How dress THRIFT CHEAP for a 5 HR walk in -30F weather? Layered clothing, but in what order and what cloth?

Question

Should cotton T-Shirt be the first layer? What clothes would you buy at a thrift store? No ski clothes or winter coats are available. What type of cloth? In what layered order? What shoes? What socks? What did the early Pole explorers use?

Answer 1

-30 for 5 hours is a potentially deadly or injurious experience.

You won't likely hit an ideal mix of clothes at a thrift store, but any layers are better than no layers, eh?

Cotton is not a good insulator; avoid where possible. If you can find any polypro or silk underlayers, that'd be great. If not, go for wool or wool blends. The inner layer should help move moisture away from the skin and cotton, linen, etc are not good at this. The same thinking applies to socks.

The point of dressing in layers is to create your own personal 'atmosphere' as a barrier between you and the cold. This is accomplished with layers of clothing and the air that is trapped in between. You don't want your layers to be tight, because that would squeeze out the trapped air.

Basically, you want a moisture transport layer near the skin, then a fluffy insulating layer (or layers, if it's that cold), and over that something to break the wind and shed precipitation. All layers should be easy to add/remove or open/close as needed based on conditions.

Polartec or wool serves well as a middle layer.

A coat/parka/jacket made of tightly woven fabric treated with a water repellent finish, or that incorporates GoreTex makes a good outer layer.

Jeans and other cotton pants are kind of lousy in cold weather. If you really can't avoid them, make sure they're loose enough to wear at least one insulating layer underneath. Woolen underwear wood be good, and in a pinch you can wear some poly/blend sweatpants under the pants.

Shoes you can get at a thrift store - you might be limited to something in leather. They should have thick soles, go past the ankle, and be loose enough to wear one thin and one thick pair of socks without being tight - you need room for warm air in there and to be able to easily wiggle your toes. Ideally, your shoes would be nice winter hiking boots or snow pacs, but if you're shopping a thrift store I guess you need to be creative. Have a change of socks available in case your socks get wet or sweaty.

Don't forget hat, scarf, and gloves/mittens. Make sure to keep your head and the back of your neck warm. At -30, you probably want to wear a face mask or wrap the scarf around your face. If you can't get mittens, you can keep your fists balled up inside your gloves to help keep the fingers warm.

If you can't get a winter coat at your thrift store, try and get several layers of (wool) sweaters or polartec jackets in increasing sizes so they can be worn on top of each other without being tight. See if you can find a rain coat or jacket, especially if it's the type that has a liner - that would make a good outer layer in lieu of an actual winter coat.

If you really don't care much how you look, an outer layer can be improvised from a big wool blanket draped around/over you, possibly held in place with a piece of rope or a belt. A cheap LAST resort to help block wind would be some sort of plastic poncho, sheet, or survival blanket - make sure this impermeable layer is not wrapped too tightly around you or it will trap moisture and make you colder.

If there's one near you, take a look at a military surplus ("Army/Navy") store. You can sometimes find some very functional clothing in them at prices similar to a thrift store - as long as it's not some place frequented by urban military wannabees and fashionistas.

Polar explorers? Silk, wool, leather/fur.

I went to boot camp north of Chicago, Illinois, during a winter that routinely had -30 and below temps. We had no thermals. Most of our insulation consisted of what we could wear on our upper bodies. From inner to out this was: T-shirt, wool sweater, cotton long-sleeve shirt, light jacket, wool peacoat. We wore towels around our faces as scarves, with a knit wool watch cap pulled down over that - just our eyes showing. We were still very cold, and my eyelashes would freeze together if I didn't keep blinking my eyes. I could pull little ice beads off my eyelashes once I was indoors. We were outside for no more than 20 minutes at a time, and had to always travel in pairs to make sure someone didn't get frostbite or get stuck alone somewhere and die.

Answer 2

Lower body... briefs, heavy black tights, long underwear. Fold two pairs of pants together with a pair of sweatpants inside and put them on as one piece.. Double socks. Don't go cheap on the boots if you can avoid it...I recommend Chippewa boots. You can seal up older boots and make them water-proof with 'Snoseal' and a hair dryer or heat gun. For the upper body, start with a cotton T-shirt, a long-underwear shirt (or two), a hoodie and something tightly woven to stop the wind over everything else. You can get smaller sweaters and sweatshirts from the thrift store and cut them up to make hats from the sleeves and a neck-warmer from the body. You will definitly need gloves. Use knit cotton work gloves for glove liners.

Answer 3

Use cotton or wool. The cotton should be next to your skin in order to absorb moisture from you body. If you have a down or fiber filled coat that is best on the outside.