spending night on mountain

[cattechsummitrider]

I was watching a survival program a couple years ago and they suggested not to waste energy on building a fire. They suggested cutting bunch of branches with needles to keep feet and body off the snow. Build a small snow hut then use the survival blanket over your whole body and have a candle lit. In the program they showed an outside temp around -14 (if I recall) to +4 under the blanket. Pretty impressive from a little candle. So, I pack a good quality candle and the other obvious survival tools.

I agree and disagree with building a fire if you are close to dead trees a fire is nice and going out once in a while took your mind off of the situation( we took shifts collecting fire wood ) we were riding skidoo xm's and took the seats off to sit on dug a deep hole and used space blankets behind us and to make a bit of a roof the space blankets behind us reflected the heat from the fire on our backs we had food water and were toasty warm slept against each others backs sitting on the seats,( I guess side panels would work too but the seats insulated you from the snow) we are always very well prepared and it was an ok night. A few thing we learnt that night is that soup ( chicken noodle) packets boiled up with beef jerky is surprisingly good!!!! Had other food but hot soup is awesome!! Good clothing is worth its weight in gold ( was nice and dry)
Just stay calm and keep your head and all will usually be good

 

[DeNytroguy]

Good story...did you get any sleep?

I got a bunch, can't comment for snowcanon tho. All I know is whenever I woke up it seemed like he was awake...

 

[snowcannon]

Good story...did you get any sleep?

With the wife not knowing where I am, was hard. I did fall asleep, but kept waking up throughout the night. Time awake I was shivering. Then sleeping. Then waking up again and shivering...

 

[skegpro]

No doubt, better off building a snow cave and use a candle for light/heat.
Save your energy.

 

[skegpro]

I was watching a survival program a couple years ago and they suggested not to waste energy on building a fire. They suggested cutting bunch of branches with needles to keep feet and body off the snow. Build a small snow hut then use the survival blanket over your whole body and have a candle lit. In the program they showed an outside temp around -14 (if I recall) to +4 under the blanket. Pretty impressive from a little candle. So, I pack a good quality candle and the other obvious survival tools.

Beeswax, they burn longer

 

[freeflorider]

I was watching a survival program a couple years ago and they suggested not to waste energy on building a fire. They suggested cutting bunch of branches with needles to keep feet and body off the snow. Build a small snow hut then use the survival blanket over your whole body and have a candle lit. In the program they showed an outside temp around -14 (if I recall) to +4 under the blanket. Pretty impressive from a little candle. So, I pack a good quality candle and the other obvious survival tools.

Seen this to,tried it...sorta. Does work for sure,totally the best way providing your legs don’t go to sleep and you move..poof there goes the heat lol.

 

[skegpro]

Just about spent the night once.
Luckily had a sat phone and a credit card with me, heli was there in 20min.

SAR wasn't gonna come get us because we were prepared to spend the night.
And I can't say I blame them.

Wish I had a down jacket and pants.
When you get stressed, you sweat.
And when you don't move much you freeze.

 

[imdoo'n]

i would suggest try an overnight with what you carry on your back, in your back yard just once! if things are a bit to much you can go into your house, crawl into your warm bed and carry on. you then can reassess what you carry, what works and what you need to change. Better to find out in your back yard than when thrown into a life or death situation.


just my opinion, take it for what it is worth, and yes it can happen to you!

 

[eclipse1966]

nice sales pitch Dustin! LOL

Beeswax, they burn longer

 

[fj40]

i would suggest try an overnight with what you carry on your back, in your back yard just once! if things are a bit to much you can go into your house, crawl into your warm bed and carry on. you then can reassess what you carry, what works and what you need to change. Better to find out in your back yard than when thrown into a life or death situation.


just my opinion, take it for what it is worth, and yes it can happen to you!

An instructor in one of the avalanche courses I took suggested this.
When she stayed over night the only thing she added to her gear was a one burner gasoline stove.
I never got a chance to try to do an over night after that.

 

[imdoo'n]

An instructor in one of the avalanche courses I took suggested this.
When she stayed over night the only thing she added to her gear was a one burner gasoline stove.
I never got a chance to try to do an over night after that.

good thing that i see, is if you have a problem at home, you can say screw it and go back into house, warm up, have a hot drink and no harm done. in the bush you can die.

 

[SLEDBUNNYRACING]

Don’t have to spend night, just challenge your group to set up as if spending night. Won’t take long to figure out what you need.
Do it at lunch time after hard morning riding...hungry, tired...just like real.

 

[imdoo'n]

try things out, see what works and what won't, then make some adjustments.

 

[longtrack 156]

We were out once cutting a trail, it was snowing and the bush was very wet, stopped for lunch and tried to light a fire. Almost impossible. Gave up. Lesson for me was too carry a simple alcohol stove.

 

[RGM]

We were out once cutting a trail, it was snowing and the bush was very wet, stopped for lunch and tried to light a fire. Almost impossible. Gave up. Lesson for me was too carry a simple alcohol stove.

Cut the top off a juice box or pop can fill with gas. Put at the bottom of your firewood. dip long stick in gas, light stick, light can. No it won't blow up.

 

[BEL]

Cut the top off a juice box or pop can fill with gas. Put at the bottom of your firewood. dip long stick in gas, light stick, light can. No it won't blow up.

I did this once just with a plastic water bottle, just took the lid off and filled it with gas and stood it in the middle of a tented pile of wood. Was amazing how long it lasted, didn't even melt the bottle until the pile had burned down a long way about an hour later.

 

[Mike270412]

.

 

[fj40]

We were out once cutting a trail, it was snowing and the bush was very wet, stopped for lunch and tried to light a fire. Almost impossible. Gave up. Lesson for me was too carry a simple alcohol stove.

This is why just about every time I went out I made a fire to roast smokes make a tin foil stew or just warm up, so I would know how to make a fire if things went bad.
Where to find the driest wood, how to stop or slow the fire buring into the snow
I was amazed how many people I rode with never made a fire in the bush.

 

[JungleJim]

Back in '94 we spent 3 nights at Silent Pass southwest of Golden on an "unplanned" camping trip... got caught in a whiteout and could not see more than 8 feet in front of you. All we had was our sandwiches which we ate at lunch time on Saturday, matches, one emergency space blanket... did not get picked up till Tuesday early afternoon when the chopper found us. Things we REALLY wished we had:
- Way to communicate to loved ones that we were ok (Inreach, Sat phone)
- Way to melt snow to drink (really sucked drinking water melted in an avalanche shovel over a fire since it had ashes in it)
- Emergency rations (you get VERY hungry after 3 days with no food trying to walk through 4 feet of snow to the McMurdo cabin)
- Dry warm clothes and socks
- Bivvy sack (emergency space blanket was pretty much useless as it ripped and was too small)
- Way to signal search chopper (it flew below us on the Monday and over top of us on Tuesday morning)
- Decent saw to cut firewood (you spend way too much energy collecting deadfall and dead branches from tree wells which is hard/dangerous in the middle of a pitch black night)

Now we carry...
- InReach (be wary of SPOT as the brother of the guy who died in the Keystone avalanche said they had one and pressed SOS but SPOT did not send a chopper as they wanted "independent verifcation" of emergency... WTF???)
- Tin cup with soup mix and tin foil for a lid (good for emergency fuse too)
- Trail Mix and Protein bars (enough for two for 3 days... you end up sharing whatever you have in a real life situation)
- Bivvy bags and tarp (Bivvy large enough for you in your gear)
- Pen flares for signalling (don't rely totally on your GPS and life of your batteries...)
- Compressed down jackets (today's shell jackets/suits will not keep you very warm once you stop moving) and dry socks
- Stihl hand saw and "chain saw in a can"
- Other stuff already mentioned (e.g. waterproof matches, lighters, headlamps, cotton balls in vaseline, etc.)

We didn't do everything right by a long stretch but kept our heads, kept our calm and worked as a team of three. Made it through without even any frostbite as it was going down to -15 C at night but -32C in the valley bottoms (thank God for inversions!).

At the end of the day looking back, nothing is as important as making good decsions... especially in the last hour of the day! Ride Safe.

 

[NoBrakes!]

Back in '94 we spent 3 nights at Silent Pass southwest of Golden on an "unplanned" camping trip... got caught in a whiteout and could not see more than 8 feet in front of you. All we had was our sandwiches which we ate at lunch time on Saturday, matches, one emergency space blanket... did not get picked up till Tuesday early afternoon when the chopper found us. Things we REALLY wished we had:
- Way to communicate to loved ones that we were ok (Inreach, Sat phone)
- Way to melt snow to drink (really sucked drinking water melted in an avalanche shovel over a fire since it had ashes in it)
- Emergency rations (you get VERY hungry after 3 days with no food trying to walk through 4 feet of snow to the McMurdo cabin)
- Dry warm clothes and socks
- Bivvy sack (emergency space blanket was pretty much useless as it ripped and was too small)
- Way to signal search chopper (it flew below us on the Monday and over top of us on Tuesday morning)
- Decent saw to cut firewood (you spend way too much energy collecting deadfall and dead branches from tree wells which is hard/dangerous in the middle of a pitch black night)

Now we carry...
- InReach (be wary of SPOT as the brother of the guy who died in the Keystone avalanche said they had one and pressed SOS but SPOT did not send a chopper as they wanted "independent verifcation" of emergency... WTF???)
- Tin cup with soup mix and tin foil for a lid (good for emergency fuse too)
- Trail Mix and Protein bars (enough for two for 3 days... you end up sharing whatever you have in a real life situation)
- Bivvy bags and tarp (Bivvy large enough for you in your gear)
- Pen flares for signalling (don't rely totally on your GPS and life of your batteries...)
- Compressed down jackets (today's shell jackets/suits will not keep you very warm once you stop moving) and dry socks
- Stihl hand saw and "chain saw in a can"
- Other stuff already mentioned (e.g. waterproof matches, lighters, headlamps, cotton balls in vaseline, etc.)

We didn't do everything right by a long stretch but kept our heads, kept our calm and worked as a team of three. Made it through without even any frostbite as it was going down to -15 C at night but -32C in the valley bottoms (thank God for inversions!).

At the end of the day looking back, nothing is as important as making good decsions... especially in the last hour of the day! Ride Safe.

I dread one night, cant believe you did 3....