The first thing I can say about being in the snow and cold is that you need a good jacket but maybe even more important than that is to wear a wool hat and to have a hood on. Why?
Because the most heat comes out of the top of your head for some reason. I cannot fully explain why this is, it's just true. So, even if you are wearing a good jacket and gloves you can still freeze without a good wool hat and hood to keep all your warmth from going out the top of your head.
The other thing that can help is not getting your feet wet from melting snow. So, boots somewhere between your ankles and knees can help a lot. If I'm walking around in snow and am not skiing at that moment I want my Sorel Boots that have wool liners and special soles so you don't slip and fall. Also, they are often rubber from the soles of the boots up to almost to your ankles. This keeps wet or snow out of your wool liners unless the snow goes down in from the top of the boot and the top of the boot has a wool area that helps keep the falling snow out of your boots too.
The next thing if you are stuck inside and your power goes out is you want either a fireplace or a wood stove attached to your fireplace ready to go and wood to burn to keep warm. If you don't know how to shut down a stove properly after it gets going get someone who knows to show you how so you don't burn up all your wood so fast.
The best wood (after you get the fire started with something else like Pine or cedar or fir) would be Oak wood which when shut down in a wood stove is the best for Coaling or slowly burning and putting out heat for a long time. If possible in a power outage a wood stove is the best bet even if you put the wood stove in your fireplace with a short pipe going up the chimney about 3 feet which is what I did in 1980 in the home I was renting with my family in Mt. Shasta then. However, I didn't know then about flue fires and pine wood. The pitch from pine wood can cause a flue fire in your chimney or stove pipe if you burn too much pine wood. The problem with Fir is the smell. It burns okay but they don't call it "Piss Fir" for nothing because that is what it smells like in your house if you burn fir wood.
Cedar burns really hot and fast but it great for starting fires as long as you have some oak for long term coaling to stay warm.
Always when I lived in Mt. Shasta we mostly only heated with Wood Stoves because they are the most reliable and put out the most heat. IF you are in an all electric home in the snow or ice that can be really dangerous on many different levels when the power goes out.
The first problem is that your pipes can freeze and this causes all sorts of problems like ice sculptures inside or outside or underneath your home when this happens. So, even if you leave your home because of a week or more power outage you come back to a water and ice disaster of epic proportions potentially
Being prepared with a wool hat and good jacket and gloves that actually keep you from getting frostbite like ski gloves are important to have in a bad ice and snow or just really cold situation.
And second being prepared with a fireplace with enough wood or with a wood stove with enough wood can be the difference between life and death for your or other members of your family.
Protecting yourself and your family from hypothermia or frostbite or even death is important because how could you live with yourself if something happened to any of them because you were not properly prepared to deal with these kinds of problems?
It's sort of the Boy Scout Motto: "Be prepared".
Because if you are prepared for anything then it's more likely that you and whoever you are with will survive whatever comes.
This is the boot you want to be wearing in the cold and snow. These things have kept my feet warm through almost anything. However, if you are walking through snow 2 to 3 feet deep or more and are sinking down into it you still are going to get snow into your boots if you aren't also wearing Gators.
https://www.sorel.com/p/mens-caribou-boot-NM1000.html?dwvar_NM1000_color=281
I tried to send a picture here to you but Sorel Doesn't seem to allow that now. so here is a URL which should take you to the right site.
You can see how there is rubber almost up to your ankles. This keeps wet snow and mud and ice from seeping through where you are walking. However, like I said before if you are walking through 2 to 3 feet or more of snow and sinking down into it they won't keep the snow out of your boots so then you need Gators.
https://www.backcountry.com/black-diamond-talus-gaiter?CMP_SKU=BLD0494&MER=0406&skid=BLD0494-BK-ONESIZ&mr:device=c&mr:adType=plaonline&utm_source=google&utm_medium=pla&utm_campaign=213415597__p:G%7Cs:BC%7Cct:Shopping%7Cct2:xx%7Cg:xx%7Cc1:Apparel%7Cc2:Accessories%7Cb:xx%7Cmt:xx__150861542564__mt:xx+%7C+c1:Apparel+%7C+c2:Accessories+%7C+s:xx+%7C+b:xx&utm_term=pla-2258080205272__BLD0494-BK-ONESIZ&utm_content=658820255736__pla&utm_id=go_cmp-213415597_adg-150861542564_ad-658820255736_pla-2258080205272_dev-c_ext-_prd-BLD0494-BK-ONESIZ_mca-7811_sig-Cj0KCQiA2KitBhCIARIsAPPMEhIiR5zsNkVFJZfqjL3PNe056l7z1WW9ctFOFEfJQgDQJhfCGTrSeakaAv8dEALw_wcB&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiA2KitBhCIARIsAPPMEhIiR5zsNkVFJZfqjL3PNe056l7z1WW9ctFOFEfJQgDQJhfCGTrSeakaAv8dEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds
The above URL will show you one type of gators that will likely keep the snow out of your boots (whether you are wearing Sorels or Cross country or Mountaineering skiing boots.
No comments:
Post a Comment