Part Mark Verber's The Great Outdoors
General:
Safety / StayWarm /
Clothing / Shelter
Activies: Camping /
Snowshoes /
Backcountry Skiing / Downhill Skiing
In my youth I took numerous trips facing extreme cold weather (e.g. -50F or so). Most of my recent experience has been has been in more temperate winter conditions, e.g. lows between -10F and 25F. I am sure that there are people who are much more up on staying safe and happy in cold weather. While many of my outdoor pages are mostly my recommendations, this page is some reminiscing, a bit of recent experience, and a bunch of wisdom from others.
I also have a page almost as incomplete as this page with recommended gear for winter activities.
This page is just getting started, so you would be much better served checking out the following books:
Web resources
Other books which might be good but I haven't read them include:
Winter conditions can be harsh and can be dangerous. Rather than go into details in this document, I would suggest you review basic survival skills, first aid (especially treatment of cold related injuries) and pay close attention to the weather and environmental conditions. These are basic building block required to keep you safe during your winter time adventures. There are a few issues which are only applicable in the winter.
Snow Blindness & Sun Burns: It is very easy to get a bad sun burn in the winter, especially when engaged in alpine activities. High altitudes means there is less atmosphere to filter out the suns rays. The cold weather keeps your skin cool which means you don't feel the burn as quickly as you would in hot weather. Finally the snow will reflect a fair amount of sunlight which means overall glare is worse than it would in snow free environments, and that you can burn skin which overhead shade would normally protect (like the underside of your nose and chin).. Make sure you protect any exposed skin with sun screen. Wear sun glasses or shaded goggles with 100% UV filtering.
Exposure: Often times winter conditions are cold, dry, and windy. The mildest risk is chapped skin. Worse is frostbite and hypothermia. Prevention is the best solution for these issues. In colder conditions you need to keep your skin covered and pre-heat your air. More about them below.
Avalanche Safety: You need to read the terrain and manage your risk of being caught in an avalanche. The most danger locations are on north faces on slopes which are between 30-45 degrees. Clean signs of danger of broken or bent trees, concave bowls, gullies, etc. If you need to cross high risk areas, you should send people across one at a time. Once the first person gets across, they should watch the following folks until everyone gets across. Self arrest technique.
Snow Rescue: Equipment and methodology.
Carbon Monoxide Poisoning: Running stoves in confined spaces can be dangerous, but is sometime necessary. Butane / Propane mixed produce less carbon monoxide than other stoves. Read the five part series Stoves, Tents, Carbon Monoxide.
You body core needs to maintain a temperature of 98.6 F (plus or minus around 8 degrees). Beyond this narrow range you are in serious danger. [Reference to core temp chart]. A naked human sitting in 32F conditions would be reduced to a state that they couldn't take care of themselves in less than 20 minutes. In 32F water this takes less than 1 minute.
Most of the following sections text is just an outline. For more content, check out BPL's article about Thermoregulation. Additional insights can be gained by exploring the theory of heat loss and cooling and the behavior animals use to stay warm in the books Life in the Cold by Peter Marchand and Libby Walker and Winter Ecology by James Halfpenny.
The two large sources of heat are "excess" heat generated as your metabolize food and heat generated as your muscles perform work. An "average" person's base metabolism generates around 70 Kcal an hour. Heavy aerobic activity can increase this by nearly an order of magnitude. If you are getting cold, getting active can really warm you up. The activity doesn't even need to involve large movements, simple isomorphic exercises can do the trick and minimize cooling convection that activities like jumping jacks would cause.
Both your basic metabolism and the energy for exercise is coming from the food you eat. To keep your body warm, you need to make sure you are eating enough food and are well hydrated to keep your body's system working well. While not required, I typically recommend eating hot meals and drinking hot drinks. I think the amount of energy you get from the food's heat is small compared to the energy packed into the food, but most people find hot food is more appetizing and gives them a psychological boast. It goes without saying that while alcohol might make you feel warmer, your will actually lose heat faster because your capillaries are more relaxed, causing more blood flow near the surface of your skin. Skip alcohol and enjoy your hot chocolate with extra cream or butter.
You can also use external sources of heat. The sun transfers around 1000watts / square meter via radiation. So standing in the sun (when it's available) can do a lot to help you stay warm. Sitting near a fire or stove can be somewhat helpful but care must be taken not to overheat and then start to sweat. I have found chemical heating pads or fuel hand warmers to be moderately useful. The most common external heat source I use on a regular basis are hot water bottles. Boil water in a pot and then pour the water into a water container. I normally don't use Nalgene water containers. Winter camping is the one exception because most light weight water containers will melt. The lightest container I have found that doesn't melt are gatoraid bottles... but I don't normally use them because I don't know if the plastic is likely to leech chemicals when heated by the boiling water. The best places I have found to use the water bottle is between my legs where it can heat the blood in my femoral arteries which then warms the rest of my body.
Blood works like a radiator system. Can be used to cool the core and warm extremities. Note: this means that if you can heat one section of the body (especially where you have a large artery, you can help warm your whole body. In colder weather the body constricts the blood vessels in extremities to reduce the speed that you lose heat. The one extremity were no constriction happens is your head. This is why wearing a hat and something to protect your neck is extremely important when trying to stay warm. There is a old saying "You feet are cold? Put on a hat". As you can see, there is a lot of truth in that saying.
Conduction cooling is when you loose your warmth by touching something. In most cases this is only an issue for your feet and sometimes your hands. You feet will be conducting heat through the soles of your shoes, and you sometimes touch items with your hands. See the clothing sections about how to protect your hands and feet. In cold winter having a foam pad to stand on can be a great help in staying warm.
You can think of convection as conductive cooling through the movement of fluids (liquid or air). You heat up the fluid, and then it moves away, pulling in colder fluids. Water is 24 times more effective at moving heat than air. This is why getting wet can be so dangerous in cold weather. This means you want to stay dry. If you get wet, your first priority should be to dry off.
In warm, still conditions, you you lose 50-60% of your heat through radiation. Radiation is much less of a factor in windy conditions, or in colder weather when you are wearing thick clothing layers. When wearing thick layers of clothing the radiation energy is captured by, and retained in your outer layers. 1-2 inches of material will capture most of your radiated energy. It is possible to retain a significant portion of your radiated energy through the use of reflective materials such as what is used in emergency blankets.
In moderate conditions, accounts for only a small of cooling, but in extreme heat or cold evaporation cooling can play a larger role.
In colder weather, <0F, the combination of evaporation from your breath and convection cooling from warming up air on the way to your lungs and they exhaling the air you just warmed can use up almost 1/2 of the energy produced by a basic metabolism. According to one scientific paper, you can lose 1/4 of your heat if engaged in heavy work with rapid breathing. Having a scarf or a 3M air warming mask can be very helpful by pre-warming incoming air and keeping the humidity up. If I was regularly facing extreme cold I would give a Polarwrap a try.
Two of the most important ingredients for staying warm are covered in the next two sections on having the right clothing and making sure that you have adequate shelter.
Stay Dry: Water moves heat 24x more effectively than dry air.
Use sit/standing pads: The ground is cold. If you are standing around, stand on a foam pad to minimize heat lose from the soles of your feet. If you are sitting down, sit on a foam pad.
Make good use of insulators you have: If are are careful not to get it wet, you can use your sleeping bag for more than sleeping. Get into your sleeping bag to warm up. If you are careful you can do many things such as cook from the comfort of your sleeping bag. You can wear your sleeping bag as a shawl or cape. You can wrap yourself in your foam pad.
Stay away from alcohol. Yes, your hands a feet "feel warmer", but you are interfering with a number of body system which will keep you warm. Alcohol does significantly more harm than good. Also keep in mind that alcohol doesn't free a 0F... so if you have alcohol which has been chilling and is below freezing, you could do yourself some real damage by trying to drink it.
At some point I might move specific information about clothing into this page. For the time being, check out my Outdoor Clothing and Footwear. Pay special attention to the brief section on vapor barriers and subsections which specifically address very cold winter conditions.
There are some good hints other places:
Western man has come to take shelter for granted. We live in houses, we often travel in cars. We are often unaware of how much protection we derive from these shelters. Even the best clothing system can't fully protect us from extreme conditions. There are typically three types of shelters that are used in the back country:
Tents: Do not use double walled tents which have a mesh inner tent. Either use double walled tents which have a solid fabric inner tent or single walled tents to cut down airflow and keep spindrift out of your living area. You want a high vent to let moisture rich air to escape before it condenses on your tent and turns to frost. In many locations winds are much higher in the winter and you need to worry about snow load. This means you want tents that pitch very taut and have steep walls, and have sturdy pole systems. In most cases I would recommend not letting a lot of snow accumulate on your shelter.
Tarps: Pyramid, Hex, or Tipi shaped tarps can work well. Some are made to function with small stoves. You can dig out the "floor" for extra room.
Snow Structures: It can be significantly warmer in a snow cave or igloo than in a tent. You should know how to dig a snow cave,
I have a few reviews and more information on my Winter Shelter page.
Managing water supply
Dry clothing in winter .. Small things like socks over your shoulders when walking, or by your stomach when in your sleeping bag. Also helps to wrap damp closes around a sealed hot water bottle.
Type of snowshoes...
"Features" or Characteristics
Coming someday
Coming someday