Surviving a Winter Night in a Snowstorm WITHOUT GEAR! | Survival Shelter + Bushcraft

this was one of the most intense trips I've ever been on oh that's not good being dropped off in the midst of a snowstorm would be a challenge and doing it without any Gear Well I just had no idea of how much this would push both my mind and body the plan was to simulate being caught in a snowstorm I could prepare my skills under ideal conditions but what would it actually be like to be out there what kind of reality would that be my jacket is completely soaked through my down layer is pretty much soaked through and I got probably 4 hours of light so I didn't check the weather exactly instead I just waited for a winter blizzard warning and went in blind but that's not to say that I went in a T-shirt and jeans I took with me my best outdoor clothing the stuff I would wear if I was out on a day snowshoeing or winter hiking I generally wear two Bas layer system the first one being Marino wool mesh and over top of that a standard weave Marino wool I like zippers on the trousers so that I could remove them and still keep my boots on in the winter time if I'm overheating and if I stop moving or get too cold I could similarly put them back on without taking my boots off the arms have holes for your thumbs so it covers part of your hand and a quarter zip on the neckline so you could always ventilate if you're overheating and air out fast the outdoors pants I'm using are made of a stretchy soft shell along with being highly water resistant and breathable they also have these side vents these are really good so you could air out when you're doing heavy activity and so you don't overheat most importantly they're stretchy and that allows me to do all the different movements that I need to do in Bushcraft and survival as my mid layer I have a 650 fill down I chose this because down is Extreme extremely popular and while normally I wear wool I wanted to see exactly what the limits of this would be in a true survival situation on top of that I have my absolute favorite layer this is my anorak the key points are it's long enough to cover all the layers below it's loose fitting so it doesn't compress the down and then reduce the insulation value of it and it's made of a material which you could wax to make it waterproof or leave it unwaxed and have it more breathable the trade-off is its less water resistance I left it unwaxed just to see what it could take which ended up being a nearly fatal mistake along with my belt and pack pouch I brought insulated work gloves to handle the camera but I always prefer mitts in the winter for keeping your hands warm these ones are moose hide with removable wool liners a winter hat to cover my ears and my cold weather hiking boots I use a really unique set up for my socks with some Marino wool toe socks first and then the wools over top I find this this works to keep my toes the warmest now if I'm going to be in deep snow I could zip my pants over top of these boots or if I'm hiking and want to ventilate so my feet don't sweat I'll just leave them open the key to warmth in my whole setup is that nothing is tight and squished I have a slight wiggle room in my boots as well as in all my layers they all work together the hood on my anarak can go over all the layers and the bottom trim extends past all of them as well as on my hands and now the adventure begins I get a lift and I'm dropped off in the woods at midday just as the snow Storm's about to come in as always I have an emergency pack with an extra wool sweater water and Ferro Rod all of these things are a last resort and I hope to not have to dig into it if I absolutely need to I could hike out a few kilomet to safety but for now I have to navigate and find out where I am all right this is going to be my navigation basically building a compass just from this so I could track which direction I'm going so I know how to find my way out sharp stick okay you could see sort of a circle there imagine this as a clock here we have 12 that's noon here we have 6:00 p.m. 3 and nine now what I want to do is find exactly where the sun is it's really hard to do today because it's overcast I could see it poking through and it's about that direction over there I find my 12:00 Mark and I find whatever time it is now right now it's 11:50 that being said imagine the big hand on a clock is right here at 1150 I now point the 1150 towards the sun halfway between that direction and 1200 noon is due south another example of this let's say it was 3:00 p.m. right now that means 3:00 would be over here and 12:00 would be here what I would do is tilt this and point 3:00 at the sun now exactly halfway between 12:00 noon and 3:00 which would be there that's due south that's an example but right now because it's 12:00 noon pretty much exactly where 12 is you point that at the Sun and that's due south if I want to take a bearing and I want to head that way I place my map like this and I know I'm heading exactly North now what I want to do is pick pick a landmark back in the distance and head towards that when I get there I want to look back at exactly where I started this big old birch tree and take a bearing again and make sure I'm heading in the same line and continue doing that so I could always find my way out at the same time I'm going to be breaking branches at the tip and that'll mark my path because it's going to be snowing and it's going to cover every single thing every path I make this is how you do navigation making a compass in the wilderness by using the sun and the time in this case this birch bark I'm going to be traveling north heading that way all right with the snowstorm coming in I need to find shelter as fast as I can and I need to get a fire started basically with the winds and the blizzard that's expected I don't know if I'll be able to keep a fire going all night under something exposed so what I'm going to do here is try to build a fire against this rock and I'll get a big fire going as long as I can and that'll heat up the rock if I get it big enough and it'll heat up the ground I'll slowly move that dirt over to here and keep burning into the ground and then hopefully my plan is to bury all the coals and then create a shelter of just sticks going over top so then I could lie down against this rock for warmth behind me I could Shelter From the big winds that are coming with the sticks going this way and the ground will hopefully be decently warm throughout at least most of the night I don't have any tools I don't have a knife I don't have a saw I don't have an axe very little options here ah sometimes the only drywood to be found is going to be under canopies like this so everything in these conditions are going to be pretty tough I've got to get tons of small little Tinder bundles going everything from match stick size all the way up to pencil size once I have my smaller bundles I'll then move on to larger and larger ones I've got to get this fire going without having to go back and collect more it's got to be self- sustaining because this snow is going to put it out pretty fast and if I leave it alone to go collect more wood I'll be in trouble not only will the fire go out and I'll have to reather materials but it'll be extremely demoralizing and honestly for me one of the worst things about doing any kind of survival is when demoralizing things happen it's just so hard to push through and that's kind of what it's all about eventually you gain the strength to p push through most of the times people are capable of way more than they think they are so these little trips like this they sort of test that and then give you confidence but it doesn't change the fact that every single time it's demoralizing it doesn't change that so I know that's happened to me before so I'm going to try to mitigate that as much as I can it's not that cold out it's probably just a little bit above or right around 0° what I'm going to do is take off my down jacket underneath because I don't want to risk that getting wet from me sweating underneath or just whenever I put my hood on or off I don't want this this to be wet for when I go to sleep it'll be right around my neck yeah as you can see the back this jacket is all wet but oh that's not good that's not good so down loses all of its insulative value when it's wet so this is not going to be much help to me tonight so remember when I said about the demoralizing things it's a bit dangerous I got to I got to really do this properly cuz you don't want to be wet overnight you'll freeze and the inside of this jacket is completely wet right now at this point I was fairly defeated and seriously considered my backup plan in hiking out to safety but there was one more option it was a long shot but last year I had constructed a be Den style survival shelter on the edge of this very property it would be a few kilometers east of where I was but it would be my only real chance I made it with only a knife and use Spruce roots to bind the supports together so I had no idea if it was even still standing and besides that going there would take me even farther from my possible emergency exit in real survival situations like this there's no easy decisions you just have to go with your best odds and rely on your knowledge and training and above all never give up hope so with only 4 hours of light remaining I've now got to navigate the approximate direction of that shelter and then start a few kilm height all will try trying to film and keep my camera dry this would not be easy all right here's our navigation map here's our very rough watch face what I want to find is East so I'm going to check the time it's now about 1:00 so if that's our watch 12 3 that means that's two and that's 1 the time that it is right now it's 1:00 point that at the sun the sun is in that direction that's 12 right there so halfway between 1:00 pointing at the Sun and 12:00 halfway in between there isth so I know now this direction South north west east so I need to travel there that direction to find approximately where my shelter was so there's a ridge there and I built the shelter at the bottom kind of like where I am now the bottom of that Ridge I'm just going to keep the bottom of this Ridge and that's hopefully going to be my guideline I'll have to every hundred steps look back and make make sure that I'm heading east not only that but that I've come from exactly West that means that I'm traveling in a straight line so this is going to be a bit difficult but it is my only option right now okay that way for for yes oh yeah oh man this really saved me it is nice and dry in here and it's got the Old Pine boughs for a nice cozy bed and my little fireplace wow yeah my jacket soaked brutal so this was absolutely needed but the work is not done yet I've still got to dry out my clothes on this fire and uh collect firewood find something to get some drinking water cuz he can't eat snow it makes even more dehydr hydrated but I'm glad this shelter is held up my gosh that's so nice all right let's get to it now the this is just a prime example of why clothing selection is really important generally I like to wear wool because wool if it gets wet it retains a lot of it insulation value down on the other hand if it gets wet it loses all of it this climate is really really unpredictable what ended up happening is it's actually wet snow and sometimes rain so all my gear is getting soaked right now I'm completely drenched my top half is just drenched my bottom half luckily I have a soft shell on which protects me from getting wet and I have the vents at the side so sweat hasn't been an issue I haven't been getting wet At All by sweat it's just this wet rain that keeps coming and interchanging with snow so what can you do in these cold situations like that there's not really much I have 2 hour hours of Sun left um I know that because if I look at approximately where the sun is I could stick my hand out at arms length just like this and each finger represents about 15 minutes and I can flip it up and I can see that's about an hour 2 hours and a half tops before the Sun is setting below that hill and it's going to be dark so all I could do right now is keep active if I stop if I slow down I'm going to get cold I'm just going to keep processing and grabbing firewood stocking up that shelter and then I'm going to start a fire get warm strip down off of all my wet clothing and put on my emergency stuff which is uh wool felt so thank God I have that it's always important to come prepared you never know when unexpected things are going to happen and probably one of the most important things is knowing how to deal with it when it comes so no doubt this is going to be a freezing cold night but I'm preparing to survive it not be comfortable through it piling up all a whole bunch of big dead trees just in case I've run out of wood inside in the night and I'm getting cold I could come out here expend some energy and I don't have to travel in the dark I got all my wood right here so over the next few hours I'm just going to be doing this piling up and stockpiling wood in my pack pouch I still got that birch bark from earlier so I'm hoping that I will light easy and again you never know I've got to make sure I have a about an hour left of light before I start my fire the last thing I want is to wait for it to get dark and then realize I can't get one started cuz then I'm in real trouble so that if I get in a real tricky situation I could still make it out before dark hoping to break off little pieces of this might be kind of hard to [Music] do everything's easier with the saw and axe no I don't think this one's going to go too big try this one there we go perfect [Music] here's a quick behind the scenes with my camera friend is all I got and uh she's on her last [Music] leg chimney hole should be somewhere around here oh here it is clear off as much moisture as I can get this snow out going to be hard enough to get a fire going as it is let alone keep a fire going all right time to go in and light this fire okay all right I got my pack poach filled with just a whole bunch of birch bark that's a bit hard to see but I'm going to try my best to start fire with this Ferro Rod so I've got to heat it up to the right temperature before I could even catch it's very hard to do in the winter come on it's getting warmer that's good just give it consistent Sparks until it goes there we go come on yes please [Music] burn yes baby okay we need to get this to the back so I don't get smoked out but the back is the back is pure ice and snow it's my one shot at birch bark so I'm really hoping this goes save these kind of little pieces but you saw how hard that was to even get going in the first place look at [Music] that okay here's my pack pouch this is the only way I could think of getting water in a pinch right now I don't really have birch bark I couldn't find a source other than the stuff I collected earlier or else I'd try to make a birch bark container to melt the snow but for now I'm just going to have to use my pack pouch it's waxed canvas and that wax is actually bees wax and stick this bad boy right there and that'll start heating up and melting that snow inside with a little bit of luck I'll have some water in there because water can't come through the canvas I don't have much room in here but I'm going to try my best to take off my wet clothing and switch to my emergency layers which are wool let's do that good news is it's really toasty in here bad news is all my layers are soaked absolutely soaked and if I didn't have any change I could risk hypothermia very very easily this down right here is completely soaked I mean does doesn't do anything but suck heat for me even my base layers are all wet so I have to take these off and dry them off by the fire here's my emergency layer it's a nice wool so I'm going to take off this mesh base layer and this all should be doable tonight safely okay it's nice to get in some warm clothes I'll tell you that much wow that's real nice got some uh nice catchet [Music] to m [Music] I brought some dough this dough I'm just going to wrap around this stick [Music] here there we go when I was making to the shelter I was kind of afraid that this the snow would be melting on top and just be dripping on my head all night but as I made this thing I put bark and I layered it as if they were shingles so there's not many drips if any there's definitely a couple but it's not at all a big deal all right it's looking pretty good one side got but [Laughter] annihilated just burned to a crisp but this side looks pretty good it melted all the snow nicely so it should be somewhat drinkable now and keep note this is just for emergencies this is not my preferred way of drinking water tastes good don't to waste it all but so you can see update on the drying of the jacket this anarak I have is incredible because yes it's not completely waterproof as we saw today but it dried is really really fast so it's nearly completely dry right now my wool mesh completely dry the down though that will not dry overnight if I'm doing camping or anything where I risk being in a survival situation I'll generally go for wool over down the burnt bed is really burnt so it is around 420 right now still light out still snowing really good constantly snowing and raining all day just rough [Music] conditions so I'm just going to go get more wood after this get more snow to boil some more water hydrate up and then I'm just going to feed the fire a bunch and and get through the night that was rough was real rough I won't say I had any real good sleep but I did survive it was not comfortable but I did survive it's like the old saying everyone has a plan until you get hit in the face and it's exactly that when you come out and do these Bushcraft and survival trips I feel like if you have more gear you could stick to your plan a bit easier but when you do things with a bare minimum you really really have to adapt and rarely does it go according to the plan you had at the beginning and in this case absolutely nothing went according to my plan and that's a lot of the fun of it and that's a lot of the challenge of it so anyways thank you for coming along on this journey with me I'm going to start getting back I'm your friend DJ from the bear Essentials and thanks for stopping by

Channel: The Bear Essentials

Views: 252,907

Keywords: winter camping, snow storm, camping, hot tent winter camping, cold weather camping, winter survival, winter survival shelter, bushcraft, camping in snow, survival shelter, bushcraft shelter, survival skills, survival, snow camping, bushcraft camping, snowstorm, winter camping in snow storm, winter camping in survival shelter

Id: QhOD-or5EA0

Length: 37min 57sec (2277 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 27 2024