Surviving a cold night in the woods

[wiiawiwb]

It's still early Spring and not unusual for temperatures to plummet at night.  As we head out to the woods, unexpected circumstances-- break an ankle or leg--can cause us to have to survive the night in perilous conditions.  For little weight, and a little space needed in a pack, you can create a shelter that will get you through the night.

 

Dave Canterbury, of Dual Survival, runs a wilderness survival school called Pathfinders. Great videos of all types of skills. One involves making a shelter using a painters plastic tarp.  It's not difficult to make once you know how to do it and will help make it to the morning, maybe even comfortably. It's based on a shelter by Mors Kochanski.

 

You'll probably never have to use this but knowing how to do it and having the items in your backpack can make all the difference. I always have it with me in shoulder seasons.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv1Px1JTQZ0  - Part 1

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq5L-yAwn-E  - Part 2

 

[WSA]

Have to say I don't get it, as much as I admire Canterbury's skills. Why would you carry around a flat painter's drop cloth when you can fashion it into a tube tent? Same weight and better function. This was the basic, cheap, lightweight shelter design when I was a kid...weathered sub-freezing temps in a Northern Mid-Atlantic Winter in one. The idea is just take a warm iron, put newsprint over the edges and heat-weld the long dimension together. You want a bed of leaves? Great, no problem. Put those under the tube tent and you don't have to have to curl up on a stinking garbage bag if the leaves are wet. Ventilation and condensation management is also a notch up from his rig. The ends can be closed off with just some sharpened sticks pinned through them.    

[WSA]

Here's another method, one I used decades ago in the Ramsey's Draft Wilderness in VA...I was going to spend the night out in the mountains but all my gear was elsewhere. Went into my Granny's closet and found the heavy mil plastic that a mattress had come in. (She was always salvaging and saving stuff like that). She cut it open on only one end and slipped it off.  Voila! Vapor barrier sleep sack! Can't says it was luxurious sleeping, but it weighed next to nothing and kept the dew off me. Then again...I think my elevated discomfort threshold as younger man helped a lot.

 

[norseman]

24 minutes ago, WSA said:

Have to say I don't get it, as much as I admire Canterbury's skills. Why would you carry around a flat painter's drop cloth when you can fashion it into a tube tent? Same weight and better function. This was the basic, cheap, lightweight shelter design when I was a kid...weathered sub-freezing temps in a Northern Mid-Atlantic Winter in one. The idea is just take a warm iron, put newsprint over the edges and heat-weld the long dimension together. You want a bed of leaves? Great, no problem. Put those under the tube tent and you don't have to have to curl up on a stinking garbage bag if the leaves are wet. Ventilation and condensation management is also a notch up from his rig. The ends can be closed off with just some sharpened sticks pinned through them.    

Ive basically done that with a plastic blue tarp before. What I didn’t like about it was that I was constantly sliding out of it. The ground wasn’t level. I finally gave up, laid on the ground and pulled it over me. 

[wiiawiwb]

1 hour ago, WSA said:

Have to say I don't get it, as much as I admire Canterbury's skills. Why would you carry around a flat painter's drop cloth when you can fashion it into a tube tent? Same weight and better function. This was the basic, cheap, lightweight shelter design when I was a kid...weathered sub-freezing temps in a Northern Mid-Atlantic Winter in one. The idea is just take a warm iron, put newsprint over the edges and heat-weld the long dimension together. You want a bed of leaves? Great, no problem. Put those under the tube tent and you don't have to have to curl up on a stinking garbage bag if the leaves are wet. Ventilation and condensation management is also a notch up from his rig. The ends can be closed off with just some sharpened sticks pinned through them.    

 

The design he uses is to have a flat front facing the fire and a slanted back. The heat from the fire causes a warming of the flat side. Heat is transfered in and is reflected back into the living area using a silver, refective space blanket which is on the back inner side of the structure.

 

It is a very efficient and effective way to allow heat in and keep it there through the use of the space blanket. On a 10F day, the temperature inside will range from 70F-90F. You have to modulate the intensity of the fire.

[BlackRockBigfoot]

1 hour ago, WSA said:

Here's another method, one I used decades ago in the Ramsey's Draft Wilderness in VA...I was going to spend the night out in the mountains but all my gear was elsewhere. Went into my Granny's closet and found the heavy mil plastic that a mattress had come in. (She was always salvaging and saving stuff like that). She cut it open on only one end and slipped it off.  Voila! Vapor barrier sleep sack! Can't says it was luxurious sleeping, but it weighed next to nothing and kept the dew off me. Then again...I think my elevated discomfort threshold as younger man helped a lot.

 

Ramsey's Draft?  I used to kick around Augusta County.

[WSA]

11 hours ago, BlackRockBigfoot said:

Ramsey's Draft?  I used to kick around Augusta County.

Great Country. My mother was born in a house up against Little North Mountain, out at Summer Dean/Middlebrook, and both my parents still live about a mile from there. Have deep connections to that part of the world...going back to 1700's when we were trying to keep the Shawnee on the other side of the Allegheny (and largely failing at that)! 

  

  

[WSA]

12 hours ago, wiiawiwb said:

 

The design he uses is to have a flat front facing the fire and a slanted back. The heat from the fire causes a warming of the flat side. Heat is transfered in and is reflected back into the living area using a silver, refective space blanket which is on the back inner side of the structure.

 

It is a very efficient and effective way to allow heat in and keep it there through the use of the space blanket. On a 10F day, the temperature inside will range from 70F-90F. You have to modulate the intensity of the fire.

Right! I overlooked that advantage....the open side does give you some versatility for opening/closing. When I saw that he was securing it with that sapling I immediately thought; "Why not get a tube tent instead?"  Makes sense, although I've found the need to stoke a fire all night is just a recipe for a poor night's sleep....and gives away your position too! 

[WSA]

13 hours ago, norseman said:

Ive basically done that with a plastic blue tarp before. What I didn’t like about it was that I was constantly sliding out of it. The ground wasn’t level. I finally gave up, laid on the ground and pulled it over me. 

 They are slick as owl crap, yeah. Dead-level is the only way to make them work.  Pretty much you do end up doing a burrito, no matter what method you use. Speaking of Spring weather....April of '75 I was pinned down in a surprise ice storm above the Delaware Water Gap on the AT after having hiked all day in jeans and cheap windbreakers in a driving rain. Back then, you looked at the weather forecast before you went to sleep the night before leaving. After that, you were pretty much in God's hands, LOL. Had a cheap cotton sleeping bag (which got wet) and a do-it-yourself tube tent. No such things as ensolite or Thermarests back in those days, and if there were we probably could not have afforded them. I'm surprised I wasn't stuck to the ground the next morning. Good time, good times....

Edited April 1, 2021 by WSA

[norseman]

3 hours ago, WSA said:

 They are slick as owl crap, yeah. Dead-level is the only way to make them work.  Pretty much you do end up doing a burrito, no matter what method you use. Speaking of Spring weather....April of '75 I was pinned down in a surprise ice storm above the Delaware Water Gap on the AT after having hiked all day in jeans and cheap windbreakers in a driving rain. Back then, you looked at the weather forecast before you went to sleep the night before leaving. After that, you were pretty much in God's hands, LOL. Had a cheap cotton sleeping bag (which got wet) and a do-it-yourself tube tent. No such things as ensolite or Thermarests back in those days, and if there were we probably could not have afforded them. I'm surprised I wasn't stuck to the ground the next morning. Good time, good times....

As a boy in the 70’s I had a wool army blanket of my fathers, a case knife and a Ruger 10/22. Where ever I hiked I just made a lean to out of fir boughs. I remember a couple of wet nights out there! I shot a lot of ruffed grouse and would sometimes pack a can of beans along. I wanted to be a mountain man as a kid. Fun, fun!

 

It toughened me up for mule skinning in the Rockies later on in life!

[wiiawiwb]

14 hours ago, norseman said:

As a boy in the 70’s I had a wool army blanket of my fathers, a case knife and a Ruger 10/22. Where ever I hiked I just made a lean to out of fir boughs. I remember a couple of wet nights out there! I shot a lot of ruffed grouse and would sometimes pack a can of beans along. I wanted to be a mountain man as a kid. Fun, fun!

 

It toughened me up for mule skinning in the Rockies later on in life!

 

The earlier in life a person can experience outdoor adventure the better. Sleeping outdoors and learning techniques involved in making a camp become natural. 

 

19 hours ago, WSA said:

Right! I overlooked that advantage....the open side does give you some versatility for opening/closing. When I saw that he was securing it with that sapling I immediately thought; "Why not get a tube tent instead?"  Makes sense, although I've found the need to stoke a fire all night is just a recipe for a poor night's sleep....and gives away your position too! 

 

If I'm in a position to have to setup and use the shelter, I'm likely in a survival situation. If sleep never comes that night, so be it. The advantage to Dave Canterbury's method is it involves little weight and little space in your backpack. You may never need it so you're not investing in a significant weight increase each time you head out into the woods. Granted, a super lighweight tent, such as a Zpacks or TarpTent, can be erected in a minute or two. However, it's shape is not designed to receive and retain heat within the tent.

 

[NatFoot]

17 hours ago, norseman said:

As a boy in the 70’s I had a wool army blanket of my fathers, a case knife and a Ruger 10/22. Where ever I hiked I just made a lean to out of fir boughs. I remember a couple of wet nights out there! I shot a lot of ruffed grouse and would sometimes pack a can of beans along. I wanted to be a mountain man as a kid. Fun, fun!

 

It toughened me up for mule skinning in the Rockies later on in life!

 

Clay Newcomb - newer to the MeatEater crew is into Mule skinning and bringing a lot of awareness to it for some folks (like me) who've never really been exposed to it.

 

Fun stuff.

[norseman]

3 hours ago, NatFoot said:

 

Clay Newcomb - newer to the MeatEater crew is into Mule skinning and bringing a lot of awareness to it for some folks (like me) who've never really been exposed to it.

 

Fun stuff.

You can get a lot of work done with a mule string!

[BlackRockBigfoot]

3 hours ago, norseman said:

You can get a lot of work done with a mule string!

Being an Easterner, I have absolutely zero experience with using mules in that capacity.  It is fascinating to me though... seems like it would be equal parts frustrating as all get out and fun as heck.

[norseman]

26 minutes ago, BlackRockBigfoot said:

Being an Easterner, I have absolutely zero experience with using mules in that capacity.  It is fascinating to me though... seems like it would be equal parts frustrating as all get out and fun as heck.

If you have trained a dog, you’ll get it right?

 

There is more at stake with mules and mountains. But its the same concept. Its just time and experience.

 

Once everything is dialed in? You can move tons of gear down a 2 ft wide trail 30 miles a day. Every day. It makes backpacking look like sesame street. 
 

They are over there in a cold pup tent camp eating freeze dried food on a rock. And your in a heated wall tent sitting at a table eating steak and beans and drinking beer.

 

And if you kill a 1000 lbs animal 30 miles from nowhere? No biggie!

 

I highly suggest everyone to go with a outfitter once in there life.