This is in response to Angela Ramirez’s rather smug censure (Letters, April 14) of Alli Harvey for failing to mention “… the effects of alcohol on the body while in the backcountry” in her outdoor column. The major effect, according to Ramirez, is that the body loses heat twice as fast when consuming alcohol. Ramirez implied that alcohol use in the wilderness is more dangerous than its use elsewhere.
I have camped in Alaska for 59 years in temperatures occasionally as low as -40 F. Alcohol was consumed on many of these trips, sometimes in considerable or even prodigious quantities. In winter, the major problem faced was not preventing death or dismemberment from cold-related injuries, but preventing the beer from freezing.
Fifty-nine years is almost twice as long as the 30 years that Ramirez has sold camping gear and dispensed her, no doubt, invaluable advice, yet neither have I succumbed to hypothermia nor lost body parts to frostbite.
Alcohol abuse is a major problem in Alaska, there is no denying that. However, implying that drinking in the wilderness is inherently more dangerous than doing so in Anchorage, with its intimidating vehicle traffic and numerous social interactions, is utter nonsense. I’m not advocating drinking to excess, but if one must, it is far safer to do so in the backcountry — the farther back, the safer.
— Dale C. Slaughter
Anchorage
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