Check out WTIP North Shore Radio’s, “Pack & Paddle,” featuring Scott from Bull Moose Patrol for wilderness tips you can use on your next outdoor adventure!
Listen as Scott chats with North Shore Radio host, Mark Abrahamson, about how to easily keep your feet warm on even the coldest Winter days.
Pack & Paddle: Warm Feet in the Winter Transcript
0:00:00.3 Mark: WTIP's feature, Pack and Paddle, with Scott Oeth, is up next. Scott is a Registered Maine Guide, an Eagle Scout, and Minnesota Master Naturalist. He's an instructor for the Okpik National Cold Weather Leader School. He talks with us by phone now. And that song was appropriate, I hear we're talking about cold feet.
0:00:21.1 Scott Oeth: Yeah, yeah. No one's favorite, cold feet. Great song. And I'll try and keep it politically correct as well.
0:00:26.6 Mark: Alright, good. So yeah, talk about how to keep our feet warm in the winter. I do a variety of winter sports and manage to keep my feet warm, it's my hands that I have problems with but, tell us about feet.
0:00:39.2 SO: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, feet specifically, I hate having cold feet. I've suffered them many times when I was younger, so I've put a lot of thought into this and there's some real science behind this. People say, "What boots do I need?" Well, there's a bit more than that. First of all, you wanna look at your core, okay? Your body, it's crazy, but if your organs aren't warm enough and well-insulated enough, your body actually diverts blood flow and keeps it in the core and doesn't send it out to your extremities. So your mom used to say or your grandma used to say, "Put on a hat if your feet are cold," the blood vessels going to your brain do not vaso-constrict, and so it maintains blood flow to the brain, it radiates off a lot of heat, same thing with your torso and your core. So make sure your body is well insulated, that's the first step.
0:01:23.5 SO: And I should just say, some folks have medical conditions, so if you have chronically cold feet, even indoors, it may be Raynaud's or another condition, go get it checked out. Then related to the core, you gotta stoke the furnace. You gotta eat well and you gotta stay hydrated. When you get dehydrated, which is a problem in the dry cold, you lose a lot of moisture through respiration. Your blood flow slows down and blood flow is precious in terms of keeping your feet warm, so think about the body overall.
0:01:49.3 SO: And then, when it does come to boots, look at temperature ratings, they do matter. There is a difference in boots, but look at them skeptically. You see a lot of boots rated to 100 below and I hear people say, "Geez, it wasn't even close to that. I was out ice fishing and my feet were still cold." It's a good starting point, there is a difference in boots, but that's not... You don't need really expensive fancy boots. What you need is good insulation and good technique. Along with that, buy your boots big, you really want roominess and this gets back to the blood flow and allowing for some layers with socks. And a lot of people have boots that are too tight, and if your feet aren't able to move, if those muscles aren't able to flex, if the muscles aren't firing, they aren't getting blood flow in there, you're likely to have cold feet. My recommendation is often two size larger than what you normally wear. Yeah?
0:02:37.8 Mark: I have a question for you too. Now, and maybe you're gonna get to this, but say you're in a situation, you're out in the woods, you're out in the wilderness and your feet do get cold and you're having trouble with them. Do you have some advice about that?
0:02:51.6 SO: Yeah, well, if you're sedentary and you're sitting around, you're ice fishing or sitting on a snowmobile, get up and move around, get active. That's the first thing. Eat something, get some sugars, get some maybe warm fluids into your system and some fats and energy, and that'll help warm you up and then check your boots. Check to make sure your socks aren't wet or damp or that your boots aren't wet and take whatever steps are necessary to get some dry, insulating layers on.
0:03:19.6 Mark: In other words, it's a good thing to have some backup clothes and materials for staying warm.
0:03:24.9 SO: Yeah, absolutely, even if I'm just going for the day, I think it makes a lot of sense in a waterproof bag to have a change of socks, liner socks and some thick wool socks to change into. And if you're using the type of boots, like a lot of us do, the PAC-type boots with removable felt liners, get yourself an extra set of liners, it's one of the best things you can do. Your feet give off a lot of moisture, managing that sweat and that moisture is really a key to staying warm. If it's a dry cold outside, just having a perfectly breathable mukluk works well 'cause the vapor escapes from your footwear, but that doesn't always work, we're not always in those conditions or a lot of people have the rubber bottomed boots, and so what you need there is a change of liners, change of socks, or else actually using what's called a vapor barrier, where you put a thin plastic bag or nylon sack over your liner sock, and then put your insulating sock on top of that, and what that does is it keeps your sweat next to your foot. Sounds gross, but it keeps your insulation dry, which is key to keeping you warm.
0:04:22.1 Mark: Now, you've been talking about all things that you can do without using any extra equipment, say electrical kinds of things or chemical kinds of things to keep your feet warm. You're talking wilderness here, so those are more difficult, huh?
0:04:37.2 SO: Yeah, I don't like relying on those types of things. I'm sure some of them are nice, but my dad and I were very excited when I was a kid, we'd get a new pair of electric socks before hunting season and it just seemed like they'd never work, they'd break. When they did work, they're too hot and your feet would get really sweaty, so I'm not a big fan of extra gadgets and gizmos. Batteries lose power in the cold very rapidly, it's tough to keep them working and so I like systems that are simple, that are robust, that don't rely on a lot of external gadgets and gizmos to keep you warm and safe.
0:05:11.3 Mark: Do you wanna talk a little bit about warning signs that maybe your feet are getting too cold?
0:05:16.9 SO: Yeah. Well, I think, obviously, tingling and pain is an initial sign. And overall with hypothermia what we're looking for is stumbles, umbles, mumbles, disorientation, grouchiness, irritability, forgetfulness, change in personality, those are signs that someone's getting dangerously cold overall. But the feet, the tingling and the pain initially, that's definitely something to watch out for. Stop, check out your feet, warm them up as weird as it sounds, you might need to take those boots off. Sit on a log and cup them in your hands and get dry socks on. Or if you have a willing partner, a great technique is to put your bare foot against their bare stomach underneath their jacket and their sweaters and whatnot to warm up your feet. And then if the feet go purely numb, that's definitely a warning sign that they're getting too cold.
0:06:09.3 Mark: Well, this is great, Scott. So I guess the point is, you just need to be properly equipped and have backup things for sure when you're out in the woods.
0:06:18.2 SO: I think so, I think so. Yeah, be prepared, the old Boy Scout motto.
0:06:22.9 Mark: We're talking with Scott Oeth. You can follow his adventures on www.bullmoosepatrol.com. Very timely conversation, Scott, anything else you'd like to add?
0:06:35.1 SO: Yeah, thanks Mark. Love the conversations, I have written about quite a few of these topics on bullmoosepatrol.com and right on the main page we have a related post on keeping your hands warm in the winter. I know you'd mentioned you have problems with some of your fingertips so I've a pretty lengthy post on gear and technique for hands as well.
0:06:52.6 Mark: I have your website open right now and it's a really cool website, great material there. Thank you very much, Scott.
0:06:58.6 SO: Yeah, thanks Mark.