Comments on: What do you know about snow?

By: Jeffrey

Jeffrey — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 21:18:02 +0000

Another clip, on building a snow cave: http://science.discovery.com/videos/les-strouds-survival-tips-snow-cave.html

By: Jeffrey

Jeffrey — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 21:17:41 +0000

Here is a clip with a warning about red snow / watermelon snow. http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/survivorman-3-be-careful-of-red-snow.html

By: Kevin

Kevin — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 20:58:36 +0000

I remember a Survivorman (the Baffin Island one I believe) where Les Stroud brought up the eat snow/don’t eat snow debate. He basically said what you guys are saying. He said that most will say not to eat snow for hydration, but his situation was extremely physically exerting and it was a good means of bringing his temp down to prevent perspiration.

By: Sweigart

Sweigart — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 01:40:28 +0000

As far as staying dry in the snow, I cannot emphasize having a waterproof or resistant outerlayer on enough. There are plenty of products on the market to renew the finish if the outerwear that you currently own is losing its water resistance.
And if its snowing while you hike, dont be afraid to use your pack cover to keep all your valuable gear nice and dry during a hike.

By: Jeffrey

Jeffrey — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 22:15:54 +0000

After reading your response, I had to go back and look at the post. Seems that little diatribe on my post was accidentally erased. Basically, it was supposed to say what you stated, adding only to eat the snow when there is no other means to melt it. Also, we are not talking about going hours without water. We are talking days.

The truth is that you can find both suggestions with enough digging. The conservatve way to state this fact is, “don’t do it.” This seems to mainly stem from the fact that a lot of people are lazy and will screw it up. If you are not generating the “extra” body heat, you simply cannot do this.

As commented on other posts, the words of Les Stroud, “You sweat, you die.” Eating snow can help bring down the body temperature if you are exerting yourself too much in the cold. Speaking of Les Stroud, I have seen multiple videos where he is eating snow while hiking. I want to say that one of those times I heard a narrator (this was not Survivor Man) say sonmething about not eating snow. Go figure.

What it always comes down to is balance, which most people will screw up. Here’s my quote, “You screw up, you die.”

By: Sweigart

Sweigart — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 21:56:20 +0000

Jeffery… Very fascinating thought!
First off… in hiking or backwoods camping, Never eat snow for hydration. Always do your best to melt snow first. I can’t remember which website I got it off of, but they actually ran the amount of energy the human body would have to use to change the snow to water. And from their data, they showed that consuming snow would cause a person to fall into hypothermia a lot faster than if they would have gone without water for a couple of hours and actually worked on melting snow.
Then the question becomes.. “How do you melt snow?” I recently came accross another fact on a website (REI’s I believe) and they stated that if you melt snow on your stove, do so with just a little bit at a time and over low heat, otherwise the water would actually just evaporate off and you would end up with: 1) no water and 2) less fuel.
So I know I didn’t answer your question, but I thought those two points would be another good discussion point.