

Dressing for the polar vortex. A basic guide to dressing warm. - timchilcottjr
https://medium.com/p/b5c2b0df846f

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VLM
Strange specific brand and model namedropping.

As a Wisconsin guy with a couple outdoor winter hobbies I'm not particularly
bothered by the -20 so much as the -20 with high winds. Zero in the sun with
calm winds is fairly comfy. Windy and 40F sucks.

Cotton kills. If you stay dry, the warm usually takes care of itself, if you
get wet you'll die doesn't matter how thick your clothes are (which is the
long format explanation of cotton kills). Overwork until sweaty = dead. No
source of fire in an emergency equals dead. Small roll of duct tape so a
wardrobe malfunction doesn't equal frostbite or dead. Spare gloves when you
accidentally soak your main gloves. Ditto socks. No emergency kit in the car
(blankie, that kind of thing) equals dead. Being outside in pair with a
partner saves more lives WRT first aid etc than buying any specific type of
warm undies or boots. I donno if you're better off walking around naked rather
than walking around wet like the old timers say, but its a coin toss. I'd
never wear anything if its gotten wet.

What I consider reasonable for long distance snow shoeing in the middle of
nowhere or visiting my ice fishing relatives in the middle of a mostly frozen
lake might not correlate with the requirements of someone walking to and from
their car in the parking lot.

If it hurts its probably not frostbitten, so if you haven't even started
crying yet, you're fine, not even hurt yet. If you were crying but now it
doesn't hurt anymore, that's because its frozen so may as well start driving
to the ER right now.

Slowing down and paying attention will save more lives than a specific model
of shirt.

If your core is warm, you can get away with some stupid clothes on your
extremities and they'll still be warm. If your core is cold, nothing you put
on your extremities will warm them up. If your hands are cold the solution is
zip up your coat or put on a sweater, not play games with multiple layers of
gloves (unless its really cold)

For you southerners who never seen snow before, my advice is don't eat the
yellow snow. Even if some Yankee tells you its lemonade flavored or whatever.

Also northerners with northerner reflexes, even old people, can dance around
normally on black ice that would result in a southerner, even a teenager,
falling and breaking a bone, even if they try to be careful. Something about
internalizing reflexes about balance and center of gravity or something. When
I was in the Army the relative performance of northerners and southerners on
ice even just plain snow was always fairly comedic. Their driving is like that
too, the southerners would cry and wet themselves over what the experienced
northerners considered pretty good travel conditions. I had a lot of good
southerner friends but they always drove me bonkers in the winter. No, you
can't get frostbite when its 40 out, by definition, although you can die
pretty well of hypothermia at 40, and if you think early October is terrifying
wait till January...

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timchilcottjr
I was very specific with brand/model/linking because I've had at least a dozen
friends over the past two weeks texting me to find out exactly what I wear.
I'm with you about staying dry and having an emergency kit.

Here in Wyoming you never know what could happen or when you may see someone!

I was just offering a basic idea of some things that worked well for me.

Thanks for adding to the conversation!

