If you go backpacking in the winter, you might be the only one there. This makes the trip more beautiful, but also more dangerous. If you are alone and it is cold, you need to know what to do in an emergency. Learning a few simple ways to stay alive in cold weather can save your life.
Fire Making
Imagine falling into a stream and getting everything wet when you're more than a day away from the nearest road and the temperature is below freezing. What do you think? Of course, you can start a fire, but can you?
Always bring waterproof matches with you, and practise starting a fire in the cold BEFORE you go backpacking in the winter. Find out which tinders still work when they are wet. When wet, birch bark and the sap from pines and spruces both catch fire. You might only have a few minutes left before your fingers get too cold to use, so you need to move quickly.
Survival Shelters for Winter Backpacking
You might have a tent with you, but you might still want to learn how to build a shelter out of snow blocks. You can sometimes break through blocks without tools by stomping on them and then lifting them up. Just mess around in your yard until you figure it out. In an emergency or if it gets very cold, you might want to block the wind from your tent by putting it behind a wall of snow blocks.
If it isn't raining, a pile of dry leaves, grass, broken ferns, or other plants can keep you warm quickly. I once spent 30 minutes gathering enough dried grass from a frozen swamp to make a pile that was several feet high. Even though it was below freezing, I slept warmly in the middle of it, where half of the grass was above and half was below.
Staying Dry
If you keep moving, you can be wet and warm when it's well below freezing. But as soon as you stop moving, your body heat starts to go away. Once you're cold all the way through, it's hard to warm up again. Many people die every year from hypothermia, which is a low body temperature.
If you get wet, try to dry yourself off before you go to bed. If you have dry clothes, put them on, and use a fire to dry wet clothes. You might be able to dry wet clothes by hanging them on your pack early in the day. When it's cold, the air is often drier.
Don't sweat too much. Change your layers by taking off or putting on shirts, sweaters, and jackets as needed to stay warm or cool. When you stop moving, you lose body heat quickly if you sweat or if your clothes are wet from sweat. To stay warm, stay dry.
You may want to learn many other ways to stay alive in cold weather. (For example, if you eat fatty foods, your body will produce heat.) You don't need to know hundreds of skills and techniques before your next winter backpacking trip, but why not learn a few basics, like the ones above?
