Cold! Cold! Cold!
Temp: -31°C
Sunlight - 11.08 hours
I made the trip today. Unfortunately, I only got half as far as I had planned. Some preparation delays and the extreme cold conspired to keep me from the intended destination.
I did make it to a place called Beer Hill. It’s about 12 or 15 kilometres out on the Tundra. We started out as a group of three, but one person decided to turn back early on. It was cold in town and very cold in the bush. Myself and the other guy estimated that it was at least -40 Celsius, not including any wind chill – which had to be significant.
We got to Beer Hill and set out the ELT and waited for the plane to find us. And waited. And waited. In retrospect it was not a good idea to stand on top of a hill in -40 degree weather with the wind whistling around us – for an hour and a half! We both suffered some minor frostbite for our troubles. Me on my right cheek, bridge of my nose, and thumb and first two fingers on my right hand. My companion, one patch each on his cheeks.
This time I left the helmet home and wore a specially designed face cover. Lorie actually sewed it up for me the night before. In addition to that, I wore my new beaver skin hat, and another full face cover. Only the areas around my eyes were left exposed, and that was the area that got frozen. Looks like there are a set of goggles in my future.
We left around 11:30AM and got back about 4:30PM and that was more than enough time out in that cold for us.
I was just happy that I did it and survived. Next time I will shoot for more distance and less frostbite!
Cheers!
Sunlight - 11.08 hours
I made the trip today. Unfortunately, I only got half as far as I had planned. Some preparation delays and the extreme cold conspired to keep me from the intended destination.
I did make it to a place called Beer Hill. It’s about 12 or 15 kilometres out on the Tundra. We started out as a group of three, but one person decided to turn back early on. It was cold in town and very cold in the bush. Myself and the other guy estimated that it was at least -40 Celsius, not including any wind chill – which had to be significant.
We got to Beer Hill and set out the ELT and waited for the plane to find us. And waited. And waited. In retrospect it was not a good idea to stand on top of a hill in -40 degree weather with the wind whistling around us – for an hour and a half! We both suffered some minor frostbite for our troubles. Me on my right cheek, bridge of my nose, and thumb and first two fingers on my right hand. My companion, one patch each on his cheeks.
This time I left the helmet home and wore a specially designed face cover. Lorie actually sewed it up for me the night before. In addition to that, I wore my new beaver skin hat, and another full face cover. Only the areas around my eyes were left exposed, and that was the area that got frozen. Looks like there are a set of goggles in my future.
We left around 11:30AM and got back about 4:30PM and that was more than enough time out in that cold for us.
I was just happy that I did it and survived. Next time I will shoot for more distance and less frostbite!
Cheers!
posted by Lorne at
10:46 PM
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