Winter Gear and Wim Hof

[Wangle]

Hey folks,

I just watched the excellent two part, Winter Hiking and Backpacking series.  Afterwards I was so overjoyed by digesting all the new knowledge on how to regulate body temperature and moisture that I quickly went online and started shopping for the next pieces of gear for my winter hiking kit.

And there I was today, scrolling through Instagram and I see a dear friend playing out in Lake Michigan in single digit temperature for 20 – 30 mins.  He is wet and the wind chill is crazy.  Paradigms collide.

Now I’m starting to question what I’m doing to prepare for Denali.  If people like Wim Hof are able to climb Everest in only shorts and sandals, how much gear do I really need if I’m well trained to be able to be with the cold?  I do need to carry crazy amounts of insulation and fuel up the mountain?

Does anyone have experience going beyond of what everyone agrees is “proper” gear for alpine expeditions?  Has anyone attempted to bring much less gear on expeditions while using the wim hof breathing methods to regulate body temp?  This topic can be quite controversial because it challenges many of the assumptions of what we need to be out in the cold.

Thanks in advance for all your input.

[Justin W]

Key phrase is “trained” I think. I’ve thought about this issue myself a fair amount. I think it is part physical and part mental/consciousness.  To put things into perspective, Wim Hof isn’t just known for his extreme cold temp/condition feats, but he has applied the same breathing/meditation/mental-consciousness aspect to other extremes.  For example, under supervision of medical researchers in a hospital, he had himself injected with a dead form of a pathogen that is known for causing very strong (and very unpleasant) immune reactions.

He started to feel the effects of it a bit at first, but went into a deeper state of meditation and was able to control his immune response (there was a research paper written and published on this btw). It is the first scientifically recorded case of someone being able to control what was formerly labeled an autonomous system and not thought able to be under conscious control whatsoever.

He also ran a marathon in desert heat while not drinking water during the run.  Hence, it is not just about cold, nor building up physical tolerance over time.  Because in these two latter cases, he didn’t spend a lot of time building up any kind of tolerance (and no time in the case of the pathogen).  So it is hard to say, how much is physical adaptation and how much is the mental-consciousness aspect?  But he literally loves the cold, so that with repeat exposure probably does help him with that.

I suspect “there are more things in heaven and Earth, than are dreamt of in most of our philosophies” so to speak. I say this as someone with both a keen interest in science, but also with my own, personal, repeat anomalous experiences.  The true scientific mindset is and should be, “open mindedness counterbalanced by skepticism and skepticism counter balanced by open mindedness”.  They are incomplete and imbalanced without each other, and most people tend to lean more to one than the other I’ve noticed/observed. It is not easy to hold them perfectly inter balanced simultaneously.  To be honest, I don’t think there are a lot of true scientists in the world.  There are mostly believers and cynics, and imo, both tend toward distortion and/or delusion though ironically both the cynic and believer believes that everyone but themselves are deluded. The truly scientific on the other hand, tend to be more humble and uncertain and can say more easily and truly, “I don’t know, let’s test it and see where it goes”.

(Btw, there is enough in science, and especially quantum physics, that should give people pause for thought about the true nature of reality.  For example, explain quantum entanglement.  By Einsteinian physics, should not be possible.  And it very obviously and strongly implies/suggest that there is a interconnection between everything on a fundamental level [a very old concept found in the core of most mystic, religious, and/or spiritual belief systems in some form or another].  And interestingly, most of the founding fathers of quantum physics and the first experiments in and maths of same, had so called “woo woo” beliefs/leanings like metaphysics, Eastern philosophy, mysticism, spirituality, and/or religion and some of these actually EXPECTED some of these so called “irrational” findings!  [conveniently left out of the history books often, because the winners write same, and the winners of late are the mechanistic nihilists/atheistic materialists]).

Hard to not get chaffy with such topics. This will probably be my only post on this thread. I’m not much interested in debating anymore.

[Keith T]

Hey Justin,

I’m not trying to lure you into any more posts, but just wanted to say  thanks for typing that all out. I especially love:

The true scientific mindset is, and should be, “open mindedness counterbalanced by skepticism and skepticism counter balanced by open mindedness”.  They are incomplete and imbalanced without each other….

I’ve long struggled to explain the dichotomy between science being an evidence-based system, but also the need for innovators to initially believe in the possibility of another solution when there is no evidence to support their ideas. Your quote helps reconcile the two.

[Bruce Tolley]

In regard to Mr Hof, let us not get carried away by what we see and read on the internet.

He had a whole team working with him on Everest.  He wore typical mountaineering boots, not shorts and sandals.  During pauses, he was dressed and warmed up. His team leader described his attire while moving as semi-naked. He did not reach the summit.

Yes he trains and he is perhaps an ultra-extreme adventurer if not a daredevil.

Not everyone can or wants to or should ride a motorcycle like Evil Kneivel or his son.

[Justin W]

Cheers Keith, and I appreciate the appreciation.

I had just meant that I was going to try to avoid engaging in any debate, arguments, and the like.

[Jacob]

Navy Seals do it with their clothes on. I believe they ‘run’ their clothes dry after this soak. Article on the gear they’re using to do that here https://www.itstactical.com/gearcom/apparel/comprehensive-guide-protective-combat-uniform/

Thermal dynamics demands you have enough calories stored to maintain homeostasis and raise your weight up the elevation of the mountain. While Wim Hof has demonstrated some compelling evidence that breathing and meditative techniques can adjust our abilities to maintain homeostasis, relying on these techniques with no back up plan in conditions in which so many other people have died does seem dare-devilish.

HYOH.

[Justin W]

As far as coldness + wetness goes, if I was doing something like the Navy Seals and not trying to “Wim Hof It”, all I got to say is that I would wear all of my polypropylene layers, starting with my Brynje polypropylene fishnet baselayer, my hollow fiber polypropylene shirt, the fleeced polypropylene “heavy weight baselayer” shirt, and similar for the bottoms (I have a thinner, non fleeced PP bottom and a thicker, fleeced one).  Then on top of these, a thin, semi breathable, and lightly siliconized polyester windshirt and windpants.

There is literally nothing better for such conditions than PP. Light weight, lower thermal conductivity than any other regular fabric, doesn’t absorb moisture into the material (just in between the fiber interstices), and dries amazingly fast.

The military used to use a lot of PP, but they phased it out, in favor of polyester, primarily because of the low melting point and high flammability, and maybe also some because of the infamous PP odor (?).  But those issues aside, it really is the best material/fabric for cold plus wet, next to perforated butyl rubber and perforated closed cell foams.

[Wangle]

Thank you all for your thoughtful responses.  It seems that for 99% of the people, it would be rather silly to Wim Hof it.  Breathing and meditation could help as a LAST resort if all else fails, but not as the first line of defense against cold / maintaining homeostasis.

I guess I’ll keep fine tuning my winter kit.  Sad that I can’t just skip the gear and meditate my way to the summits.

[Paul McLaughlin]

Another important factor here that tends to be ignored is energy consumption. Clearly humans are quite adaptable, and variable, in their responses to cold. But thermodynamics don’t lie. Less clothing means faster heat loss. If you are out in the cold with less clothing and you are still warm, you are producing more heat to make up for the additional loss. Thus, you need more calories coming in . So, going out for a half hour or even a couple hours, no big deal you just eat a bigger lunch. But for extended, multi-day outings I wonder at what point heavier clothing weighs less than the additional food you would need if you were truly cold conditioned so that your metabolism was ramped up in order to be able to make do with less gear. Since the gear weight is constant while the food weight goes up as the trip gets longer, at some point the graph lines gotta cross.

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