It's a perfect day to bake a cherry pie! Mmm mm mm mm mm!

 westslope wrote:
Fatal bear attacks are rare in North America, but they do occur.

 Steely_D wrote:
I watched a few episodes of Alone.  Especially the ones filmed on the shores of Chilko Lake in Cariboo-Chilcotin region of British Columbia because I know the area.  I was impressed with the skill sets and problem solving abilities of some of the participants.  I was not impressed with the gratuitous fear mongering efforts.  Perhaps viewers understand black and grizzly bears about as well as American voters understand the Vietnamese, Cubans, Venezuelans or Russians? 

I know, I know.  Dozens if not hundreds have died horrible deaths from savage, cruel Grizzly bear attacks over the decades.     Or have they?  Frankly, has anybody in the area died from a griz attack in the post-war period?   Not that I am aware of.    Would guess that hundreds if not thousands have died in automobile accidents and from substance abuse, in particular tobacco and alcohol.   

Can imagine the producers of Alone sharing that information with you?  


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A short skinning blade can be used for all kinds of things including shaving dry sticks to create kindling.   It can be used as rough substitutes for an axe, a saw, a shovel.  It can be used to clean fish or rodents.   It can dig slivers out of your skin.  It can open mussels and shells.  A knife can be used to mark a trail, useful if you get lost.  A knife can be used to carve words as a message to others which, once again, could be useful if you get lost.

In passing, I never get lost because I always do my homework before going into a new area.  I spend hours pouring over topographic maps and satellite image maps at home to the point that I form rough 3D images in my head. That said, it does not hurt to be prepared for all possible outcomes. 

Finally, if I ever have a close territorial face-to-face confrontation with a bear, the knife will give me an extra layer of confidence that might help, on the understanding that the knife by itself is unlikely to help.

I once worked for a woman on a cow-calf ranch who stood down a big boar grizzly when she was in her young 20s.  She had a .22 rifle with her and knew that it was completely and utterly useless.  Dodie stood her ground, softly cursed the boar, told him to behave in a low steady voice, and avoided direct eye contact.     It was too much ice cream and not enough exercise that finally did Dodie in after well over a half century of playing and working in the Purcells and Rockies.    She and her second husband Harry Riddel ran British Columbia's largest big game guiding outfit up the Bull River for several decades until Harry died.  By that time, the logging roads had been pushed in and degraded the quality of the experience.

 westslope wrote:

OK, as a city slicker - but I watch a lot of Alone - I don't know why the blade, unless you're thinking of shaving bark to make kindling?
Season 7 was my favorite, maybe because it was my first.  

-1 F this morning, -20F windchill  was colder overnight and the windchill was about -40F.  The house rocked a couple of times with gusts up to 50 mph.  They clocked a gust of 74 mph up on the lake front last night.

Now home from work, about 5F, no idea what the windchill is but the wind is still howling out there.

Wiper fluid frozen.  Thank g for polarized lenses.

84 degrees warmer than the day before yesterday. 

 Steely_D wrote:
Unrelated but every time I head into the backcountry even during the warmest summer months, my first safety thought is about hypothermia.   I plan for it. It is the main reason why I always carry a short skinning blade and a butane lighter (or two) when heading out.  

The second concern is exhaustion due to heat and sun during the mid-summer months.  That is an important reason for dressing head to toe in bright hot sun.    Direct, bright sun wears people down whether they notice it or not. 

 GeneP59 wrote: Sounds slippery and dangerous.
I have to put my sunglasses on, and go start up some oak on the barbecue for early chicken dinner tonight.

 Bill_J wrote:
We got to 44 a slightly different way... started at 50° and ended at 6°.  Up to 11° now...and it's actually sort of nice out (for a guy with family roots in northern VT).

Everything froze after the rain and temperature drop. Snow squall came through @ 10:30pm with a quick 1” of snow over the frozen iced driveway.
Woke to 9° and windy conditions.

 miamizsun wrote:

It's not so refreshing when you start out at 44°F and then drop 35°.

we dropped like 35 degrees overnight
quite refreshing
a sunny and brisk 44f this morning

The 2” of rain has stopped. The howling wind with gusts upwards of 50+ is still blowing. The dropping temperature from 57° is heading toward freezing by 8pm.
Morning high of 20° with a windchill of -12°.
All that rain on my cars are going to freeze. And now the lights are flickering. Oh Crap!

 westslope wrote:

 westslope wrote:
Unrelated but related: a medical maxim is "You're not dead until you're warm and dead." Folks thought to be lost from immersion in ice water lakes, etc, have revived miraculously.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote:

I think we've very likely already entered the self-destruct sequence.

 westslope wrote:
You probably did, but that is a debate that has not been settled. My take on it is that heat kills more people directly, cold kills more through exposure, yes, but also cold-related illness ("flu season") which skews the "cold season" statistics that direction. 

Either way it's clear that we're a miraculously delicate organism unsuited to life in anything but a fine-tuned ecosystem—and we're constantly fiddling with the knobs.

 islander wrote:
I feel for the people who live in relatively warm areas and then get hit hard with cold temperatures of the likes that have not been experienced in decades.   That has to be really, really tough.  

Not everybody is of Old Norse stock who have been probably genetically selected over the years for coping with cold winters.

I seem to recall reading/hearing that more people die from cold weather than hot weather.


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As an aside, this cold weather is very much in keeping with the Anthropogenic climate disruption narrative.  


Keep warm tips:   

Nothing beats upper underwear made of thick Merino wool for warmth and comfort.   They are a little expensive but well worth it if you can afford them.

I have been wearing very thick fleece underwear long johns both inside and outside the house.   Works.    Normally I put these on to wade steelhead rivers in the winter.