Spending time outdoors in the winter is fun but can be dangerous if you wind up lost and are unprepared to deal with the cold conditions. However, being prepared is not impossible. You need to consider your clothing choices, your food selections, and make sure you're bringing the right equipment with you. You also need to be sure you have mastered basic outdoors techniques such as building a fire. Finally, you should carry a survival kit with you at all times. If you take the time to prepare for your winter excursion, it is far more likely to be fun and safe.
Winter Clothing
Simply put, the clothes you choose to wear when you're outdoors in winter can keep you alive, or they can kill you. Your goal should be to stay warm and dry, while at the same time keeping the weight and bulk of your clothing to a minimum.
Some common fabrics for outdoor clothing include cotton, which stays wet for a long time and retains heat poorly; wool, which dries poorly but retains some insulating qualities; down, which takes up a minimum of space and insulates well, but loses its insulating capacity when wet; polyester, which dries quickly and insulates well; and nylon, which can be made waterproof and is typically used as an outer layer.
The trick with winter clothing is to layer many items of clothing one on top of the other. That way, you can put clothes on or take them off, as the weather demands. Your base layer, that is, the layer that touches your skin, should insulate and wick sweat away from your body. Base layers are typically polyester.
Your intermediate layers are primarily insulating and can be fleece, wool or down. Your outer layer should ideally be a windproof, waterproof shell, typically composed of nylon coated with a waterproof film such as Gore-Tex.
Until you get used to being outside in the winter, it's better to bring more clothes than you think you'll need. That way, you won't ever be caught short.
Winter Food
If you don't bring enough to eat, you'll go hungry, and in the winter, going hungry can rapidly turn a bad situation into an unsurvivable one. The main difference between spending time outdoors in the winter and the summer is that in the winter you burn more calories as your body tries to keep its core temperature up.
Therefore, you will need to bring more food than you typically consume in order to have enough while outdoors in the winter. High-fat, high-calorie, dense foods are easy to pack. These include foods such as nuts and seeds, chocolate bars and trail mixes.
Just like clothing, with food it's a good idea to bring too much initially, until you are more comfortable with how much you eat on a typical winter's outing.
Winter Camping Equipment
A few items of typical camping equipment deserve special mention if you're going to be outdoors for an extended period of time in the winter months.
The first is your sleeping bag. Sleeping bags are rated by their manufacturers for warmth--that is, they are certified to be "warm" down to a particular degree. Make sure yours is rated to the temperatures you expect to encounter on your trip. Also, synthetic sleeping bag materials retain much of their warmth if they get wet, and down sleeping bags do not. If you take a down bag with you, be extra careful to keep it dry.
The second item is your stove or, more accurately, your stove's fuel. It could be disastrous to run out of fuel while in the outdoors in winter, so just like clothing and food, make sure you bring more fuel than you expect to use.
Building a fire
Knowing how to build a fire in the winter can save your life. The best way to learn this skill is to practice it in the summer, in a safe environment, before you're called on to use it in an emergency situation.
Here are a few basic tips to get you started. First, your fuel needs to be small and dry. Dry fuel such as firewood will snap easily when you try to break it. Wet wood will not.
Second, your fire needs to have good air ventilation, because fires need oxygen to burn.A typical fire construction that allows good airflow is the tepee design.
Finally, you should bring with you a lighter and a box of strike-anywhere, waterproof matches to make sure you'll be able to light the fire when needed.
Survival Kit
A survival kit should be a combination of small things that will keep you alive in the outdoors until rescue can find you. It should include things such as a flashlight, a compass, a map of the area you're in, a pocketknife, water purification equipment, a lighter and strike-anywhere, waterproof matches and, if you're camping in the winter, some sort of thermal blanket or extra heat-conserving wrap.
Your kit should also contain first aid materials. At a minimum, these should include pain killers, anti-diarrheals, and antihistamines, sterile gauze and Band-Aids, an elastic wrap for stabilizing broken or twisted limbs, an antiseptic skin cream and tweezers for removing things from your skin.
References
- "The National Outdoor Leadership School's Wilderness Guide"; Mark Harvey; 1999
- "Medicine for Mountaineering and Other Wilderness Activities"; James A. Wilkenson, M.D.; 2001
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