misadvice or old wives (husband ) tales

Ever think your're getting good advice on things to do or not do ?
Then as the days( years) go by and your thinking it through and it just doesn't make sense...

The other day while exercising the instructor gave the warning..." now whatever you do, don't wash your face with cold water..it makes the capillaries burst.
I had mentioned reading about a fund raiser where people jump in the Ocean in the middle of winter. This event had been for the Special Olympics.

She said (didn't know how to keep it gender neutral) "OMG imagine what that must do to you...capillaries would be bursting all over your body."

I thanked her and as I walked away I'm thinking... wait a minute we hike in the dead of winter all the time it's often way colder than that.
So I doffed my hat and scatched my bald head..sure enough my head exploded...

to keep it in line with hiking or at least outdoors etc...
the 1st misadvice (is that even a word?) That comes to mind..

When treating frostbite..rub snow all over it

Surely you have heard of some ??

"It must be true, I read it on VFTT!"




Tim

When I was playing high school sports (early '70s) it was an article of faith among all coaches that players should not drink water during practices/games. It was said to cause "cramps". As a result you never saw water or Gatorade on the playing fields. Now, of course, the prevailing wisdom is to remain fully hydrated during any sort of athletic/physical endeavor.

In the 70's .....
Take salt tablets when it is really hot and you are sweating immensely since you will sweat all the salt out of your body.
Now I know that is NOT the thing to do.

How about sleeping naked keeps your warmer in a sleeping bag. Lots of people still believe that one including an AMC trip leader I once hiked with.

Mongoose said:

How about sleeping naked keeps your warmer in a sleeping bag. Lots of people still believe that one including an AMC trip leader I once hiked with.

Click to expand...

Ha! I fell for that one years ago. My first winter trip, solo, a 0F degree sleeping bag, overnight temp dropped to -15F... and me in my lightweight long undies. That was one miserable night, topped only by the experience of unziping the sleeping bag in order to get dressed in my now thoroughly chilled clothing.

The lesson I learned from that? Well, as the late Dr. Timothy Leary said, “Think for yourself and question authority”.

Ever hear the one about not eating the first snow fall of the year because it's dirty snow?

Mongoose said:

How about sleeping naked keeps your warmer in a sleeping bag. Lots of people still believe that one including an AMC trip leader I once hiked with.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I still pull that one on dates:

"No, really, it has been scientifically proven, baby. Especially pants..."

And then that's when you tell your tent-mate that if it gets really cold, then sharing body heat it the only way to keep alive

A real Don Juan, huh Doug!?

Mongoose said:

How about sleeping naked keeps your warmer in a sleeping bag. Lots of people still believe that one including an AMC trip leader I once hiked with.

Click to expand...

TRUE-in a mummy bag. But better yet, two sleeping bags that zip together, with your naked spouse next to you.

H3AdBaBY said:

Ever hear the one about not eating the first snow fall of the year because it's dirty snow?

Click to expand...

I was just always told not to eat yellow snow

1ADAM12 said:

I was just always told not to eat yellow snow

Click to expand...

That's not an old wives' or husbands' tale--it's an old Zappa tale!

Mongoose said:

How about sleeping naked keeps your warmer in a sleeping bag. Lots of people still believe that one including an AMC trip leader I once hiked with.

Click to expand...

Back in the 1970's when my buddy and I were learning the ropes of winter camping everybody but everybody told us we had to sleep in the nude inside our bags in order to stay warmer. I don't think a single one of these experts had ever camped out in the winter but we decided to give it a try. Unfortunately, we did so in a prairie marsh at negative forty. We set up in the lee of a tiny spit of land and the wind blew over that 4-foot ridge all night and deposited a drift of packed snow over our tent. The roof was pushed down to about 4'' above our chests and the only way out was to slide, naked, like a mechanic from under a car and stand in the wind to get dressed.

There were times when it did make sense to sleep naked. Clothing back then was low-tech and I found that I produced more sweat and was clammier with clothing on. It all depended on the temperature. The bags were rated to -40 so at -10 it made sense. After making the technological leap from cotton to polyprope base layers we never crawled into (or out of) our bags naked again.

The craziest thing people used to do was rub snow on frostbitten noses or cheeks. Now THAT was stupid!

This is true. If your sleeping bag isn't warm enough for the temps, sleeping naked won't work. Like Neil said if it's -10 and you're in a -40 bag it makes since. Even though it works for me, it may not work for everyone. All you can do is try.

boiling water for 3 minutes to make safe to drink

waste a lot of fuel, bringing water to a boil is the ticket.
not sure about high altiture boiling though

one of my favorite old wives tales...

don't go out in the cold without a jacket or you'll catch a cold. As a doctor from Tulane medical school (IIRC) once said: going out in the cold without a jacket increases your chances of freezing to death; it doesn't increase your chances of catching a cold one bit.

Don't smoke dope! It will ruin your short term.............hmmm, something. Ha, they were wrong about that one, huh?

JohnL

yonkers said:

waste a lot of fuel, bringing water to a boil is the ticket.
not sure about high altiture boiling though

Click to expand...

If you Google this, you will find lots of people telling you to boil water at least 3 minutes. I did not find any page that said just bringing water to a boil was ok.

How about, don't meet with anyone you contacted over the internet.


I think Giardia cysts are easily destroyed at around 70 - 80C but to get all the other pathogens 3 minutes is the standard.

Neil said:

How about, don't meet with anyone you contacted over the internet.

Click to expand...

My kids give me grief constantly about this one. "How about all those hiker people you met on the web, huh dad?" I tell them not to worry, I'm very careful about all of you!!!

Moving water is safer to drink than standing water.