What are some quick ways to dry clothes in moist weather?
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Keeping clothing dry in normal weather can be challenging, but high humidity or precipitation regions can make this even more difficult.
That's because humidity is really a "relative" measure and means the amount of water vapor that the air can hold at a given temperature before condensation.
The condensation can occur in the sky as rain, near the ground as fog, or in your tent as water droplets clinging to the inside. The water can also cling to your clothes, if they hang inside your tent when the relative humidity approaches the "dew point"
This is important because if you try to dry your clothes in the open air and the temp and humidity are near the dew point your clothes will not dry, if fact they may become more wet!
Many people have seen this when they get up to hike early and there is water clinging to tall grass along the trail even though there was no rain.
So then how do I dry my clothes?
The easiest way to increase the air temperature is to use your body, it is a constant 98-99 degrees and you always have it with you.
So I am a human clothes line?
Below are the basic instructions for a sleeping bag clothes dryer.
Suggestions for keeping clothes dry.
Extra reading on the subject...
Best of luck to you out there!
If you have a synthetic sleeping bag, you can put your hiking clothes down the bag, near your feet, when you go to sleep. Your body warmth will help them get drier. Note, however, that they will not be completely dry by morning, but will still remain somewhat damp.
Depending on how much moisture you're talking about, it can also help to wrap some clothes together with a microfiber towel and wring them out together. The towel will draw some of the moisture out of the clothing and into itself. This won't get clothes dry, but it can substantially reduce the amount of water in clothes.
I use this technique to mostly dry out my son's cotton socks (yes I know cotton is evil! But it's harder to justify hiking socks that someone will outgrow in a few months). It takes them from soaked to damp, and definitely gets more water out than simply wringing them alone.
Wearing the wet clothes can help dry them quicker, though this can only be done in certain situations of course.
On a sunny day, sun-bathed rocks can be a good way to dry clothes as they are hot and in the sun, heating the garment on both sides. You should move the clothes around a lot to get different parts exposed to the sun. Also the rock will loose its heat quickly so go from rock to rock to gather all their heats in your garment.
If by "clothes" you mean inclusive socks and other smaller apparel; one way is to fasten these smaller items between the belt and the pants and hang them inside close to the groin. If using a base layer, I would recommend to get the apparel between the base layer and the pant since they'll otherwise just absorb your sweat. The groin is truly a hot spot along with the arm pits, thus making the arm pits a good place too for hanging wet stuff, but harder to fasten in a good manner. (There are a lot of blood vessels in those places close to the surface of the skin, which is why they are good drying places).