Editor’s Note: In Issue 34 of our magazine, we introduced the new Bag Drop column. In each edition of the column, our staff and contributors share survival pack loadouts and explain the logic behind the items they contain. No two people will carry the exact same gear or have the same needs, so Bag Drop offers some food for thought that can help you consider the gear you carry and the reasons you carry it.

We also asked you to share some of your own bag setups with us. The following is a submission from a reader named Richard Weiss, who lives in a cold part of Michigan between two of the Great Lakes. If you’d like to share your own survival pack setup, send me an email.

Here are some of my survival packs — I’ve got so many. I live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Up in Calumet, their record is over 30 feet of snow during the winter, and generally all over the Upper peninsula below zero is the norm in this season. Blizzards are not rare, and we drive 30 minutes to get to Walmart.

My car emergency go-bag contains the following items:

• Mittens
• Scarf
• Below-zero emergency bag (like an ultra-compact sleeping bag)
• Hand warmers
• Cree LED flashlight
• 4 mags for HK VP9 handgun
• 2 boxes of 9mm ammo
• Kershaw folding knife
• iPhone backup battery

For long trips, I also add a gun to the pack as a backup to my carry pistol. It’s a S&W Governor revolver with 2 boxes of Critical Defense .410 shells.

When hunting in the Rockies, I carry a digital camo backpack with water reservoir. It also contains the following gear.

Side compartments:

• Headlamp
• Cree flashlight
• Blood tracking light
• Various spare batteries
• Nalgene canteen

Lower compartment:

• First aid pack with extra Ibuprofen and aspirin
• Small roll of toilet paper
• Small pack of wet wipes
• Mini bottle of anti-bacterial soap
• Alcohol wipes
• Waterproof matches
• Long-flame butane lighter
• Fire starter cubes
• Mini roll of red duct tape

Middle compartment:

• Leica binoculars
• HD Thermal monocular
• Heat packs
• Kershaw folding knife

Deep top compartment:

• Gutting gloves
• Jersey cotton gloves
• Chocolate bars and bagels
• Bandanna
• Coil of paracord
• Reflective-face heavy-duty shelter tarp
• Small roll bright orange surveying tape
• Chill choker, reversible color
• Chuke hat, reversible color
• Extra mitten gloves

Cinch straps on the outside of the pack retain outerwear while hiking. I remove excess layers while walking uphill to avoid sweating. The top of the pack also has a handheld GPS w/ OnX Maps and 2 carabiners.

I wear a separate gun belt while at my hunting property here in the Yoop. This offers a means of protection from wolves and bears. It consists of:

• .44 cal Ruger Super RedHawk
• Rifle ammo pouch
• Handgun ammo pouch
• Sheath knife with gut hook
• Rangefinder pouch

– Richard Weiss, St. Ignace, MI

The post Reader’s Bag Drop: Winter Survival Pack Loadouts appeared first on RECOIL OFFGRID.

Illustrations by Cassandra Dale

“Hey, we should climb up to someplace high before it gets dark. Maybe the phones will work up on a ridge or something.” Even before you shoot your friend a look that says dumbest plan ever, he looks down at your damaged knee and says “Oh, right. Never mind.” After a few minutes pass, the snowfall seems to increase and another awful plan gets proposed: “You know, if we could stand by the roadside long enough, some hot girls would probably pick us up, especially with you looking like a broken-legged puppy and all.”

The snow was still falling. The light was fading fast. The car was completely off the road and there was no sign of anyone else in the area. Worst of all, your buddy didn’t have his head in the game. Dan was a cheerful guy and a good friend, but right now you just wish he’d shut the hell up. It’s time to come up with a real plan, you figured. Then the first shiver hit your body. Your thoughts darkened. Maybe it’s already too late for a real plan.

Cold is one of humanity’s oldest and most relentless foes. Even by itself, the frigid air can rob our bodies of the heat we need to stay functional (and alive). If you add wind and moisture into the mix, hypothermia (the dangerous chilling of the body’s core temperature) can occur in no time. Of course, anyone with enough sense to come in out of the rain will try to go indoors to warm up when the weather gets glacial. But what happens when there’s no place to warm up?

In this edition of What If?, we pose the question: What if you’re stranded in winter? As our ancestors discovered, there’s more than one way to survive in the cold, so RECOIL OFFGRID asked three survival writers for their own spin on a winter survival story.

For this installment, we have Ryan Lee Price, a freelance journalist and outdoors enthusiast who has also contributed to the SHTF column in our sister publication, RECOIL. We also have Erik Lund, a longtime contributor who’s also a federal law enforcement agent with a bevy of tactical and survival experience.

And for the final frosty tale, ROG asked me to carve a story out of the snow as well. I’ve been teaching people how to survive the cold (and many other challenges) for the past 20 years. I’ve also written multiple New York Times-bestselling survival manuals from my experience. And it’s an honor and a privilege to be able to share my stories in the What If? feature. So grab your mittens and some hot cocoa, because the temperature is about to plummet.

The Scenario

Situation Type
Stranded in winter

Your Crew
You and your college roommate, Dan (both early 20s)

Location
Superior National Forest, Minnesota

Season
Winter (December)

Weather
Cloudy, 17 to 30 degrees F

The Setup: Originally from Arizona, you’ve always wanted to ride a dogsled since wearing out a VHS copy of White Fang as a kid. Because you’re staying in your dorm at the University of Minnesota Duluth during the holiday break, you ask your roommate, Dan, if he wants to join you on a spontaneous road trip. Suffering from cabin fever, he happily agrees.

You set up the dogsled tour and assorted activities while he preps his older Acura TL for the three-hour drive to the dogsled winter resort in Grand Marais. You give him a list of supplies and rations to pack into a vehicle emergency kit. “No worries,” Dan says, claiming he’s a veteran of winter driving, having grown up in Dayton, Ohio.

Two days later, you hit the road and find it to be a mild ride for the first two hours or so. Constant snowfall, but nothing crazy. While on Gunflint Trail, just 45 minutes from your destination, Dan hits a patch of black ice and the car spins out of control. It hits the snow embankment, launching off the road and tumbling into some trees.

The Complication: You wake up minutes (hours?) later to an unconscious Dan and snow in every direction. Did you land in a mound of snow or has the snowfall covered your vehicle? Or maybe the car’s upside down? Quickly rousing Dan, you’re relieved to find him otherwise functional with only a cut on his head and some bruises memorializing his injuries..

The shock gives way to pain. You grimace as you look at your knee. It doesn’t look mangled, but it’s definitely not working. You’re not sure if it’s a sprain or worse. You tell Dan to grab the emergency bag; the first-aid kit should help. “I forgot it back home,” he says, looking like he just crapped the bed. “It” and all the other survival supplies. Bad just got worse.

The New Plan: Stranded in the middle of nowhere with snow all around (with more falling by the hour) and daylight fading fast in this northern state, you have to figure out how to get help with the following limitations:

• Knee injury
• Vehicle damaged by trees and stuck in snow
• No cellphone reception or Internet connectivity
• Time is roughly 3:30 p.m. (sunset is around 4:40 p.m.)

Federal Agent: Erik Lund’s Approach

I didn’t need to say anything; Dan knew how badly he had screwed up.

He hung his head and quietly said, “My bad. I shouldn’t have forgotten the kit.” Dan found his phone and attempted to dial 911. “I don’t have any reception. Do you?” I quickly looked around, but I didn’t see my phone anywhere in the car.

“I don’t know where it is.” We looked around the inside of the car, but couldn’t find it.

The pain in my knee refocused my attention on the immediate problem of determining the seriousness of my injury.

“My knee is pretty messed up. I don’t think I can walk, and I definitely won’t be able to make it through the snow.” Dan asked if I was bleeding or if anything else hurt. “I don’t see any or feel any blood, but I can feel my knee swelling up, and the pain is pretty intense.” Dan said he would try to get out and come around to my door.

After smacking the driver side door with his shoulder, Dan was able to squeeze out and walk around to my side. He tried several times to open the door, but the damage to my side of the car seized the door in place.

Dan walked back around and stuck his head in the car, “That door isn’t coming open, too much damage. You think you can climb over the seats and come out my side?” I squirmed a little and a lightning bolt of pain ran through my knee.

I looked at Dan and shook my head, “I can’t move.”

A look of guilt ran across Dan’s face. He said, “I’m gonna head up to the road and check my reception. If I don’t have any signal, I’ll see if I can flag anyone down. I’ll be back for you.” I nodded my head in approval and watched him leave. I laid my head back and closed my eyes and thought, I hope someone shows up. My knee is killing me, and it’s gonna get cold real fast.

After an hour, the sun disappeared and darkness was quickly approaching. Dan finally came back. I could tell by the look on his face the news was not good.

“I walked up the road about a half mile in both directions. No luck on getting a signal, and I didn’t see a single car. My hands and feet are about frozen solid,” he said. I told Dan that I appreciated his efforts, but we needed to prepare for spending the night in the car. Dan agreed and reached into the back seat and started pulling out the heavy clothing we had packed for our adventure.

Despite being on the verge of frostbite, Dan helped to get my sweatpants and snow pants on over my injured knee. After struggling into the rest of my clothes, I finally was able to sit back, rest, and think about our options.

As I started to settle in, Dan said, “I’ll be back, I’m going to make a signal in case someone comes down the road.” He grabbed his backpack and headed back out into the cold night. I asked Dan how, but he just told me to try to keep warm and that he’d be back. Dan opened up the trunk and started digging around. Ten minutes later, I watched Dan walk off into the darkness carrying, of all things, our spare tire.

The wind had picked up and was starting to howl while the outside temperature was falling quickly, but at the moment I was surprisingly warm inside the car. All of the additional clothing provided enough insulation to maintain some warmth for my body. Dan had been gone for more than 30 minutes and, although I was hopeful that someone may have stopped to help us, I was concerned for him.

It was damn cold outside, and Dan was sure to be hypothermic by now. The feeling of helplessness was crushing, but it did take my mind off of my throbbing knee.

Abruptly, Dan stuck his head back into the car. “Give me all of the clothes you have left in your bag.”

I pushed my bag across to him and asked, “What the hell are you doing, dude?”

Dan responded, “I’m going to redeem myself and save your ass!” Before I could respond, Dan closed the door and was moving off back toward the road again. Unable to do anything to help him, I tried to maintain a positive attitude and think about how this trip turned out to be one hell of an adventure.

Dan stumbled back to the car about 20 minutes later.

Climbing into the driver seat, I noticed Dan was visibly shivering uncontrollably. “We’re going to be OK,” he said. Over the next few minutes, my roommate explained how he grabbed the spare tire, some road flares, and the spare quart of oil he kept in the trunk and went up to the road. Stacking the supplies on the side of the road, his next task was to locate some wood that was dry enough to burn.

When he located enough wood, Dan made his way back to the vehicle to collect the clothes that we weren’t using to keep warm. Working his way back up to the road with the clothes, he pulled out the brightest colors in the group and set them aside. Dan walked out into the middle of the road and started clearing the snow away from a small area as best as he could.

Next he took all the of brightest colored clothes and made an arrow on the ground pointing toward the area of the embankment where we ran off the road and our car was stranded. Dan then took the spare tire, deflated it, and rolled it out into the middle of the road.

Dan drenched all of the remaining clothes with the spare quart of oil. He then took a few of the wood logs and laid them out on the ground in the center of the road with several of the oil-soaked clothes packed in and around them. Next, my buddy laid the spare tire on the pile and stacked the remaining logs and branches on top of the tire. He stuck a few of the flares in the oil-soaked clothes and ignited the last flare, pushing it under the tire into the pile.

In a few moments everything was ablaze in a huge bonfire with thick black smoke from the burning tire rising into the night air. The signal fire and arrow would direct anyone coming down the road to our location and the tire and wood should burn for several hours. Dan intended on checking on the fire every hour through the night to keep it going.

When he was finished, I looked at my roommate in amazement and tried to express my appreciation for his ingenuity, but in the end the only words I could manage was “Thank you.”

Dan looked back and me, still shivering, and simply said, “I got this, dude.” I unzipped my jacket and reached across and grabbed his shivering hands.

I placed a hand under each of my armpits in an attempt to warm up his fingers to prevent frostbite, and we bro-hugged until his shivering subsided. Throughout the evening and into the night as I tried to stay warm, he would periodically get out of the car and tend to the fire. Some trips were quick and others would take longer as he searched for more dry wood to burn. Each time he would return shivering and frozen.

I awoke to a loud banging on the roof of the car, a blinding light piercing through the frost-covered window, and a voice yelling, “Hello!” It was past 2 in the morning when a Minnesota state trooper working the midnight shift happened upon our signal fire. It had just about died out, but following Dan’s signal arrow, the Trooper located our car down the embankment.

Thirty minutes later, a fire and rescue unit arrived. The firemen had to cut open the door to get me out of the car. They rigged up a basket and pulley system to hoist me up the embankment. Even after spending more than 10 hours in freezing temperatures, the warm cabin of the ambulance quickly raised my body temperature — unfortunately it also thawed out my knee and the pain came flooding back. I asked the medic how Dan was doing.

She said that some of his toes had frostbite but he would be all right.

While processing that bit of information, the medic added, “The trooper said that without that signal fire, he would have driven right past you guys. There’s no telling how long you may have been trapped down that embankment. It was a good thing your friend kept that fire going.” I looked back at her and smiled, “Yeah, he’s the kind of guy who would do anything for you.”

Average Joe: Ryan Lee Price’s Approach

It’s tough to piece together what happened since everything after seeing the deer dart onto the road was a blur. There were screeching tires, trees, snow, road, a jarring crash, and then blackness. I awoke with Dan’s panic-stricken face yelling at me to wake up. I don’t know how long it had been, but he was upside-down; my whole world was upside-down and all white. My leg was twisted in an awkward position under the glovebox, and it seemed like everything we were taking with us that weekend had exploded around the cabin of Dan’s Acura TL.

It was supposed to be a simple three-hour drive from the University of Minnesota Duluth to a historic resort on the Gunflint Lake near the Canadian border. After grabbing lunch at the Angry Trout Café on the banks of the snow-swept Lake Superior in Grand Marais, we left Highway 61 for Country Road 12, a slender ribbon of blacktop that winds its way north. Being used to the arid desolation of Arizona is nothing compared to the sheet whiteness of northern Minnesota in winter. Thick forests of trees butted up against the road, their branches loaded with snow.

The last thing I remembered before seeing the deer was Lullaby Creek Road on the left because I made a joke about how quiet it probably was. Then, Dan put the car into a sweeping right turn a mile or so later. The next thing I knew, the car was upside-down, surrounded by trees and half buried in the snow. The passenger windows were shattered, there were deployed airbags everywhere, and the windshield was a spider-webbed mess.

Dan had already unbuckled his seatbelt and was sitting on the ceiling of the car in absolute shock. “You OK?” he asked.

“I think my leg is broken,” I winced. “Help me down.” Dan unbuckled my seatbelt, and I very ungracefully crumpled onto the ceiling of the car with a crushing pain in my leg.

“We need to get out of here.” Dan crawled around me and shimmied himself out of the window, sinking into the snow. I was able to pull myself out of the window with Dan’s help, but not without excruciating pain. Both of us, in the now fading light of the late afternoon sun, were speckled with various cuts and scrapes; a few of them could use bandaging.

“First order of business, let’s find that emergency kit you packed and get some of these wounds cleaned up,” I suggested. “Is it in the trunk?”

“Um,” Dan started. “About that ….”

Somewhere between expecting a bang but hearing a click, and hearing a bang but expecting a click, the worst sound you’ll hear is your roommate saying, “I left the supplies at home.” It was as if someone just punched me in the nuts. I fumed. It had emergency food, water, matches, signaling devices … everything we might need for a situation exactly like this.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” Dan defended. “I’ll just hike up to the road and flag down a car. We’re, what, 50 yards from the road?”

“When’s the last time we passed a car on this road?” I asked.

Dan didn’t need to answer that because we both knew. It was never. Since leaving the café at Grand Marais two hours before, we hadn’t passed a single car.

We were stranded and, with night quickly approaching, likely stranded until morning — so we needed to get our gear together while we could still see it. Dan pulled the carpets out of the car, and we used those to sit on to avoid sinking into the snow. Since the whole point of the trip was to go dog sledding at the resort, we had plenty of winter clothes and likely wouldn’t freeze to death, but my immediate problem was my leg. It was already getting cold and would be quite a painful struggle to tug on snow pants over it. Plus, it needed to be splinted so I would stop involuntarily moving it.

Luckily, Dan and I are both avid magazine readers, so there were a couple of old issues of RECOIL OFFGRID in the back of the car. Their large format and thick pages were perfect for a leg split. Dan wrapped a couple of issues around my knee and tied them tight with shoelaces from my extra pair of boots. It would hold. Now onto other problems.

Dan and I didn’t expect we would be here for more than the night, but we agreed that his trekking up to the road and waiting for someone to come along while leaving me and my leg by the car wasn’t a good idea. At least, not at night. The news during the winter is littered with stories of people dying in the snow mere feet from their cars — plus, we weren’t sure how much snow would dump on us during the night.

Surprisingly enough, being stuck in the snow is similar to being stuck in the ocean or the desert. You’re surrounded by water that you can’t drink like in the ocean, and you’re in a place that’s just as dry as the desert.

Rummaging in his car, Dan found a metal coffee thermos and a mug. We packed those with as much snow as we could, and Dan placed them in the upturned engine compartment. It was still warm and might melt some of the snow into water. Until then, we only had two 16-ounce bottles of water to drink. That is, until they’d freeze.

Darkness was coming fast. We had two choices, neither too pleasant: Either build a makeshift shelter in the snow or hunker down in an upside-down car for the night. We decided on the car. When the temperature dropped below freezing again that night, at least we’d have some shelter. The trick would be to keep the side of the car clear of fresh falling snow so it wouldn’t entomb us during the night.

There was no cell signal at all, and the roadside assistance feature on Dan’s Acura wasn’t functioning. The hazards were blinking, casting an eerie orange pall over the snow. The horn worked too, but we figured we’d save that for tomorrow if we needed it.

We decided against a fire for the moment. With little effort, gasoline could be harvested from the car to help get a blaze going. Additionally, we had plenty of things to burn during the night — canvas shoes, extra clothes, suitcases, sports equipment — for one reason or another, Dan had a few ping-pong balls, which are made from nitrocellulose, a very flammable material.

Since it looked as though we’d be spending the night, we shored up the damaged windows with the suitcases and spread out over the ceiling all of the extra clothes, snow suits, floor mats, and whatever else we could find that would insulate us from the snow below. Since I couldn’t move very far, Dan shoveled as much snow as he could up against the three other sides of the car. Snow is an excellent insulator, and by creating an improvised igloo around the car with snowdrift, it would hopefully help retain heat inside the car.

Sure, it was going to be cold, but with the two of us well-dressed for dog sledding, we would be fine. My leg was now swollen and I was in considerable pain, but it would only be for a night.
At sunrise, Dan would venture up to the road and flag down someone. Perhaps because we didn’t show up at the resort as planned, concern would be raised for our whereabouts. Time would only tell, and as the temperature continually dropped, Dan and I huddled close together to conserve body heat.

Damn it — we left the thermos and mug of snow in the engine bay. It’ll be frozen by morning for sure.

Survival Expert: Tim MacWelch’s Approach

“You forgot the emergency kit!?! Are you kidding me!” I shouted. I looked my friend square in the face, “Look, Dan, people die in situations like this.”

Dan laughed and scoffed, “Die! That’s stupid! Only stupid people die from getting cold. Do I look dumb to you or something?” I shook my head as if to say “no,” but I really wanted to say something else. I pulled out my phone and tried to call 911, but there was no service. When Dan saw me trying to make a call, he followed my example, but had no better luck. Great, I thought, this is just what we need.

Trying to rally my falling morale, I suggested that we see what stuff we had to work with. Dan jumped at the idea and began pulling the luggage and everything else from the tumbled vehicle. We had clothing and outerwear, a bit of food and water, our electronics, and not much else. There was no first-aid gear, no matches to make a fire, no sleeping bags or bedding.

We decided (after much debate and many wild ideas), that we should stay put and build a fire. This could keep us warm and signal our distress to any passing drivers. Dan wanted to walk down the snow-covered road, but he finally agreed to stay after I reminded him again that I couldn’t walk and that he didn’t really want to drag me through the cold.

If my mood had been poor before we formed our fire-building plan, it was truly sour after we went through our supplies a second time to confirm that there were no matches or lighters. Dan’s car was new enough that it didn’t even have ashtrays or a cigarette lighter. Good God, I thought, are we going to die because neither of us smoke?

As I pondered this, I started shivering. This reminded me to put on all the clothing and outerwear that I had. It also reminded me of something from school. My biology professor’s voice jumped into my head and began droning on about our body’s tools for survival. “Shivering is a physiological response to the body’s temperature dropping.” As a pre-med student, I had a slightly better clue to the vulnerability of the human body than business student Dan did, and much more so than most of my classmates who often espoused invulnerability. I definitely understood our peril better than Dan. But what I didn’t understand was how we were going to make a fire in the snow.

No lighter, no matches, no way to light the fire we desperately needed. We took shelter in the car and tried to figure out a way to signal any passing car. We tried to start the car, to run it for heat. The engine wouldn’t even turn over. Dan collected a few sticks from the surrounding brush and used a strip of cloth to create a tripod right on the edge of the road. From this stick “tipi” he hung a red shirt, but as I watched through the cracked car window, the snow quickly stuck to the cloth and soon obscured it from view.

When he returned to the car, Dan talked briefly again about walking through the snow to find help, but even he began to realize just how dangerous that idea would be. It could be a death sentence to leave the car in this kind of weather, so we decided to focus on the fire. Dan dismantled his vape device in hopes that there would be some ignition source inside. As he worked, he grumbled about the irony of the situation.

“You know, if I were still smoking cigarettes, we’d have a way to make fire,” he said.

Comments like that didn’t help us at all, and I swore that the throbbing in my knee increased after hearing Dan’s thoughtless comment. The vape smoker held no way to make a fire that we could discover, so I started thinking about other options. We had two phones and a flashlight. And we needed light to signal for help.

We decided to hang the flashlight from the tripod instead of the red shirt, and this was a solid improvement. We had no idea of the runtime the batteries would provide, but a flashlight twisting from a string was a better signal than we had before. We never actually saw the sun set due to the heavy cloud cover and snow, but by 5 p.m. it was truly dark.

I couldn’t escape the feeling that we would die if we didn’t get a fire, and once Dan returned from setting up the flashlight as a roadside beacon, I asked him to help me hobble to the hood of the car. Dan hit the hood latch, but the crumpled hood wouldn’t rise. We took turns prying with Dan’s small knife and still had no luck opening the engine compartment.

Finally, after beating on the hood while Dan worked the latch, I pried open the hood and surveyed the engine. There were plenty of flammable fluids in a car, and electricity to make sparks. But Dan didn’t even have jumper cables to help our situation.

I swore that if we lived through this, I’d have very different rules about the supplies for winter travel from then onward. If we made it, I thought.

As my hope was growing thin, Dan stepped up for once with a good idea at a good time. He grabbed a cotton sock from his luggage and began to scrape it with my knife. I held my phone aloft for light, and he produced a small fuzz ball of cotton fiber. Then wiggling the battery cable loose, he touched it to the post repeatedly over the fuzz ball until a spark finally lit the cotton.

The fuzz burned bright for a few seconds and then it was gone, but it was proof of concept! I asked him with amazement where he learned such a trick. He said it was called a “prison match” and he learned it from the Survivorman TV show. I looked at Dan with a whole new appreciation. Maybe we had a chance after all. Realizing that we were onto something, Dan dipped a piece of the cotton sock in some steering fluid (the easiest reservoir to reach), and I scraped a monstrous ball of fuzz from one of the socks. After several minutes of work, the battery cable stark ignited the fuzz ball, which in turn lit the oil-soaked sock fabric. Unbelievably, we had created a flame!

Dan fed pages of the car owner’s manual to the oily sock that was quickly melting down into the snow by the side of the car. I scraped the ground to make a clear patch, and told Dan to hurry as he grabbed sticks and twigs to feed our new fire. But then I realized our mistake. We needed the fire up by the road, not down in the ditch with our car. I grabbed another sock, soaked it in steering fluid and wrapped it around a stick. I told Dan I would nurse the fire by the car if he built one by the roadside.

In the darkness, the white snow reflected our firelight and gave us a surprising amount of light to see. I hopped back and forth collecting sticks, and Dan did a fine job kindling a blaze on the roadside. I knew it would be a constant battle to feed two fires, but we needed both for heat and light. With his fire burning bright, Dan returned to the car to build up my fire.

How our fortunes had changed. Just a few hours ago, I had felt that Dan would be the death of us both. But he turned out to be the hero after all.

We sat in the car, doors open to receive the heat of our fire. We dozed a bit through the night. We also ate our food and drank our water. Dan awoke each time the fire ran low and brought in more wood to feed the blaze. The snow deepened as the hours passed, and Dan let the roadside fire go out so that he could focus on the fire that was keeping us warm. It was getting light again and the snowfall had finally stopped when Dan returned to the roadside with several burning sticks to rebuild our signal fire.

The morning was bitterly cold, and our movement was sluggish, but he helped me work my way up to the roadside to warm myself by the new fire. There we sat, perched on our luggage in a sea of white, hunkered by the only color in sight — the beautiful orange fire.

And as luck would have it, it wasn’t too long before we both heard a strange sound like a dull roar. It got louder, and to our elation, we saw a snowplow coming toward us on the twisting road. Dan started jumping and shouting, but the driver was already flashing his lights when he saw two figures by a fire on the edge of the road. The best sound I’ve ever heard was the squeak of the airbrakes as the driver stopped beside us.

Conclusion

It’s been said that fortune favors the bold, but in my experience fortune favors the prepared. And there’s no better time to be prepared than in the winter. Survival is hard enough when the weather is nice and the temperatures are within the Goldilocks zone (not too hot or too cold). When the temperature drops, your odds of survival naturally drop with it.

In frigid conditions, staying warm becomes harder. Lighting fires becomes harder. Your water filter can freeze up, and you can easily lose your gear in fresh powdery snow. With all these factors (and many more) stacked against you, it’s critical for you to travel through the winter landscape with the supplies that will keep you alive and the skills to use them.

Keep a well-stocked survival kit in every vehicle you own. This could be a bin or duffel bag loaded with shelter items like coats, space blankets, and sleeping bags. It should also contain water and non-perishable food. Use store-bought bottled water, since the bottles are able to expand without bursting. Bring first-aid supplies, lighting devices, and a way to charge your mobile phone too. In addition, bring back-up signaling equipment in case your phone has no signal and bring plenty of fire-starting equipment. Fire has preserved human life in cold climates for millennia, and there’s no reason to skip it now.

Finally, before we go — if you have a vehicle in your survival scenario, stay there! The statistics are clear. People who stay with a car get rescued. People who wander off into the snow usually die. Stay with the vehicle!

The post What If a Winter Road Trip Leaves You Stranded and Injured? appeared first on RECOIL OFFGRID.

This article originally appeared in Issue 6 of our magazine.

Plowing headlong into a snow drift was not exactly what you had in mind when you set off in your car that evening. Nor were you expecting the blizzard that caused this unscheduled stop, since the forecast had only called for flurries. But Mother Nature had other plans that night, very different from the ones you had made. Her plans involved a whiteout and the fool who dared to drive in it. Hope you brought a good sleeping bag — you’re spending a sub-freezing night in your car.

Your sweet new ride may have the works — seat warmers, HID lights, winter tires, and four-wheel drive at the push of a button. Fine capabilities, to be sure. But does it have the things onboard that are actually important?

With space-age advances in design, materials, and vehicle safety, driving in the winter doesn’t seem as intimidating as it once was. But that’s no reason to drive off into the storm, as if looking for trouble. Thousands of vehicles (both high-end and jalopy) expire on the side of road every winter. And what if it’s not engine trouble that leaves you stranded? What if the highway is just gridlocked from an accident, leaving you and hundreds of other motorists hopelessly stuck in the cold? Or perhaps you ran out of gas or had a tire blow out late at night on a remote frozen road. It’s not unthinkable either, to find yourself stranded in the middle of a sudden snowstorm or careening into a snowbank — whether you live in suburbia or far from it.

Winter can be a beautiful season, but don’t let the snowy wonderland fool you into complacency. The cold can kill, just as surely as weapons, and this means that you need a defense against it. Curious what you’ll need to win the cage match between you and the winter weather? Read on to find out more on what gear you’ll need and how to use it.

Communications

This is the first type of gear that can get you out of a roadside winter emergency. Since most people carry mobile phones these days, the only other thing you’d really need is a way to recharge it. A car charger or battery backup pack can keep your phone powered and allow you to call for assistance — providing that you have signal. Try sending a text message if calls won’t connect and consider a satellite phone for way-off-grid driving (see OFFGRID’s Spring 2014 issue for more on satellite phones).

For up close and personal forms of communication — like to other motorists — keep an assortment of road flares and reflective signs in the vehicle. Thirty-minute road flares can alert other drivers of your distress and have an added benefit of being able to start fires. Reflective signs are also handy, since flares last only so long. Get reflective signals that are large, free standing, and heavy, so that the wind or vehicles won’t blow them over.

Warmth

If you can’t reach anyone on the phone, you may be on your own for a while. First and foremost, you’ll need items for warmth. Blankets, sleeping bags, parkas, and snow suits are all acceptable forms of insulation. Keep at least one item like this for each seat in your vehicle. This will provide shelter for each potential passenger and the driver. And stay in the car in the event of a breakdown in frigid conditions. Sure, you can run the engine periodically and use the heater to warm up. But this trick is not without its problems (see the “Big Mistakes to Avoid” sidebar elsewhere in this story), and should be done sparingly. The average vehicle is a surprisingly decent form of shelter, keeping out wind and precipitation. Still, it’ll make a cold tomb without warmth.

Food and Water

Since dehydration can still happen in the cold, a supply of water should be part of your vehicle’s winter emergency gear. It can also top off a leaking radiator. Most store-bought drinking water in plastic bottles are a fine choice, since they can freeze and expand without bursting.

You’ll also want calories to keep you warm and fill your hungry belly. A non-perishable food supply will deliver energy and a major morale boost. Select high-energy food (high fat content) and don’t pack items that will be difficult to eat if frozen. We’re a big fan of peanut butter and crackers for food stashes like this.

Tools

If you’re the handy sort, or lucky enough to run into someone who is, you can use some basic vehicle tools and equipment to get you out of trouble. Consider the following items:

A heavy-gauge set of jumper cables can allow another car to jump your cold-crippled battery, providing you have another vehicle that’s running. Consider a “jump pack,” which is a portable battery-powered jump starter, if you often travel lonely roads.

Hand tools are also useful. A hammer, a socket set, some duct tape, and adjustable wrenches can be lifesavers when working on vehicles. Keep a few sizes and types of pliers, too — they’re handy if you must pull a nail from your tire, swap out your battery, or mend a malfunction. Don’t forget to bring a small shovel, which is useful for many tasks, i.e. digging out your tires if you’re stuck in snow.

A nylon recovery strap can pull your vehicle out of a ditch, a snow bank, or a frozen swamp, should there be a sturdy vehicle to yank on the other end. Choose a thick and heavy strap that has no metal parts, just loops on the ends. This is important because a strap can break when towing, launching the metal hooks through windshields or at hapless bystanders. Prepare yourself for the specifics of vehicle recovery by asking an expert or researching techniques online.

Tire repair items can get you back on the road. Grab a can of “fix the flat” type tire mending spray, which can fill and seal small holes in a flat tire.

Add a tire plug kit for handling bigger repairs. The plug kit comes with glue, a few specialized tools, and some rubber/fiber strips, which can fill big holes in your tire’s tread. If you’ve never plugged a tire before, it’s a good idea to practice on an old tire before you get a puncture and find yourself learning on the job at the side of a frozen road.

You’ll need some air to finish off the job. It’s a good idea to carry a small air compressor that plugs into a vehicle’s cigarette lighter or power port. Make sure the compressor you choose has the power to inflate your vehicle’s tires, as air capacity and pressure requirements for car and truck tires can vary greatly. And yes, we’ve had to use our compressors several times.

You’ll need a tire iron to break the lug nuts loose on each wheel and a jack to raise and lower the vehicle for tire changes or other repairs. A short section of pipe can slip over your tire iron to provide additional leverage. A gas siphon hose and a spare jug can be valuable, too.

A first-aid kit is a must. It’s not always the car that needs a repair — sometimes a passenger or driver needs to be patched up as well. A good first-aid kit serves many purposes, and gauze makes a great emergency fire starter.

Flashlights or headlamps, with spare batteries, should be standard equipment in any car. It gets dark under the hood when the battery is dead, and night is never too far away.

A spare tire was once included with almost every new car, but today, many cars are not sold with a spare at all — not even a dinky little emergency tire. Whether your vehicle came with a spare or not, get a full-sized spare tire for emergency replacement.

Small fire extinguishers can put out small fires in a vehicle, preventing greater damage and loss. But don’t try to play firefighter if you think that gasoline is involved. Get at least 50 yards away from a vehicle on fire, and stay away!

Extreme Situations

It would be bad enough to be stranded in a blizzard, but things could always be worse. What if your car, your only source of shelter, caught fire? Or what if it slid off the road into water? If you’re lucky enough to escape, you’re now completely exposed to the elements, and you may even be soaking wet. Here are two scenarios where bad turns to worse, and how to deal with these dilemmas:

Vehicle Fires

Due to the electricity and flammable fluids pumping through your vehicle, it’s possible that a vehicle fire could be the cause of your roadside winter distress. These fires can accompany car crashes, or they can happen spontaneously. On the upside, a “car-be-que” is a phenomenal signal for help. On the downside, you’ve probably lost most of your survival gear and definitely lost your shelter.
If your vehicle catches fire, on its own or due to a collision, get away from it as quickly as you can. The automobile won’t explode as TV and movies suggest, but with the burning plastic, fuel, and oil, the heat can be intense and the fumes toxic.

Submerged Vehicles

One of the most nightmarish vehicle scenarios is when your car gets submerged in water — with you in it! Your beloved car can become your watery grave if you slide off the road into a pond, river, or lake. You have only seconds to react, so it’s critical that you don’t panic.

Big Mistakes to Avoid

There are some dangerous things that stranded motorists do. Sometimes, the hazards aren’t always that obvious. Consider avoiding these potentially dangerous mistakes:

Leaving Your Engine On

If you’re stuck in your vehicle in subzero temperatures, your first instinct might be to turn on the engine to run the heater. But if the exhaust pipe is partially blocked, the tradeoff for warmth could come at a disastrous price. Snow, mud, or water can create a blockage on the exhaust system, causing deadly carbon monoxide (CO) to flood the vehicle cabin. Because it’s colorless, odorless, and tasteless, CO can build up undetected and could knock you out and eventually kill you. If you must, turn on your engine sparingly and only for brief periods of time.

Leaving Your Car Covered

In a blizzard, snow and sleet can fall fast and furiously. If you don’t work to keep your car clear, it can be blanketed in the white stuff in no time. In this survival situation, camouflaging can mean death. You have to stay visible so rescuers or passersby can spot you quickly. And the last thing you need is to have a snowplow crash into you because they thought that your pile of powder was just another snowdrift. Keep the hood and windows cleared so that you can see out and good Samaritans can see in. Hang up something colorful above the vehicle, such as a red handkerchief from your antenna. If your car is a late-model sedan and doesn’t have an external antenna, snap off a tree branch, plant it into the snow near your car, and tie the handkerchief to the top of it.

Leaving Your Vehicle

Even if it’s not a complete whiteout, cold weather can still take a massive toll on your body in a short amount of time. Leaving your car to find help without the right gear or a clear plan could actually do much more harm than good. Don’t turn into a human popsicle. Stay in your vehicle, unless it’s to remove mounting snow from your windows and hood or it’s clear that help or a passing motorist is nearby.

Unfasten your seatbelt (after the vehicle has impacted the water). Make sure any passengers have done the same. Roll down only one window, preferably before the car sinks. (Because there’s no guarantee your window will work after you’ve hit the water, you should consider having a window-breaking device on your everyday-carry knife or someplace easily accessible in your car.) Note that once the car has begun to sink, you will not be able to open any doors until it completely fills with water, due to the difference in pressure inside and outside the car. Take in a deep breath and climb out. Make sure everyone is out, and swim to dry land. Try to get help immediately, as wet clothing will lead to hypothermia in minutes during colder weather.

Safety Precautions

There are no guarantees you’ll survive all winter emergencies that might happen when you’re driving, but there are a few things that will help improve your odds and increase your comfort. Always consider the following:

• Wear a seatbelt
• Drive the speed limit on dry roads, way under the limit in inclement weather
• Drive a vehicle with the highest safety ratings you can afford
• Eliminate loose objects in the vehicle cabin, lest they become dangerous projectiles in a crash
• Like a bug-out bag, stock up your car for winter (or Armageddon, whichever comes first)
• Bring a small bucket with a tight-fitting lid and a roll of toilet paper…you’ll be glad you did after your first bathroom break

Hot Rocks: A Flameless Way to Stay Warm

Generally speaking, fire inside a vehicle is a bad thing. Even if it’s just a candle flame, it gobbles up oxygen and could light your blanket and clothing on fire. There’s also the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning in an enclosed space. If you find yourself in need of warmth and fire is your only means, you can use an ancient survival technique that has many applications in the modern world: hot rocks.

If you can get a fire going outside of the vehicle, collect a few rocks from a dry location (don’t use rocks pulled out of water — they could explode when the steam inside builds). Leave the rocks in the fire for a few minutes, and in the meantime pull up the carpet from one spot on the vehicle’s floor, exposing bare metal. Use sticks or your shovel to scoop up the rocks after 15 or 20 minutes of heating and place them on the bare floor in the car. Keep bedding and fabrics away from the rocks, and bask in their warm radiance. Repeat as needed.

Conclusion

An ounce of prevention and a pound of stay-the-hell home make a great recipe for survival when winter driving conditions are poor. But if you must go out (be it for your livelihood or to flee a whole other disaster), make sure the vehicle is well stocked with tools, backups, and supplies. Actively consider what you would need to live out of that vehicle, and how you would do it. Throw some extra food in there and some sanity-savers, such as classic novels you’ve always wanted to read, a notepad to write journal entries, or a deck of cards to pass the time.

Most important of all, carry an abundance of cold-weather sleeping bags, blankets, and arctic-approved outerwear. And finally, stay with the vehicle. It’s both your shelter and your signal for help.

About the Author

Tim MacWelch has been a survival instructor for the past 18 years and has trained everyone from civilians to all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces, the Department of Defense, Department of Justice, and the State Department. He is a public speaker on preparedness and the author of the survival books, Prepare for Anything and Hunting And Gathering Survival Manual. When he’s not teaching or writing about survival, MacWelch lives a self-reliant lifestyle with his family in Virginia.

For more, follow him on Twitter @timmacwelch or go to www.advancedsurvivaltraining.com.

The post Winter Wheels: Preparing Your Vehicle for Cold Weather appeared first on RECOIL OFFGRID.

When people think of winter, they think of holidays, family, snowmen, and skating. What can be a fun time can also become a disaster if you’re ill prepared. Things that seem trivial the rest of the year can become a life-or-death scenario when the mercury plunges. Sometimes a sudden emergency becomes a double whammy if it occurs during inclement weather. Did you prepare for both?
It doesn’t matter if you’re traveling by car to a mountain resort and have a breakdown, or if civil unrest has forced you to move, the time of year or location in which these events unfold can create additional complications. If you planned only for what might happen during favorable conditions, you’re only halfway there — and that may cost you more than you bargained for.

If you need to bug out on foot in frigid conditions, heed these seven recommendations so you can make it safely to your destination. As a Canadian Army veteran and outdoors enthusiast, this author learned them the hard way and reviews them every winter.

Tip #1: Don’t Eat Yellow (Or White) Snow

As obvious as not eating yellow snow may be, some people don’t realize that eating snow in general is a bad idea. The unsuspecting or desperate might eat snow thinking it’s a safe source of water. However, consuming snow lowers your body temperature, which has cascading effects. Your body’s internal furnace has to fire itself up to melt the snow and to warm you by using additional calories that you shouldn’t be wasting.

We’ve all been there as children — eating mouthfuls of snow only to get a brain freeze and the shivers. Instead, you should do everything in your power to warm the snow until it melts. A metal vessel (i.e. a stainless steel water bottle) and methods to make a fire can aid in this. Don’t have a lighter or ferrocerium rod? Improvise. Place the white stuff inside a container and then place that somewhere in your car’s engine compartment to warm it.

Start thinking of heat sources that won’t lower your core temperature. The warm water will let you retain your energy for more important things, like not turning into a meat Popsicle.

Tip #2: Practice Your Snow Walking

If part of your winter bug-out routine involves snowshoes or cross-country skis, don’t let the first time you use them be when things go haywire. When you first put a pair of snowshoes on, you’ll look like Bambi trying to walk for the first time. You need to work on your coordination and understanding of how to properly use snowshoes or skis before using them in an emergency. The first time this author slapped on some snowshoes and a rucksack, it led to smashing his knees on ice.

That old saying, “practice makes perfect” certainly applies. Start with just your regular winter clothing and some light snow to get familiar with walking or skiing. Get a feel for its texture, how much energy it takes to navigate, and how quickly you become exhausted.

Then with practice, start breaking trail in the rough stuff when you work up your endurance levels. Once you get comfortable with that, add some gear into the mix to increase weight. After all, you might be carrying a child or your other belongings. Being lost and stranded is not the time to break in your snow footwear for the first time or see if skiing is as easy as it looks on TV.

Tip #3: Pack On the Calories

Everything in the winter takes more effort and, by proxy, more calories. What you should be looking for — and should bring with you if you plan to travel through cold environments — is calorie-dense, high-protein food. Things like power and protein bars are perfect for this. They don’t require heat, are portable, and are small and long-lasting enough that they can be eaten on the move. Forget about your girlish figure; your vanity won’t keep you alive.

Certain MREs tend to freeze in the cold and require a heat source, such as a fire or using up your precious supply of water in a ration heater. If you’re not worried about the fire aspect, freeze-dried food is a top choice when it comes to weight-to-calorie ratio. Add some boiled water and you have a warm and filling meal. They’ve been a staple of special operation forces units and mountaineers tackling Everest for many years. Although they’re generally heavier and require more work to prepare, they’re a great option for emergency food.

Tip #4: Get Your Iditarod On

If you grew up in colder climates, you probably spent some time on a sled. However, we’ll bet few have thought about using it to pull supplies so you don’t have to carry them on your person. It turns out that packs aren’t always the best option when it comes to winter travel, because they require more energy to carry. We aren’t suggesting you ditch your pack, just put it in a sled. The more weight you have on your person, the harder it is to walk in snow. Pulling a sled doesn’t consume as much energy.

You need wider snowshoes to compensate for the added weight and to provide more traction. Otherwise you end up sinking further into the snow. You can attach some pipes and rope to a sled to make a harness to tug your gear behind you. The pipes will stop the sled from running over you when you start to head downhill.

The Canadian military uses toboggans to transport heavy arctic tents. And who can forget using dogs if you have the means to do so?

Just like walking in the snow, pulling items on a sled requires practice. Don’t assume it’ll be easy. Try it out with some practice runs, and maybe you can create fun games like having a race with your family. This will help you get a better idea of the difficulty required when the situation calls for it so you can prepare accordingly.

Tip #5: Don’t Wear Too Little … or Too Much

Now that you’re moving at a steady pace down a trail, you’ll likely heat up no matter how cold it is outside. Ignoring this can be fatal.

Sure, you’re warm now, but when you stop you’re in for a world of hurt. Your body sweats to cool you off through evaporation, and winter will exacerbate that matter tenfold. You should wear layers that you can remove and add as necessary during your hard slog through the snow. This will help you reduce your perspiration and make things a lot better for you when your activity level drops.

However, the opposite can also happen. You need clothing that’s warm enough that you won’t freeze to death, even while you’re active. If you’re driving down a country road in the winter with nothing more than a leather jacket, you’ll be in big trouble if you need to be outside when it’s 20 below zero. Unfortunately, this happens fairly regularly — a car gets stuck, driver goes to look for help, and ends up dead.

In December 2006, James Kim, a TechTV host, did just that. He read a map wrong during a road trip from Seattle to his home of San Francisco, resulting in him and his family being stranded in snow on a remote road. After running out of fuel and burning their tires to signal rescuers, Kim left on foot to find help, leaving his wife and kids in the car. He never returned. The family was found alive by a helicopter pilot, and James’ body was recovered days later.

Even if you’re just running out for a quick errand, try to make sure you have weather-appropriate clothes tucked away in your vehicle. You never know when you might need them.

Tip #6: Create a Snow Shelter

If you’re setting out on foot into that white expanse most would call Hoth but what we call fall, winter, and spring in Canada, you’ll need a way to keep yourself warm when you’re sleeping. Packing a tent or a sleeping bag that isn’t rated for low temperatures will make you end up like Luke Skywalker without a tauntaun.

The first type of shelter you can use involves natural things, like a fallen tree or snow itself. You can tunnel into the snow, build a mini igloo, or dig under a coniferous tree’s branches to create an area that you can sleep in. A shelter will isolate you from the wind and provide air that’ll warm up with your presence and act as an insulator. (See “Snow Way Out” for a full how-to on this subject in Issue 11 of our sister publication, RECOIL.)

Another option is a tipi — yup, you can still get these. Several companies like Seek Outside and Kifaru make lightweight tipis that are easy to set up and have provisions for adding a titanium wood stove. This means you not only get to survive the night, but you might have the energy to make yourself some spruce tea before bed. The shape of a tipi allows it to withstand high winds and shrug off snow quite well.

Tip #7: Don’t be a Gambler

When you’re cold and alone, you shouldn’t rely on luck. Lightning won’t set a nearby tree on fire to keep you warm — no matter how much you wish, pray, or wager bets. Instead, you need to work for it. Wintertime is comprised of unique challenges: water is frozen everywhere, tinder (not the app on your phone) is hard to find, and your dexterity will be diminished. This is why you should train no matter what the weather conditions are outside, so that you’ll be ready when the time comes.

Things like birch bark will be your best friend. It contains oils that make it largely waterproof. Those same oils produce a good hot flame when hit with a spark from a ferro rod. Do you know how to identify a birch tree? Time to start learning them by sight.

Also remember to provide extra oxygen for the fire. We like the Epiphany Outdoor Pocket Bellows for this. It allows a steady stream of oxygen to be pushed where it’s needed while being lit. This, in turn, makes the fire hotter, allowing damp or frozen wood to catch. This may be one of the last points on the list, but you can see how crucial it is to the aforementioned points.

No matter what survival scenario you may encounter, we can’t stress enough getting appropriate training and actually practicing with your gear that you might end up needing one day. Sitting around hoping to get a lucky break or figuring out the instructions for the first time is not what you want if time is a factor for your survival. Also, don’t just play with your gear in your house — use it in adverse conditions like rain, slush, or heat. These seven pointers may just help you get your family to safety instead of the morgue.

It’s a Wrap

We’re all guilty of wearing shoes that aren’t appropriate for the weather. (Hey, we’re all a little vain.) That’s why we like NEOS Overshoes. They can be worn around your normal footwear, as long as they aren’t heels or something weird, and will keep your feet warm and dry. Furthermore, they work with snowshoes. www.overshoe.com

Hypothermia Paradox

Be able to recognize the signs of hypothermia. One of the strangest ones, and a sign that you’re not doing well, is paradoxical undressing. As hypothermia progresses, you’ll start to strip off clothes no matter how cold you are. If you or a loved one suddenly has the urge to get a little sexy, start finding extra layers of clothes, some shelter, and a heat source ASAP.

Winter Vehicle Kit

1. Some basic vehicle-based kit to have includes:
2. Snow shoes*
3. Shovel
4. Traction pads
5. Tow rope
6. Food and water (don’t leave water in the car to freeze)
7. Warm clothing and blankets*
8. A lighter or fire-starter*

* Not pictured. See “On the Cover” on page 8 of Issue 17 for full specs.

About the Author

Ryan Houtekamer might be a close relative to yetis and sasquatches because he actually enjoyed winter exercises while in the Canadian Army. Ryan works on the “why use an axe when you can push the tree over” philosophy. Born and raised in Canada, he lives in a small town that has more trails near it than people living in it.

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