Weather and Geography

From: Dom Twist <thazar_at_globalnet.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 21:56:40 +0100


Oliver thinks I need a lesson in geography:-

>I live in a city (Winnipeg) that's south of Moscow and Reykjavik
- -......... -40 Celsius in the winter without the windchill (with the windchill -40 is
>a lot more common). A great deal of this province (and in fact this
>country) is south of the Arctic Circle and a lot of it gets that cold in
the
>winter.

My -40 night was one of exceptional cold for the area I'll grant you....but I was camped up in a thick sheltering forest which streched down to a sea loch and was low in altitude. The Valley Glen Etive in the Western Highlands abuts Gen Coe and was quite thicky populated untill the clearences.

However that wasnt the extreme's I was talking about...THOSE are up on Ben Nevis and more Particularly the Cairngorm Plateau. The 'Gorms are VERY a hostile place...I came close to not ever walking backout of them last Feb, dressed in full modern mountaineering kit. Yet Before the Clearences highlanders traveled them and even farmed cattle up on the plat'. Their Bothies and shelters are still there....and memories of nights spent under the shelter stone with a full blizzard howling outside are ones that I'll take to my grave..and into any Sartarite campaign. The conditions found in these high mountainious areas of Scotland are simmilar to the lower Himalayas...and I say that having spent 6months working in the Mountains of India/Nepal. Conditions of mixed ice and rock found on Ben Nevis for example are allmost identical to those found in the 'Rock Belt' of Everest. This according to some Polish Mountaineer friends of mine who had sumitted Everest before going climbing with me Scotland (meslf never did anything more than look at Everest from the Basecamp......and weeze from thin air).

Now I'm not saying that nowhere else is as cold or colder...I'm not. But with the Wind coming in off the Atlantic with nothing to break it but America Scotland's High Hills can be some of bleakest places on earth. These areas are quite small in comparison to areas in other places. (This is due to the Gulf Stream, if you go have a look at the actual latitude of Scotland or Norway for that matter it should be a heck of a lot colder than it is, Moscow is actualy on a simmilar lat to parts of Scotland and I think South of the bits I'm discussing). Actualy speaking as someone who's preference in times to go camping in Scotland is in the middle of Winter, freezing cold and snow is much easier to deal with than near freezing or actual freezing rain. If you have good clothing and plenty of food. Certainly the footing is easier as all the bogs freeze up....

My point was not that Highlanders lived in the Coldest place on earth...they obviously dont...but it's a lot colder than people were giving them credit for!

>You have to admire the First Nations of this country because most of them
spent the winter in those sorts of temperatures in tents! (Of course the
>Inuit spent the winter in igloos).

A lot of Modern Artic/Mountaineering gear is based on Native American clothing...just a lot lighter.

DomT


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