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Last update: November 3, 2024 |
Ski Camping In Cold Weather with Raynaud's Disease
This article was written in 2008 to be part of a Turns All Year trip report, but it became just a collection of lessons learned the hard way over the previous 8 or 9 years from ski camping with Raynaud's Disease. I’m updating in now, 16 years later because the file kept getting hits. Maybe just robots but who knows. Sixteen years is a long time at my age, and the Reynaud’s has gotten worse, but there are new solutions which I will add in brackets.
Reynaud’s Disease causes hands and feet to loose circulation with even minor exposure to cold. Here's a link from the Mayo Clinic with more information: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/raynauds-disease/DS00433/DSECTION=7
Reynaud's poses a significant danger when camping in cold weather. Hands can become so numb that setting up a tent could become next to impossible. A minor equipment malfunction can escalate into a major problem as hands and feet become less and less functional. For quite some time I would not do much except stay in the tent when the temperature was below say 15 degrees. [At time I was able] to start out from my tent in temps as low as +2 degrees, skinning up before dawn and having a great ski back to the campsite. I guess I should mention that I do ski camp a lot; each week, every week while there is snow from November to the end of May, mostly in the Central Cascades. [I’m still out there, but only every other week, and my sister Jane and I don’t go that far.]
Some general thoughts first: I think of the heat content of your body as water behind a dam. The body however is not very accurate in sensing the water level; it has to drop significantly before you feel any degree of chill. If you get out of a warm sleeping back when it's very cold, initially you will not sense how cold it really is. In the meantime, heat is pouring out of your body like water over that dam. If you have Raynaud's, by the time you feel even a bit of chill the vasoconstriction may have already begun. Once started, you cannot recover by just filling the dam back up to the level just above the point where you felt chill. You have to fill it all the way back to the brim. It took me a long time to figure this out.
So the obvious first lesson is never get chilled. Never. Ways accomplish that are what this article is all about. It's also important to know the very first signs that vasospasm is starting, such as a slight tingling at the tip of one finger for example. If you have previously been warm, it means you are losing more heat than you are generating. Your heat balance is negative. The solution is not just to put an extra pair of gloves on, because your body has already begun to reduce the heat loss from your extremities. Gloves alone are not going to change much. You need more general insulation. More on what you can do at this point later.
Medications: Several classes of drugs have been used to treat Raynaud's but my impression is that although they can help, alone they will not solve the problems associated with this condition. Calcium channel blockers are often used, but these drugs inhibit exercise performance. This is not a particularly exciting option for backcountry skiers. Low dose alpha blockers are also used. In higher doses alpha blockers (e.g. prazosin) also inhibit exercise performance but at say 1- 2 mg. twice a day they say should have minimal effect. Some have tried over the counter niacin but it can lead to uncomfortable flushing.
[Some skiers in very cold climates use capsaicin powder on their hands. I’ve tried capsaicin cream but it didn’t seem to help much and sooner or later it will get in my eyes. Topical nitroglycerin paste has been suggested but it can drop blood pressure and the duration of action is long. There are other choices too, but no magic answers. Here’s a nice article from the Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine summarizing the medical options.]
Clothing - base layers: I make my own base layers. I found that good fit makes a huge difference. It's not that hard to learn to sew with fleece, and you can use old base layers to generate a pattern. From there you keep tweaking the pattern to suit your needs. For winter I use Powerstretch for the tops, and PT 200 Stretch for the bottoms. The fit should be as if the fabric was draped over your skin with just a slight amount of tension. Nothing the least bit tight, but no baggy areas either. [As my cold tolerance has decreased I’ve had good luck with using heavier fleece. I prefer Malden Mills fleece over off brands.]
Insulation: It takes time to find the right combinations for each temperature. In that you sometimes need to layer the fleece garments, I think it best to avoid as many bells and whistles as possible. Extraneous zipped pockets, chafe patches, side zips, etc. all add extra weight and bulk that may become completely useless when covered up. Also, every time you add an extra fabric layer the drying time for that area increases significantly.
Most of the outdoor retailers have large collections of thick down or synthetic jackets, but few have the equivalent insulation for your legs. To me it's like insulating your house but leaving the door open. All the heat goes out the door; the insulation is not changing much. The most efficient way to insulate is to insulate everything as uniformly as you can.
For years I have used a jacket and pants insulated with Primaloft from Integral Designs. Unfortunately they are no longer in business and I have not seen anything on the current market that is as simple and functional as my ID stuff [with a couple of notable exceptions like Zpacks and Feathered Friends]. Primaloft retains its insulating properties even when wet with perspiration. [This year ski year, (2024 -2025) I am trying out a Feathered Friends Helios down jacket and Helios down pants. Much more insulation than the Integral Designs combo and 8 ounces out of my pack. I’m really impressed with the quality and pack weight is a much bigger deal now.]
Insulating your head and neck is particularly important because the carotid vasculature cannot constrict to conserve heat like other blood vessels in your body. This means that no matter how cold it is, you are always pouring core heat to your head and neck. Thus the expression 'cold hands - wear a hat'. When it's very cold, just a hat or balaclava won't do. Back to the uniform insulation idea, you want at least as much insulation as you have on your chest, or more. Some insulated jackets come with hoods, but I like the freedom of a completely separate one. Years ago Frostline made a nice little down hood kit. It’s not hard to make one from scratch. Zpacks https://zpacks.com/ makes a nice looking down hood, and there may be other sources.
Gloves and mitts: No finger gloves like downhill skiers use. I love my big OR mitt shells with the thick removable Primaloft liners. Mitts with sewn in liners are a bad idea because you can't dry them out in a tent overnight. I also use Manzella knit polyester liners. When skiing, I never take them off when it's cold. Knit liners are now getting hard to find, but for ski camping I think they are much superior to the sewn variety. In particular, they are much easier to get off when they are wet, and over time they mold to your hand. To keep them dry, say when setting up the tent, or removing skins, I slip on a pair of extra-large disposable nitrile gloves. They make a huge difference. They should not be tight around the fingers or your hands will go numb; you may have to try a number of different brands to find ones that fit properly for the purpose. The gloves can tear on occasion, so I carry 2 or 3 pair.
Keeping snow out of the shells is important. Be careful when you need to take them off while skinning or skiing. I have a little hook taped to one pole so that I can hang the mitts by the idiot straps while I'm fiddling around. I also carry a plastic bag from the grocery store for the gloves and other stuff that should stay dry while I'm taking the skins off.
[As my Reynaud’s has worsened, the gloves and mitt combo was enough. For the last three years I’ve used Ansaris battery powered glove liners and their heated merino wool socks too. https://anseris.com/ These have been a life saver. Most of the battery powered gloves on the market are designed as outerwear with a sewn in heated lining. This is not suited for ski camping because drying them out will be a big challenge. It’s quite easy to dry the Anseris liner gloves. To protect the liner, I use suitably large army surplus style wool gloves over the liners and often my OR overmitts over that when needed. I cut and remove the elastic around the cuff of the wool gloves to avoid any constrction around my wrists. ]
Socks: [When it’s warmer] I wear 2 or 3 pairs of knee high wool blend socks. I suppose it does distract from the performance fit, but that's the price I have to pay. I never really notice however. The extra socks have to be allowed for when thermo-fitting the boots. Years ago I switched to all knee high socks and found it made a big difference in protecting my shins. On longer trips my old socks would sometimes work down and create a wrinkle over the shin. If you keep going you get a blister, so you have to stop, take the mitts off, get down to the layer that is causing the problem and fix it. That's a setup for triggering vasospasm. And the fix usually does not last that long. Sometimes solving all the little things makes a big difference. [As above, I’m now using Anseris heated socks. Typically my feet are warm enough skiing in so I keep the batteries in my pack until morning when it counts. I’m not aware of other heated socks made with merino wool rather than a cotton mix.
Hand and foot warmers: In short, don't go out without them and have them readily accessible. It’s just the price of admission for someone with Raynaud's. They will save the day on so many occasions. I fire off a pair of hand warmers at the start of each day out. I stick with the Grabber brand. I’ve never had one break open but I have had that happen with other brands. What a mess. When it's really cold, I use the Grabber foot warmers. If you have any degree of performance fit, you need to figure out the sock and footbed combination to use with the foot warmers ahead of time. When it's extra cold, I take out my quite thin footbeds and replace them with the foot warmers. At that point, I'll gladly trade a slightly loose fit in the forefoot for warm feet. [Even when backpacking in the spring and fall, I carry toe Grabbers and use them on cold mornings.]
Time in the tent: This is too big a topic to tackle here, but here are a few quick thoughts. To enjoy skiing the next day, all your clothes should be bone dry by the time you get in the sleeping bag at night. They are not going to dry out much overnight. When you ski with wet clothing, your body expends a huge amount of its limited heat energy first warming the water, and then vaporizing it. It’s the vaporization that I think really does you in, because it takes five times as much energy to vaporize water as it does to raise it from 0 degree centigrade to boiling.
I wrote a bit about wet weather camping here. [I’ll try to post this again soon] Much of it would apply to cold weather ski camping. Perhaps I should say more about running a stove in a tent. Running a stove in a tent is not for everyone. Being compulsively neat and careful helps. Obsessively neat and careful is better. Two people in a tent with a stove running is a setup for a problem. I've never done it, and would not feel comfortable trying but high altitude climbers do it frequently. I have a set pattern for using the stove in the tent that never varies. I always do it exactly the same way; little things like never getting the sleeping bag or the clothing between me and the stove. I pull the sleeping bag out of its stuff sack behind my back for example. I don't know of any easy way to learn how to use the stove safely in a tent other than a lot of practice, initially in warm and benign conditions. A final thought on the subject: if you go down to the rec. store and tell them that you want a stove to run in your tent, chances are the sales person will be horrified. "You can't run a stove in a tent" they may say. OK, so what do high altitude climbers do?
[Some worry about carbon monoxide poisoning. Depending on the tent, it can be a real issue. I’ve never had any symptoms suggestive of CO poisoning, but I finally decided to investigate for myself. It turns out that it’s not an issue with my tent and the way I use it. Here’s the article. If the pictures are missing, remove the ‘s’ from https: in the address bar.]
When it's extra cold at night, I consider my sleeping bag a tent within a tent. I pull all the clothes I will wear skiing the next day into the bag in the evening with the exception of my parka and Primaloft layers. I've learned how to get fully dressed completely inside the bag too. A small LED pinch light that I can hold in my teeth makes this much easier. I put the small stuff I will need like gloves, extra socks, the lighter for the stove, the altimeter-barometer-watch, etc, in a small mesh ditty bag so things won't get lost. A digital indoor - outdoor thermometer is a huge help in knowing how to dress for the day's skiing, and when it's cold, I pull the thermometer inside the sleeping bag too. It's important to know just how cold it is outside before you get out of the sleeping bag because when it's extra cold you can dump so much heat in the few minutes it takes to get dressed that you never recover. As to exactly what you should wear for each temperature range, it's something you just have to figure out over time.
And here's a tip to extend the range of your sleeping bag. I carry a piece of heavyweight Thinsulate insulation cut to the size of my sleeping pad. It seems to work best between the air mattress and the bag, rather than under the mattress. Speaking of the air mattress, if you use a Cascade Designs air mattress, be sure to blow it up fully before bedtime. The fabric used in these mattresses can stretch out to some extent, and if your mattress is not fully inflated the situation will only get worse as it cools off at night. [This is less of a problem with the newest Neo-Air mattresses and the improved R value is noticeable when it’s cold.]
Getting up in the morning: If you start to get cold in the tent after getting up, it's very difficult to recover. Learning to light the stove while still in my sleeping bag made a big difference. While I'm staying nice and warm, I have breakfast, get my outer gear ready, fire off a pair of grabbers and put them in the mitts, and finally put my ski boots on while inside the tent. Then I turn the stove off, hopefully even a little too warm, get out and quickly do something for exercise. Just shoveling out the fresh snow is often enough. You can also put the skis on while wearing your full insulation and take a few quick laps around the area. At this point I prep the skis, and check the temperature on the second digital thermometer I have taped to my ski pole. Weird, but it's one more price I pay for having Raynaud's. If you are sufficiently warm, you don't have to over dress for the conditions. This helps keep you dry. If you are cold by the time you start, you have to wear too many layers, and by the time you feel warm enough to shed a layer your clothing will be damp with perspiration. That water will later suck the heat right out, especially if you start to run out of gas and can't keep up a high energy output.
Whether or not it's snowing makes a big difference too. When it's not snowing you can dispense with the parka for a while and keep your intermediate layers dry longer. When you have to wear the parka, and if the skin up is strenuous your inner garments will gradually get wet and loose some of their insulating properties. While at times it's possible to stop and add another layer at the first sign of a chill, this has its problems. Stopping for any length of time can start an episode of vasospasm as you cool off, and adding an extra layer means taking the parka off, losing more heat, and getting inner layers further wet with snow. It's a tradeoff. I try to just slightly overdress when it's snowing, and then make just one stop half way up for an additional layer. Just before I reach my high point I make a quick stop again to put on my Primaloft so that I can stand around and enjoy the summit. To avoid too much additional moisture when adding layers, I quickly slip the parka off and then put the hood over my head and drape the rest of the parka over my shoulders. Then I can add or change a layer by sliding it under the parka so that it stays fairly dry. Zip up fully next so that you don't lose more heat than necessary. Then attend to pack and gloves. [Top of the line Gortex parkas make a significant difference. They breath better, you stay drier and thus warmer.]
Back from skiing: By the time you are back at the tent after a day ski your clothing will probably be at least damp. One option is just to start packing up and ski out while your metabolism is still revved up. I like to get in the tent, have something to eat, and maybe take a nap. I like naps. Your body will cool down however, and if your clothing is still damp it's back to numb fingers. The stove makes a huge difference. Same caveats as before. You can also dry out in the sleeping bag; it just takes a bit of time. Here's how I do it. I take off the outer layers and bundle up in the sleeping bag wearing just the base layer. It typically takes about 45 minutes to dry this layer out, and I know when it's dry because I suddenly feel warmer. Then I pull the next layers into the bag, perhaps drape them over me for a bit, and then put them on and take a nap or read. It takes forever for things to dry if you don't start with just the base layer first. Same thing with socks. If I have not run the stove, the whole process takes perhaps an hour and a half. At this point I can pack up and ski out without the Raynaud's acting up.
[A word about stoves: only liquid fueled stoves put out enough heat to serve in heating the tent. I depend on my old Optimus 99 to work flawlessly every time, and that means careful maintenance. I’ve used that stove since 1972, and for what I do, I’ve not seen anything better. The website Classic Camp Stoves is the place to go for help on any stove you may use.]
There are lots more little details, but I'm amazed that I got this much on paper. I may add more at some point.
Larry_Robinson February 2008, Revised November 2024 |