When I worked in Japan, I once saw pearl divers working in the frigid winter ocean. Pearl divers are traditionally women and have been doing it the same way for centuries (though not many left). As far as I could tell, they only wore these cotton (definitely NOT waterproof) suits (they look sort of like those hooded, white, Tyvek hazmat coveralls) and a face mask. I was freezing my behind off watching from shore on a blustery, grey day as these women would work in the cold water for quite a long time. Amazing. They would climb out of the water and warm themselves up periodically in the boat, but I know that if I fell in that water, the shock of that cold water would probably make my whole body spasm into one big, painful knot in about 2 milliseconds.

And don't ice climbers acclimate their hands by submerging them repeatedly in ice water? I think I read that it trains the blood vessels to not constrict when exposed to cold. Last thing you need when hanging 200 feet up a frozen waterfall are useless hands. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I read many years ago that you can become acclimatized to cold, but it takes some time, and if you so much as put your hands in warm water, you lose it.

I think it was in the book Down the Wild River North by Constance Helmericks, a naturalist.

Sue

Well, that seems reasonable. In most cold situations, my hands tend to stay warmer than the people with me. The only reason I can figure is I've had to use them since I was a kid in pretty cold conditions. Winter fishing, making firewood et al. occupied a lot of my time as a kid, and probably conditioned me to deal with the cold better than some. We never used gloves much, and making snowballs would overwhelm me as much as the next kid, but moderate exposure never bothered me much.

Climbing towers to fix antenna systems is likewise cold. In fact, most of my radio repair time (my other career) has been outside handling cold metal and tools and such. It can get mighty cold in the bucket 40 feet up with a north wind in mid December, and splicing coax fittings can not be done with gloves on.

What I have noticed is now that I have arthritis in both hands, the cold doesn't sting so much as make my hands "freeze up". Last year I had to just about pry my fingers open to let go of a screwdriver. It ends up I have to repeatedly clench and unclench my fists to get them to start moving again proper. There is a noticable ache, not something I'd experienced before, and not the biting cold that I felt when I've exposed my hands in excess in days past.

I've also learned to do mental exercises that help my extremities recover from cold quicker. The will of the mind, properly trained, is a powerful tool to control the body. A focused effort, I've discovered, can make fingers and toes warm up, though undoubtedly at the expense of losing core temperature, or increasing metabolic rate and consuming energy stores. Still, for specific tasks, you may need to make certain sacrifices to be able to function as needed. Obviously this effect is relatively subtle, because I doubt I could overcome hypothermia in extreme exposure. I'm not a guru. <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />