Sleeping Bag
Emergency Bivy
Sunglasses
Additional Clothing
It’s late May in Colorado and you and two friends plan to go hike a “fourteener” [also known as a 14,000-foot (4-kilometer) mountain]. There are many throughout the state and more than a few close to Denver. You and your friends plan to fly into Denver on a Friday night, get up at 4:00 a.m. on Saturday, drive to the closest 14,000-foot (4-meter) mountain, and start your hike before the sun comes up. You and your friends are in decent shape and you feel confident you can hike up the mountain, get some great pictures, and be back in Denver by 8:00 p.m. for dinner. The temperatures have been at least 80°F (27°C) all week in Denver, and though the weather is always a little bit cooler in the mountains, it’s nothing you are too concerned about as you know it is always sunny in Colorado.
You arrive in Denver and everything goes as planned: You get in on Friday, get good rest, and have all of your hiking gear packed and ready to go. You are all planning for a spring hike and you are wearing shorts, bringing hydration bladders, a water bottle, a few snacks, phones, a map, a compass, and a light windbreaker. You arrive at the crack of dawn and get moving fast. You check the weather and temperatures for Denver are still the same and farther west in the mountains, the temperatures and conditions look the same as they were prior to your arrival.
You get rolling along your hike and are making great time, however, however, when you approach the summit, things start to get bad. Clouds block out the brilliant sun you had earlier in the morning, the wind is picking up and howling, and temperatures have been plummeting. You reach for your light windbreaker and get it on, but it is hardly doing anything to stop the wind. That is when it starts raining hard. The rain turns to sleet and the three of you are in panic mode. You are maybe thirty minutes from the summit, but it is getting harder and harder to see and the sleet seems to be hitting you from every angle. One of your buddies begins to wander and gets a blank look on his face and starts to shiver. Then the shivering starts for the rest of you. It keeps getting colder and colder and now you are all wet, cold, and the sleet begins to turn to snow and whiteout conditions. All of you are saying this should not be happening: It is almost June and is supposed to be 80°F (27°C) down in Denver! Cold, wet, and freezing, you can’t see. What do the three of you do now?
Always pack for the conditions you are going to be in, expect the worst, and never trust the weather. Research past weather conditions to see if any patterns emerge. Although the hikers in this scenario packed for a normal day, they did not pack for contingencies. Be flexible when things don’t go according to your original plan. Be able to rapidly adapt to your given situation. You know you are ready for Mother Nature to throw anything at you. If the weather or terrain presents new and difficult situations, modify your plan, route, and timeline so you can stay safe. In this case, once the weather started to look sketchy, the hikers should have probably turned around and beat feet back to their vehicle as fast as possible.
Extreme weather can paralyze experienced, seasoned, outdoor enthusiasts in the their tracks. For instance, the 60-mph (96-kpm) winds of New Hampshire’s Mount Washington frequently blow unsuspecting hikers off course simply because their instinct is to go with the wind rather than into it. Of course, you don’t have to be on a mountain to encounter extremely cold conditions. Just as you wouldn’t hike Mount Washington or Mount Hood in shorts and a T-shirt, you want to ensure you have the right kit packed to deal with conditions that can change on a dime.
Have the right gear with you and plan for extreme weather that can roll in rapidly and leave you stranded. The gear in this kit will also help prevent hypothermia, a dangerous condition in which a person’s core body temperature drops below 95°F (35°C). The cold, wind, and rain can lead to a dangerous situation if you are not prepared for it. These extreme cold weather changes call for an extreme cold weather kit.
As mentioned before, ensure you get a pack that is right for you. Look for comfort, fit, the capacity to carry the recommended gear list, and any additional items.
Two water bottles need to be a part of your extreme weather kit. Wide-mouth water bottles, like a Nalgene bottle, are a good choice because you can stuff the water bottles with snow. Keep the bottles close to your body and let your body heat melt the snow so it is ready to drink. WARNING: Do this only when you are moving and putting forth effort. Do not attempt to melt snow with your body heat if you are stationary and trying to stay warm, as this will only lower your body temperature.
If you are hunkered down because of the weather, get a fire going and use your stove and cooking gear to melt snow. As the old saying goes, do not pick yellow snow to melt and drink. Remember, there is also mountain runoff, creeks, and streams you can get water from. If you get water from a stream, be sure to use your purification tablets or drops. If you are encountering glacial runoff or ice melts at high altitude, the water should be safe to drink. When in doubt, play it safe and protect yourself by purifying the water.
Ensure you have something in your kit to block the wind, snow, hail, and rain. Having layered sheltered protection is the best, especially in extreme conditions. Being inside your bag—which is inside your bivy sack, which is inside your shelter—could allow you to ride out a bad storm for several days. Also keep in mind that the gear you bring can add to or reinforce some form of shelter the environment might give you such as a cave, overhang, or vegetation.
Sleeping Bag
Emergency Bivy
Sunglasses
Additional Clothing
Cooking Stove, Pan and Fire Starter
Have a stormproof lighter, stormproof matches, and a blast match fire starter in your kit. Include some WetFire Tinder Cubes to get a fire going. For extreme weather, you should have some type of stove with you and a cooking container. Select a stove that is lightweight, cooks fast, and has minimal moving parts so it is easy to operate. There are many types of stoves on the market that take many types of fuel—white gas, kerosene, etc. Choose a stove that is easy to operate and one that doesn’t require you to pack an inordinate amount of gear for sustained cooking. A white gas stove is a good option. This type of stove has different size fuel bottles that you can attach to the stove. You can carry one or two fuel bottles, your stove, and food and be able to cook for a few weeks.
Choose cookware that is light, fits into your pack well, and will meet your needs. You could get by on a military canteen cup—although there are lighter pieces of cookware on the market, the canteen cup is a tried and true, battle-tested, almost indestructible piece of gear. You can have a fork/spork combination or utensils made from titanium. The titanium utensils will be more expensive, but they are more durable. Know there are many options when choosing a stove, cookware, and cooking utensils. Find the ones that work best for you, fit into your budget, and can keep the weight of your pack down.
Candles can be used in a shelter to give you light and help increase the temperature by a few degrees. They can be very helpful if you have to hunker down for a day or two because of extreme weather. Make sure you have a hole in your shelter to vent off the carbon monoxide produced by you and the candle.
Emergency Food
In addition to the emergency food rations that have been discussed in the previous chapters, soup or broth is a good addition to your cold-weather kit. Bouillon cubes or powder are light and compact and are an easy way to warm up your insides and provide some warmth and comfort. For survival in the cold, you are also going to need calorie-rich fat and carbohydrate meals to maintain your energy levels. Granola is a great addition to your extreme weather food kit. It is rich in calories and has good fats. Although there are several types of protein bars on the market that are balanced in carbohydrates, fats, and proteins, be aware that they might freeze and not be palatable when you need to eat them. Find foods that are easy to prepare, easy to snack on, and nutrient rich to put in your extreme weather kit.
Store your food in resealable plastic bags, which are easy to organize and label. You can also pack MREs or freeze-dried foods that you can rehydrate. Rehydration should not be too big of an issue as long as you have a reliable stove and snow you can melt to prepare your freeze-dried food.
Make sure you have the following security and communication items in your extreme-cold kit: cell phone, compass, maps, whistle, a multitool or Swiss Army knife, headlamp, and first aid kit. You’ll also want to include a two-way radio in your kit so you can communicate to a base camp, the ranger station, and emergency agencies in case you get in trouble. Pack extra batteries for your radio and cell phone. Establish check-in windows with these groups to give them updates and status reports. Have contingency plans in place if you miss communication check-in windows and decide in advance if you will return to your last known position or even abort your camping/hiking expedition. Make sure you’ve discussed these things with everyone in your party before your departure.
If you know you are going to be in an avalanche-prone area, an avalanche beacon, vest, and shovel are a must. An avalanche beacon sends out a signal on a certain frequency so buried avalanche victims can be located. Everyone in your party should be wearing an avalanche beacon, including yourself. An avalanche vest is another piece of equipment to consider including in your kit. If you are buried in an avalanche, the vest lets you breathe for a longer period while under the snow. A shovel will help you dig out snow to create a cave to sleep in. It can also help you dig out others who may have been buried in an avalanche.
If you find yourself in a survival situation in an extremely cold environment, make sure you eat fats in the evening before you go to sleep to help you stay warm at night. Your body will burn the fat throughout the night and in turn help keep you warm. Eat carbs during the day to maintain your energy levels.
Dig a cold hole (or sleep shelf) or make a snow cave for sleeping. Use a shovel to dig a long, rectangular hole that is lower than where you are sleeping. Cold air will move into the hole and keep you slightly warmer in your higher position. If you decide to construct a cave, you want to do the same thing which is to sleep on a shelf inside the cave. If you are going to attempt to sleep inside a cave, look at where you are and see if you can take advantage of anything like an overhang, built-up snow, or a snow bank you could dig into. Make sure you pack the snow down and make it as compact as possible. Then dig a trench or tunnel into the compacted snow and carve out an internal space. Try to do this where you would be protected from any falling debris or an avalanche. You don’t want to get swept away if you can use a rock outcropping or a group of trees to protect you. Dig out the internal space and construct a shelf to sleep on. You can poke a small hole through the roof of your cave for carbon dioxide to escape. Use your pack to block the entrance to your cave to keep some of the heat in. Also make a shelf so you can burn a candle in your sleep shelter/cave. A candle will raise the temperature inside, but remember to have a hole so the carbon dioxide can vent out of your cave. Don’t make your cave/shelter so large that you have so much space you are no longer insulating yourself with the snow. You should be able to move around inside and it should be able to accommodate you and your gear comfortably. Anything you can do to help you stay warm can and should be done in an extreme cold weather environment.
Try to move and work with the least amount of clothing or layers on as possible and don’t completely overexert yourself. Why? You don’t want to start to sweat and get what you are wearing wet. If you get wet, make sure you have another shirt you can change into when you stop or bed down. As it has been said before, you don’t want to be cold and wet. Being wet in extremely cold conditions can quickly cause hypothermia.
Get a good, comfortable pack that can fit all of your extreme cold weather gear and practice with your kit. Hike with your extreme cold weather kit in the spring and summer so you get used to the load. Practice using the kit that is filled with the recommended gear from the list and the gear that you come up with on your own so you are more proficient with all of the items. Develop the muscle memory that will allow you to efficiently access and use the items in your kit so when you are in a cold weather environment you can stay warm, use the tools you have, and get back home safely.