Cold Feat

My Illinois home hunting ground often gets below zero during the season. Tired of numb toes and stiff fingers that always seemed to force me out of my tree stand and halfway down the ladder at the exact moment the buck I was waiting for stepped out of the brush to stare at me, I embarked several years ago on an effort to find clothing and footgear that would let me stay warm and comfortable.

The first important thing I learned was that the most critical thing in keeping warm in a tree stand is not the parka you wear on the outside but what you wear on the inside.

If you wear the right underwear, socks, hand coverings and headwear, a pair of $50 canvas coveralls will--most of the time--serve you just as well on the outside as a $450 brand-name parka. And the right underwear, socks and hand coverings are readily available at local department stores--and, of course, through the outdoor catalogs and retail shops we all know and love.

I originally learned this by talking to people who spend a great deal of time outdoors in winter for a living: farmers, maintenance workers, construction crews and power company linemen. State highway department employees were a particularly helpful resource because, as anyone who has ever driven by a highway repair crew knows, they spend most of their time standing around motionless.

These people knew that good innerwear is always more important for staying warm and comfortable in cold weather than outer garments.

After the right innerwear, the next most important thing to take care of are your extremities: head, feet and hands. You can be wearing the warmest Arctic-grade expedition parka in the world, but if your toes are freezing, you will be miserable.

Of course, this can only be pushed so far. If your body trunk begins to get too cold, your internal thermostat will begin to pull your blood supply inward, which makes for icy toes.

The first thing a winter hunter needs to do is to throw away all his cotton underwear and socks. Don't wear anything cotton next to your skin. The key to staying warm is staying dry. When you move--even slowly--you generate heat, and you sweat, particularly your feet. Cotton underwear or socks soak up sweat and hold it next to your skin, where it cools you down as it evaporates.

The biological purpose of perspiration is to cool you off. To stay warm in winter, you must defeat that purpose. What you need are underwear and socks made of a material that will wick perspiration moisture away from your skin toward your outer clothing layers.

Two popular and readily available fabric materials made for this purpose are polypropylene and Thermax. A variety of styles and types of underwear and socks made from these materials (check the label) are available any place that sells outdoor clothing.