Well, I've read with great interest all these posts.
I can't help but remember reading the journals of Lewis and Clark and other explorers of the North country including the native people who lived day in and day out in the kind of 'stuff' written about here. IMO, these men indurred more day to day 'emergencies' than I can begin to imagine and very likely more than many would care to admit here.
Granted, they most often had one thing not mentioned here and that is a horse or some other way of moving around in the wild country. So this is a back packing forum but I have to ask, "Has anyone ever looked into what the men carried before the days of Gortex, and the like"? What was used for boots by Lewis and Clark and their men when they crossed the contintental divide in deep snow? How did the Indians of the plains or anywhere for that matter, survive if caught out like is being talked about here? Sure some of them died but they learned fast or died. They learned from their fathers how to live in the wild every day.
In those days a man without a horse was a dead man for the most part and that's why horse thieves were shot on the spot by the 'white man'. Same holds true for Indians stealing horses from their enemies.
The one item that was indespendsable to these men was an oil skin (or the like) poncho with a hood. Getting soaked to the skin in the winter was avoided if at all possible. They wore oil skin chaps or like on their legs. Two layers of oil skin were on their shoulders in a cape like fashion. When they had to spend the night out in foul weather the poncho was their tent AND sleeping bag. They trapped their body heat inside with the hood. They kept dry to begin with.
How?
They went through the country and didn't sweat by adjusting to the outdoors as they walked.
All this talk about sweating and getting chilled from the moisture means to me that possibly some of us are moving too fast to begin with. I hunt chukars in very steep mountains in the winter and burn a lot of calories all day long. At the first sign of sweating I adjust my clothing and it's not unusual to have only a shirt on in cold weather...even just a long sleeved Capilene tee shirt!!! Yep, and the wind is howling around me but I'm comfortable. I can't even wear a hat most of the time. I don't wear long jons either. But I carry Filson chaps, a poncho that's rain proof and some extra clothing in my fanny pack. I stay dry and if I start to get cold I slip on more clothing.
But I stay dry to begin with. I'm 64 now and spent a fair amount of time in the steep country of Idaho in all seasons which included hunting elk with a framed back pack for a week usually. But I ALWAYS KNEW WHERE I WAS AND HOW TO GET TO A TRAIL should the weather turn ugly. I packed out enough elk to know what work it is and now with screwed up back from this I have to hunt with a fanny pack or get a horse.
This inner storm that's mentioned I've experienced from relying on a new Gortex down filled coat that almost got me killed. It'd started to snow way up in the high country and I'd just shot a deer that had to be gutted out before going back to camp. I was in my tee shirt from all the work and when finished put the jacket on and started back to camp. In no time at all the jacket was like tissue paper thin and I made it back OK long after dark (like 4 hours of hiking down a creek trail). I threw the jacket in the trash and went back to my poncho and carrying warm clothes in a big fanny pack.
I don't like these 'breathable' suits because they don't breathe enough for me. I sweat too easily and a poncho allows the heat to escape AND if my pants are kept dry with chaps I'm fine.
