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High Elevation Giving You Cold Feet?
Date: 09/13/2007
Mountaineering requires energy, preparation, and the ability to persist despite inhospitable natural elements. But your body, hands, and feet can quickly chill when breathing in cold air, caught off guard by suddenly dropping temperature, or fighting "frozen facemask" syndrome, where breath moisture freezes to the wearer's facemask. Breathing cold, dry air can also hasten dreaded "climber's cough," which can cut even well prepared expeditions short. It can hinder climbing ability since lungs contract when breathing cold air, losing as much as 12% of vital lung capacity at 10 °F as shown in one human performance study.
For mountaineers seeking to quickly warm themselves up without lugging around unnecessarily heavy, cumbersome clothing and gear, Psolar facemasks and balaclavas with the QXtec heat exchange module offer a solution that's increasingly used in some of the world's coldest climates including Mount Everest, Alaska, and Antarctica. Instead of allowing your precious body heat and water vapor to escape each time you exhale, the heat exchange module in your facemask or balaclava captures the heat and moisture, returning it to you on your next inhale. Thus, you warm and humidify your next breath with the heat and moisture from your last breath -- with no batteries and no mess.
Considering that the average person takes about 1,100 breaths per hour, each containing about one quart of air heated to a body temperature of 98.6 °F, that's a lot of normally wasted heat you retain! In a study performed by St. Cloud State Human Performance Laboratory at 10 °F, subjects wearing a heat exchanger had four-degree higher skin temperatures on their hands and feet than subjects without one.
So what does this mean to the mountaineer shivering on frigid slopes? Even with air temperature at a frigid 0 °F, you'll be breathing moist air, heated to over 75 °F, since the QXtec heat exchanger is up to 80% efficient. You'll climb longer because your hands, feet and body will stay warmer -- without the need to wear or lug around unnecessarily heavy, bulky clothing, fuel or heating equipment. In an independent test by Backpackgeartest.org, one of the testers found she was warm enough to forgo sleeping with a two-pound liner by wearing a heat exchange balaclava.
Because a facemask or balaclava with a QXtec heat exchange module captures and regulates the water vapor from your breath, your facemask or balaclava will stay comfortably dry. In very cold weather, capturing the mountaineer's moist breath in the heat exchanger can prevent "frozen facemask" syndrome. For the same reason, tents stay dryer and lighter as well, without exhaled breath moisture weighing them down. And capturing the water vapor in your breath to humidify the air for your next breath means you dehydrate slower, so you can safely take along less drinking water or fuel to melt ice than you normally would.
If you're ever caught unprepared by an unexpected blizzard, storm or cold spell, instead of freezing you'll simply pull out your three-ounce facemask or balaclava with heating module from your pocket, and wear it to retain precious body heat in case of emergency. And if it warms up and you need to cool off, there's no need to strip off extra layers of clothing. Just the pull the slim, heat exchanger below your chin and breathe in cold air. By wearing a facemask or balaclava with heating module, you can quickly and easily control your temperature with the absolute minimum weight, motion, or fuss.
By preventing the breathing of cold air, mountaineers are also protecting their lungs, since cold air can shrink lung capacity and is shown to be a primary trigger of asthma.
With an easy breathing and speaking design, mountaineers wearing Psolar facemasks or balaclavas with the QXtec heat exchange module are fully capable of talking with their climbing partners or others. The Psolar facemasks and balaclavas are made of the finest Polartec materials and are available in a variety of colors with an optional vapor shield to keep glasses from fogging.
For more info, visit www.psolar.com email info@psolar.com; call 888-PSOLARX (888-776-5279); fax 303-421-3209; or write to Psolar Inc., 5739 W. 6th Ave, Suite #3, Lakewood, CO 80214.
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