Camping in fair weather
Getting adequate sleep and rest is crucial for your survival, even if you are only traveling a short distance, especially if you are already deprived of it. Your situational awareness and decision-making abilities deteriorate quickly without adequate rest and sleep. That’s not good for you. Climate and weather play big roles in your sleep experience. Another situation that will impact your night’s sleep is whether you are being followed or not.
To get the best night’s sleep, you’ll need shelter. In fair weather, shelter is not a major concern. Sleeping “under the stars” is a romantic fantasy, but in austere conditions, you’ll want to sleep under cover. Dew is the problem (and a source of drinkable water.) Without cover on a fair night, you could wake up cold and soaking wet from the dewfall – a problem and a blessing. Cold, wet clothes are no fun, but a heavy dewfall usually signals a fair day ahead for traveling. Even in fair weather, remember that it is always coldest just before sunrise.
Knowing how much time you have to make camp is important. Facing the sun and holding your fingers extended horizontally below it, from the bottom of the sun down to the horizon, can tell you about how much daylight you have before dark. Each finger is approximately one hour – four fingers is about 4 hours. Dusk lasts about a half an hour after sunset in most locations. That can tell you how much time you have to make camp and do your “camp chores” before darkness. Find a suitable site, find water, gather the night’s firewood, find or make a shelter, set up your tent or poncho, prepare your bed, eat your evening meal and clean it up, probably in that order. Making camp will take longer in inclement weather. If you realize you are going to have to “camp out,” don’t put off establishing a camp.
Finding a safe site to spend the night is often taken for granted. Your site should be level, large enough for your shelter, protect you from the weather, have enough natural material to build your shelter, have a safe space and wood available for your cooking and warming fire, have adequate drainage, no leaning trees or overhanging branches, rocks, poisonous plants, or wild critters. Ideally, water should be nearby. In some situations, your camp should be camouflaged, defensible, with a good field of view. (Be cautious of signatures.)
Keep your fire small in a hole with loose dirt close by so you can smother it quickly. If you have supplies to cache, don’t do it in or near your campsite. Your sanitary location should be about 200 feet from water and your camp. Bury your waste in a “cat hole.” For security and conservation reasons, when you pack out, be certain you “leave no trace.” Burn and bury your trash and your fire pit. Return the site to its undisturbed natural state as best you can.
Making a fire in fair weather is convenient when you have the fire-making materials with you. Waterproof matches, flint and steel, or a “fire stick” are all useful. Without them, making and using flint and steel (back of your knife blade), a bow drill, or a fire plow are useful skills. Have your tinder, kindling, and firewood all ready before you start “making sparks.” The ability to make a “one-match fire” is a practical and valuable skill.
Camping in foul weather
Setting up your site in inclement weather is always more difficult and time-consuming. Plan accordingly.
Finding a protected, dry location is ideal. The same criteria above apply. Overhanging boughs are particularly important because they can unexpectedly dump rain or snow on you in the middle of the night – a surprise you don’t need!
You need to find or make a shelter – a rock overhang, a cave, a downed tree, a natural depression (but not a drainage gully) that you can cover with your poncho, or make your poncho into a tent for the night. Without a poncho, you’ll need to make your shelter out of natural materials, like a debris shelter. Make the covering thick enough to provide insulation and water shedding. In cold weather, make your shelter like a lean-to facing your fire pit so your fire’s heat can be reflected back into your shelter more efficiently than a pup tent-style shelter. The open side should face away from the prevailing wind. Logs or rocks make an effective heat reflector. When the ground is cold and wet, you’ll need ground cover to sleep on. Soft evergreen boughs make a comfortable, insulating bed.
Starting a fire will be needed to keep you warm, but problematic in cold, wet weather. You might find dry, dead branches on the dry side of a tree trunk or in a brush pile. They can be shaved to make tinder. Hopefully, you have cotton balls saturated with Vaseline with you for all-weather tinder. You may have to start your fire in your shelter (carefully) to keep your tinder dry. When the fire “catches,” move it outdoors quickly and continue to build it. Storing the night’s firewood in your shelter is always a good habit on wet nights.
When temperatures drop on a clear night, and they will without cloud cover, keeping warm will be a major consideration, especially without a sleeping bag. Instead of dew, you may have to contend with morning frost. (Your apparel and kit really were “seasonally adjusted,” right?) Use your jacket as a cover. Take off your boots and socks; dry them by the fire, weather permitting. After your socks are dry, tuck them in your sleeping bag. You’ll appreciate it in the morning when you put on comforting warm, dry socks and boots. Use your shirt or sweater to cover your bare feet. Sleeping in the fetal position helps, too. Warm stones are wonderful.
When there is snow on the ground, you can compact the snow, cut out “snow bricks” to make an elongated “U” shaped short wall, to form a “tunnel.” Cover the tunnel with your poncho and branches to protect yourself from the precipitation, wind, and cold. You can warm some stones in a fire (not too hot and not wet river rocks that can explode when they get hot). Keep them close to you as you sleep. Have some replacement stones warming up to replace the first ones when they cool off. Warming your back can make you feel warm all over. Insulating ground cover is vital to protect you from frozen ground. Covering your poncho or stuffing your clothing with dry leaves or straw can provide important additional insulation.
You can heat up the ground where you’ll be sleeping by digging a trench and building a fire in it, cover the coals and warm ground with dirt, and sleep on the warm dirt covering. Use rocks chinked with dirt to build your tunnel.
In the morning you’ll need to eat breakfast, break camp, leave no trace, and get moving toward your destination.
The objective of these two articles was to give you some ideas of real-life situations to plan for and to help refine your GHB and BOB kits for the situations you might encounter traveling and camping under austere conditions.
For more information
Search SurvivalBlog.com for specific subjects, I also recommend these books:
- Hillcourt W, Boy Scout Handbook, 7th edition, or earlier
- Kephart H, Camping and Woodcraft, two-volume facsimile edition, with introduction by J Casada. Knoxville, University of Tennessee Press, 1988
- McNabb C, SAS and Elite Forces Guide, Prisoner of War Escape and Evasion. London, Amber Books, 2012 (Also available in a handy pocket edition)
- Wiseman J, SAS Survival Handbook, 3rd ed. New York, William Morrow, 2014
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