For a shirt, I like a lightweight, long sleeve, collared shirt. Wrangler happens to make the best, cheapest, and most available ones I've found. Pick them up in any western clothing store or order online. If you order online, you usually don't get a choice on the color, but if you buy in person, you can pick through them to find the lighter-colored ones. You won't fit in with the REI-wearing crowd, but you will have a functional shirt.

cotton may work in a TRUE desert environment, but if there is even the smallest bit of humidity present you'll want to switch to nylon or some other synthetic material that wicks moisture. since you're going to be around water, i would go ahead and consider a synthetic. i find wet cotton in a hot environment to be uncomfortable.

Me too bro (cotton is dank in humid weather). But the man asked about desert clothing.

I never fell through the ice into a desert, but I DID fall in Lake Michigan once. It was cold. And damp! I was wearing cotton, too.

DMT

I spend a lot of time on the water and can give you this advice:

Polarized sunglasses to save your eyes, a whole bottle of spf 70 sunscreen, hat with bandanna to cover ears and neck (preferably baseball, pick the team of your choice, just not Red Sox please), and a really baggy long sleeve cotton shirt that is light in color and weight.

I also suggest one of those huge lifeguard style straw hats. They don't stand up to high wind super well, but when I'm wearing that thing I feel like I have a whole awning over me, it almost creates it's own little micro-climate around your head.

Oh, and for sunscreen, i pick the gooiest highest spf i can find. Dump a whole bunch in one hand, smear it onto the other, and cake it onto your skin, rub it in good but you should have enough to where your skin is saturated and won't absorb anymore, leaving a nice white layer all over. I am a professional sunscreen applier and have perfected this technique through years and years of trial and error.

Maybe a Shemagh.... or will the Coast Gueard pick me up if I'm wearing one of those?

Yeti wrote:Lake Huron/August is the location

Out there, humidity is low

Dewpoints that time of year will likely be 60F or more, which would hardly qualify as low humidity.

Day Hiker wrote:
Dewpoints that time of year will likely be 60F or more, which would hardly qualify as low humidity.

.... where? On shore? You do realize that surface conditions change as you get further from land. You get your weather data from buoys rather than the local news. Secondly, "low humidity" in Nevada is different than it is in Mi. On-land up there, anything below 70% is low.

Yeti wrote:

Day Hiker wrote:Dewpoints that time of year will likely be 60F or more, which would hardly qualify as low humidity.

.... where? On shore? You do realize that surface conditions change as you get further from land. You get your weather data from buoys rather than the local news.

What is the surface water temperature of Lake Huron at that location in August? The entire Midwest has dewpoints around 60F or more that time of year. If humid air is in the region, even a giant cool surface like that of Huron cannot lower the dewpoint below the temperature of that surface. So if 65F-dewpoint air drifts over a 60F lake, there really is no mechanism for the lake to reduce the humidity in the air, no matter how far you are from shore.

Yeti wrote:Secondly, "low humidity" in Nevada is different than it is in Mi. On-land up there, anything below 70% is low.

Now you're just being silly. Human body temperature is the same upper 90s F everywhere. A dewpoint of 60F or more will be the same (humid) everywhere, in terms of how fast moisture evaporates from damp clothing. "Low humidity," particularly in regards to this thread's topic of clothing choice, means a condition in which sweat and other moisture will evaporate rapidly from skin and clothing. This condition will not be present in the Midwest in August, on land or water.

An argument about what shirt to wear in the gear section of SP...I knew if I hung around long enough, I would get to witness such a fine discussion. Entertainment indeed. Folks can't even dress themselves for a friggin hike.

Day Hiker wrote:Now you're just being silly.

Yes, yes I am.... are we having an argument? If so, are you sure you know what you're talking about? You're spitting a lot of textbook theory, and you're ignoring (or oblivious to) a number of factors that effect the Great Lakes region.
Just checking before I correct you, don't want to choose an inapropriate tone.

Certainly the dewpoint on the water can be a lot different from the dewpoint on nearby land; but it usually works out to be higher, at least in the colder months. One relevant scenario I see: the near-shore marshlands get a lot hotter than the middle of the lake, so the dewpoint could be higher "nearer land." The surface temps of the water might be a lot higher near land as well.

http://www.glos.us/observations/
(click on the dewpoint button then the refresh symbol)

I wish I had a summary of these stations for the summer.

how silly. it seems the argument being put forward is that as far as clothes go, canoe trip in the midwest=hiking in the desert. really? whatever. enjoy your funky wet cotton clothes on your canoe trip.

Dow Williams wrote:An argument about what shirt to wear in the gear section of SP...I knew if I hung around long enough, I would get to witness such a fine discussion. Entertainment indeed. Folks can't even dress themselves for a friggin hike.

That's the thing dow, its not a hike in the desert, its a paddle in the Great Lakes.

He asked the wrong people, what to wear for boating.





DMT

MEL!!!!