Wanna save some weight ?

[kahtadin]

Get yourself a small hydrophilic towel, I use an MSR ultralite pack towel (sm., around 17g dry, 40g wrung out wet). Before packing my Double Rainbow away one day following a nighttime rain I measured the moderate condensation inside and adhering water outside I removed with the packtowel at over 300ml or 300g (hope that's right), with some more not recovered. Plus the tent dries much faster after being wiped down, and you'll feel like you know what you're doing, which is a good way to start the day. Don't bother wiping it down if it's still raining. It's pretty pointless and you'll feel really stupid...trust me on that.

Oh, and it's good for cleaning yourself up, which you'll need to do if you, say, take that shortcut from Kappa Moraine to the McKay Track. You know, the one where you bushwack across the burnt Arthur Plains.

[Son of a Beach]

I agree... I've used a cheap old "Chux" cloth for this sometimes. You can remove about a kg of water from your tent before packing it, I reckon.

[Franco]

One of the advantages of silnylon is that you can give it a good shake (if it is still raining) and get most of the water off. It does not go mouldy also.
I would not be surprised if many tents leave camp 1 kg heavier .
Chuxs are great. I use the jumbo size as a towel and two smaller ones, one for kitchen duties and the other for wiping the tent. The smaller are of a different colours so that I don't mix them, except that I can never remember which is which (kind of pointless isn't it ?)
Franco

[corvus]

Chucks are I agree a great LW product the ones I use are not available Retail (white only) 60x30 cm carton of 250 and weigh in at 9gm each, only problem is I need to ensure I get the personal one separate from the kitchen one and the tent one c

[tas-man]

After my last night out in my tent, I weighed it when I got home before hanging it out to dry off and it weighed 300 grams more than totally dry. . . . and this was after I had wiped it over before packing with a half synthetic Chamios that I carry for this purpose. Its scarry to think what your pack might weigh after a day out in the rain! I may have mentioned in an older thread that after my South Coast trip in 2007, I weighed my pack before unpacking all the wet gear and clothing, and it weighed almost the same as when I weighed in at Par Avion the week before!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ( I had consumed about 4.5kg's dry weight of food!)

[sthughes]

No surprise there. After a recent wet walk I weighed my boots and socks - wet weight was about 300g more per foot than dry (although they'd dried out a bit)! Prompted me to get new boots and go to using a single sock layer.
On the last morning of the walk I dried the condensation off my Microlight fly and let it dry in the sun till it was time to go. I thought it was pretty much dry but next weekend just to make sure (seem I wasn't planning to use it for a while) I weighed it and erected just the fly in the sun on a warm day. By the time I took it down a couple of hours later it had lost over 90g even though there appeared to only be one very small slightly dampish patch to begin with that I couldn't even see until it was out in the bright sun!
My point being if a seemingly dry Sil-nylon Microlight fly has 90g of water in/on it, then how much is there in an obviously wet coat/overpants/canvas pack etc, etc? (about 4.5kg apparently!) Forget a hydrophilic towel take a hills hoist

[north-north-west]

A tumble dryer would probably be more effective. And a very, very long extension cord . . . .

[flyfisher]

Heard a rumour that Hitachi were working on an ultralight cordless tumble dryer.
Just a rumour
ff

[jerreldulay]

That's brilliant!!! Thanks for the tip!!

My last tentxpedition in the rain ended in heartache : in the rainforests in Northern California, rain found its way through the supposed sealed seams and I awoke in the middle of the night in a swimming pool. I'm sure my tent came away that day much more than a kg heavier!