When it comes to winter survival, the primary issue most people think about is attempting to stay warm, and for good reason. In as very little as 15 minutes in cold or wet weather the body can begin displaying symptoms of hypothermia, which will include shivering, chattering teeth and decreased fine motor skills. If not addressed, the body can continue to spiral into a deeper state of hypothermia, that could lead on to unconsciousness, frostbite and potential death in as few as three hours during extreme weather.
Nothing is worse in the winter than walking around with wet clothing or clothing that doesn’t keep you heat. Clothing may be a kind of shelter and it’s your first line of defense against adverse conditions. The key to dressing properly is in the layers you select. Dressing in layers permits you to remove or add clothing to thermo regulate. You definitely need to avoid sweating if at all possible, thus having a layer or two to remove to keep you cooled off is a good way to stay dry and keep your body in check.
I usually dress in three layers when in the eastern woodlands. These layers include a moisture-wicking base layer comprised of wool undergarments, a mid-layer that includes a fleece top and at times bottoms, and an outer shell that’s usually a wool blanket shirt, such as that offered by Lester River Bushcraft, and canvas pants, like those offered by Duluth Trading Company. I’ll also have on some moisture-wicking socks, with wool socks over those betting on my footwear and location. Of course, I have wool gloves with mittens for more extreme weather and always a wool hat of some type.
Wool is my most popular garment as a result of even when it’s wet, it retains 70 percent of its insulating qualities. Not all wools are created equal, as some could irritate your skin more than others, so investigate different types of wools, like alpaca, camel and cashmere, before discounting it all together. As far as footwear, if it’s not below thirty degrees fahrenheit, I’ll usually just wear leather boots that have been properly waterproofed. Once temps drop into the twenties but, I’ll generally wear Muck brand boots. The company’s Arctic Pro boots area hard to beat and have served me fine in temps as low as -20 degrees fahrenheit.
Master The Flame
Once you know you’re dressed properly, fire becomes your best friend in the winter. Not only will fire warm you and cook your food, however it’ll also melt snow and ice, giving you clean water to drink. A properly stocked winter fire-starter kit is an absolute necessity. You can not rely exclusively on a lighter for all your fire-starting needs because they do break and fail. Having many sure-fire ways to create a raging fire allows you to dry out the marginal, wet tinder and wood you’re likely to find. I carry a 0.5-by-6-inch ferro rod on myself whenever I’m out, however I also carry a fire kit.
When it comes to survival tools, two is one and one is none. This can be especially necessary when it involves fire-starters. My personal fire kit contains a backup ferro rod, two lighters, two sticks of fatwood, flint and char cloth, chaga (tinder fungus), hemp twine, canvas cloth, waxed fire-starters in a tin, a 6x magnification lens, and a friction-free bow-drill block.
That might seem like plenty, but it all fits simply and nicely into my hip pouch, called a sporran. These things provide me many alternative choices for starting a fire and the ability to make more fire-starters should I exhaust one possibility.
For example, the tin that carries my waxed fire-starters allows me to make charred cloth or charred natural material, like punk wood i’d come across. The flint I carry is meant to be struck off the spine of my carbon-steel knife, permitting me to save the weight and space a striker would take up. The friction-free bow-drill block eliminates one difficult piece of the bow-drill kit, increasing my odds of success when forced to make friction fire off the landscape.
Whatever things you select for your fire kit, ensure you know how they can be used in multiple ways so that the lack of a fire won’t be the reason you’re in a survival situation. You’ll pick up all your fire-starting needs, including completed, hand-packed fire kits.
Out Of The Elements
A good night’s rest is of important importance in a survival situation, and it becomes even more elusive in the wintertime. Cold extremities, cold spots on your back, the call of the toilet in the middle of the night when you finally got warm—all are things that can generally be avoided if you take the time to shelter properly. conduction sucks heat away from your body and into the cold ground as you lie on it. Convection occurs when the cooler air circulates around your body, again wicking away heat. And heaven forbid you be wet when the wind blows, because it will suck heat away twenty five times quicker than normal! By combating these two forms of thermal action with our shelter construction, we’ll have a more comfortable and quiet night’s sleep.
To prevent conduction, place at least four inches of compressed material between yourself and the ground you plan to sleep on. This compressed material is anything natural, such as leaves, boughs or other debris, however once compressed, it needs to be four inches.
The method we do this is to take two or three 55-gallon drum liners and fill them with debris, which makes a kind of mattress. We then take an emergency space blanket (Mylar) and construct a shelter where the reflective side faces in. Lastly, we drape a sheet of plastic, such as a simple painter’s drop cloth, over the entire shelter. I prefer clear plastic as it makes it easier to keep an eye on your fire, but any color will work.
By draping the plastic over the lean-to, you produce what’s known as a super shelter. You’re preventing convection by covering the shelter, preventing conduction with your mattress and, with the addition of a long fire placed one step in front of your shelter, you take advantage of radiant heat, which turns your shelter into a greenhouse more or less. We have achieved temperatures of one hundred degrees fahrenheit within shelters built with materials from CutMyPlastic in the dead of winter. Just make sure to go away a ventilation hole in your plastic or it’ll become extremely hot.
Stay Hydrated
You are actually a lot of possible to become dehydrated in the winter than in summer. It’s just a slower onset of dehydration due to the ambient temperature. When everything around you is damp, wet and cold, your brain fails to properly method your need for hydration at the appropriate time and delays it until you become thirstier than usual. It’s common to not drink most of the day and, once you do drink, you typically want heated beverages and drink a lot of them, which is what keeps you up going to the bathroom all night.
Set yourself on a hydration schedule by drinking at regular intervals whether or not you feel like it. This may maintain a gradual state of hydration and keep you from staying up most of the night watering the plants. After you eat, ingest foods high in protein, fat and carbohydrates. Carbs get your inner fire stoked, and the fat and protein draw that out for a longer period of time.
By properly preplanning all your outings, you’ll avoid a survival situation all together. Take the time to gear up properly and practice your skills regularly. By doing this, the worst you will come to expect will be an inconvenient camping experience.
Quick Fire Pit Meal Plan
Foil-wraps are simple to make, and you can change up the ingredients for various winter adventures.
The “foil wrap” may be a backwoods camping favorite. The all-in-one meal is hot, nutritious and ready to eat in just forty five minutes!
INGREDIENTS:
- 1 potato, cut to preference
- A handful of meat, such as chicken, beef or venison
- 1 cup of broccoli
- 1 cup of carrots and onions
INSTRUCTIONS:
Season all ingredients heavily with salt, pepper and garlic powder. Also toss in a couple big dabs of butter. Wrap everything in at least three layers of foil. Place the bundle onto the coals of your fire for about 45 minutes to one hour. Remove from coals, cut open the foil and enjoy!
