Brian;

No offense, buddy, but you live in Texas. While I realize that Texas is not Tahiti (I believe it has even snowed in some parts of Texas), I believe your advice would be totally impractical in many parts of the world.

Up here in Canada, and probably in the northern border states and Alaska as well, "feeling cold" is not a sign of hypothermia, it's the body's natural condition between November and March. If I had to stop and warm up every time I felt cold, there would have to a 24-hour doughnut shop on every street corner, and it would take me a full day to walk downtown. <img src="/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

The rule of thumb I have heard from most experts is to try touching your thumb and little finger together. The minute you have difficulty doing that, stop and build a fire. (I know I've heard that from Mors Kochanski, but I don't know if he was the one who discovered it or not.)

Also, the simplistic advice "warm up immediately" can lead you astray, if your idea of warming up is to get back to the ski lodge. In some circumstances, this is the best option; in others, it will kill you.

I'm not going to stop and build a lean-to and a campfire in the parking lot of the Chateau Lake Louise, but what if I'm a mile away? What if I'm a half-mile away? What if I'm only 5 minutes away? Wait a min - those last two are pretty much the same thing.

A co-worker of mine lost his teenage son winter before last when the boy decided to walk home from a party. He hadn't been drinking to excess (a major cause of hypothermia and death in some parts of Canada) and it was "only" a 10-minute walk. He never made it home; a search party found his body the next day, 100 yards from the nearest house.