Rob Coker, January 3rd 2013, Larkman Nunatak

Since my mother (hi, mom!) asked the other day about clothes down here, I thought I’d write a bit about how we not only stay safe from the cold but also from overheating. This balancing of hot and cold is called thermostatting. To keep one’s body temperature (or thermostat) not too hot and not too cold can be tricky when one is working out in a cold environment like Antarctica.

Everyone ends up with their own solution to this, though it is possible to just use the extreme cold weather (ECW) gear issued to us at the Clothing Distribution Center (CDC). Most of us use a mixture of ECW and personal gear. The figure shows what I have been using on ‘moderate’ cold days (say, -15 degrees C and 15 kt winds). On my legs I am wearing 4 layers: a silk underwear layer (my own) then a moderate cloth layer and a thick fleece layer (both from CDC). My outside layer are ski pants; CDC gives an overall type garment that I find doesn’t fit me very well. I am wearing 3 pairs of socks: poly pro, woollite, then thick wool. Over this goes the hefty ‘bunny boots’ which are rubber and very toasty. For my chest I have: a silk shirt (mine), a normal wicking shirt, a moderate cloth layer, a poly pro shirt, a thin fleece shirt, then a fleece jacket. Over this in the picture is ‘little red’, a thin windbreaker from CDC. When it is colder, we use ‘big red’, a nice warm parka. On my hands I wear glove liners under wool mittens (as on one hand in the picture) and when it is really cold I add the CDC ‘bear paws’ (as seen on the other hand). I usually have a chemical hand warming packet in there too. On my head, I have a balaclava (not the issued one, but it is very similar), a fleece hat, and a neck gaiter. The ‘reds’ have hoods which fit around my paintball goggles. As I said, everyone goes for something different, partly depending on what personal gear they brought and their personal preferences.

Back to thermostatting: as we work out in the wind and cold, our body heat goes up. Or perhaps the wind dies down. Or clouds uncover the sun (since the sunlight bounces off of the snow and ice, it effectively warms you twice as much, so your sunlit side could be toasty while your unlit side, if the upwind side too, can be quite chilly). It is nearly as bad to start sweating here as it is to feel cold. Even with smart fabrics, sweat will tend to not make it to the surface of your clothing and therefore some layer will get heavy and wet and start eventually making you cold. So one has to regulate carefully what layers you have on to make sure you do not overheat (to prevent any sweating at all). The easiest solution is usually to unzip your jacket(s) and face the wind. In my case, I also have to move my gaiter up and down from my goggles to make sure my lenses don’t fog up as I change temperatures (which can happen just by turning into the wind!).

We don’t bring many changes of clothing, to keep supplies to a minimum. Which means wearing some of these clothes (the outer layers) the whole time we’re out here! The layers next to our skin we switch out every week or so and give them a quick cleaning in a small tub of warm water, though some of us (not me!) don’t even do that. .