Drying boots in the back country

[colonel00]

That is a distinct possibility. That was part of the reason I was just wearing the gym socks. Now, these weren't super fitted mountaineering boots either so there was a bit of space but the Goretex socks were pretty tight. Like I mentioned, I just took them along since I knew my boots would be wet after a few days on the boat in Valdez. These were also some older Goretex hunting boots that had insulation as well. We mailed all of our gear home so we could bring fish back on the plane. I think it took 2-3 weeks in the mail and the boots were still damp when they got home and sat in the garage drying for another week.

Anyway, I like the PVC idea as well so I am hoping others give it a shot and report back.

 

[AK Troutbum]

I'm going to get both of my mountaineering boots equally wet, then do the PVC/hand warmer in one and the oven bag/boiling water in the other and see how they turn out. I'll post the results in a couple days.

 

[AK Troutbum]

I have a trick that works when we are winter camping or hunting in the snow for long periods of time. This trick is guaranteed to dry your boots bone dry every night, is very simple, and can be light as your heat delivery system is.

You need a couple of pieces of pvc or if packing in a light weight tube 3" or larger in diameter that you can put in your boots and is large enough for air flow around your hand warmers. Cut the top of the pvc that goes where your toes is at a angle for airflow.

Drop a hand warmer in the top of each pvc tube before bed, put your boots on the pipe, and it will draw warm dry air into the toe of your boots all night long and by the am your boots will be dry. The handwarmers are the disposable ones about $1.00 ea

Since I learned this trick from another guide I have never had to put on wet/cold boots again!

When you say drop a hand warmer down the PVC, does it slide all the way down to the PVC elbow?

 

[MOHunter]

I'm going to get both of my mountaineering boots equally wet, then do the PVC/hand warmer in one and the oven bag/boiling water in the other and see how they turn out. I'll post the results in a couple days.

Sweet

 

[Buglebrush]

Tagging to follow I also was curious about dropping the handwarmer down the pvc pipe? Doesn't that block the air? What size PVC? Thanks!

 

[AK Troutbum]

Okay, so here is what I did. After I made up my PVC boot drying contraption and got everything prepared, I pulled the insoles out of each boot because I figure I do that anyway and I sleep with the insoles in my bag. I then poured a shot glass of water into the toe of each boot and moved it around for 15 seconds then dumped it out, then I sprayed 20 sprays of water all around inside of each boot trying to cover as much surface area as possible but concentrating on the foot bed and toe/sides around the foot bed, I then put the oven bag down in one boot all the way to the toe area and filled with boiling water, then placed the activated hand warmer inside of the PVC and slipped that down into the toe of the other boot. I'm doing this all in the garage (at 55°F ) because our temperatures have been getting down into the single digits at night and our highs have only been in the low 30s, and I didn't want the boots freezing or having any other variables that would affect the whole drying process. The conditions that I normally do my mountain hunts in do not get down even into the teens and rarely get below freezing.
Here are some pictures of the whole process.

My plan is to give this about 12 hours or so and see how it works.

 

[AK Troutbum]

I thought I would go ahead and post this up while I was at it. One PVC boot dryer with hand warmer weighs 5.55 ounces, and one oven bag weighs 0.25 ounces.

 

[ColoradoV]

Haha wow you boys are on it. The set in the pics I just put together from some pvc that was laying around you will find that the larger the size of the pvc the better air flow you will get. I gave the set in the pics to a friend and the ones I am using now are pry 2 1/2" to 3" pvc.

Cool test I will be interested to see how it comes out!

 

[fillthefreezer]

round 2 you should saturate the outside of the boot too. sweaty and wet brush all day kinda thing

 

[AK Troutbum]

round 2 you should saturate the outside of the boot too. sweaty and wet brush all day kinda thing

That did cross my mind, I actually thought about setting the boot in a bucket of water for a couple hours. I know there's been a few times at the end of the day where they've been totally soaked, but I just don't think anything, outside of a fire source and an electric boot dryer, would help too much under those conditions. I once got home from a very wet hunt, my boots were totally soaked, and it took close to a week airing out in the heated garage for them to completely dry out. Neither one of these systems would've done me much good up there in the mountains.

 

[AK Troutbum]

Haha wow you boys are on it. The set in the pics I just put together from some pvc that was laying around you will find that the larger the size of the pvc the better air flow you will get. I gave the set in the pics to a friend and the ones I am using now are pry 2 1/2" to 3" pvc.

Cool test I will be interested to see how it comes out!

I really didn't want to go with schedule 40 PVC because it seemed just way too heavy. I wasn't able to find thinner walled stuff that was bigger then inch and a half in diameter, so that's what I used for this test. A pair of 3 inch, schedule 40, PVC would probably weigh a couple pounds or so.

 

[charvey9]

If you are going light, fire is the best option. Just be careful, too hot and it will delaminate the glue on the soles of some boots. Had this happen to me on a crappy $300 pair of danners last year that leaked terribly. Pretty much had wet feet for a week.

 

[Where's Bruce?]

Rice in a veggie bag. Gives it a nice earthy flavor later when ya eat it.

 

[AK Troutbum]

I even thought about bringing some desiccants into the mountains, but it's just as heavy as rice. On the other hand you could always eat the rice if your boots never got wet.

 

[rodney482]

Pull insoles

ive used newspaper and it works

 

[Goober]

find some nice sized rocks, heat them up, put them inside your socks, put them back in the boots. After removing the insoles of course. It helps. Won't completely dry out soaked boots, but sure helps out. Sure beats having to carry more gear to use in my opinion. I haven't had to do this while hunting, but have done it frequently while in the Boundary Waters canoeing.

 

[AK Troutbum]

Like I stated earlier, the places where I mountain hunt don't have any fuel to make a fire, so really no way of heating things up like rocks, athough there are usually plenty of rocks.

In my little experiment, the PVC/hand warmer contraption worked the best. The boiling water in the oven bag, as I expected, took off really quickly and the outside of the boot was pretty warm right away, but this didn't last too long, as the water cooled down fairly quickly, and then didn't contribute any heat.

I also looked around a few other places trying to find thin walled PVC that had a little bigger diameter like 2 or 3 inch but I couldn't find anything. Like ColoradoV said, I also think the larger diameter would probably have worked a little better. I think I'll mess around with this contraption a little more and see if I can possibly tweak it into something that will work a little better.

 

[realunlucky]

Maybe a cloth type hose like what is used for irrigation/ fire hose . You would need something to hold the ends opens though but that could be pretty thin since your just needing it to draft air flow

 

[Jager]

i concentrate more on making sure ive got dry socks to put on before i put my still wet boots on in the morning. yet to find a way around that one.

On the money there, good idea for socks to be good quality merino as well. Put your wet socks in your sleeping bag with you.

You should never dry leather in front of a fire.

 

[AK Troutbum]

One thing I never skimp on is socks. I always take several pair and usually one or two pair more than I need. I also always sleep in my socks, so having warm, dry socks in the morning has never been an issue. On the other hand, sliding my warm dry feet into a pair of cold wet boots has occasionally been an issue, and it really sucks. It never used to bother me an awful lot, but it seems the older I get, the more of a wuss I become.