[Paddlewise] Dumb Scout's Bivy

When I was a boy scout on a hike in the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state,
we got a brilliant idea.  Rather than put a tent up, we'd just sleep
underneath our plastic tarp.  We draped it over ourselves and went to sleep.
When we woke up our bags were soaked, even though it hadn't rained.  We
figured our tarp had trapped every bit of moisture - from the ground, from our
breath, etc.  Everyone else in the troop was ready to go after minimal
dew-drying, but there wasn't time for ours to get even close to dry, so we had
to carry them like that all day.





Since then I've been leery of bivies - even Goretex.  I have a Goretex
bicycling suit, but discovered on a trip through Oregon that it wasn't capable
of allowing all the perspiration I was producing to evaporate, and I ended up
soaked to the skin.  I think Goretex is great, but not perfect.  Of course, a
paddling buddy of mine always camps in his Goretex bivy, and he seems to stay
dry.  I admit, I'm sometimes jealous when I see how small it packs, and how
quick it "sets up" and "takes down" compared to my backpacking tent.  Maybe
someday I'll try one.


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