Share your outdoor winter experiences
 

Mele Kalikimaka, everyone. In the south Pacific, Christmas will be green and bright (the sun will shine by day and all the stars at night), along with a lot of other parts of the world; but if you are braving cold to LCF (or LCL), please post your experiences. Don't forget to mention the temperature and weather conditions, how long you endured, what you were wearing, and how you felt during and afterward.

The weather outside may be frightful, but the fire in the heart and blood of the active body is so delightful :)

Walking the dog in fresh snow, Christmas morning. About -4C, sunny and windy. The snow was a bit deeper elsewhere, but some of it had blown off this school field. They stick their noses in the snow to see if they can smell ground smells like other dogs' scents, mice, human footsteps, etc.

I like the exercise of trudging through snow. I never mind the extra work.

Good topic :thumb:

Saturday: I took a trip to two stores with my single speed road bike and trailer. Distance total: 5.4 miles; moving time: 32 minutes. I did the larger/further away trip first, so had a haul of around 50lbs. for about 3 miles.

Conditions: 16F/-9C; dark and clear; slight wind from the NW, clear pavement with a bit of sand.

Clothing: Wool baselayer, a wool sweater, windblocking softshell, fleece leggings, regular leggings, shorts (cuz I'm classy), thick synthetic boot socks, high top lined sneakers, ski gloves with glove liners, wool balaclava, snowboard helmet, goggles. Clothing was perfect for the amount of time I was outside.

Saturday: Recreational ride on the gravel bike; 18.5 miles in about a hour and a half.

Conditions: 20F/-7C; sunny; calm; clear pavement with a bit of sand.

Clothing: Two wool baselayers, windblocking softshell, thin synthetic long underwear, fleece leggings, regular leggings, winter boots, thick wool socks, ski gloves (no liner), wool balaclava, snowboard helmet, goggles. Slightly sweaty.

Sunday: Another recreational ride; 21.5 miles in about an hour and 40 minutes.

Conditions: 20F/-7C; overcast with flurries; NW wind 5-10 MPH; clear pavement with a bit of sand.

Clothing: Same as Saturday. Also, slightly sweaty - but not in the danger zone.

Awww, what a cute little guy!

We have a not-quite 2 year old Newf, and were just commenting on how oddly happy he seems to be just laying in the yard and making droolcicles today. It's currently 7F/-14C. (Don't worry, I do make him come in after about 15 minutes.)

My girl is not quite a year and a half. It's not as cold here, but even so she seems to thrive on - if we're out in a storm with biting wind and stinging ice pellets in her face, she just ploughs ahead. Let her out in the backyard snow and it's hard to get her back in. She's a Cairn Terrier (like Toto) and they were bred to hunt rats and such on the Isle of Skye where I guess the weather can be harsh at times.

Good post. Good detail. :thumb:

Do your leggings get stretched-out knees from biking in them? I hate wearing pants for that reason. When it gets too cold to bike in shorts, I wear sweatpants or some kind of lined exercise pants and then put on slacks when I get to work to hide the stretched-out knees. Maybe I just have knobby knees, though.


@cooker, cute dog. Have fun ploughing through the snow. I wouldn't mind it either, as long as the moisture stays away from my skin.

Nothing significant enough to notice. Most of my long underwear/leggings have enough spandex, I think, to mitigate the potential stretching.

I see. Maybe I should try wearing spandex. I don't like form-fitting clothing much, but maybe under shorts I could stand it.

It's gotten cold and windy here, with about 4 inches of fresh powder snow from Lake Michigan on Christmas Day.It would be sunny one minute and then literally whiteout snow for a while, and then sunny again 15 minutes later.

When I walked to work last evening it was about 12F degrees with quite a wind chill. Walking took more effort than usual because nobody had shoveled the sidewalks yet. It was much like walking on sand at the beach., except slightly slippery. The Christmas lights look great in the snow, and it was cool seeing the moon come out during breaks in the lake effect snow.

When I walk home in the early morning, it will be about zero with wind chill well below zero. I'm sure a couple co-workers will offer me a ride home but I usually prefer to walk.

Feet can be a bit vulnerable. Occasionally you get a little cold at the ankle if some snow comes over the top of your shoe or boot and melts into your pants/socks. Sometimes toes can get cold right through your boots, especially when you're not moving. Sometimes your feet actually sweat and your socks can get damp and cold and even freeze. However winter hikers etc. would have clothing that manages that.

-14C this am and -11C at noon, but I have already adapted a bit after a couple of days of colder weather - when I went out to grab some items from a store 100 m from my office, I didn't put on my hat or mitts and didn't zip up my coat. It's going down to -20C (about -3F) on Friday. Toronto doesn't often get much colder than that - the record is about -30C/-22F.

I took the scenic route to and from work today...on the path through the marsh, which is now mostly frozen over. Going in, it was sunny and 4F/-15C; coming home, it was 0F/-18C and dark. On the way home, I stopped at the store to pick up a few items.

Best of all...hot hands. Seriously, I love my gloves.

-20C this am. The dog was quick to do what was necessary and I greatly appreciated it as I had to be at work on time for an exam (I was an examiner, thankfully). I was well bundled for the 600m walk to the bus stop against a slight headwind. The bus came promptly, and of course traffic is very light this week. I removed my mitts on the bus and stuck them in my briefcase. When I got to my stop I popped into a coffee shop across from work and then carried my coffee barehanded 130m to the exam door, and my fingers got painfully cold just in that short interval. Gloves/mitts are good!

I took your advice last year, Cooker, and bought a set of thinsulate fingerless gloves with mitt(en) covers that are removable without taking off the gloves completely. Is that also what you use to keep your hands so 'hot,' wipekitty, or do you have a better recipe?

I use layers of gloves. The gloves I use for very cold weather are designed to be used that way - there is an inner fleece liner glove and an outer shell, which can also be worn alone. Another benefit is that I can remove the outer shell and wear just the liner for fiddling around with keys, etc., without exposing my hands directly to the wind.

Is the outer shell also a glove? Ultimately mitts are even warmer. I have some leather mitts that have internal fleece sleeves for each finger and you'd think that would be the best of both worlds. However I noticed my pinky finger gets cold, as it is a bit cut off from the warmth of the other fingers, and it's a bit better if I jam it into the same slot as the ring finger.

I’ve never felt the need to layer. (However!)

I always go with 2 pair of gloves. Usually a thinner and a thicker pair, for changing temperatures during the day. However, in winter time, I do love the layering scheme of having a basic (thick) winter glove with a (thin) liner when freezing. Perfect for playing with keys etc.

In spring/summer/autumn, thin gloves may get wet but the good ones keep you warm.

And sometimes there’s nothing wrong with your gloves or layers, simply because your hands are colder dan usual (maybe sick). That’s one of the reasons why I have come to think about having hand warmers as a backup.

spilled some bird seed. uh oh!

https://i.imgur.com/tvnhGwHl.jpg

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8583/...c9eede9696.jpg2015 FEB, NYC by 1nterceptor, on Flickr
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7390/...acb45e983c.jpg5 Fahrenheit/-15 Celsius by 1nterceptor, on Flickr
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7342/...e3ab1b683c.jpgNew York City 14F/-10C by 1nterceptor, on Flickr

Are the liner gloves thin enough to allow fine finger use, like typing for example? I doubt they work with touch screens, which is why I got the fingerless ones Cooker suggested, but from what you're saying it sounds like those would be too cold in the temperature you're dealing with.

Yes, both are gloves. I've tried a bunch of different setups during various winters in Wisconsin, and this one has worked better than others for me - better at blocking wind than lined wool mittens, and more freedom than pogies. I do get a bit tingly in my thumb and pinky right before my core warms, usually about 10-15 minutes in.

The average annual minimum low for this region is -21F; since that's usually in the middle of the night, I do not anticipate needing to ride in anything below -10/-15F. This setup with a third silk liner will be fine for that. Admittedly, I tend to run hot.

The liner gloves have a thin part on the index finger to allow for touchscreen use, and they're thin enough to do tasks that require some dexterity. I sometimes leave them on while grocery shopping and for tasks when I get home, like taking out the trash or putting the dog out.

My husband prefers the type that Cooker suggested - fingerless gloves covered by mitts. But, he is walking rather than riding.

Uh-oh! I learned why it's a bad idea to leave a bale of hay in the garage all winter. Fortunately for these little buddies, my cats are indoor only!

That's brilliant.

Also typing with nine fingers?

I haven't worn them in really cold temps yet (what I consider really cold anyway). It got down into the 20sF a few years ago, but it rarely drops much below freezing since then. Needless to say those fingerless thinsulate gloves work better than layering gardening gloves as I used to do before Cooker showed me the light.

That reminds me ... last week I watched one of these home makeover shows. The crew who go in and do the makeover live and do most of their work in cities, but for this particular makeover, they took on a rural property.

Part of the rural property was a converted barn which they fixed up, but in order to retain some of its original "barn-ness", they thought it would be a cute idea to have a couple bales of hay artistically sticking out of a hatch placed high in the wall. Isn't that just lovely.

Except my thought ... and I think also the thought of the homeowners based on the expressions on their faces ... was "so nice of you to think of the mice and provide a home for them too!"

I can bet the home owners had the hay bales out of the hatch and the hatch closed up in no time after the crew left!! :lol:

-7F/-22C this evening. I walked about 1.5 miles to and from a store to pick up a few items, including some chemical warmers for a possible group ride tomorrow.

When I getting covered up for the walk home, a guy came up to me and said, "Hey Darth Vader, it's really cold out there. Do you want a ride?" (I politely declined.) But I guess my getup - balaclava, ski goggles, hood, and long coat - did look a bit Darth Vader-ish!