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This trip was extremely wet. The ground was soaked to begin with, and it rained all night and all the next day.


First, I used almost exactly the same strategy with the addition of a lightweight bivy, and a wood stove. How did it work ? Ok, but not great. I've been stuck in real wet conditions a few times and I am not a big fan. There is a difference between a lot of rain, and just wet (I know it doesn't make a lot of sense).

First, sleeping on fairly wet ground does not bother me a lot. CCF pads won't absorb water, so if you have a large pad it is effective at keeping what is on top of it dry. A ground sheet, or small tarp work well as well. The lightweight bivy I had was effective, in case I rolled around or rolled off, which is not a big problem for me. The stove was effective at keeping the inside of the tent dry while it was in operation. The problem was "misting" as it's known in the middle of the night. Misting , is when condensation builds up inside the tent, and big rain drops knock it off. I was mostly ok in bivy, but my son was in his bag only and it got wet, but not wetted out. In the middle of the night , I wished I had a partial liner for the rear of the BCS which would have kept misting at bay, or someone (not me) would have started the stove, which would have dried it out as well.

So in summary, my strategy does not change a lot when dealing with the ground itself. Where my strategy changes is condensation. Wet ground, makes for more condensation. If you set up camp and use a wood stove on top the wet ground it will dry out, but not so much the first night. If you move camp everyday, you will never be on dry ground, if you have more of a basecamp it will get dry. Under a big pine canopy would be my first campsite choice when it is real wet.

In this particular case, I would have been much better off camping on pine duff under a pine canopy, but that option was not available. With a partial liner, all would have been fine as well, and a ground sheet, tarp or bivy would be fine for the ground. On this trip, I had a puppyish lab with me, which was my reason for using the bivy.

BTW, I knew that was going to be a wet weekend, the precip chance was 90 percent and some areas had potential floods. I went out anyway, just in case it was nice and sunny Tent "misting" was going to happen, the air was so wet, it was practically dripping on it's own.