Getting wet should be a bigger hazard...

[Rusty_Old_F250]

So I got to thinking, even in the frozen North there are still plenty of places with liquid water around, not so much on the surface, but once you go underground the same thing that makes a cave or a mine a nice and "warm" place to camp for the night is the exact same thing that going to make it downright soggy, it's too warm for water to freeze. If you've ever been to an abandoned mine in the PNW you'll know what I mean, old mine works fill up with water quick after they shut the pumps down. Even the fairly level mine "adits" (a mine that goes straight into the side of a hill with little or no slope) have major water issues and often they'll have shafts going straight down that were boarded over and are full of water- a buddy of mine VERY nearly fell in one of those. He was exploring a mine and suddenly realized he wasn't standing on solid rock anymore, and through a hole in the floor he could see a shaft dropping straight down in the crystal clear water right beneath him!! He said he very gingerly stepped back to solid ground and decided to turn around after that. Chances are you'd survive even if the floor gave way, but you'd sure be wet afterwards... 

Something else, if your sloshing around in the puddles in the mines and caves, if your boots aren't waterproof your feet are going to get wet, and once you go outside, that's going to be an issue. Perhaps a new item could be rubber boots? They would offer very little protection against the cold, but are completely waterproof.

Sam

[SteveP]

Bats and rats tend to live in caves too. Lots of really nasty diseases you can get from them. For sure, wetness is a severe hazard. The survival shows tend to minimize the risks of this; Bear Grylls risks cardiac arrest on a regular basis and they make it look simple to fix. How many players dump their matches and kindling and tinder and fuel before venturing on the ice? The ice is a killer well known to the Inuit especially on a river. You never know where the thin is is either. We could use one of those long Inuit ice picks to test the ice. They also make holes in the ice for sealing, fishing and netting. Well I guess the seals keep their own breathing holes open.

Did you know an extremely risky tactic of the Inuit is to crawl under the ice sheet at low tide to gather mussels?

[elloco999]

On 6-3-2016 at 7:48 AM, SteveP said:

Did you know an extremely risky tactic of the Inuit is to crawl under the ice sheet at low tide to gather mussels?

No, I did not know that. But now that I do, I want to be able to do this in TLD as well!

[SteveP]

1 hour ago, elloco999 said:

No, I did not know that. But now that I do, I want to be able to do this in TLD as well!

Here's a short video on it. It says the only place this can be done "safely" is in the Arctic. Plenty of risk/reward here for a big bounty of food.

 

[SteveP]

Another slightly longer video which includes a bit on building your igloo first when you go out hunting. The sea drops an astounding 40 feet here! The last part is a repeat of the above video.