A few days a go i did a short hike up and down Mt Madison in New Hampshire. Trip was 8.4 miles round trip and took 4 hrs and about 4000ft of elevation gain. Temp as low teens to start and 0-5% at the summit with 25-30mph winds. Six to eight inches of snow at the base and at least a foot and a half of snow half way up the hill.

I state all this as i was moving fairly fast, i know this as i past a few people on the way up and they where by no means slugging along them self. I ran into them on my way back down and they where still 1.5 miles from the summit and shocked i had beento the summit already and was n my way down.

I started out on my upper body with..

Cap one

R2

Rab alpine pullover.

med weight winter hat

light fleece gloves.

Lower body

Cap 1

Thin Or soft shell dwr type pant no lining

Silk socks

light weight wool hikers

Nepal evos

Or crocs

Ten minutes into the hike i stopped and took off my hat my gloves and my r2. That left me in my cap 1 and Wind shell. I was fine in this till i got above tree line and about 500 ft in elevation from the summit. I stopped put on my down coat and mitts and goggles. I was warm as could be.

Edited by apbt1976 on 12/20/2010 22:07:37 MST.

Eric,

Was your zipper broken? (smile)

Seriously I have never seen what you reported. Fogerty MD, in his book called "Hypothermia" on page 72 also reports that it normally doesn't happen. Normally people just vent (unzip) their parka if they start to sweat.

my first time i hiked in a down jacket it was around -15C weather if i remember correctly ... sadly it was also my main insulation ... back then i didnt know any better. ..

so i sweated, unzipped, still sweated, by then it was soaked through ...

as i was heading back down, i was getting pretty chilled ... i think the temps were going down below -20C or so ... got back to the car during the night ... waited for the everyone else to get back, didnt have the keys .. stupid me , was shivering at that point, totally soaked ... finally got the car started got back to the lodge

down jacket took a few days to dry out at room temp ...

thats when i learned being too warm in winter could mess you up

i find a lot of people including myself dont realize how much they sweat in winter ... the more you wear, the more it gets absorbed and you dont even realize it ... by the time you actually feel like you're overheating, its likely a bit too late ...

youre likely to end up with soaked base and maybe mid layers at minimum ... and thirsty ....

you can usually tell the "newbs" by the amount of clothing they wear when hiking in winter ...

now i know better ... i think ...

Edited by bearbreeder on 12/21/2010 05:58:49 MST.

^ I see this play out daily when working, guys out hunting with all the clothing they own on. They get back to their vehicle (sweating) and think- "man I stayed nice and warm"- which if you make it back to the truck (and it starts :)) you're OK, but they never give a thought if they couldn't make it back to the truck.

keeping the sweat down in the cold is very serious business

Every person is different and you'll have to work out what works for you. For contrast, however, here is the story on my friend and I. It might illustrate the extremes.

I've been hiking for 50 years and long ago gave up staying dry. I'm a heavy sweater and no amount of layer management will keep me dry. So my strategy is as follows:

(1) Wear the least that I can to stay warm, knowing that everything I'm wearing(including pants) will become soaking wet.
(2) Change into dry clothes when I get to camp.

I'm in much better shape than my friend but he doesn't sweat much. Moving at the same pace he might be wearing a dry cotton t-shirt and doing fine. I will be wearing several layers and all of them will be soaking wet.

As a heavy sweater I need to carry more clothes than my friend. I have to know that I always have a dry set of clothes to put on. He can count on the clothes he is wearing to stay dry and warm.

I've made some clothing from closed cell foam with some success. It stays warm when wet but it is hard to get it to fit. On some trips I will take along a float coat. It is made for boaters and is made of closed cell foam. It is heavy, however.

"I've made some clothing from closed cell foam with some success. It stays warm when wet but it is hard to get it to fit. On some trips I will take along a float coat. It is made for boaters and is made of closed cell foam. It is heavy, however."

I like that concept of making clothing from unconventional materials

I keep thinking about making something like a vest out of bubble wrap. That would be lightweight. If the bubbles face you then there would be some ventilation for persipiration. If the bubbles face away you got a vapor barrier.

Josh, probably a combo... 22*F can be a pretty warm day when you're snowshoeing. I generally prefer a thinner base, 150-ish. A windbreaker or windbreaker vest can be key. Your lower layers can also affect overall heat; if you were wearing a 200-wt up top, & a 200 wt, fleece pants, & shell pants on the bottom... need to get rid of some bottom insulation too.

I find that I cool off more quickly in synthetic than in wool. At first that seemed, well, wrong to me. Then I realized that by virtue of wool retaining 35% moisture, instead of the mere 3% of synthetics, wool allows for less (or less accelerated) evaporative heat loss. Note that I find very little difference in drying time between the materials, provided they're worn... 5 to 10 minutes max.

Re: "I've been hiking for 50 years and long ago gave up staying dry. I'm a heavy sweater and no amount of layer management will keep me dry." I'm no expert, but Vapor Barrier Clothing is a lot more manageable than clothing made out of closed cell foam, I would guess. If you wore a suit of VBL you could sweat gallons, and wouldln't it wouldn't all drip out of your ankles (and into your boots, so block that), and cause no harm to your insulation?

My wife and I are like that. If I am step kicking up
a glacier or skate skiing, I will be sweating, no matter
the pace, no matter the temperature, while my wife will be layered up in fleece, down and goretex, and dry.

I have had chest and legs frost nipped even while
they were sweating when there was a strong breeze and
cold conditions and I hadn't enough clothes on.

The best system for me then, when working very hard
in cold and windy conditions, is a thin poly layer,
under a Goretex hard shell. I sweat up to a point,
then reach an equilibrium. The Gore fabric acts as
a semi vapor barrier, which for me is the best of both
worlds, tho I am moist, I stop sweating hard.

In the last bit of hiking for the day, I change into
a dry shirt so I have a little bit of walking before
stopping for the night so the chill of changing doesn't
last the rest of the night.

> Moving at the same pace he might be wearing a dry cotton t-shirt and doing fine. I will be wearing
> several layers and all of them will be soaking wet.
Which is the point many of us have been trying to make: if you are sweating like this you are wearing TOO MUCH CLOTHING!
Try wearing just a similar T-shirt and carrying the excess clothing.

Cheers

Brad, yeah i might try to wear a thinner synthetic shirt next time. Bottoms were probably a big factor as i had 200wt, soft shells and rain pants. Next time I think just rain pants and 200wt.

I would just wear soft shells and 200wt but I was tripping a bit due to inexperience and so dont want to get wet knees.

just ... mid weight softshells pants alone should do it at those 20F temps

i wear knee braces, they provide some insulation ... those combined with gaiters and thigh length thinner underwear should do the trick ... for me anyways

Edited by bearbreeder on 12/21/2010 15:41:53 MST.

"i use when active

-very thin wicking base
-light fleece
- windshirt or light softshell

when stopped i add

- big puffy belay jacket ,,, syn or down, or both depending on the conditions

basically 4 layers ... but effectively 2 as the "action suit" rarely comes off"

I use when active

-very thin wicking base- Under Armour Coldgear Base 2.0 or Helly Hansen polypro LS crew
- Patagonia R1 Hoody
-- MH Transition Featherweight Vest

when stopped I add either

- Montbell UL Down Inner Parka, ID Event Parka or both depending on the conditions.

Eric,

Please excuse my plagiarizing your post, but I type slow, our setups are very similar and you saved me a lot of typing. ;-)



basically 4 layers ... but effectively 2 as the "action suit" rarely comes off