Things That Freeze in the Night

[Brushy Sage]

When I was hiking through Georgia in early March, I discovered one morning that the mouthpiece to my water (hydration) system had frozen, and it took me a long time, chewing and sucking on it, to get the water flowing again. Since then, I have learned to blow on the tube after I get a drink, and push the water back away from the mouthpiece. I'm wondering what other hikers have experienced in terms of gear that freezes up, and what have you learned to do about it.

[mikethulin]

i know this is sick but i had to tell ya me and two buddies did a 10 day section two years ago in march starting springer and about a day north of neels gap it hit 8 degrees in the morning well a buddy of mine decided to use one of his nalgenes as a late nite bathroom because of the cold
well it never got above frezzing for three days so he carried around a frozen bottle full of piss for three days good idea huh?
thanks mike :D

[DebW]

Many types of read-to-eat food will freeze solid at cold temperatures and be impossible to eat. Make sure that any ready-to-eat foods you bring are in small enough pieces to pop into your mouth without biting. It can thaw in your mouth if necessary. Gorp works because the pieces are all small. But watch out for things like energy bars. If you can't bite into them, you can't eat them. Unless you are willing to carry them in an inside pocket for an hour before eating. Also, olive oil will solidify at cold temperatures and only be usable if you can scrape it out of the bottle. Cold olive oil in a narrow necked bottle will be useless.

[smokymtnsteve]

cold olive oil or honey is easy to get out of the bottle by sitting the bottle inside your cooking water as it heats up. even at temps inthe 40's honey flows slowly so as I am heating the water for tea I am also warming the honey at the same time.

[snowshoe]

One thing I found will freeze is contact solution. Had this happen to me while backpacking the Whites in Jan. Water bottles will freeze as well but the best wa to prevent that is start out with warm water and keep the water bottles upside down. Hydration packs are not good to use in the winter especially from North Jersey Northward were the temps tend to be below freezing often in winter. It is better to use water bottles that have the wide openings.