                BDS Tactical M-16, AR-15, A-2, 3 Point Sling |
ClothingInsulated, waterproof boots are a good investment if you will be in a cold environment. One of the first times I went camping in the winter, I broke through the ice on a mud puddle, soaking both of my boots. I continued on to the campsite, set up the tent and went to sleep. When I tried to put the boots on in the morning, they were frozen solid. The next day I bought some waterproof boots. Insulation and Shelter
You'll also need to place insulation between your sleeping bag and the ground. To get an idea of how much body heat you lose to the ground, try sleeping on several inches of packed snow with only your sleeping bag separating you from it. In all but the best bags, you'll melt right down to the ground, leaving you with a soon to be frozen sleeping bag and a very uncomfortable night.
That's why a good sleeping mat such as the Therm-A-Rest is so important. If you're going to be sleeping on snow or in extremely cold weather, use one of their self-inflating models. The air inside will help keep you warmer. It's also a good idea to use a tarp or groundcloth as the bottom layer in order to prevent your bag and sleeping mat from touching the snow while you're sleeping. If you don't have a sleeping mat, gather some dead leaves, grass, or pine needles to use for insulation. These organic debris can even be put to good use in constructing a shelter. One of the easiest scenarios is to find a downed tree which you can then place branches against to create a lean to. If it's worth your time and you will need to use the shelter more than once, you can thatch it with pine boughs or bundles of grass to make it more impervious to the elements. If there's enough snow on the ground, use it to cover your shelter and protect you from the wind. Don't put so much on it that it becomes unstable and collapses with you inside. Also, don't use limbs that are so large that they will be dangerous to you if they fall. Be sure that there is adequate ventilation in your snow shelter, especially if you intend to use a candle to provide heat. I've slept in a four person shelter that could stay about 30 degrees warmer than the outside air with two small candles. In fact, if the temperature inside your snow shelter rises above the freezing point, you will have problems with water dripping on you and your bag. If that happens, most of the water will run down to the lowest area of the roof and then drip, so if your face is under the higher part of the shelter, all you have to do is cover the lower part of your bag with plastic to keep it dry. Handwarmers
One thing that I have found useful is a handwarmer. They come in two basic forms -- charcoal and chemical. The chemical variety comes in both disposable (top right) and reusable (top left) forms. The reusable packs are made from sodium acetate and water, using a metal disc as the activator. After gently bending the metal disc, the pack will rapidly heat up and provide heat for about an hour. To recharge it, just place in boiling water for ten minutes and allow it to cool before reactivating.
A charcoal hadwarmer (bottom right) uses a stick of charcoal that you light similar to a cigarette, and place inside. It will burn for six to eight hours and helps to make up for heat loss due to lack of adequate clothing. Just make sure that you have several rubber bands to keep the case from snapping open by mistake. While you're not supposed to use one of these inside your clothing or sleeping bag due to the fire hazard, I have done that on extremely cold nights with no problems other than a small burn on my stomach, once. As always, use common sense when dealing with fire.
WaterDon't underestimate the amount of water you will need in a cold environment. You can just as easily become dehydrated in the cold as in the heat. If snow or freshwater ice are the only forms available to you, they will need to be melted before use. If you try to melt them in your mouth or swallow ice, you will loose much needed body heat and may even suffer internal injuries due to the cold. By volume, freshwater ice yields more water than snow and melts faster. If you don't have a fire or have to keep moving, place the snow or ice in a container under your clothing and use your body heat to do the work. Otherwise, melt it in a pot over a fire or place it in a porous container near the fire and let the melted water drip into a container. Snow BlindnessIn bright sunlight, snow can cause temporary blindness. If you have sunglasses, wear them. Otherwise, cut slits in a piece of cardboard and secure it around your head with a bit of string or paracord. If both of these items are not available, rub charcoal under your eyes. Incidently, I know someone who suffered ocular burns from using a magnifying glass to make fire. This is quite similar to snow blindness and it healed after a few days, but was painful and made him very sensitive to light during that time. Needless to say, it would have rendered him virtually helpless in a survival situation. Sleeping Bag
Last of all, choose the right sleeping bag for your conditions. During my early experiences in winter camping, I used a set of military down bags which consisted of a mountain bag fitted inside of the arctic shell. Given the amount of use they had seen, they kept me alive down to -40F windchill with no shelter, but not comfortably. On the several nights at that temperature, I was also using a Term-A-Rest Camp Rest mat with a fleece blanket inside the bags as supplementary insulation.
After extensive research into who makes the best sleeping bags, I settled on Wiggy's. I now use an Ultima Thule FTRSS (shown at left). It is also a two bag system and will comfortably go down to -40F and probably quite a bit less. Because they have a special form of insulation called Lamelite, Wiggy's bags retain much of their loft even after being vacuum packed for long periods of time. If you are in the market for a quality bag, visit http://www.wiggys.com and read some of the back issues of his newsletter. In several of them he has taken apart several bags manufactured by his competition and he shows them to be the overpriced junk that they are. Thanks for reading this article. Please let me know what you think about it and if you have a great tip to share, send it to contact@weapondoctor.com If I include it in a future edition, I'll give you credit for it. Last updated December 11, 2005 
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