Sunday, May 13th, 2007...11:58 am
Trail Tip: The Shivers and Hypothermia
Some people mistakenly believe that you can only get hypothermia when it’s snowing outdoors.
At Caribou Lakes Wilderness last year, backpacking buddies Duke, Wild Bill and I walked a 10-mile day-hike loop in t-shirts. When we returned to base camp, the sky was clouding up and Bill decided to go for a quick swim in the lake next to our camp.
The combination of cold water and no sun led to uncontrollable shivers, an early sign of hypothermia.
He quickly dried off and dressed in warm clothes. Duke and I started a fire and gave him some hot tea to drink. Experts say getting warm liquids down quickly increases your inner core temperature and staves off hypothermia.
I’m no expert, so click on these links: www.hypothermia.org. and Princeton University to find out more.
Be light. Be safe. Be one with the pack.
3 Comments
May 16th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
I’m not sure that a cup of tea helps that much. It is like warming a bathtub by pouring in a cup of tea. Caffeine is a bad idea.
Getting hydrated and fueled is a big help. A small amount of sugar can make a quick improvement.
A better use of hot water is to fill several water bottles with boiling water, put them in socks, then put the person and the bottles in a sleeping bag. Even better, a hypothermia wrap, often called a “hypothermia burrito”.
The Princeton link you gave has a good description of the wrap (but fix the quotes in your href attribute so that it works).
http://www.princeton.edu/~oa/safety/hypocold.shtml
May 17th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Good advice!
May 20th, 2007 at 8:02 am
Walter,
Thanks for the advice and you can now get to the Princeton page with the fixed link.
Bruce
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