wet. It is my first and last line if defense and I protect it's dryness at all cost!!
fiddlehead
02-05-2008, 06:34
happened twice, first time was my 2nd night out from Springer on my first thru ('77) set up the instant tube tent near a pond. poured down rain, we were ok until the pond rose and we found ourselves now in the pond. (the gap out of Suches,GA is it Woody?)
The only other time was on a speed hike of the JMT when we didn't take a tent because we had just did the whole trail for a warm-up and it didn't rain at all in the 8 or 9 days we took. then when we did the speed hike, it rained a lot. We just kept hiking at first but then got pretty tired and on day 4 we slept in the rain anyway (for about 2 hours) then got up and just hiked. The night after we finished, it also rained and we woke up in the middle of it. almost slept right thru it and didn't care. if you're tired enough, it doesn't really matter.
superman
02-05-2008, 08:24
Days before leaving for the AT I set up my old tent, that I'd used in 99 on the LT, to test it in the rain. I set it up in my front yard and checked it in the morning. There was some minor amount of water in it. I didn't have time to shop for a good tent so I just bought a Wal-Mart tent :). The first night we slept on Springer in a high wind with a little rain storm. The tent flattened out twice in the wind. It was a nice day for hiking during the first day. The next night it poured cats, dogs and fish. It was good that the floor of my tent leaked as much as the top or we would have drowned. It was like sleeping in a car wash. I had LL Bean send me a new tent. It was the first year for that design and that tent leaked bad. I sent that back and got a North Face that still works great but I use a tarp now.
Pennsylvania Rose
02-05-2008, 12:25
Last summer we were car camping in the Smokies. Now remember, the SE had a drought. It hadn't rained significantly at home (KY) or in the Smokies for weeks. We had a big huge cabin tent to fit the 7 of us. It wouldn't fit on the tent platform, so we set it up on the ground. Second day there, while we were sightseeing, it rained and a bunch of our clothes in the tent porch got wet. The tent also leaked and dripped all over our pillows and sleeping bags. No problem, the sun came back out, we hung everything to dry. Next day it was sunny. We went out siteseeing again, wore our only dry clothes, left our wet clothes drying on the line. Sudden cloudburst. Now ALL of our clothes are wet. Luckily we had fixed the tent so it didn't leak significantly. We managed to get some stuff dry by taking a scenic drive and putting our clothes over the heater vents. Fourth day, the teenagers and I went hiking while my husband stayed with the little kids. The skies opened. It poured for 2 1/2 hours. We hikers got drenched and the trail turned into a shin-deep creek, but we had fun. By the time we got back we were ready to sit by the fire we knew my husband would have started, and warm up. We found a totally different scenerio: my husband and the little kids had been drifting off for a nap when my daughter sat up and said, "Daddy, I feel like I'm on a water bed." The whole campsite was flooded except for the tent platform, which we hadn't set up on. Water was coming in from all sides. Everything was soaked. My husband used some choice words, but when the rain stopped he figured "Oh well, I'll start a fire." He had forgotten to cover the firewood back up. It was soaked through. He spent over an hour trying to get a fire started. Then we came back. We tried for another hour. Candles, firestarters, paper...nothing worked.
We took it as a sign to go home. Didn't rain again in the Smokies or at home for 2 weeks.
Kerosene
02-05-2008, 13:24
Ah, the dumb things we do when we're "young sprouts!"Two events from my younger days:
Setting #1: Summer campout with the Boy Scouts on an island in Indian Lake in the Adirondacks, circa July 1970. Set up the floorless canvas tent in a small, barely identifiable gully, which then promptly flooded with the first afternoon thunderstorm. Fortunately nothing got soaked, but I learned a good lesson on campsite selection. I moved the tent to the top of a small, uneven knoll, and the next night I slid out the bottom of the tent in my sleep, waking up and looking at branches above me trying to figure out where I was!
Setting #2: My very first overnight backpacking trip, on the AT just north of Delaware Water Gap in April 1973. We didn't think we'd need tents, so I just wrapped my plastic groundcloth around my huge rectangular synthetic sleeping bag. Of course, I woke up with the bag pretty damp, which only added to the weight of my pack. We were very lucky that it never really rained that first trip.
Bare Bear
02-05-2008, 16:14
Damn those hydration bags......
I have NEVER seen one that did not leak sooner or later.
I had a very wet night when the dude on the bunk above felt the need to take his water bag to bed with him. It leaked all 70 oz down all over me, my sleeping bag and it took days to get it dry again.
In the 70’s on a three day hike in the SNP I told my kid I was leaving my jacket behind as it was 85+ degrees. It was hot. How bad could it get? Hiked down to Big Run to fish & camp. Third day after hiking down to the park boundaries I checked the map and said “Lets take this trail called Rocky Top back out. That looks like fun.”
Never take a trail named Rock Top.
I hitched up my heavy work boots and when we got way up to the top of the first peak the rain started. Then came the next dip, the fog & cold and I became really disoriented when we hit the rock slides and was tough finding our way through. After a few peaks & dips we and the cheap Coleman sleeping bags were getting soaked as the increasingly cold rain started moving horizontally. As my son dropped off equipment I picked it up. Cold, wet, my flannel shirt soaking I could only hike 100 ft at a time without a rest and I was shaking badly so we finally pitched the summer J.C. Penny tent and covered the vents as best we could but the wind & rain still came through. Cooked the remaining bit of rice, chicken soup and egg in the tent and tried to stay as warm as we could. I was shaking violently in the wet bag most of the night and when the sun came up it was freezing. I threw off the bag and dashed outside nearly naked in a cloud of steam screaming at the top of my lungs.
There before me was a sea of white with an occasional mountain top poking through the clouds every couple of miles away.
Jesus! We had camped right on the top of a mountain and the wind had been cutting through the tent like a knife all night long.
I learned the value of focusing on each step rather than the distance you have to hike on the way out when you are wet, exhausted, your brain is not working right…or as proven by the events of the last few days, just not working at all.
I would like to relate some of the really, really, um….really stupid things I did on the hike but it would be attached to my signature forever so I’ll have to opt out.
Kiyu
warraghiyagey
02-05-2008, 17:11
Oops. Sorry. Thought this was spillover from the Sex on the AT thread.:o:D:o:o
Not suitable for posting here. Oh, I was thinking of something else!
Now, that's one I haven't seen before. Florida and Wyoming.
Add where U live, together with where I live, and I think we have the makings of a new long distance trail! The FL/NJ/WY/HI Trail/Kayak Route!!! Hey, I think we should write a book about it. It seems everyone else is writing books these days. 60/40 royalty split in my favor sound about right? After all it was my idea.
Farr Away
02-07-2008, 23:08
I was on a two-nighter with the Girl Scouts. The first night my sleeping bag got a little damp, so the second night I came up with a "great idea". I took a big plastic garbage bag and pulled it up around the bottom of my bag. It actually covered most of the bag. Of course I woke up soaking wet.
In my defense, I was thirteen at the time. :)
Circa 1972. July, somewhere on the AT. "High Adventure" Boy Scout trip of 8 people, 2 adults, sectioning from Newfound Gap to Hot Springs.
My group of 4 were camping under a plastic construction tarp, pitched high so we could walk under it easily. Thunderstorm came up in the middle of the night. High winds blew our tarp away like it was a sail. It's pouring, we're chasing our tarp, trying to get it back up, while our sleeping bags are getting soaked.
Finally got it back up, and start to settle in, when we start getting a stream coming under the tarp from the run-off. Had to pull all our gear up onto our groundsheets. Nobody could sleep the rest of the night.
Good thing we hiked into Hot Springs the next day.