Packing for Deep Cold: What Actually Earns Its Place

My first winter trip north, I packed like I was going skiing. Six jumpers, two coats, a hat I'd bought for the look of it. By the second morning I'd sorted the suitcase into two piles: things that worked, and things that were merely heavy.

Here is the first pile.

Three layers, no more

Next to skin goes something thin and close-fitting, wool or a synthetic that dries fast. The middle layer is the warm one, and it should trap air rather than squash it. On top goes the shell, which has one job: stop the wind. Wind is the real enemy up here. A still night at minus twenty is a pleasant walk. A breeze at minus ten will find every gap you left.

I wore cotton once. Once.

Hands and feet go first

Mittens beat gloves, every time, and a thin liner glove inside lets you work a camera or a zip without baring your skin. Carry a spare pair of liners in an inside pocket, because the first pair will get damp from your own hands.

Feet are a matter of room. A boot that fits snugly in the shop will be too tight once you add a thick sock, and a tight boot is a cold boot. Buy half a size up, and put on the socks you'll actually wear before you try them. Two thin pairs are better than one fat pair, and a dry spare pair goes in your day bag, always.

The small things that matter

• A neck tube you can pull over your nose

• Lip balm, in your pocket, not in your bag

• A thermos, filled before you leave the room

• Chemical hand warmers, mostly for batteries

• A head torch with a red setting, so you keep your night eyes

Phones and cameras hate the cold. Keep them against your body until you need them and swap batteries as soon as the first one sulks. On the coldest night I've stood out in, the thermometer on the guesthouse porch in Aurvik read minus thirty-one, and my phone died in my hand mid-photograph. I'd left the spare in the suitcase. I haven't made that mistake twice.

What stayed home

The second coat. The good jeans, which are useless anywhere you'd be seen in them. The fashionable hat. A paperback, because I read on my phone now and a phone gives its own light, but also because the paperback's pages stuck together in the damp.

I also stopped bringing anything I'd be sorry to lose in a snowbank. Things fall. You'll kneel down for a photograph and a glove will go somewhere and the snow will keep it for the spring. Pack as though you'll lose one of everything, and you'll be calmer when you do.

A closing note on being warm

The best advice I got was from our host in Aurvik, a quiet woman who had never once looked cold in my presence. "Start walking a little cold," she said. "If you're warm when you leave the door, you'll be wet in ten minutes." She was right. Dress for the second kilometre, not for the doorstep, and take off a layer before you sweat rather than after.

Everything else is detail. Go carefully, go layered, and come back with the stories.