Winter backpacking can mean your footprints are the only ones
out there. That adds to the beauty of the experience, but also
to the danger. Alone and in a cold enviroment, it's important to
know what to do in an emergency. Learning a few basic cold
weather survival skills can save your life.
Fire Making
Imagine slipping into a stream and soaking everything with you,
when you are more than a day from the nearest road and it's
below freezing out. What would you do? Start a fire, of course,
but can you?
Always carry waterproof matches, and practice starting a fire in
the cold BEFORE you go winter backpacking. Learn which tinders
work even when wet. Birch bark, for example, will burn when wet,
and so will sap from pines and spruces. You may have only
minutes before your fingers get too cold to function, so speed
is of the essence.
Winter Backpacking - Survival Shelters
You'll probably have a tent with you, but you still may want to
learn shelter building using snow blocks. Sometimes you can
stomp out blocks without tools, using your feet, and then liff
them from beneath. Just play around in your backyard until you
get the hang of it. In an emergency, or if the weather turns
extremely cold, you may want to put your tent behind a wall of
snow blocks, to stop the wind.
If it isn't raining, a quick survival shelter for warmth is a
pile of dry leaves, grass, braken ferns or other plants. I once
collected enough dried grass from a frozen swamp in thirty
minutes to make a pile several feet thick. I slept warmly in the
middle of it (half the insulating grass above, half below) with
just a jacket, despite below freezing temperatures.
Staying Dry
You can be wet and warm when it far below freezing, as long as
you are active. The moment you stop moving, however, you start
to lose your body heat. Once you get chilled through, it is
difficult to get warm again. Hypothermia (a lowered body
temperature) kills many people every year.
If you get wet, try to get dry before you go to sleep. Put dry
clothes on if you have them, and use a fire to dry any wet
clothes. Earlier in the day, you may be able to hang damp
clothes on your pack to dry in the sun. Often when it is
coldest, the air is dryer.
Try not to sweat. Adjust your layers, removing and adding
shirts, sweaters and jackets as necessary to keep from getting
too hot or too cold. Sweat, and clothes damp with sweat, will
cause you to lose body heat fast once you stop moving. Stay dry
to stay warm.
There are many other cold weather survival skills that you may
want to learn. (You can generate heat by eating fatty foods, for
example.) You don't need to know hundreds of skills and
techniques, but why not learn a few basics, like the ones above,
before your next winter backpacking trip?
About the author:
Steve Gillman is a long-time advocate of lightweight
backpacking. For more on winter backpacking, plus tips, photos,
stories and a new Wilderness Survival Guide, visit The Ultralight
Backpacking Site: http://www.The-Ultralight-Site.com
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