> The crucial thing is that Gore-Tex is water vapor permeable.
While dry, or intermittently wettened (so it can still shed water). Numerous independent tests show that it doesn't breathe at all, once the surface is fully wet. Also, Gore-Tex is no longer best-in-class amongst rain-shedding breathable fabrics; it simply has name recognition.
To be fair, few things do breathe once their surface wets... but wool's surface is so convoluted by the twisty, hydrophobic threads that it rarely gets fully wet on the surface.
"Dear Mother: school is fine. I'm getting good grades. Please send money for a new tunic, as I have torn my only one. Love, John" - gist of an actual 15th-century letter home from a university student.
"Julia Child's recipes aren't within a hundred miles of modern cooking, because I used to burn ramen in a hotpot in college."
Your scouting experience was in no way, shape, nor form like Mallory's expeditions. He knew a few things 12-year-old you didn't. And these guys have tested their theories; you have not.
I do and did know about backpacking around Seattle (and the Sierra Nevadas, and the Uintas). I should have been more clear that I wasn't trying to make a comment about Everest expeditions, my comment is about extrapolating generally to "modern equipment is a scam" to an audience that is 99% people who do medium to low seriousness backpacking - who would in 1985 have been sleeping in canvas tents with cotton lined bags, just like I was.
No. Weight x distance from center of mass is the real metric of burden.
Carrying your lunch on a 10-foot pole, keeping it off the ground at all times, versus slipping it into a fanny pack - or eating it and carrying it in your very center of mass.
I noticed while ultralight hiking (full kit without food, fuel, and water under 9 lbs, for multi-day excursions) that how close your backpack was to your back mattered. Unfortunately, if it was tight to your back it overheated you, so a standoff of an inch or so was essential. I considered dividing it front and back, so each was about half as "thick" (far from my body), but there isn't a lot you can carry in front of you without seriously impeding movement.
Do you imagine that "nerds" have different bodies than "normal" people? I mean, sure, they're athletic, but they still go to human doctors, not some sort of xenobiologist veterinarians.
They may have started out the same as you or me, but the conditioning and acclimatization they’ve done over their lives certainly makes them more adapted to the activities they’re doing than the average person.
I'll argue that, if it got down to the sharp edge of survival's knife, only the 2-degree warmer twin would come home. 2 degrees C (3 F) is palpably warmer.
That being said, if a 2-degree dip in temp would kill you, you are already praying for Ernest Shackleton's leadership.
While dry, or intermittently wettened (so it can still shed water). Numerous independent tests show that it doesn't breathe at all, once the surface is fully wet. Also, Gore-Tex is no longer best-in-class amongst rain-shedding breathable fabrics; it simply has name recognition.
To be fair, few things do breathe once their surface wets... but wool's surface is so convoluted by the twisty, hydrophobic threads that it rarely gets fully wet on the surface.
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