Cold Weather Survival

You have been out hiking in the mountains. You find yourself lost and must spend the night. The temperature already is rapidly dropping. Do you know how to survive in a cold weather situation?

Even if you have the basic requirements, you must also have adequate basic clothing and the will to survive. The will to survive is the single most important factor in surviving extended cold weather exposure. There have been incidents reported where trained and well-experienced individuals did not survive cold weather situations because they lacked the will to survive.

Cold is far greater threat to survival than it appears. It decreases your ability to think or do just about anything else except to try to get warm. The cold is an insidious enemy; as it numbs the mind and body, it subdues the instinctual will to survive.

You not only need enough clothing to protect yourself, you must also know how to maximize the warmth of the clothing you have. A good example is to always keep your head covered. You can lose 40 percent to 45 percent of body heat from an unprotected head and even more from the unprotected neck, wrists and ankles. These areas of the body are good radiators of heat and have very little insulating fat.

There are basic principles to follow to keep warm. An easy way to remember them is the following acronym:

COLD

C- keep clothing clean

O- avoid overheating

L- wear loose and layered clothing

D- keep clothing dry

C- keep clothing clean

Clothing that becomes matted with dirt and grease loses much of their value as insulation. Heat escapes much easier from your body when the clothing is crushed or filled with air pockets

O- avoid overheating

When your body gets hot, it causes you to sweat and your clothing absorbs the moisture. This can affect your warmth in two ways: the dampness decreases the insulation quality of the clothing and as sweat evaporates, your body cools. Adjust your clothing so you do not sweat. You can do this by partially opening your coat, by removing a layer of clothing, removing heavy mittens, and changing from heavy head covering to a lighter one. The head and hands act as heat dissipaters when overheated.

L- wear your clothing loose and in layers

If you wear tight clothing and footgear, it restricts the blood flow and is an invitation for cold injuries. It also decreases the value of air trapped between layers, this reduces the insulating value. The reason several layers of light clothing are better than one thick layer is because the layers have dead-air space between them. The dead-air space provides extra insulation and the layers will allow you to discard to prevent overheating.

D- Keep Clothing Dry

In cold temperatures, your inner layers of clothing can become wet from sweat and the outer layer, if not water-repellent can become wet from snow and further melted by body heat. If available, you should wear water-repellent outer clothing.

Wet cold weather conditions exist when the average temperature in a 24-hour period is -10 degrees C or above. Characteristics of this condition are freezing during the colder night hours and thawing during the day. Even though the temperatures are warmer during these conditions, the ground is usually very sloppy due to slush and mud. You need to protect yourself from the wet ground and freezing rain or wet snow.

Wind chill increases the hazards of cold injury. Wind chill is the effect of moving air on exposed skin. A example is with a 27.8 kph (15 knots) wind and a temperature of -10 degrees C, the equivalent wind chill temperature is -23 degrees C. Keep in mind, even when there is no wind, you will create equivalent wind by running, skiing, snowboarding and other activities that produce a flow of air.