Outdoor Buffoon The Outdoor Idiots Web Site Logo Outdoorsman
OUR STUFF
 Home Page
 Forums
 Search
PUBLISHED ITEMS
 The Library
 Submission Guide
GET TO KNOW US
 About Us
 The Team
 Site User Manual
 The Lounge
 Contact
 Site Map

Bring Me Sunshine...

Submitted by An Outdoor Idiots Team Member.



Page 4 of 5    Previous    Next    [Index]

We were feeling good. I was looking forward to this section. There would be a bit of scrambling, which would be fun. We would be gaining height rapidly, and climbing into colder air. We would be fully exposed to the breeze. And I find that when scrambling, I sweat much less, perhaps due to the slower movement when compared with walking up a steep slope.

About halfway up the ridge, the first sign of a problem arose. I shouldn't have been feeling that tired. Some things were just becoming that little bit more difficult. Picking a route up the ridge, for one thing, was starting to seem that bit more taxing. I was feeling mentally and physically sluggish. It might have turned out to be something or nothing, but at that time, since I was in charge of route finding and navigation, it was only right to make my walking partner aware of how I was feeling. We rested for a few minutes. There was no shade, and the rest didn't seem to help much. A bit further on, my walking partner, who is brilliant if one ignores the hygiene issues, found a spot where we could descend down to the side of the ridge a short way. This was a good find, as the terrain offered very few such opportunities that could be considered safe. We could just get low enough to be in some shade. There was also a bit more of a breeze there as the air lifted up and over the ridge. As we rested, I realised what was probably wrong, or at least one of the things that was wrong. It was impossible to tell earlier, when my whole body was being baked by the sun, but now that I was in the shade, I realised just how hot my head had become. I was sweating much less, now that we had entered scrambling terrain. My head wasn't producing enough moisture for me to keep my hat wet. So now the hat was as much a part of the problem as it was a part of the solution.

After we had rested for a good half hour, we left the shade and pushed on, maintaining a slow pace. It was very hard to keep my head cool. I'd wear the hat for a bit, which gave some relief from the sun. Then I'd take it off, which seemed better for a bit, until the sun started to bake my head. Eventually I decided to use small amounts of drinking water to keep the hat wet. It wasn't an easy decision, what with the drinking water being such a precious resource on a day like this. But my head and my ability to think properly was clearly the problem that needed addressing. Sure enough, soon afterwards, I found I was more alert and thinking more clearly.

Now that my mind was working properly again, I ran the following thought through it: I wished I had brought my Golite umbrella with me. A few years ago, I had purchased one, the day after I had experienced relentless sunshine similar to the present day. It made a lot of sense at the time. A way to block the rays, without suffocating your head. The assistant in the shop that sold it to me apparently hadn't realised there was any such thing in stock. This was understandable, since I had gone to the shop (after a bit of research to find a shop that actually sold them in the UK) specifically to get one, and it took a good twenty minutes for me to find it - the only one there - resting horizontally, high up, on top of a rack of jackets. I could only assume the owner had not wanted people to see it, but had felt a sense of obligation to allow its discovery should it prove absolutely necessary. To add to this theory, when I placed it on the counter, the assistant stared at it with a most unhappy expression on his face. I had to double-check to make sure I hadn't mistakenly placed a turd on the counter. "Golite Elephant," he eventually said, somewhat cryptically. He allowed me to purchase it, but not before he had created a sense of duress which could practically be smelled.

It was some time later - months, I admit - when it suddenly dawned on me what he had meant. Since Golite, the company, aims to provide "ultralight" obsessionalists with their hiking and camping equipment, why make an umbrella at all? Surely the hood of a jacket is good enough, and much lighter than an umbrella. If they are going to knock out umbrellas, they might as well knock out elephants, too, just to add to the unnecessary weight. Well, the "Golite Elephant" comment was fair enough, I thought, when thinking about rain. But when it comes to protecting your head on a hot day of activity, I can still think of nothing better than a "Golite Elephant."

I hadn't brought it on this occasion, because I forgot I had it. That's how seldom I go out in hot weather. I probably wouldn't have packed it anyway, because we were expecting to be scrambling, and therefore there wouldn't be much opportunity to hold an umbrella. With hindsight, though, I really wished I'd brought it. There was so little real scrambling that I could have got a lot of use out of it.

[Ray Gears speaks: "The umbrella of which you speak is called the Golite Dome. If you got it a few years ago, then it is probably red, green, blue or sandy coloured. These days Golite also do something called the Chrome Dome, which is a tiny bit heavier, but more suited to reflecting sunlight. You can even get hold of them in the UK, if you look hard enough..."]

Anyway, we progressed further up the ridge, and I was feeling a bit better about my state of mind. We didn't get far, though, before I realised that there was more to the problems than a hot head. The tiredness became truly shocking, to the extent that I felt I really needed to get some sleep. It didn't make a lot of sense. I had had plenty of sleep, it wasn't a particularly big walk we were on, I was well fed, and I had been drinking all the water I felt I needed.

It also posed a difficult question: Would it be wise to actually try to get an hours sleep? Would it have helped my body recover from whatever the problem was? Or would it have meant that while I was asleep, I was being further baked by the sun and matters would have been made worse? Without knowing exactly what the problem was, it was impossible to make a reliable decision. One thing was clear: If I was going to have a nap, we really needed to find some shade. In fact, finding shade was just a good idea all round, even before we made any other decisions.

Even my walking partner, in no way suffering from any signs of heat illness, was very keen to find shade for her own comfort. The breeze that I had hoped for on the exposed ridge was only occasionally present. We had timed the ascent up the ridge for when the sun was well past its highest point in the sky, but it was still baking us plenty. There was a strange sense of claustrophobia, in spite of our surroundings. We couldn't escape from the heat. The only shade that the terrain had offered was the one spot we had found lower down. And that was too cramped and uneven to allow a proper rest, let alone a quick nap.

It was at this point that I thought of more equipment that I wished I had brought. I had toyed with the idea of bringing it, but again had decided there probably wouldn't be many opportunities to use it on scrambling terrain. But, again, as it turned out, there would have been opportunities, so broken was the scramble.

Even a simple tarp would have helped to provide some shade, but what I had in mind was to use a space blanket instead of a tarp. Not the flimsy type of space blanket that I normally carry as a precaution, but the more solid variety, with a very durable plastic backing, and sewn fabric edges, with eyelets at the corners. These things can be quite hard to get hold of. Mine is called an "All Weather Blanket," and a quick visit to an Internet search engine should reveal what I am talking about, if you aren't already familiar with them. The eyelets, and indeed its overall strength, allow it to be pitched and used as a makeshift shelter. It is really designed to keep you warm, but I have found it of immense value in the past when trying to keep cool. It can be pitched like a tarp, with the reflective surface facing upwards towards the sun. If you also take a tent pole, then you can rig it up using the sort of ideas mentioned here. And, at that point in the day, that's exactly what I wanted to do. But I couldn't. Because I didn't have it with me.









Page 4 of 5    Previous    Next    [Top of Page]

Page 1: The first page of a long article

Page 2: The second page of a long article

Page 3: The third page of a long article

Page 4: The fourth page of a long article

Page 5: The fifth page of a long article




© Copyright 2007 Outdoor Idiots.com (Steal our stuff and a puppy gets it!)
This site is best viewed at a resolution of 1024*768, and with your eyes.