When you’re camping, keeping warm is critical. And you lose a third or more of your body heat through your head. The hard part is protecting it without impeding your view or becoming uncomfortable.
Here are a few tips on how to keep your face warm while camping, whether you’re hiking or sleeping in your sleeping bag:
How To Keep Your Face Warm While Camping
There are few options for keeping your face warm when camping than keeping the back of your head warm, though options exist.
We’ll cover a variety of them here:
1. Use A Face Protector
The ideal solution is using the face protector on your jacket to keep your face warm. These are typically flaps on the sides of the jacket hood that can be snapped or zipped in front of your face.
It leaves your eyes uncovered so that your vision is mostly unaffected. Another option is to wear a parka hood. The hood of the average parka sticks out ahead of your face.
The tunneled hood naturally encloses your head, helping it retain body heat. Furthermore, the tunnel design of the hood protects your face from the wind. The downside of this approach is that you have a literal tunnel vision.
2. Stand-Alone Fleece Face Masks
You can buy stand-alone fleece face masks. These may be able to connect to your jacket hood with buttons or snaps.
In fact, a number of manufacturers make versions that are compatible with their hats and jackets. It can protect your mouth and nose while giving you enough space to breathe.
3. Wear a Scarf
Another option for keeping your face warm when camping is wearing a scarf. Wrap it around your neck or face to help keep it warm. The biggest benefits of this approach are that you can do this no matter what type of jacket you have and buy whatever scarf you want.
You can buy a light and brightly colored scarf or a dark, heavy one. One of the downsides of scarves is that they can come undone. They also introduce a strangulation risk. If the scarf gets caught in a wheel or winding device, you could choke before you can get it off.
The same is true if the scarf gets caught in something while you fall. The risk of this is low, but it is significant enough that they sell children’s hooded jackets with strings or attachments that can’t cause someone to be strangled.
4. Wear a Balaclava (Ski Mask)
Perhaps the safest approach is to wear a balaclava. The balaclava is often called the ski mask. It generally has holes for your eyes and mouth.
The rest covers your head snuggly like a sock. The upsides are that it can’t get in the way and can be used with any other garments you wear.
The downside is that it can interfere with your ability to be understood if it doesn’t expose your mouth. Another balaclava design is a thick sock-like tube.
You can let it sit on your neck as a scarf until you pull it up to cover the lower half of your face. Depending on the design, you may be able to pull the back of the balaclava over the back of your head to create a de facto hood.
Other designs resemble a ski mask but leave a large single hole open around the eyes. This design lets you wear ski goggles securely against the face while protecting the rest of the face from the wind.
This design also means you could pull that part of the ski mask down to talk or eat. In many cases, the balaclava can be worn in addition to a hat, parka or scarf. And the balaclava can be pulled up and worn as a hat or hair net, too.
There are face masks designed for skiers and other winter sports enthusiasts that can help keep your face warm, as well. The average pair of full-face goggles will protect your eyes and upper face from the wind.
How to Protect Your Face from the Cold
We often focus on keeping our face and head warm in the winter. However, it is possible to get sunburn and windburn when outside.
If you aren’t covering your face completely with a balaclava or essentially doing so via a parka, consider wearing sunscreen.
Try to wear sunglasses or goggles that protect against ultraviolet light when you’re outside to prevent snow blindness, a form of sunburn that affects the retinas.
Conversely, wearing goggles or sunglasses provides a little protection from the wind, though it won’t help your face stay warm unless you’re wearing massive goggles.
If you’re carrying a blanket with you, you can wrap that around your head and face to protect it from the elements. This is an easy solution for young children.
How to Keep Your Head Warm when Camping
The simplest solution to keep your head warm is to take advantage of the gear you already have.
Pull up your jacket’s hood. Pull up the hood on your sleeping bag if you have a mummy style sleeping bag. This will help keep your head warm. If you don’t have these items, wear a hat.
How to Keep the Rest of Your Body Warm when Camping
Before you blame your lack of head and face protection, don’t forget the need to keep the rest of your body warm. For example, wear heavy duty socks, and don’t let them get too sweaty.
Wear toe warmers and use hand warmers. If all else fails, you can put your warmed hands against your face. Have two different caps like stocking caps.
Then, if one gets too sweaty, you can remove it and replace it with one that is warm and dry. This means that you want to wear a clean, dry cap during the day, not the knit cap you wore to bed.
Don’t forget simple solutions like ear muffs. These keep your ears warm, and a large pair can help protect your face from the wind, as well.
Don’t forget to pull down the ear flaps on your jacket, as well. Then it will provide a little protection for the sides of your face from the wind and the cold.
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