Survival and Outdoor Skills

Last night my master naturalist group had a speaker talking about cold weather survival.  He talked about his experience at winter camping, long backpacking trips to Alaska and Maine, canoe trips through white water, guiding students, and dog sledding with the Boy Scouts. He has his own guiding company called Bull Moose Patrol.  Building campfires in a snowy environment is different than building a campfire on solid dry ground.  He suggested an easy fire starter of immersing pure cotton balls in Vaseline and throwing them into a small container for instant flame and fuel. When it comes time to make a fire, just fluff up that cotton ball and light it up.  Or, put that cotton ball into a tin foil bowl and it will burn even longer. He had tips for building snow beds to stay out of the wind at night.  He suggested we take wilderness first aid classes. I was most interested in the clothing for cold weather.  His advice is to separate your options between dry cold and wet cold.  A dry cold is when the weather stays below 15 to 20 degrees Farenheit.  A wet cold is between 15 and 50 degrees.  Hypothermia is more of an issue in a wet cold.  Frostbite is more of an issue in a dry cold.  He suggests we wear 3 layers in both kinds of cold weather.  To remember how to dress remember the three w's-wick, warm and wind.  The layer next to the skin should wick the sweat and moisture away from our skin. The next layer is to keep your warm and the last layer is to keep the wind away from you.  Both wool and synthetic wicking material can wick moisture away from the skin.  Merino wool is less scratchy that other wools.  But in wet cold synthetic might be a better choice as it dries more quickly.  However quick dry fabric is very flammable if you are working around a campfire or camp stove.  Also, synthetic wicking underwear can get quite smelly.  In a dry cold, wool might be a better choice.  However, if you do wear wool wicking underwear, be sure to take it off at night so the moisture caught inside each hollow wool fiber has a chance to dry out.  For the warming layer, wool is again very warm and so is down and so is fleece and so is down.  But if you're wet, down is useless.  Better to wear fleece.  A fleece shirt and be wrung out by hand and whipped around in the air a couple times and the rest of the moisture can be removed by your own body heat. A rain jacket offers good protection from the wind but it can also trap moisture close to you that will make you feel cold.  Some rain jackets have pit zips and other vents.  He made the point that to survive you should observe and make adjustments as your body adjusts to the cold and your exertion level. What is fine now may not be fine ten minutes from now.  There are times when even cotton is a good choice. And then we talked about boots and liners.  This guy had examples of everything from mukluks to bunny boots to sorrels and more. He buys some things at Sportsman's Guide in Saint Paul but also Craig's list and Amazon.  He recommends military surplus but especially Swiss military surplus.  Earth tones help an outdoor person blend into the environment is a less disruptive way but if you want to be rescued royal blue gets the most attention from rescuers. Leaving that nature center I knew a lot more about winter survival than I did walking in!