I'm guessing that all these references to the killing frost at 70° F. are meant to be ironic & induce jealousy in our northern brethren. I live in Oakland, California where average December max. & min. temperatures are 57.3° & 44.8° respectively, but since Saturday it has been about 12-14° cooler than that, a glacial cold front by local standards. But living in a generally congenial climate, I'm really not prepared for even these relatively mellow teomperatures, so when we went canoe camping last weekend at Englebright Reservoir in the Sierra foothill (elevation 500, temperatures probably from the mid 20s to the mid 40s) we really froze our appendages off. I went for a 7 mile solo paddle in my tandem in what was for me Arctic explorer mufti, that is, a wool shirt and cap, shorts and sandals (no socks). Both times I made landfall to check out other camp sites my feet got wet and they ached for 10 minutes. It began to snow & I was so shocked that I reversed course a mile short of my intended destination. By the time I'd beached my boat at camp I couldn't feel my toes any more, so I hobbled up to my tent & had my wife rub them for a few minutes. That didn't help too much, so she set up the propane heater just outside of the tent & I roasted my tootsies for several minutes before sensation returned. Nonetheless, I rather enjoyed the trip. Off-season camping was free, the fishing was good and we had the lake to ourselves. So when I got home I looked over my catalogs to see what there was in the way of canoeing footwear for a fellow with size 15 feet. Not suprisingly, neoprene booties tend to top out at size 13. Perhaps they'd stretch a bit, but I have really wide dogs & even if I could shoehorn them on to my protesting pups I suspect the shoes would burst their seams in short order. Does anyone know where I could find bigger booties? I suppose I could wear old tennis shoes & wool socks or simply launch barefoot & put on socks & sandals once I was in my canoe (and perhaps I could rubberband waste basket liners to my legs if I planned to ship a lot of water). But neither of these solutions seem ideal. Both Boundary Waters & REI offer N.E.O.S. Overshoes in XXL, which will apparently slip over a size 14.5 boot. Are these reasonably water proof & durable? Would they suck me to a watery grave if I capsized? Are there any other options? Season's Bleatings, Ed Biow On Mon, 21 Dec 1998, Bob Denton wrote: > > The extremely cold weather the last few days (60s at night) usually results > Aaron Hunt wrote: > Mark, > Stop it. You're killing me. I'm stuck here in Virginia Beach with 68 F. I'd kill for some good old Denver snow. *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************Received on Tue Dec 22 1998 - 18:11:28 PST
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