S3E18: Don't Die Today! Staying Safe in Desert Heat

UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT

0:00:00 - (Chris Clarke): This podcast is made possible by financial support from our listeners.

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0:00:24 - (Joe): Think the deserts are barren wastelands? Think again. It's time for 90 miles from needles, the Desert Protection podcast.

0:00:44 - (Chris Clarke): Thank you, Joe, and welcome to 90 miles from the Desert Protection podcast.  I'm your host, Chris Clark, and quick heads up. This episode is going to be a little differently edited from the the way we've been doing things over the last couple of years.

0:01:00 - (Chris Clarke): Generally, when I put an episode together  I spend a lot of time going Over as many aspects of the audio as I can. I listen to what's recorded six or seven times to make sure that I Catch all the glitches, which I never do. One of the things I learned while  I was editing print publications is that The best way to look for typos is to publish the thing and then. Open it up and the typos just Jump right off the page at you. And that certainly happens with editing this podcast.

0:01:27 - (Chris Clarke): You know, I listen after we've published an episode and find lots of things  I wish I would have changed But I do like to catch as many problems as I can as I edit. If I'm talking by myself in a Studio like right now, I usually will do several takes to make sure I like the way things sound. 

0:01:45 - (Chris Clarke): But I'm going to have to approach. This episode a little bit differently, and that’s because I'm preoccupied. My dog heart, who has been with me for it'll be ten years in November, is having extreme dizziness, vertigo, and nausea.

0:02:01 - (Chris Clarke): Nystagmus, which is rapid, uncontrollable eye movements.

0:02:04 - (Chris Clarke): This is almost certainly a disorder in her inner ear. Vestibular disorder is what it's called. Older dogs do get that. And if that's what it is, it.

0:02:13 - (Chris Clarke): Probably will resolve itself in a few.

0:02:15 - (Chris Clarke): Days, or maybe as long as a couple of weeks. But I am continually needing to be on guard here. Hart gets up and can't stand up, and she falls over, and we don't have the most childproof plays here.

0:02:27 - (Chris Clarke): She could get hurt as she falls.

0:02:28 - (Chris Clarke): And we have a one-story house, but there are still steps that she's got to go up and down and slippery tile floors, and it's just been really hard for the last couple days. And I will cop to this. Those of you who know me pretty well know that I fall in love with my dogs for a long time. I had a really wonderful dog named.

0:02:49 - (Chris Clarke): Zeke who lived to a ripe old age. He made it almost to his 16th birthday and he was a good-sized dog, 50 pounds or so in his prime.

0:02:57 - (Chris Clarke): And so living 16 years was an accomplishment.

0:03:01 - (Chris Clarke): When he passed, even though we had been preparing for it for several months because he did slide for a while.

0:03:09 - (Chris Clarke): It really messed me up. It did a number on my emotional health.

0:03:12 - (Chris Clarke): Took me years to recover.

0:03:14 - (Chris Clarke): I never got over it because you don't get over it, you just get used to it.

0:03:21 - (Chris Clarke): It's been longer since he died than he was alive. It's going to be 18 years next February.

0:03:28 - (Chris Clarke): But his passing knocked me for a loop.

0:03:30 - (Chris Clarke): And I am not saying that's about.

0:03:32 - (Chris Clarke): To happen with Hart. I mean, it's certainly possible, but Hart is a really healthy dog.

0:03:37 - (Chris Clarke): There's a very good chance that this.

0:03:38 - (Chris Clarke): Is going to resolve itself. Her immune system is going to do.

0:03:41 - (Chris Clarke): The job and she's going to be.

0:03:42 - (Chris Clarke): Her usual pesky, annoying self within a week or so. And she is going to the vet in a couple days.

0:03:49 - (Chris Clarke): Our hopes are high that she will be well. But in the meantime, I have limited.

0:03:53 - (Chris Clarke): Bandwidth because I have to keep an eye on her.

0:03:55 - (Chris Clarke): If she gets up to try to.

0:03:57 - (Chris Clarke): Walk somewhere, I need to go follow her.

0:03:59 - (Chris Clarke): So I can't really focus on listening to multiple takes. Those of you who have ADHD, like me, understand the way the house can.

0:04:07 - (Chris Clarke): Burn down around you when you're hyper focused on something.

0:04:10 - (Chris Clarke): And that usually happens to me when.

0:04:12 - (Chris Clarke): I'm really involved in editing an episode. But it can't happen this week. So there may well be awkward things that you hear. Weird pauses, dead air that's a little bit longer than recommended ums and ahs.

0:04:25 - (Chris Clarke): And maybe a mouth smack or two.

0:04:27 - (Chris Clarke): That kind of stuff. Now it's just me talking.

0:04:30 - (Chris Clarke): We're not doing an interview this time around, but I did want to give.

0:04:33 - (Chris Clarke): You that heads up and I thank.

0:04:34 - (Chris Clarke): You for your forgiveness and your forbearance.

0:04:37 - (Chris Clarke): This episode might be a little bit.

0:04:38 - (Chris Clarke): More rough sounding than usual.

0:04:41 - (Chris Clarke): I will keep you updated on how heart is doing.

0:04:43 - (Chris Clarke): She is a good dog and she.

0:04:44 - (Chris Clarke): Appreciates your patience with me very much. And if you want to learn more.

0:04:50 - (Chris Clarke): About Zeke, there is a book that.

0:04:52 - (Chris Clarke): I wrote back in the day called.

0:04:55 - (Chris Clarke): Walking with Zeke, which is available online at all the usual places.

0:04:59 - (Chris Clarke): I like bookshop.org, but you can find it just about anywhere.

0:05:03 - (D): Dance break. Wow, it's good. Woo. It's hot. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah. Dance break while it's good.

0:05:10 - (Chris Clarke): Woo.

0:05:10 - (D): It's hot. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Dance break. Wow, it's good. Ooh, it's hot. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:06:03 - (Chris Clarke): As I speak, the National Weather Service has put out a bunch of extreme weather alerts that involve heat. Excessive heat watches have been released within.

0:06:12 - (Chris Clarke): The last few hours for El Paso, Texas, for most of Arizona, from the Grand Canyon all the way down to Ajo and Oregon Pipe and Tucson, most of southern Nevada, most of the California desert.

0:06:24 - (Chris Clarke): And the weather service is warning about temperatures that may reach as high as.

0:06:28 - (Chris Clarke): 110 in most places. And in Death Valley, they’re likely to.

0:06:32 - (Chris Clarke): Reach up to 120 or even hotter. And this is a really, really dangerous.

0:06:35 - (Chris Clarke): Time in the desert. It gets hot in the desert every year, granted, but the number of days that it gets that hot is increasing, and that’s likely as a result of climate change.

0:06:49 - (Chris Clarke): The number of nights in which the temperature doesn’t drop down to a comfortable.

0:06:53 - (Chris Clarke): Level is also increasing, and that’s really.

0:06:56 - (Chris Clarke): A problem for human health. So here's how this episode's going to.

0:07:01 - (Chris Clarke): Go in reverse order, because I'm just.

0:07:04 - (Chris Clarke): That kind of guy.

0:07:05 - (Chris Clarke): We're going to close with simple tips.

0:07:08 - (Chris Clarke): That you can take to stay safe in desert heat. Before that, because it's really important to.

0:07:15 - (Chris Clarke): Recognize the symptoms of heat injury.

0:07:18 - (Chris Clarke): We'll go through the different kinds of.

0:07:20 - (Chris Clarke): Heat injury, what they feel like, what.

0:07:23 - (Chris Clarke): You should do to correct them or mitigate them, and when to call 911.

0:07:29 - (Chris Clarke): But first, there's an additional danger from heat that I hadn't really thought of until pretty recently. I hope we all know that heavy exertion and weather above 100 degrees is.

0:07:45 - (Chris Clarke): Even if you're acclimated to it, it's dangerous. Even if you've been living in the.

0:07:48 - (Chris Clarke): Desert for a long time and it's.

0:07:50 - (Chris Clarke): Been above 100 degrees for the last.

0:07:52 - (Chris Clarke): Several weeks, and you're increasing your outdoor.

0:07:55 - (Chris Clarke): Unprotected time slowly, you can get used to the heat a little bit.

0:07:59 - (Chris Clarke): I mean, from my own personal experience.

0:08:01 - (Chris Clarke): It used to be that 113 Fahrenheit.

0:08:03 - (Chris Clarke): Was my limit for doing anything that required thinking. I had a car that didn't have air conditioning up to 113, I could drive and be really uncomfortable and unhappy. But nonetheless, as safe a driver as I ever am, my attention would stay on the road past 113, all bets were off. I generally tried not to drive.

0:08:28 - (Chris Clarke): That limit is actually around 118 now.

0:08:31 - (Chris Clarke): That I've been living in the desert for 16 years. But, you know, it's still dangerous.

0:08:40 - (Chris Clarke): And there's a danger that didn't occur.

0:08:42 - (Chris Clarke): To me, possibly because I'm less vulnerable to it than a lot of people.

0:08:47 - (Chris Clarke): As you are probably, too.

0:08:49 - (Chris Clarke): But there was a study that came out a little bit more than a year ago. That kind of surprised me.

0:08:53 - (Chris Clarke): Study published in the Journal of Burn Care and Research in the March April issue in 2023.

0:08:58 - (Chris Clarke): It's been online since September 2022. I'll have the link in the show notes in case you want to look at it.

0:09:03 - (Chris Clarke): But the study is entitled temperature profiles of sunlight exposed surfaces in a desert climate. Determining the risk for pavement burns.

0:09:10 - (Chris Clarke): And maybe you, like me, had not.

0:09:14 - (Chris Clarke): Even thought of the concept of pavement.

0:09:16 - (Chris Clarke): Burns other than just when you have to walk across a hot driveway and bare feet or on the beach on a sunny day.

0:09:24 - (Chris Clarke): What the researchers did was they took.

0:09:26 - (Chris Clarke): A bunch of different kinds of surfaces and little plots. Lava, rock, asphalt, brick, concrete, ungalvanized metal, sand. And on a summer day, on the.

0:09:38 - (Chris Clarke): Rooftop of a four-story building on.

0:09:40 - (Chris Clarke): The University of Nevada campus in Las Vegas, they had all these surfaces exposed to sun. They were on top of that building. So there was not much in the.

0:09:49 - (Chris Clarke): Way of local vegetation to cool things.

0:09:51 - (Chris Clarke): Down or anything like that.

0:09:53 - (Chris Clarke): If you know the UNLV campus, it's pretty urban. So on the day that they measured.

0:09:57 - (Chris Clarke): Temperatures of these different substances, which was August 6, 2020, at 210 in the afternoon, air temperature in Las Vegas was 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

0:10:10 - (Chris Clarke): The sun was about as bright as.

0:10:11 - (Chris Clarke): It gets that day.

0:10:12 - (Chris Clarke): 940 watts per square meter. The theoretical maximum for solar radiation on the surface of planet Earth is a.

0:10:19 - (Chris Clarke): Thousand watts per square meter. So 940 watts per square meter is.

0:10:23 - (Chris Clarke): Basically full blazing sun.

0:10:26 - (Chris Clarke): They found that the material was in full sun.

0:10:29 - (Chris Clarke): Got, depending on which material we're talking.

0:10:31 - (Chris Clarke): About, as much as 50 degrees hotter.

0:10:35 - (Chris Clarke): Than the ambient air temperature of 120. Maximum recorded temperatures for the different surfaces.

0:10:39 - (Chris Clarke): Were as lava rock, 170.

0:10:43 - (Chris Clarke): Asphalt, 166. Brick, 152.

0:10:49 - (Chris Clarke): Concrete and metal were both 144.

0:10:52 - (Chris Clarke): Sand was 143. Those are numbers. They might not have any emotional relevance.

0:10:57 - (Chris Clarke): To you, but then I went and.

0:11:00 - (Chris Clarke): Looked at another study, which was called.

0:11:01 - (Chris Clarke): Children at risk for accidental burns from hot tap water. So, you know, a lot of the.

0:11:07 - (Chris Clarke): Research on temperatures at which human skin.

0:11:10 - (Chris Clarke): Suffers injury have focused on hot water.

0:11:12 - (Chris Clarke): People work with hot water all the.

0:11:14 - (Chris Clarke): Time, even in cold places in the middle of winter. So there's been some study put into this. The National Institutes of Health says that.

0:11:22 - (Chris Clarke): Water at a temperature of 52 degrees.

0:11:24 - (Chris Clarke): C or 125 degrees Fahrenheit can cause.

0:11:28 - (Chris Clarke): A full thickness skin burn in two minutes. Full thickness skin burn is also known.

0:11:33 - (Chris Clarke): As the third-degree burn, which basically destroys all of the skin, the epidermis, the outer layer, the dermis, and the subcutaneous fat.

0:11:43 - (Chris Clarke): Hot water at 140 degrees Fahrenheit can.

0:11:46 - (Chris Clarke): Lead to a serious burn within 3 seconds. There is a little bit of difference you need to take into account between.

0:11:55 - (Chris Clarke): Hot water burns and surface burns.

0:11:58 - (Chris Clarke): I mean, water conducts heat extremely well. Nonetheless, you can probably assume that within.

0:12:04 - (Chris Clarke): A degree or three, you get roughly equivalent results.

0:12:08 - (Chris Clarke): So the article in the Journal of Burn Care and Research, which I will.

0:12:11 - (Chris Clarke): Link in the show notes, says that.

0:12:13 - (Chris Clarke): You can get a serious burn, and not just painful, but serious as in.

0:12:17 - (Chris Clarke): Need of medical attention. Walking barefoot across a sunlit driveway for 3 seconds when it's 120 degrees out. Every one of the surfaces tested in the pavement burn study had elevated surface temperature high enough to cause contact burns. This is a public safety issue, but it's also a public health issue.

0:12:36 - (Chris Clarke): I mean, it's really, really easy to find stuff on social media talking about.

0:12:44 - (Chris Clarke): Don'T walk your dog when it's hot.

0:12:47 - (Chris Clarke): Out in the desert, with charts saying if it's 90 degrees air temperature, then the temperature of the sidewalk is going to be x number of degrees hotter. Basically, if you can't hold your hand on the surface where you're going to.

0:13:02 - (Chris Clarke): Be walking your dog, you need to put boots on your dog or wait until nighttime to walk the dog.

0:13:07 - (Chris Clarke): And most people aren't going deliberately going.

0:13:09 - (Chris Clarke): Out and touching incredibly hot, sun illuminated concrete, gravel, or asphalt on a day with hot temperatures in the desert.

0:13:15 - (Chris Clarke): But there are some folks who, for.

0:13:17 - (Chris Clarke): One reason or another, have no choice.

0:13:21 - (Chris Clarke): A study says, for instance, that people can develop third degree burns on that.

0:13:26 - (Chris Clarke): Concrete if they fall and or have a syncopal event. Syncope is fainting. People can develop third degree burns if.

0:13:33 - (Chris Clarke): They fall or faint and remain on.

0:13:36 - (Chris Clarke): The pavement for several minutes, not an.

0:13:38 - (Chris Clarke): Hour, not 3 hours, several minutes.

0:13:41 - (Chris Clarke): Third degree burns.

0:13:42 - (Chris Clarke): This is increasingly a serious consideration for people who are homeless, people with mental health issues, the elderly. I mean, it's easy enough to get overheated if you're walking around. Syncope events do sometimes come with heat injury, heat stroke, that kind of thing. So we'll talk about how to prevent that heat injury so that you don't end up passing out on the sidewalk.

0:14:08 - (Chris Clarke): And getting badly burned.

0:14:11 - (Chris Clarke): But I just thought it was worth some thought because, you know, the difference between the way we treat our dogs and the way we treat people that are forced to be outside for one reason or another is pretty striking. There's plenty of charts, like I said, that show you how hot it is for your dog's feet on pavement when it's hot out and it's sunny.

0:14:35 - (Chris Clarke): And I don't remember seeing a lot.

0:14:37 - (Chris Clarke): Of public service announcements saying if you.

0:14:40 - (Chris Clarke): Fall asleep on the sidewalk, you will get third degree burns.

0:14:43 - (Chris Clarke): I don't really have a solution there. It's not just homeless people. It's not just people with emotional or mental illness issues. It's not just relatively comfortable folks like me who are getting up there in years and misjudged their capacity for dealing with the heat. We're talking about people that are doing minimum wage jobs and have no choice.

0:15:05 - (Chris Clarke): But to be outside parking lot attendance.

0:15:07 - (Chris Clarke): And roofers and agricultural labor. And we're also talking about people who are out in the desert for other reasons. We're talking about people who are coming across the border. We are going to be seeing a lot of deaths from heat injury and also from burns that go untended. And it's just, I think we need to be aware of this. I don't have an answer to it other than combating climate change and being kinder to one another.

0:15:38 - (Chris Clarke): Even if we're from different backgrounds and.

0:15:40 - (Chris Clarke): Have different economic circumstances. I don't have a solution, but I do think we ought to think about it. So for a lot of us, the best way to avoid having this kind.

0:15:50 - (Chris Clarke): Of serious injury from the heat is.

0:15:52 - (Chris Clarke): To avoid having the heat catch up with you.

0:15:56 - (Chris Clarke): You want to pay close attention to.

0:15:58 - (Chris Clarke): How you're feeling on hot days like these and recognize the signs and symptoms.

0:16:04 - (Chris Clarke): Of heat injury before they get too bad. So let's talk about those different levels of heat injury and their symptoms a little bit. Based on material from the website of the Centers for Disease Control, we'll talk about them in ascending order of seriousness.

0:16:18 - (Chris Clarke): Because the sooner you figure out that.

0:16:22 - (Chris Clarke): You'Re having some trouble with the heat.

0:16:23 - (Chris Clarke): And do something to counteract that, the better off you're going to be. Probably the least serious heat injury is called heat rash. I mean, I get that so often.

0:16:33 - (Chris Clarke): I don't even think of it as an injury.

0:16:35 - (Chris Clarke): Basically itchy, red clusters of small blisters.

0:16:39 - (Chris Clarke): That look like pimples on the skin.

0:16:41 - (Chris Clarke): And they will be in places where you sweat a lot or where your body folds up against itself and gets hotter than usual. The neck, the chest, the groin, inside your elbow creases. If you see heat rash, you want to stay in a cold, dry place, keep the rash dry, and put something on to soothe the rash. Cornstarch can work pretty well in my experience. You might try aloe vera, something like that. The next stage up in heat injury.

0:17:19 - (Chris Clarke): Of course, is sunburn.

0:17:20 - (Chris Clarke): We've all had it. You get painful red and warm skin, sometimes you'll get blisters. The majority of sunburns are annoying and irritating, but not necessarily needing medical attention. If you're badly blistered, you want to see if you can talk to a medical professional. Do not break the blisters.

0:17:41 - (Chris Clarke): Breaking the blisters is just asking to get infections inside your skin.

0:17:45 - (Chris Clarke): You want to stay out of the sun. You want to use something to soothe the irritation. Take a cool bath or a cool shower. Cold compresses. Wear opaque clothing over the area that you got sunburned. If you do have to go out and if you get sunburned a lot, you want to pay attention to changes in your skin, because that's one of.

0:18:08 - (Chris Clarke): The biggest contributors to various skin cancers.

0:18:10 - (Chris Clarke): That you can possibly have.

0:18:12 - (Chris Clarke): The next level of seriousness and heat.

0:18:14 - (Chris Clarke): Injury is what is commonly called heat cramps. You might get these during exercise, even exercise as low key as walking, working out, or just working. If you start sweating incredibly heavily and have muscle pain or spasms, those are very likely heat cramps. They are basically tied to dehydration and lack of electrolytes. You want to stop what you're doing? Move to someplace cooler, drink some water.

0:18:48 - (Chris Clarke): If you have an electrolyte drink, that'll work, too.

0:18:51 - (Chris Clarke): And do not continue what you're doing until those cramps go away. I had heat cramps at one point.

0:18:59 - (Chris Clarke): On a backpacking trip.

0:19:00 - (Chris Clarke): The first day of a backpacking trip, it was relatively warm, and we were.

0:19:04 - (Chris Clarke): Climbing, getting onto the john Muir trail.

0:19:07 - (Chris Clarke): Near Yosemite, and it was just too.

0:19:10 - (Chris Clarke): Warm, even though it was complete shade.

0:19:12 - (Chris Clarke): It was a forested path heading up towards the high country. And my calves just decided to go on strike and stopped working and were incredibly painful. And I was sitting in the middle of the trail with my pack off.

0:19:26 - (Chris Clarke): Actually in tears from the pain and punching my calves.

0:19:30 - (Chris Clarke): And what worked best was drinking a bunch of water, waiting for the pain.

0:19:35 - (Chris Clarke): To lessen, and then getting the last.

0:19:37 - (Chris Clarke): Mile to the campsite, putting my feet up. And that was what I needed to do. I wasn't in a position where I.

0:19:44 - (Chris Clarke): Could just sit there for the rest of the day. I had to keep going.

0:19:47 - (Chris Clarke): But if you can stop doing what you're doing until the cramps are fully gone, that is the best thing. If the cramps last longer than an.

0:19:55 - (Chris Clarke): Hour or you have heart problems, or.

0:19:57 - (Chris Clarke): You'Re on a low sodium diet, on.

0:19:59 - (Chris Clarke): The advice of a dietitian or your.

0:20:00 - (Chris Clarke): Doctor or something like that, you want to get medical help as soon as possible. It's taking those electrolytes. You don't want the cure to be worse than the disease. Heat exhaustion is characterized by heavy sweating, cold, pale, clammy skin, fast weak pulse.

0:20:20 - (Chris Clarke): Nausea or vomiting, muscle cramps, tiredness or.

0:20:23 - (Chris Clarke): Weakness, dizziness, headache, fainting. And obviously, that last one is extremely.

0:20:31 - (Chris Clarke): Relevant and extremely dangerous, given what we've been talking about, with possibility of pavement burns increasing in desert cities as the climate warms. If you feel any of those things.

0:20:41 - (Chris Clarke): You want to move to someplace cooler.

0:20:45 - (Chris Clarke): Loosen your clothes, get in a cool.

0:20:47 - (Chris Clarke): Bath, or put cool, wet cloths on.

0:20:48 - (Chris Clarke): Your body and sip water.

0:20:50 - (Chris Clarke): Do not guzzle water.

0:20:53 - (Chris Clarke): I have to remind myself of that a lot.

0:20:56 - (Chris Clarke): You sip the water, otherwise nausea might kick in and you'll just get more dehydrated.

0:21:01 - (Chris Clarke): And if you are throwing up or your symptoms get worse, or your symptoms.

0:21:05 - (Chris Clarke): Last longer than an hour, get medical help right away.

0:21:08 - (Chris Clarke): Lastly, heatstroke.

0:21:09 - (Chris Clarke): And this is really more for people who are with you or if you are with somebody who is experiencing this. Once they get to the point of heatstroke, they are not going to be.

0:21:23 - (Chris Clarke): Able to help themselves much. Heat stroke involves high body temperature.

0:21:27 - (Chris Clarke): 103 fahrenheit or higher.

0:21:29 - (Chris Clarke): Hot, red, dry, or damp skin, fast.

0:21:32 - (Chris Clarke): Strong pulse, headache, dizziness, nausea, confusion, and losing consciousness. You want to call 911 or the equivalent right away. Heatstroke will kill you fast. If it's not taken care of. Move the person to a cooler place.

0:21:50 - (Chris Clarke): Help lower the person's temperature with cool.

0:21:52 - (Chris Clarke): Cloths or a cool bath. Do not give the person anything to drink. Again, it's that nausea issue. You do not want them to start barfing and lose more water than they're gaining. Of course, the best way to mitigate.

0:22:28 - (Chris Clarke): Heat injury is to prevent it from.

0:22:29 - (Chris Clarke): Happening in the first place. And to that end, we have a few time honored methods for just taking care of yourself, making sure that you don't put yourself in a situation where.

0:22:48 - (Chris Clarke): The heat will get the best of you.

0:22:49 - (Chris Clarke): And we're not just talking triple digit temperatures here. These are important when the temperature rises above the low eighties, depending on your physical condition, on how used you are.

0:23:03 - (Chris Clarke): To the desert, how much water you.

0:23:04 - (Chris Clarke): Have with you, and where you are.

0:23:06 - (Chris Clarke): What you're planning to do.

0:23:08 - (Chris Clarke): All these measures can keep you safe, even if it feels like it's a little warm. Not too warm to be crazy. So these tips are from the Anza Borrego foundation.

0:23:25 - (Chris Clarke): They've been compiled here, but you can.

0:23:27 - (Chris Clarke): Find lots of different, lots of different.

0:23:29 - (Chris Clarke): Versions of these tips. And there are ten of them. One. Always research the weather before heading out.

0:23:39 - (Chris Clarke): You want to know what temperature it's going to be at what time of the day? You might have a perfectly good 72 degree morning, a lot of cloud cover. And if you set out on a ten mile hike and you don't realize that at about one in the afternoon, the clouds are going to go away and it's going to jump by 25 degrees, you're going to be in trouble.

0:24:03 - (Chris Clarke): So you want to do your research first.

0:24:08 - (Chris Clarke): Two, and this is really important. Avoid heat peak times, avoid peak hot.

0:24:17 - (Chris Clarke): By heading outside in the early morning or the late afternoon. And even then you want to cut things short.

0:24:26 - (Chris Clarke): Early morning for a lot of people sometimes means ten. We're talking like five, six in the morning. The third tip, stay hydrated. Bring tons of water. If you're bringing a twelve ounce plastic bottle full of water, you're asking for trouble. You want at least a liter of water for a short hike.

0:24:53 - (Chris Clarke): You should always have more water than.

0:24:55 - (Chris Clarke): You need because there may be an emergency and you could get stuck outside.

0:25:01 - (Chris Clarke): Longer than you thought you were going to, you could run into somebody that.

0:25:05 - (Chris Clarke): Needs water and didn't bring enough. This happens to me pretty much whenever I hike in a place like the Grand Canyon.

0:25:12 - (Chris Clarke): I bring extra water because I assume.

0:25:14 - (Chris Clarke): I'm going to find somebody that is.

0:25:15 - (Chris Clarke): Out of water and in trouble.

0:25:17 - (Chris Clarke): So bring more water than you think you're going to need. And if you are hiking and you realize that you are halfway through your water supply, turn around. Turn around sooner than that.

0:25:34 - (Chris Clarke): If you've been hiking downhill and your.

0:25:36 - (Chris Clarke): Return route is uphill, hiking without water is unpleasant at best. It is dangerous at worst. And it's not just a question of.

0:25:54 - (Chris Clarke): Staying safe and staying alive.

0:25:56 - (Chris Clarke): Being hydrated can mean the difference between enjoying your hike and having it be a hellacious slog. You get dehydrated, your blood starts to get thicker. Your heart has to work harder. So you're going to be pumping that sort of thick blood through your heart. Your heart's going to be working harder. It's going to be harder to stay oxygenated, so you're going to breathe harder.

0:26:25 - (Chris Clarke): Water is your friend.

0:26:28 - (Chris Clarke): The fourth one, and this is something I am not great at. So I'm reminding myself as much as I'm reminding you.

0:26:37 - (Chris Clarke): Always let someone know your itinerary, including where you're going and when you plan to return. I usually, at the very least, I.

0:26:46 - (Chris Clarke): Have a satellite beacon that it's not a cheap thing. It costs like $300 a year for the membership and about that for the item itself, but I will carry that with me on hikes where I am not familiar with the landscape and I'll.

0:27:06 - (Chris Clarke): Usually send my wife a text saying.

0:27:08 - (Chris Clarke): This is where I parked with the location. But barring that, let someone know your itinerary, including your plans for your hiking destination and when you plan to return. There is another tip I think that is really useful for search and rescue folks who are going to be looking for you and more on that in a minute. But if you have a sheet of paper on your dashboard on which you have put the pattern of the tread.

0:27:47 - (Chris Clarke): Of your boot soles, your hiking boots.

0:27:50 - (Chris Clarke): You can just take a picture of them and print that out and put it up or whatever that is. That helps search and rescue folks know who they're looking for, know whose tricks they're looking at. If you are hiking through the desert, there are going to be a lot of places where you can leave footprints. As to really handy hint five and.

0:28:14 - (Chris Clarke): If you paid attention to the previous.

0:28:15 - (Chris Clarke): Part of this episode, you're way ahead. Learn to recognize heat related illnesses and the symptoms will vary. But all that headache, dry skin, high body temperature, rapid pulse, dizziness, confusion, pay attention to all of that. Wear lightweight, loose this is six.

0:28:37 - (Chris Clarke): Number six, wear lightweight, loose, breathable and.

0:28:40 - (Chris Clarke): Light colored clothing, and bonus if it has an SPF of 50 or more. My much-missed former co-host turned me onto this company that has bamboo fiber long sleeve shirts that are really easy to wear even if it's hot. They are not suitable for formal wear because they do show your sweat, but they make you really comfortable and just find something that is going to reflect light, not absorb it, and that will keep those UV rays from getting to your body.

0:29:24 - (Chris Clarke): Number seven, avoid dehydrating drinks such as alcohol, coffee or tea. And if you will be sweating, drink something with electrolytes in it or salty snacks are good. And again, this is a reminder for me because I can't even find my backpack if I don't have at least.

0:29:46 - (Chris Clarke): Two cups of coffee in the morning.

0:29:48 - (Chris Clarke): So just keep them in mind. And if you have been out drinking the night before and you plan to get up early, fight through your hangover with a cup of coffee and then go out for a hike, maybe reconsider because hangovers are at least 75% dehydration and if you're starting off like that, you want to maybe think about moving your morning hike to the late evening. Number eight, use sunblock, sunglasses and a hat, all very important.

0:30:27 - (Chris Clarke): Number nine, stay in the shade as.

0:30:29 - (Chris Clarke): Much as possible and rest frequently. Slot canyons are great for that. By the way, out here there's not.

0:30:35 - (Chris Clarke): A lot of shade trees. You do find some here and there.

0:30:37 - (Chris Clarke): And you find interesting critters that are occupying the shade you want to occupy. Some of them really violently resent you taking their shade away, so plan accordingly. There's a company called Gossamer Gear. This is an unpaid plug. They have a relatively inexpensive desert hiking umbrella that is shiny silver on the outside, it's black on the bottom side that, you know, gives a good rest for your eyes. And I have used those.

0:31:15 - (Chris Clarke): I have used that umbrella a couple of times in long, hot desert hikes and it's come in really handy. They're not great for windy, hot desert hikes, but if you are in a place where there's lots of canyons. And so I used it in Saguaro National Park a couple of years ago, a very strenuous hike. And I found myself a little spot in a wash that had enough shade for my feet.

0:31:44 - (Chris Clarke): And so I shaded my head with.

0:31:45 - (Chris Clarke): The umbrella and I was pretty comfortable.

0:31:47 - (Chris Clarke): For 15 minutes or so to get.

0:31:49 - (Chris Clarke): To catch some rest. Lastly, number ten. And this is the hint that everybody ignores. Create a backup plan.

0:31:58 - (Chris Clarke): Sometimes it is just too hot to be outdoors.

0:32:05 - (Chris Clarke): You want to have plan B, Netflix, eating popcorn, drinking some interesting beverages and staying inside, playing Scrabble, whatever it is, or even going to an outdoor cafe and sitting under the misters having an omelette, that kind of thing.

0:32:30 - (Chris Clarke): Because here's the thing, folks, there's a.

0:32:33 - (Chris Clarke): Lot going on in the desert. We appreciate you wanting to come here and experience it. And I got to say, I totally understand wanting to experience it in all of its faces.

0:32:47 - (Chris Clarke): The.

0:32:49 - (Chris Clarke): Surprisingly cold winter storms, monsoons, beautiful, super.

0:32:59 - (Chris Clarke): Beautiful and abundant spring blooms.

0:33:02 - (Chris Clarke): And that includes the heat. And I will confess that when I hear about the likelihood of record breaking.

0:33:10 - (Chris Clarke): Heat at Furnace Creek in Death Valley.

0:33:12 - (Chris Clarke): National Park, I look at my schedule.

0:33:14 - (Chris Clarke): And see if I can get there.

0:33:16 - (Chris Clarke): Just in case we get to that 135 or 136 degree mark busting the questionable historic record. I want to know what that feels like, and I know what it'll feel like, and it will be unpleasant, but I feel like I want to bear witness to that. So I understand the urge to test.

0:33:38 - (Chris Clarke): Yourself and to feel the extremes and.

0:33:40 - (Chris Clarke): All that kind of stuff. And you just got to plan carefully and you got to have common sense about it. And you got to recognize sometimes that you just need to do something else.

0:33:58 - (Chris Clarke): Because in the immortal words of Ranger.

0:34:00 - (Chris Clarke): Pam, who I met at Phantom Ranch.

0:34:03 - (Chris Clarke): In the bottom of the Grand Canyon in the summer of 2005, as we.

0:34:06 - (Chris Clarke): All prepared to hike back out of the canyon to the south rim.

0:34:10 - (Chris Clarke): She was telling us what to do.

0:34:11 - (Chris Clarke): And what not to do. Testosterone is not an electrolyte replacement. Truer words were never spoken. And that wraps up yet another episode of 90 Miles from Needles, the Desert.

0:35:35 - (Chris Clarke): Protection podcast want to thank new donors.

0:35:39 - (Chris Clarke): Dara Weaver, Joshua Kirstadt, and Keith Brennan, along with Jim Dyer, who is not a first time donor, but he did.

0:35:49 - (Chris Clarke): Drop a generous donation on us that.

0:35:51 - (Chris Clarke): He claims came from bottle deposits. It's a likely story. I would also like to thank our voiceover artist Joe Jeffrey and our visual artist Martine Mancha, who did our wonderful podcast artwork. Our theme song, modi Western, is by Brightside Studio. That very up tempo song at the.

0:36:14 - (Chris Clarke): Beginning of the episode, whoa, it's hot, is by synch hits via envato.com and the piece we just heard, cowboy in The desert, came from the royalty free. Selection of music in the app, descript. Descript doesn't seem to include artist info. We want artist info so we can credit. Do better descript and I am going to go check on my dog. I really appreciate your patience with this episode. I hope it helps and we will See you at the next watering hole.

0:36:50 - (Chris Clarke): Bye now.

0:38:57 - (Joe): 90 miles from needles is a production of the Desert Advocacy Network.