I’m in the wilderness in Iceland. Here, there are huge freezing rivers like this. And another storm with 50-mile-an-hour arctic winds has whipped up, and the temperature has plummeted to minus 15 degrees. It’s really blowing here, but I’ve got to get across this river somehow. And this isn’t the narrowest part, but it’s the shallowest bit of the river. And I can use this to my advantage. And you can see the rocks in it creating like these eddies of slack water behind them. And I can use them to go from one to the next and then out. But this water is going to be freezing cold, especially the wind-chill factor. So I’ve got to do everything I can to make sure my clothes especially my top half stay dry. Soaking wet clothes in these conditions are lethal. So I’m keeping my clothes dry by wrapping them in my waterproof jacket. I’m facing upstream into the water. It’s easier to keep my balance. I can’t afford to slip here.
When I’m across, I know all of these clothes have actually stayed amazingly dry in that. And then what they used to say in the army, ‘if we ever complain of being cold, then make a super piece. ’
