Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
and the road shut down? If your chances of hitching a ride are slim, and your car is
parked in a safe spot, you are probably better off staying inside your vehicle.
• In a desperate situation, lacking suitable boots for snow-country travel, you could use
a knife to slice up your car seat cushions to make strips of thick insulation that could
be wrapped around your feet and lower legs to provide the insulation needed to pro-
tect your feet from freezing while trudging for miles through the snow. Wires from
your car could be twisted until they break to provide cordage for tying the insulation
around your feet and legs. If you lacked a knife, a piece of plastic or metal trim could
be pried off your car, or perhaps broken from an item like your glove box, to provide
a sharp edge for slicing your seat cushions into usable pieces of insulated fabric.
Also, the mirrors of your car could be broken to provide a sharp piece of glass,
though it would not do any good to break the windows, since they are made from
tempered safety glass and would shatter into tiny unusable pieces.
Clothing Notes
When circumstances dictate that you must spend many hours outside in extreme weather, your
clothing can make the difference between life and death. The Inuit Eskimos of the Canadian
North can spend days outside in bitterly cold weather protected solely by their deerskin cloth-
ing, as can modern-day mountaineers in their high-tech protective gear.
Here are some observations and suggestions pertaining to clothing for surviving outdoors
in extreme weather:
•
Dressing in layers:
In general, dressing in layers is preferable to dressing in a super
thick coat. Layers allow you to adjust your clothing for comfort depending upon your
level of activity. The last thing you want to do is to soak your clothing with sweat
during periods of heightened activity, then sit there shivering and shaking with cold,
wet, sweat-soaked clothing when you are inactive for a while.
•
Underlayer:
Both natural and synthetic fibers tend to be either “hydrophobic,” mean-
ing water does not stick to them, or “hydrophilic,” meaning water loving. Cotton, for
example, is hydrophilic, which makes it great for keeping cool in the heat, since it
soaks up a lot of moisture and that helps maintain a high level of evaporative cooling
in the heat. However, cotton is a terrible material for cold-weather protection, since it
soaks up moisture and is a very poor insulator when wet. For cold weather protec-
tion, your underlayer should be a “wicking” hydrophobic material, such as wool,
polypropylene, or polyester thermal underwear. These materials retain most of their
insulating value when wet, and rapidly wick moisture away from your skin, keeping
