I really need a new pair of
ski gloves.
As my friend and I were getting on our first chairlift
at Sunshine Village on January 6th I noticed that the
thermometer read -23C, and that was in the sun. I was reasonably comfortable over my body due to wearing multiple layers,
but my fingers did not feel good. This is because I am cheap, and have not purchased new ski gloves in the last ten years.
I’ve run in -30 before wearing much thinner gloves, but the heavy
exertion serves to keep my hands warm. While I don’t consider skiing to be a casual endeavor, it doesn’t seem
to raise my heart rate enough to keep my hands quite so warm. Having to repeatedly stop to sit on a chair lift certainly plays
a role.
After about an hour I couldn’t take the
pain any longer and said to my friend, “I need to go inside and warm up my hands.”
“Fine by me,” he said. “My toes feel like they’re about to fall off.”
We zipped into the lodge and I went into the bathroom to hold my hands under the dryer
to warm them up. Then I used the dryer to blow hot air inside my gloves to make them extra toasty. My friend had taken a seat
in the lounge, pulled off his boots, and was rubbing his toes to warm them back up.
We kept our break short because the conditions were excellent, despite the cold, and we both wanted
to get back out there.
As we were riding up the chair I said, “I
feel like a pansy. I don’t think I’ve ever had to go inside to warm up before.”
“At least you didn’t get the screaming barfies,” he replied.
“Screaming whaties?”
“Barfies. Screaming barfies.”
“Consider my
curiosity piqued,” I said.
“Well, it’s
an ice climbing term. It’s not a sport that you do in warm weather, and it can get pretty damn cold on a sheet of ice.
Not to mention the fact that you are holding on to a couple of chunks of metal that are sucking the heat out of your hands.
Even with good gloves your hands can start to freeze, but there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. You’ll
be half way up a frozen waterfall and the pain in your hands gets really intense, and your choices are essentially suck it
up or die.”
“Now I know why my wife won’t let
me do it.”
“No kidding. Anyway, you’ve got to
keep climbing, and your hands just keep getting colder and colder, and all you want to do is let go of those damn axes, but
you can’t. The pain gets so bad that you start to scream: ‘Fuck, this hurts! I’m gonna die! Aggh! Fuck!
Ahhh!’ but you just gotta keep on climbing. Then after the screaming comes the barfing.”
“Barfing? Really?”
“Yeah.
The pain gets so intense it makes you puke. Hence: the screaming barfies.”
“Have you ever puked?”
“Once,
yeah. Not too much, but I definitely up chucked.”
“Sounds
like a fun sport,” I said.
“Oh, yeah,”
he said. “It kicks ass.”
