When I woke up to hit the mountain yesterday, the forecast was for -10°. I want to know what all of you think: how cold is too cold to get out and enjoy the outdoors? Where’s your cutoff?
Let everyone know in the comments — I’ll be popping in and out to chat with all of you here, throughout the day!
Bonus points if you have a great cold weather story to share!
Me on much warmer days; a balmy -1° at Copper Mountain
I find my tolerance for cold has changed the older I've gotten. However, my coldest bike ride was probably 15 years ago when I showed up for a weekend group road ride and it was flurrying (that's unusual in North Georgia). The only other person to show up was Bill, who was in his early 70s and a strong, wiry cyclist. We decided to go ahead and ride, but after 10 miles or so we realized our fingers were so cold we wouldn't be able to fix anything if we had a mechanical, so we bailed. But Bill's showing up brings into question my age-related aversion to the cold. Perhaps I've just gotten wimpier the older I've gotten...
Fingers are tough to keep warm. I talked about this in a recent gear guide I wrote. A good friend of mine, a meteorologist, always say that "Your trip ends quickly if your hands are too cold to use." It's definitely important to recognize when you won't be able to fix your bike.
Now though, I've seen some really excellent hand warmers for bikes. They're basically giant mittens that wrap around the handlebars so you can stuff your hands inside to stay warm!
Are there other factors at play on a bike ride like that? Do flurries give you brake and traction problems?
Also, damn good for Bill. I want to still be crushing ten milers in my 70's!
I need to check into the big hand warmers - I've seen those advertised. But first, I need to decide if I really want to ride when it's cold enough for puddles to freeze. That's really the issue, especially on road rides - how likely are you to encounter black ice or sheet ice running off someone's driveway? Mountain biking, on the other hand, is a bit easier in the cold because dirt offers better traction...
That's true! Half-frozen mud is actually a better braking surface than some other stuff, like, say, sugar sand. I used to run into that all the time back when I would go mountain biking in south florida!
I travelled from Lagos to Johannesburg fourteen years ago. Johannesburg is cold while Lagos is hot. I was told, take a jacket along with you. I was told, have a coat with you. I breezed out of Lagos, not taking a jacket or coat or pullover with me, reckoning I could handle the cold. When I got to Johannesburg, the cold hit me, with my body freezing. The cold harassed me, with my body shaking. Throughout my stay, the cold hit and harassed and stung me. As I left Johannesburg days later, teeth clattering, body freezing, limbs shaking, I was glad to jump into the plane, because I learned in a most unexpected way that forecast may be +10 degrees or - 10 degrees, travel may be to Johannesburg or the south pole, it doesn't matter. I can't handle cold.
It sounds like you learned about the importance of layering, first hand! Sorry you had a chilly trip, but it sounds like you still got a cool adventure out of the mix!
On the farm we get anywhere from 20F (-6 C)in deep winter (super frosty mornings) to 113F (45 C) in summer if we are unlucky. In winter we have to work in that, turns your fingers blue, but you need to feed out. In summer, we start really early before the heat kicks in mid-afternoon, otherwise you risk dying. Ha ha.
Dang, that's cold! You bring up a great point about planning your day around the weather conditions to the best of your ability as well. It always pays to know the forecast!
Dang, that's cold! When winter sticks around for a while, I guess you'd better get out and make the best of it! Did you take any cool pictures while out cross-country skiing? We'd love to see!
I'll be 58 tomorrow (7 Feb) and have blood circulation problems which means as soon as the temperature goes down I get cold hands and feet. In these cases, a good 10-km walk is ideal to warm my body. Last week I embarked in a 40-km trip on a rented bike (too small for me) and at the end my legs were screaming and my butt was cursing me but I was actually sweating which is a strange and nice sensation when you are supposed to shiver from the cold.
For me, more than low temperatures, the cutoff condition is when the wind blows.
You're right about the wind, that can absolutely cause big problems. I got into the layering aspect during a recent post; no matter how warm your insulating layer is, if you don't have a wind resistant shell, a stiff breeze can absolutely cut you to the bone!
Things are a bit different here in Wellington, New Zealand. It never gets very cold, and it never gets very hot either - last winter there were only two nights that got cold enough for frost to form. We get sleet occasionally, snow once every few decades (although hail is not uncommon).
So when I say it never gets too cold for the outdoors, I'm not really talking about your sort of cold weather. Nonetheless, a gale blowing from the south is is miserable, especially if it's raining. In the worst weather, I head for a patch of forest that's not too far away, because the forest provides some protection from the worst of the weather.
I've actually found that too; I always take shelter in the trees when I'm out snowboarding during whiteout conditions, or heavy wind. It provides great shelter, but also offer you a bit of visual contrast!
For golf, 45d is my +/-, though less windy (< 5mph) makes low 40s doable. For skiing...fresh powder? Not sure what the min is but it's low...If I was where you are, I'd be out there! For icy NE ski conditions...low 20s is +/-, again wind dependent.
Well, my motivational issue here is that the powder WAS NOT FRESH. I think the point you make about what sport you're doing is a good one. I'd almost say I could stand colder temperatures doing a vigorous hike, since it keeps your body a bit warmer. I find myself getting less warm from snowboarding.
I'd imagine that while playing golf, if you have a larger group you need to wait for, you may be in a similar situation of getting cold faster!
Also, you say icy NE ski conditions as if there is such a thing as NON-icy NE ski conditions 😂
Cole, by the standards of my part of the country, any thing that resembles real snow (that fell from the sky) I consider "powder" :) I would absolutely be out there today! (probably Vail but same idea)
Depends on what I'm doing. I walk all year round here in Upstate NY-- just fast enough to make it pleasant, but not so fast that the wind hurts my face. But I wouldn't camp and I wouldn't ski. One involves sleeping in the cold and the other involves...skiing.
I don't have a hiking story coming in from the cold. But when I was a sophomore in high school (umm ... 1972) I remember waiting outside for the school bus one afternoon with the wind chill factor of -41. No, they didn't cancel school that day. Just sent you a rough draft of my next piece for Monday.
Thanks James, I'll take a look. That sounds brutal! When I was going to school in Syracuse, I used to wake up to an extreme weather advisory most mornings: "Danger of hypothermia on any skin exposed longer than 8 minutes." Average wait for a bus was ten.
Great times!
Do you have a tip for bundling up that helped you through it?
Agreed. I was just replying to another comment -- my friend always says gloves are the most important layer. If you can't use your fingers, you're hosed.
My general rule of thumb when backpacking in cold weather is not to venture out in temperatures less than about 10 degrees above my sleeping bag rating. Therefore, with my -15 degree bag, my limit is about -5. With temperatures below that, I prefer to stay inside with a nice cup of hot cocoa.
That's a really good rule! I think the scariest prospect of being out in weather that cold, is you can't just run back inside to warm up. When you're backpacking, the closest thing you can get to that is - as you said - your sleeping bag!
I'm jealous! Out in NorCal it's nippy but basically balmy, with no rain coming--and I know soon enough this summer I'll be using up all my off-grid battery power to run the fans at night just to sleep, like last year. It sucks when you have a kick-ass PV array but have to run the diesel generator to survive the hot nights of climate change.
That sounds brutal. I'd actually much prefer to be cold than hot, so I may be in the same boat as you! Really cool that you have your own power setup though, how did you go about doing that?
Oh it gets worse. Come August, the coastal winds shift, and the smoke from the Entire West on Fire wafts in like a fog bank to sit like an evil gremlin on all our lungs. Pandemic aside, we have to wear N95s just to walk around outside and run our air filters all day and all night long. This hell started in 2008 but in 2017 it really set in. Every year since the smoke gets worse. The day Paradise burned our skies turned orange and blotted out the sun within a half an hour, and we're hundreds of miles away from there.
But my PV array, you ask? Well, I live on the land my parents bought in 1972. It was an illegal hippie subdivision then, so PG&E wouldn't bring us service. By the time our legal status was cleared up (after ten years of lawsuits) photovoltaics was a thing, and the local hippie outfitter store, Real Goods, had been selling NASA castoffs to the countercultural folks who were finally getting sick of doing the dishes by kerosene lamps. My parents started out by wiring a single lamp over the sink to the car battery. My house still has DC wiring (like cigarette lighter plugs) from before the time of inverters. Slowly we upgraded, always keeping our eye out for the cost of solar panels. As soon as they got cheap enough, we put up as big of an array as we could afford. I am still working on plans to expand it with a better charge controller and battery bank. But these things cost moola.
Mendocino County, California was one of the vanguards of the PV movement precisely because of this specific social movement demographic I describe. Our local community radio station KZYX&Z has a weekly show where locals call in with their weird questions about their funky home-grown systems. This is normal, boring talk around here.
This sounds absolutely fascinating! I would love to chat with you more about this. Would you be interested in talking about it on an episode of my Trail Talk podcast?
I made the ill-advised decision to move to the Great White North so I don't have a choice. I've seen children running around in tee shirts when it's -20 and I can't wrap my head around it.
Anything below 70 degrees is a no for me
That might be a little bit too warm of a cutoff point!! Although hey, it all comes down to comfort!
I find my tolerance for cold has changed the older I've gotten. However, my coldest bike ride was probably 15 years ago when I showed up for a weekend group road ride and it was flurrying (that's unusual in North Georgia). The only other person to show up was Bill, who was in his early 70s and a strong, wiry cyclist. We decided to go ahead and ride, but after 10 miles or so we realized our fingers were so cold we wouldn't be able to fix anything if we had a mechanical, so we bailed. But Bill's showing up brings into question my age-related aversion to the cold. Perhaps I've just gotten wimpier the older I've gotten...
Fingers are tough to keep warm. I talked about this in a recent gear guide I wrote. A good friend of mine, a meteorologist, always say that "Your trip ends quickly if your hands are too cold to use." It's definitely important to recognize when you won't be able to fix your bike.
Now though, I've seen some really excellent hand warmers for bikes. They're basically giant mittens that wrap around the handlebars so you can stuff your hands inside to stay warm!
Are there other factors at play on a bike ride like that? Do flurries give you brake and traction problems?
Also, damn good for Bill. I want to still be crushing ten milers in my 70's!
I need to check into the big hand warmers - I've seen those advertised. But first, I need to decide if I really want to ride when it's cold enough for puddles to freeze. That's really the issue, especially on road rides - how likely are you to encounter black ice or sheet ice running off someone's driveway? Mountain biking, on the other hand, is a bit easier in the cold because dirt offers better traction...
That's true! Half-frozen mud is actually a better braking surface than some other stuff, like, say, sugar sand. I used to run into that all the time back when I would go mountain biking in south florida!
I travelled from Lagos to Johannesburg fourteen years ago. Johannesburg is cold while Lagos is hot. I was told, take a jacket along with you. I was told, have a coat with you. I breezed out of Lagos, not taking a jacket or coat or pullover with me, reckoning I could handle the cold. When I got to Johannesburg, the cold hit me, with my body freezing. The cold harassed me, with my body shaking. Throughout my stay, the cold hit and harassed and stung me. As I left Johannesburg days later, teeth clattering, body freezing, limbs shaking, I was glad to jump into the plane, because I learned in a most unexpected way that forecast may be +10 degrees or - 10 degrees, travel may be to Johannesburg or the south pole, it doesn't matter. I can't handle cold.
It sounds like you learned about the importance of layering, first hand! Sorry you had a chilly trip, but it sounds like you still got a cool adventure out of the mix!
On the farm we get anywhere from 20F (-6 C)in deep winter (super frosty mornings) to 113F (45 C) in summer if we are unlucky. In winter we have to work in that, turns your fingers blue, but you need to feed out. In summer, we start really early before the heat kicks in mid-afternoon, otherwise you risk dying. Ha ha.
Dang, that's cold! You bring up a great point about planning your day around the weather conditions to the best of your ability as well. It always pays to know the forecast!
That's a cold one! It's kind of an acquired taste after awhile.
I would agree. I think I can actually stomach colder temperatures now than I used to. Better gear maybe?
Cold has never been a problem for me.
Went skiing a couple of weeks ago at -27 celcius, clear skies and the sun shining.
Today, went cross country skiing at -20 celcius (and felt even colder with the wind), no problem.
Winter is long where I live, so no excuse not to go out and play 😉
Dang, that's cold! When winter sticks around for a while, I guess you'd better get out and make the best of it! Did you take any cool pictures while out cross-country skiing? We'd love to see!
Sure, I have some pictures I could share. What would be the best way to share them ?
You can shoot me an email! That would be fantastic!
I'll be 58 tomorrow (7 Feb) and have blood circulation problems which means as soon as the temperature goes down I get cold hands and feet. In these cases, a good 10-km walk is ideal to warm my body. Last week I embarked in a 40-km trip on a rented bike (too small for me) and at the end my legs were screaming and my butt was cursing me but I was actually sweating which is a strange and nice sensation when you are supposed to shiver from the cold.
For me, more than low temperatures, the cutoff condition is when the wind blows.
Speaking of the cold, Japanese houses are infamous for been hot and damp and muggy in summer and icy cold in winter. If you don't believe me, please read this: https://giannisimone.substack.com/p/poor-life-in-rich-japan
Nice, I'll take a look!
You're right about the wind, that can absolutely cause big problems. I got into the layering aspect during a recent post; no matter how warm your insulating layer is, if you don't have a wind resistant shell, a stiff breeze can absolutely cut you to the bone!
Me too. I was diagnosed with Raynaud’s Syndrome, so my below-zero backpacking days are no more...
I suppose it's always good to know your limits. It really is a terrifying thought being deep in the woods with no way to warm up.
Things are a bit different here in Wellington, New Zealand. It never gets very cold, and it never gets very hot either - last winter there were only two nights that got cold enough for frost to form. We get sleet occasionally, snow once every few decades (although hail is not uncommon).
So when I say it never gets too cold for the outdoors, I'm not really talking about your sort of cold weather. Nonetheless, a gale blowing from the south is is miserable, especially if it's raining. In the worst weather, I head for a patch of forest that's not too far away, because the forest provides some protection from the worst of the weather.
I've actually found that too; I always take shelter in the trees when I'm out snowboarding during whiteout conditions, or heavy wind. It provides great shelter, but also offer you a bit of visual contrast!
For golf, 45d is my +/-, though less windy (< 5mph) makes low 40s doable. For skiing...fresh powder? Not sure what the min is but it's low...If I was where you are, I'd be out there! For icy NE ski conditions...low 20s is +/-, again wind dependent.
Well, my motivational issue here is that the powder WAS NOT FRESH. I think the point you make about what sport you're doing is a good one. I'd almost say I could stand colder temperatures doing a vigorous hike, since it keeps your body a bit warmer. I find myself getting less warm from snowboarding.
I'd imagine that while playing golf, if you have a larger group you need to wait for, you may be in a similar situation of getting cold faster!
Also, you say icy NE ski conditions as if there is such a thing as NON-icy NE ski conditions 😂
Cole, by the standards of my part of the country, any thing that resembles real snow (that fell from the sky) I consider "powder" :) I would absolutely be out there today! (probably Vail but same idea)
Powder is fantastic to ride, that's for sure!
Depends on what I'm doing. I walk all year round here in Upstate NY-- just fast enough to make it pleasant, but not so fast that the wind hurts my face. But I wouldn't camp and I wouldn't ski. One involves sleeping in the cold and the other involves...skiing.
Fair enough! I think I get my absolute coldest when I'm running, biking, or walking. It's my ears! They betray me first!
I don't have a hiking story coming in from the cold. But when I was a sophomore in high school (umm ... 1972) I remember waiting outside for the school bus one afternoon with the wind chill factor of -41. No, they didn't cancel school that day. Just sent you a rough draft of my next piece for Monday.
Thanks James, I'll take a look. That sounds brutal! When I was going to school in Syracuse, I used to wake up to an extreme weather advisory most mornings: "Danger of hypothermia on any skin exposed longer than 8 minutes." Average wait for a bus was ten.
Great times!
Do you have a tip for bundling up that helped you through it?
No. Remember ... that was 50 years ago. Thermals are much more advanced these days. I would recommended spending a premium on good gloves, though.
Agreed. I was just replying to another comment -- my friend always says gloves are the most important layer. If you can't use your fingers, you're hosed.
My general rule of thumb when backpacking in cold weather is not to venture out in temperatures less than about 10 degrees above my sleeping bag rating. Therefore, with my -15 degree bag, my limit is about -5. With temperatures below that, I prefer to stay inside with a nice cup of hot cocoa.
That's a really good rule! I think the scariest prospect of being out in weather that cold, is you can't just run back inside to warm up. When you're backpacking, the closest thing you can get to that is - as you said - your sleeping bag!
What kind of bag are you using?
I'm jealous! Out in NorCal it's nippy but basically balmy, with no rain coming--and I know soon enough this summer I'll be using up all my off-grid battery power to run the fans at night just to sleep, like last year. It sucks when you have a kick-ass PV array but have to run the diesel generator to survive the hot nights of climate change.
That sounds brutal. I'd actually much prefer to be cold than hot, so I may be in the same boat as you! Really cool that you have your own power setup though, how did you go about doing that?
Oh it gets worse. Come August, the coastal winds shift, and the smoke from the Entire West on Fire wafts in like a fog bank to sit like an evil gremlin on all our lungs. Pandemic aside, we have to wear N95s just to walk around outside and run our air filters all day and all night long. This hell started in 2008 but in 2017 it really set in. Every year since the smoke gets worse. The day Paradise burned our skies turned orange and blotted out the sun within a half an hour, and we're hundreds of miles away from there.
But my PV array, you ask? Well, I live on the land my parents bought in 1972. It was an illegal hippie subdivision then, so PG&E wouldn't bring us service. By the time our legal status was cleared up (after ten years of lawsuits) photovoltaics was a thing, and the local hippie outfitter store, Real Goods, had been selling NASA castoffs to the countercultural folks who were finally getting sick of doing the dishes by kerosene lamps. My parents started out by wiring a single lamp over the sink to the car battery. My house still has DC wiring (like cigarette lighter plugs) from before the time of inverters. Slowly we upgraded, always keeping our eye out for the cost of solar panels. As soon as they got cheap enough, we put up as big of an array as we could afford. I am still working on plans to expand it with a better charge controller and battery bank. But these things cost moola.
Mendocino County, California was one of the vanguards of the PV movement precisely because of this specific social movement demographic I describe. Our local community radio station KZYX&Z has a weekly show where locals call in with their weird questions about their funky home-grown systems. This is normal, boring talk around here.
This sounds absolutely fascinating! I would love to chat with you more about this. Would you be interested in talking about it on an episode of my Trail Talk podcast?
Of course, I'd be happy to!
Great! I'll shoot you an email to set something up! I think we could have a really fun conversation about solar!
I made the ill-advised decision to move to the Great White North so I don't have a choice. I've seen children running around in tee shirts when it's -20 and I can't wrap my head around it.
Wow! That's pretty darn cold!