Ullr wrote: ↑Sun Feb 28, 2021 3:02 pm
Very nice story! Good read. You are much tougher than me and it humbles me to give you any advice.
Ha, don't be silly. Glad you enjoyed it though.
Ullr wrote: ↑Sun Feb 28, 2021 3:02 pm
I would recommend that you look into stiff leather boots. I think Crispi Bre are one you should consider checking out. They mould to your feet after breaking in. Comfortable shoes are a must on multi day trips. To prevent blister on my heel I use a thin womans nylon sock inside my wool socks. This is an old Norwegian trick. I also use sports tape to tape a vertical strip from my acilles tendon over my heel and down under my foot. This acts as an extra layer of skin and prevents you from getting blisters.
Actually the one guy I met out there also talked about doing the heel strip preventatively, when he was in the military. Good idea of course, though in softer boots than my plastics, my feet are 'normally' fine. Will look up those crispi boots.
Ullr wrote: ↑Sun Feb 28, 2021 3:02 pm
I always wear what we call nickers in Norwegian. This is short pants that reaches over my knees. With them I wear wool socks that reaches over my knees. Tis is a very classic and useful way to dress as you can control the heat easily: When warm, I roll down my socks. When cold I use one or two sets of long underwear. When windy or deep snow, I use kneehigh boot gaiters. Boots with gaiters included will limit their use to only include extreme conditions and make the hard to keep in your sleeping bag for drying/heating.
Stay far away from Gore Tex and alike, as it wil make you sweaty and cold very fast.
Interesting system! For my legs I normally need very little insulation anyway; so even in the coldest temps just a 200 merino base and thin uninsulated shell worked well for me (I also had a pair of insulated over trousers for standing around gazing at the northern lights at night). I even had no issues with my bibs being goretex (only worn instead of my softshells due to the bib part being handy).
Its my upper body that sweats a lot and causes me issues and I did indeed find, as you say, that my usual mountaineering approach of fleece layers and a hardshell was not suitable from the hardshell (eVent) point of view. Wasnt so windy, so that helped as didn't need my jacket mostly, but for future I do want a wind breaker or softshell if it gets blowy. At -25 even my merino and thin fleece were soaked in sweat, and drying these (and my gloves) helped in hurting my sleeping bag without the vapour barrier. I changed my approach later in the trip and it worked much better.
Historically, when mountaineering, I always got on well with integral gaitored boots, for both my double and single boots. If needed, can pop the inner boots (if doubles) in the bag to pre warm when its very cold, but I don't mind cold boots so long as they're properly dry. Even the plastic ski boots were fine from that perspective... but getting into them each morning was a hell of a challenge due to their inherent stiffness!
Trying to avoid having 2 pairs of boots for warm/cold conditions is a bit of an issue I admit, but I am leaning towards aiming for the more extreme conditions and boots, then just putting up with some slightly sweater feet on warm days. Though, with the plastic bags between socks, it kept my boots sweat-free.
Ullr wrote: ↑Sun Feb 28, 2021 3:02 pm
Always keep your smelly wool socks and shoes inside your sleeping bag! This will dry them in the cold. Wool sock doesn’t smell bad by the way. At least not for a while…
I went for very thin liners (i had either merino or synthetic to choose) and these dried easy enough in my bag, though even with wool my feet get pretty diabolical after a few days! My outers (outside of the plastic bags) were just normal skiing socks, but will definitely look at some proper wool socks for the future, depending on what boot system I go for. Do you find that brand you linked to pretty durable?
Thanks for all the advice.
