Hi everyone! We start on Sep 9th (two days from now) in SJPP and we were wondering if we could get away with just bringing a sleeping bag liner as opposed to the bulky sleeping bag or is it too cold already?
Thanks
Oh, Margot, it makes me shiver just thinking about this! I've walked the
Camino Frances twice in September-October and I was mighty glad to have both my sleeping bag and liner, especially into October when there was frost on the ground in the morning in Galicia! People often say there are blankets at albergues, and it's true there are at most. Personally, I hesitate to use them because I don't know how often they get laundered, and whether they're bedbug-free (some places seemed to have newer, cleaner ones than others).
I feel the cold quite easily and on both of my June-July
Camino Frances walks (the most recent of which was this year), I've also had both. And while there were several heatwave nights when it was too hot to sleep inside anything, there were also several nights when I was glad to have both layers! Especially at the end of the Camino in Fisterra.
And yes, as Jacques-D wrote, there are high places on the Way, and they can be cold when summer is over. They can be cold even during summer, like the mid-July night in Rabanal in 2012 when it was so freezing cold, the hospitalera made a big fire in the fireplace and we pilgrims crowded around it, thankful for the warmth!
Whatever you decide, Buen Camino!
Rachel