PHYSICAL CAPABILITY
The big vertical distances travelled on most hikes in the West Kootenay require good physical conditioning. The best way to get fit is to hike and increase elevation gain and weight carried. Going downhill can be more difficult for some with bad knees or quads not strong enough to handle the downhill. Walking around town for exercise may not prepare one for hiking. For someone who doesn’t hike regularly, an 11 km round trip day hike or a hike with more than 1400 foot elevation gain will be very challenging.
LEAVE YOUR ITINERARY
Even if hiking in a group and especially if you’re going solo, leave your itinerary in writing with someone reliable. Agree on when they should alert the authorities if you have not returned or called. Be sure to follow through and notify your contact person on completion of the trip. Rescue teams often rescue their lives to find you.
HYPOTHERMIA
Excessive loss of body heat can occur with surprising speed, even in relatively mild weather. Cool temperatures, wetness (perspiration or rain), wind, or fatigue, and usually a combination, sap the body’s warmth. Chills, shivering, poor coordination, slurred spedh, sluggish thinking and memory loss are next.
Wear synthetic clothing that wicks moisture, and bring proper clothing equipment and emergency food on hikes. If you can’t stay warm and dry, escape the wind and rain, turn back, keep moving, eat snacks, and seek shelter. Remove wet clothing, insulate from the ground, lie naked next to each other, build a fire, and feed sweets with carbohydrates and warm liquids.
Keeping Warm. When Inuit are asked how they manage to stay warm outdoors in the Arctic in winter, the reply is: “Don’t sweat.” That makes good sense. When you sweat, your clothes become damp, and they are less effective insulators. Also, the moisture continues to evaporate after sweating has stopped, and that causes further cooling.
The trick is to exercise at a rate where you stay warm without sweating, and that is largely a matter of adjusting speed and clothing. In this matter, an individual has more flexibility than a group in which everyone should go at about the same speed. If you can’t adjust speed, you must adjust clothing, but that, in turn, involves stopping at times and possibly fragmenting the group. Also, rest stops need to be considered carefully.
In a heated shelter, one can relax and dry any wet clothes. Likewise, if it is warm, calm and sunny outdoors. Otherwise, stops should be short and frequent, so that one does not cool off too much. Bonfires to stay warm are not environmentally acceptable now.
Firestarter Recipe
Fill a cardboard egg carton with shredded paper, sawdust, and/ or clothes dryer lint. Melt some old candle nubs in a clean soup can on the stove. Pour into the egg carton cups over the tinder, to about 3/4 full (put some newspaper underneath for spills). For extra power, put a small stick or two into the wax, sticking out about 1″, small splits of kindling work very well. Once cooled/ hardened, cut each cup out individually and wrap the cardboard corners over the top.
Store a couple in the bottom of your pack all winter in a plastic bag (keep the cardboard dry). To use: prepare more kindling and small splits of firewood, make a nice teepee with the firestarter at the centre, and light the cardboard.
Stay warm and toasty all night for that unplanned bivy, or light the wood stove at the hut to cook your lunch! You can facilitate the whole fire by having a snow saw that also cuts wood, or throw in Coglan’s small chain saw into your emergency kit. It’s very small, cheap, and neat and works. Available at Walmart, Canadian Tire, or wherever they have Coghlan’s camping supplies.