A Boot Experiment !

Trencher!

Brilliant suggestion !
Often I am away from electrical power so will use it!
Does it have a name ?
Can I call it the Trencher Move ?
Pavel

snowb4ndit wrote:I have, on a couple of occasions, got caught out like this.

Sometimes I drive to a lift that is 15 minutes up the mountain mainly because I can ski right back to the car and particularly like that home run at the end of the day. Although my boots are kept in a toasty warm boot room overnight there have been a couple of very cold weather occasions when my boots have cooled down so quickly in the boot of the car whilst on the way to the lift that it has been incredibly difficult to get them on.

The difference between a warm and cold boot really is astonishing!

So true! My b/f and I forgot our boots on the balcony overnight once. And our apartment didn't have an oven. I had to use a hairdryer in the hot setting to be able to put them on.

I used to use bags filled with cherry stones which have been used as hot water bottle substitutes for centuries in the Alps. Then one Christmas Mrs SB bought me a heated boot bag http://www.solutions4feet.com/catalogue_item.php?catID=2365&prodID=12364 this is by far the best skiing accessory I've ever had. If you want to keep things cheap and simple, a hot water bottle does a pretty good job. Before breakfast fill it with almost boiling water and attach it to the boots using a Luggage Elastic, by the time your ready to go skiing they will be as warm as toast and much easier to put on.

I discovered boot gloves this season. When you get below -10 they are really effective.

All of the tips pavelski mentions (dry boot out never leave in teh car etc...) are essential to make sure you have a chance of warm feet. However, there is very little you can do to stop your boot cooling down in -10 other than go in for a warm up drink.

Newton's law of cooling states that the rate of temperature decrease is proportional to the difference in temperature between the warm boot and the cold snow/atmosphere. So the colder it is the faster your boot will cool down. (obviously ! :))

The only thing you can do to change the speed of cooling is to place some insulation between the hot and cold temperatures. That's where boot gloves come in. They are made out of a thin layer of neoprene that fits over the front and sides of each boot with a velcro strap at the back to keep them on. They radically change the speed at which boots cool down and thus keep your feet warmer for longer.

If you imagine that there is a temperature gradient, or slope, between your foot and the outside cold, what the boot glove does, is to shift the majority of the slope from across the plastic shell to across the neoprene layer. The result is that the boot portion stays warmer for longer. (Your foot dissipates it's heat more slowly.)

Trust me, in -10 and below, they make the difference between having to take long morning and afternoon breaks to warm up and being able to go all the way through to lunch and then ski all afternoon too if you wish.

I highly recommend them.

P.S. If you get some - remember to take them off when you do go in to warm up or they will work in reverse and prevent your boot from warming up!

I have accidentally done a one boot with/one boot with experiment with boot gloves. It leaves no doubt as to their effectiveness. They work.