Pro Tips Essential Techniques for Using Ultralight Hiking Clothes In Cold & Wet Conditions

By Alan Dixon

A good layering system is really just a set of lightweight hiking clothes. It should keep you safe and comfortable in a broad range of temperatures and environmental conditions (wind, rain, sleet and snow).

In cold weather the challenges to staying warm and dry are as follows:

• Not freeze when hiking in low temperatures and/or at low physical exertion levels (e.g. walking downhill)
• But also not overheat and soak your clothing with sweat as temperatures get warmer and/or at high physical exertion levels (e.g. hiking uphill with a pack on)
• To protect you from wind and precipitation
• Finally, have a very warm layer ready (usually a down jacket) to keep warm at rest stops and in camp

Keep Hiking When It’s Cold, Avoid stops and/or keep them short

In colder weather, you can spend far too much time stopping to adjust layers. This is especially true on hilly trails where you are consistently getting sweaty and hot going uphill, and freezing while on ridges and going downhill. Moderate but consistent movement, not stopping for layer changes, is the key to keeping warm when it’s cold.

• Hiking to keep warm needn’t be at all tiring or strenuous.
• Even walking 1 to 1.5 miles per hour should keep your internal, metabolic heater going, and keep your hands and feet warm. If you are getting tired you are going too fast!
• Minimize stops to essential needs, and don’t make them longer than necessary. When you stop, you get cold quickly and it takes a long time to warm up again. If you’re starting to chill it’s time to move.
• If you really need to stop for a longer time (over 5 minutes), try to do it in a warmer, more protected area and put on warm clothing (e.g. a high quality down jacket) as soon as you stop. Take your warm clothing off just before you start hiking again. Or after you have been walking for a few minutes. (note: I store the jacket as the topmost item in the main bag of my backpack so I can quickly retrieve it and put it back.)

Hiking Clothes Adjustments

• When starting to hike, I put on just enough clothing to keep me warm when moving. (It might take 5-10 minutes at a brisk pace to get fully warm. Then I can back-off to my normal hiking pace.)
• Overdressing, getting hot and then sweating out is a great way to get wet and then really cold. It’s very easy to get clothing wet, but it takes a long time to dry it out in cold and damp weather. Wet clothing is cold clothing and unhappiness. This is why we like using polartec Alpha Direct fleece so much – it’s hyper breathable and extremely quick drying.
• Temperature adjustments are made without stopping or changing a top or bottom layer. Too hot? take off hat and gloves (put in pants pockets). To further cool unzip fleece jacket and/or your base layer, and possibly push sleeves up. Too cold? reverse the procedure.
• Only add warmer clothing when you can no longer stay warm walking at a comfortable pace (and with a good clothing system, this is a rare).
• If you do need to change layers do it quickly. What most people don’t realize is how much time it takes to stop, take your pack off, put-on or take-off a layer, put your pack back on and start hiking again. It’s plenty long enough to get chilled.

Keep your Hiking Clothes Dry

• At the risk of pointing out the obvious, put on your rainwear before you get wet. Have your rainwear readily available on the outside of your pack so you can put it on quickly and without opening your main pack bag and exposing your pack contents to rain. (I like to keep it in the large rear pocket.)
• When wearing your rain jacket pay special attention to not sweating out your clothing.  Adjust and ventilate your clothing and/or slow your hiking pace as necessary. As above, it’s very easy to get clothing wet, but it takes a long time to dry it out in cold and damp weather. We leave pit zips unzipped 99% of the time. Unzip the main front zip in light rain.
• And if it’s going to rain for a long time you are going to get wet—it’s inevitable one way or the other. Just try to do your best to keep warm and minimize it. [A discussion on how to deal with long periods of rain (like days), is another whole topic and beyond the scope of this post.]

Avoid Hiking Clothes Layering Mistakes

• People bring too many layers as well as the wrong layers. This costs a lot of money and it’s heavy. Try to find a minimal set of light clothing that will work in a broad range of conditions. It can be done!
• A good layering system is NOT about frequently changing layers. Quite the opposite, you should strive to minimize adding or removing layers! A single set of well-selected clothes should work in a broad range of temperatures (e.g. from mid-20s °F to around 50 °F) without adding or removing layers.
• Keep Hiking When It’s Cold. Frequent stops to change layers can seriously chill you. And once chilled it can be exceptionally hard to get warm again. (In cold weather, constant but moderate movement is what keeps you warm.) Minimize stops to essential needs, and don’t make them longer than necessary. If you really need to stop for a longer time (over 5 minutes), try to do it in a warmer, more protected area and put on warm clothing (e.g. down jacket) as soon as you stop. Take your warm clothing off just before you start hiking again. Or even after you been walking for a few minutes.
• Overheating and sweating out clothes will get you very cold in the long run. Wet clothing is cold clothing and unhappiness. (And in cold weather it takes a very long time to dry, if ever.)