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Comment by upofadown | Hacker News Reader

What sort of failure mode could a boot or glove have to leave you in serious trouble? It is not something that anyone ever has to worry about. Most people don't walk out of reasonable range of civilization. It takes a fairly long time to actually freeze to death.

People that do somehow walk out of range of civilization on a casual walk will usually be in range of a cell tower.

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The one thing I'd probably recommend to someone going out in the woods or certainly climbing a hill/mountain where they might be exposed to wind is to carry a spare pair of mittens/shells in cold weather. They're warmer if their hands get cold and they're backup if a glove manages to blow away or get wet.

Anecdata: my sister got off the bus with her 7-yo son as rain began to fall. In seconds it was impossible to walk on the sidewalk. They resorted to walking on grass lawns, then at each driveway she would get her son to crouch and she would push him sliding across then run and glide. It took an hour to go 2 blocks.

A failure in a traction device (she didn't have any) can leave you seriously stranded. Yak trax are very popular, but they fail routinely. I carry a spare set in my truck.

The weather is more unpredictable than we can imagine.

A few years ago, I got into Montreal just as a light freezing drizzle was starting. And something similar. A bit later that evening, you could barely walk on the sidewalk. And unfortunately neither of us had brought our microspikes.

>A failure in a traction device

I have had a microspike fail--fortunately just out my door. But it's mostly not the end of the world. Especially if you also have a pole you can manage pretty well with traction just on one foot under most circumstances.

Lots of cell phone batteries stop working when they get cold enough; if you're going to rely on your cell to keep you safe it's a good idea to test it in the cold before doing so.

Slip, fall, break/sprain/tear something or crack your head due to lack of traction.

Unexpected falling is a fairly quick way to sustain a heavy impact long-term injury, and you can even die.

As noted in another comment, get microspikes or something like that and use a pole and you're plenty safe. I mean, you could fall down a flight of steps at home too. It definitely takes a bit more effort to head out if there's a bunch of snow and/or ice on the ground--which has led to me being a bit lazy since the last snowfall--but it's really not dangerous if you're properly dressed (though I would probably draw the line at current northern Midwest temperatures for a few days--though I have the gear for it).

This is maybe practical if you’re walking as a dedicated activity, but how many people are going to be using that kind of gear for, say, a trip to the corner store? Slip and fall danger is quite great, and can strike you in places you least expect it, like say a patch of black ice on your standard dark asphalt parking lot. It would be quite odd for me to bring a walking pole on my 30 minute walking commute to work.

This reminds me of comments that pedestrians should wear high-vis clothing if they don’t want to be hit by cars, as if high-vis clothing isn’t an explicit step outside of norms regarding clothing.

It's stuff I keep in my car in the winter and I'll use it if conditions warrant. Now it's true that, if you live in a city or are just walking someplace from your car in a parking lot, you probably won't and you're just careful. (Though I would absolutely use a pole if sidewalks were bad enough.) And, yes, people do sometimes slip and fall on ice and they sometimes break bones, etc. But I'm not sure what the alternative here is. If you need to go to the corner store or walk to work, you need to go to the corner store or walk to work. You can't hibernate all winter.

You can certainly limit your exposure. I switch my walk to work to a bus on overly cold days. The first comment in this thread literally describes doing this:

> Forget the health benefits, until it warms up I am not going to walk anywhere other than to my car. Even that can be dangerous at these temperatures.

If you need special equipment, you are not getting people to do long walks in winter conditions.

> You can't hibernate all winter.

People reduce all kinds of outdoor activity in winter, and depending on where you live you may have spent an entire year limiting what you do outside.

Wiping out is a skill. Learn it so you don't have to life your life in fear of something as basic as walking.

How about the boot sole hardening and then splitting, exposing the bottom of the foot with each step? I had that happen to a ski boot once.

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