State Parks: Sleeping Bags and Pads
Friday, January 7th, 2011This is Passport to Texas
You love the outdoors and think camping is great fun—but not when it’s miserably hot outside. You’re not alone. Cool weather camping is a popular activity in Texas.
Our State park Guide, Bryan Frazier, says while a sleeping bag made for winter camping is an important piece of gear…
Maybe more importantly you want a sleeping pad to go under you between you and the ground. The ground can actually rob you of heat during the night—it’s called radiant heat loss. And the pad will be a barrier between you and the cold ground and will make a dramatic difference keeping you nice and cozy in your tent, even thought it’s cool outside.
Is there a certain thickness that it ought to be to be the most effective?
You want it a couple of inches—which most all of them are—and it can be either air or foam. What you want is a barrier so that the heat stays with you, and that pad will really help keep the heat toward you rather than toward the ground.
What about folded blankets, would that work as well?
Better than nothing, but most of the pads, even if they’re foam, they’ll have some air trapped in there, and that dead air space will actually serve as a better insulation barrier.
Thanks, Bryan.
Reserve your campsite online when you log onto the Texas Parks and Wildlife Website.
That’s our show for today…with funding provided by Chevrolet…building dependable, reliable trucks for more than 90 years.
For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.
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