Frost nip is a cold weather related injury and a mild form of frostbite. You can see the frost nip on the edge of my nose on the photo below as it was starting to heal. I had a fur hood on which was covering my face from the side wind (I thought it was anyway). We had high winds and it was -45deg with wind chill. The tip of my nose started to go a mild blue in the evening and eventually scabbed over as you can see.
Different stages of frostbite effect the different layers of skin. Frost nip occurs when skin is exposed to extreme cold for a sustained period of time. This affected the superficial layer of my skin. If left untreated and further exposed to extreme cold, it can develop into frostbite.
How did I treat it? It was difficult to not further expose my nose to cold conditions and I’m not a fan of having my mouth and nose constantly covered so I used k-tape to cover it. I would then warm up the frozen aloe Vera gel in the evenings in the tent and rub that onto my nose, drink warm water. I’d also warm up my hands on my hot water bottles before applying them to my nose!
What did I learn? To continue checking that my face isn’t exposed, especially when I’ll be out in Antarctica on my own..
