5/10/07

One Man's Wilderness


December 2nd.
Minus twenty-two degrees and the continuous complaining sounds of the ice. How many clothes would it take to shut out the cold? Shorts and T-shirt, Frisco jeans and wool shirt vest, red sweatshirt with hood, heavy Navy sweater and insulated coveralls. Then Navy cold-weather wool-lined overalls, watch cap, Navy wool-lined cold weather cap, two pairs of felt inner soles and one pair of cardboard inner soles in my pacs, two pairs of woolen socks, two pairs of woolen mittens, and my heavy woolen scarf. I took a hike up the lake and felt I was dressed about right except I needed more protection for my hands.

—Dick Proenneke, One Man's Wilderness
[at Lake Clark National Park]