Once upon a time, I caught rides to the local community college with a guy named Don, who taught at the college when he wasn’t running the family farm. We passed the time during the 45‑minute drive in the usual way, by talking. Our conversation was the familiar stuff of everyday chat, revolving around the social trinity of weather, family, and sport. Then, one Monday, Don dropped a bombshell. His brother Jim had just had a close brush with death, and Don wanted to talk about it. Here’s his story: Jim helped out on the farm, and the two brothers had been stowing hay bales in the barn loft. Jim was loading the elevator when the ends of his scarf — it was a bitterly cold day, and he wrapped a scarf around his neck whenever the temperature dropped below freezing — somehow got caught in the machine’s chain drive. In an instant, the scarf turned into a close approximation of a hangman’s noose, choking the life out of Jim. He couldn’t scream. He couldn’t even speak. To make matters worse, he was almost immediately lifted off his feet by the remorseless, clanking elevator. Seconds passed, and Jim’s world slowly faded to black. Meanwhile, Don had no idea what was happening. He was up in the loft, heaving bales into place. But then he came back for the next bale and he saw his brother hanging by the neck in midair. Jim was clawing feebly at his throat, his face already beetroot red. It was a sight Don wouldn’t soon forget.

Luckily, the story had a happy ending. Don jumped down, hit the kill switch, and cut Jim free before it was too late. Needless to say, both brothers learned an important lesson that day about the dangers inherent in wearing loose clothing around machinery. Me? I didn’t need to be reminded. I was a rock and ice climber, and I’d been a downhill skier as a teenager. Flapping garments of any description were an unwanted distraction when I was hanging from an ice screw, halfway up a frozen waterfall, and I’d already seen what happened when a skier’s scarf got caught in the works of an old‑fashioned T‑bar lift. Not for me, thanks! So I kept looking for better ways to keep the warm in and the cold out. And I found it in the simple neck gaiter, which works well for cycling as well as hiking and paddling.…Read more…

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