Three Days of Rain in Brittany’s Monts d’Arrée: What Held and What Failed

Three days of rain in the Monts d’Arrée didn’t defeat all of my gear. Above all, they taught me a distinction: keeping water out and keeping your stuff dry are two separate problems. My jacket got clammy without any leak I could find. My boots ended up damp inside. My sleeping bag and sleep clothes, on the other hand, stayed dry, protected inside the pack.

The most useful thing wasn’t some flashy piece of gear. It was a stubborn line between wet and dry, a few adjustments made early enough, and a pair of socks I banned myself from hiking in.

From Huelgoat to Saint-Rivoal, three wet days

Three days and two nights in the Monts d’Arrée, in Brittany, in northwestern France, from Saturday, September 20, to Monday, September 22, 2025. I set out from Huelgoat, passed not far from Lake Brennilis, the Saint-Michel reservoir, then Mont Saint-Michel de Brasparts and Lake Drennec, and finished in Saint-Rivoal, where someone came to pick me up by car. So not a loop, but a point-to-point route. About 29 miles (47 km) in all, based on the route I traced afterward on Map Planner: around 12 miles (20 km) on day one, about 10 (16 km) on day two, and 7 (11 km) on day three.

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Two nights of backcountry camping, one of them on private land, with the owner’s permission.

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The rain wasn’t constant. Day one was mostly drizzle: fine, light rain. Day two brought rain and showers, with some fairly long clear spells. The heaviest rain fell the second night, and it was still raining on the morning of day three. Between one day and the next, the boots never had time to dry.

It was around 50 to 59 °F (10 to 15 °C). Nothing measured down to the decimal, and no rain gauge readings either: I’m not about to turn a soaked sleeve into a weather station.

The gear itself was nothing exotic.

This isn’t a product ranking. It’s what I had on my back, and how it all held up when evening never brought a chance to dry out.

The jacket: a soaked surface doesn’t prove a leak

The first morning, water was still beading on the jacket. By evening, some patches had darkened. Inside, my top was damp between the shoulder blades.

My first instinct was to blame the jacket. But I didn’t see any trickle in one spot, or any mark clear enough to show where water had gotten in. Mostly, I’d been hiking too fast with the vents closed.

A membrane jacket does two jobs at once. The membrane is the barrier against water. The water-repellent surface finish, usually called DWRDurable water repellent: a surface treatment that makes water bead up on the outer fabric., helps drops bead up instead of soaking into the fabric. GORE-TEX, which explains this for its own garments, says that losing water repellency doesn’t, on its own, mean the membrane has lost its waterproofing; a saturated outer fabric still cuts your comfort and makes it harder for moisture to escape [5].

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On day two, I changed the way I was hiking before thinking about switching jackets. I took off a layer I didn’t need anymore while moving, opened the vents, and above all slowed down at the first sign of overheating, instead of waiting until my back was wet.

It worked better, though it was no miracle: my top still wasn’t dry, but the moisture stopped building up as much. What failed here was mainly surface comfort and the way I managed my effort. Not waterproofing I could actually prove had failed.

The boots: water doesn’t need to get through the membrane

The first evening, my socks were damp. On day two, the tops of my socks were downright wet. I’d put my rain pants on too late: the bottoms of my pant legs had had time to soak up water from the vegetation, and covering my boots after that obviously didn’t get rid of the water already inside.

A waterproof boot is still open at the ankle. The outdoor co-op REI recommends gaiters or rain pants to protect your socks and the tops of your boots [6]. It’s not a watertight seal, but it deals with a way in that the membrane can’t close off.

So I can’t blame all the moisture on a leak. Sweat, water coming in over the top, and possible seepage all feel pretty similar. Without checking each one separately, calling it a “failed membrane” after two days would be a convenient diagnosis, not a serious one.

At camp, I took out the insoles. In the morning, they were still damp. My nighttime socks stayed in their bag: I didn’t sacrifice them for a few minutes of comfort in a wet boot.

The backpack: the rain cover was only the first barrier

Under the cover, the backpack still didn’t stay dry. The shoulder straps and back panel were wet, and one outside pocket had water sitting in the bottom. I couldn’t figure out how that water got there: rain, runoff, and opening the pack again and again all had plenty of chances to play a part.

The protection that mattered was on the inside: the big dry bag, which keeps the overnight gear separate from the rest of the load. The wet rainfly traveled in its own bag, outside that dry space. That precaution addresses a known limitation: a pack can be made of waterproof fabric without its seams, zippers, and openings being waterproof too. REI recommends protection inside the pack, and dry bags for the most sensitive gear, even with a rain cover [6].

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The real weak spot was how I’d organized things. On day one, I’d packed a snack too deep. To get to it, I opened the main compartment and handled several things with wet hands. The lesson: anything you need during the day goes where you can grab it without opening the protected section. There’s no need to unpack your entire bedroom to find a snack.

What held: the sealed-off sleeping gear and sleep clothes. What failed: my assumption that a rain cover was enough to turn the whole pack into a dry space. Outside pockets are wet zones, plain and simple, not places to leave anything fragile unprotected.

The tent: a dry night doesn’t mean dry walls

The first night, nothing came up through the ground. Yet when I woke up, the inside of the rainfly was covered in condensation. That’s not a contradiction: a tent can keep the rain out and still build up moisture. Even a well-ventilated shelter often holds some under the rainfly and under the floor, as REI points out [8].

My mistake was more ordinary than a fabric defect. I’d left my wet jacket in the vestibuleThe area covered by the rainfly in front of the inner tent, where you keep your boots and backpack., right up against the inner tent’s door, and the doorway got soaked. The second evening, I drew a clear line: wet boots and clothes in the vestibule, away from the inner tent. A small cloth took care of the rainfly and the drips near the door.

One more thing to check at setup: a footprint or ground cloth shouldn’t stick out past the tent floor, or it will collect rain. REI recommends folding the edges of a regular tarp under the floor [8]; our guide to tarp setups applies the same rule.

The habits that keep you comfortable

Here’s the routine I’d stick to from the very first evening.

1. Get the setup ready before opening the pack. The tent and its accessories come out without touching the dry clothes, and the dry bag gets closed again as soon as you’ve pulled something out of it.
2. Finish setting up before getting out your sleeping gear. Tension, doors, wet spots: your sleeping bag isn’t a holding area while you put everything else away.
3. Only change under shelter. Sleep clothes stay protected until the moment you put them on; keeping this dry reserve is also one of REI’s tips for backpacking in the rain [6].
4. Keep what you wipe with away from what has to stay dry. The rainfly cloth never goes in with the clean clothes.
5. Pack wet gear separately the next morning. The rainfly gets folded up without touching your sleeping gear; a short break in the rain gets rid of some of the drops, but it won’t dry the fabric.
6. Don’t dip into the dry reserve to hike in. Putting on your sleep clothes to head out again would only push the problem to the next evening.

These habits take attention, especially when all you want is to crawl into the tent fast. That’s exactly the point: they keep one rushed move from spoiling the hours that follow.

What I’d check before heading out again

After those three days, I wouldn’t replace my whole gear list. I’d start by looking at the limits that showed up, one at a time.

For the jacket, the first check would be the water repellency. GORE-TEX suggests a simple test: sprinkle it with water and see whether the water beads up or soaks into the fabric, leaving darker patches [5]. The manufacturer then recommends the right care, starting with the garment’s care label; instructions vary with the construction, and a treatment that works for one jacket doesn’t apply to all of them [10].

For the boots, I’d first look for better protection at the opening, and put on the rain pants before the bottoms of my legs were soaked. Persistent moisture would then call for a separate check, not a verdict based on wet socks. For the backpack, I’d keep the rain cover, but treat the inner dry bag as the real protection. For the tent, I’d set it up again in dry weather to check the tension, the seams, and the floor.

Finally, the work doesn’t end when you get home. REI recommends drying your tent completely before storing it: moisture breeds mildew and damages the waterproof coatings [8]. The boots deserve a slow dry too, as Nikwax advises [7].

So by the end of day three, I hadn’t found a way to keep everything dry. I’d learned to choose what absolutely had to stay dry, then organize every move around that priority.

My nighttime socks hadn’t covered a single mile. And yet they were the pair that did the best work.

Worth watching

GORE-TEX explains why a jacket whose water-repellent finish has worn off can feel damp and clammy, as if it were leaking, then shows how to restore that finish on outerwear, gloves, and footwear.

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Erik Vadas-Gauden

The one who started Outfarer

Outfarer started with Erik, who launched it with a few passionate friends. A nature lover first and foremost, he writes about the topics closest to his heart and reviews a good chunk of the magazine, including every survival and bushcraft article before it’s published.

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