Part 1
The thing about a bugout situation is that it’s most likely to come when you’re least prepared for it. Funny how Murphy is always waiting around the corner waiting to take a giant dump on your survival plans.
Here in Maine the temperature has started to drop despite the gloomy forecast of global warming and I’m now officially running my pellet stove. Pretty soon I’ll be doing some ice climbing and winter camping, which got me thinking about a winter bugout. Here’s a question for you: how many of you are ready for a real winter bugout? If you had to could you take off to the woods and survive for three days? I realize the chances of a situation causing this are pretty slim, but having the knowledge, skills and gear to do so are wonderfully relaxing once you have them.
Winter camping is a lot different than summer camping and not just because it’s colder. Those of you who have camped out in the winter know what I’m talking about. First of all, everything takes about twice as long to accomplish and the colder it is the more complex it is. Ever try to put a tent up at night with a pair of big gloves or mittens on? You wind up taking them off for tasks needing more dexterity and pretty soon you’re fingers are frozen. Things that should only take a few seconds will now take minutes such as putting your tent poles together. Ever try to do it when there’s a big plug of snow or ice in one end of the pole? Now you’ve got to knock the snow out and try to realign everything and pretty soon three minutes have gone by.
You also burn a lot more calories in the wilderness during the winter because everything is harder. Just moving around through snow up to your knees is brutally hard after just a few minutes much less trying to hike any distance.
Covering a winter bugout will take more than a single post, so I’m going to break this up into several posts and stick them in here and there over the next few weeks. If you have any questions or comments please let me know and I’ll address them over the next few weeks.
I love winter!
Do you like winter activities?
Me about halfway up an ice flow called Ever Drip.
7 comments
I hate cold weather. Yet, somehow I keep moving further North.
Although, it seems like every year there’s some r-tard that kills themselves trying to heat their houses in a stupid way, (think flamethrower + mobile home). And that’s amusing to me. Not enough to make up for the frigidness of zone 4 Iowa, but it does help.
My winter readiness is a bit mixed bag. On the one hand, I have a full hunting outfit consisting of insulated overalls, parka w/zip out jacket, boots. But hubby only has some mismatched long underwear and a coat, and baby boy has a coat and mittens. :-P
Our tent is totally unsuited to winter camping, although combining it with our pop-up might make it survivable. Plus, where would we put it? Iowa (especially the part we’re in) has some wicked winds, and not much in the way of sheltered areas.
No, is the short answer. We couldn’t bug out of our house in winter, especially if we were walking or camping,etc. Maybe in a car, but even our car wouldn’t make it through some of the weather.
To mitigate this gap in our prep I’ve made our house as bug-in-able as possible for winter scenarios. We have LOTS of food NOT in a freezer/fridge and wood stockpiled to heat/cook if power goes out. We have window coverings and wool blankets closing off rooms that we don’t need to heat, etc. My worst case scenario involves us retreating to a small basement room where the food stores are, only two tiny windows out, lots of insulating earth where I know I could keep us all warm and fed for 2 weeks minimum. (warmth is the limiting factor, not food.) Air circulation would be achieved by a quick altering of the dryer vent.
Not the best, but at least I’ve thought through the possibilities. :-P
Not yet. Our highs are still reaching hi 60-low 70s, but I typically transition or update every quarter. In a couple of more weeks when the weather finally settles for the season I will go thru my BOB and take out a couple of things and add a few things and prep for the winter months. I always have enough basics tho that I could handle a major temp drop or bad weather.
@Jennie. I enjoyed your post and it shows that you’re doing some smart thinking. You’re in the admirable position of being able to bug-in if you had to and you’ve already made a lot of preps in that direction. Terrific! Some people aren’t in that position though and need to think about these things. I too have always thought that if possible it will be a bug-in situation for me if the TSHTF.
@Spook45. It’s always a challenge to figure out what to put in the BOB when winter comes. Sounds like you’ve got the right idea too. Question: if you got stuck at work or on the way home would you be able to make it home with what you have in your BOB? That’s the question I ask myself when packing my own bag.
Thanks for the feedback ya’ll.
Probably 1 out of 100 people will survive camping in the woods in the winter. Bugging out in the winter without a place to go is suicide. But even these long odds assumes you have adequate supplies of food and fuel and a tent or other suitable protection from the elements. If you only have a week or two supply of food your odds drop to perhaps 1 out of 10,000 of surviving a month.
@GoneWithTheWind – precisely the point I’m going to make in later posts. I believe your second sentence is the most important point for those who don’t have any cold weather camping experience.
Bug Out in Winter? Last option for me, but I live a mile from Lake Erie in the Snow Belt, so my preps are stocked for a full 6 months indoors. But I do have a “Stuck on the Side of the Road during a Blizzard Bag” in every car, and we run on the 3/4 tank Rule ( when you have a used a 1/4 tank of gas, fill it up). Can’t run the car’s heaters when the tank is empty. Been there, done that, learned the lesson w/o anyone getting harmed or killed, ain’t happening again.
I’ve gone winter camping in northern Minnesota a number of times. You need a certain set of gear and a set of skills. 3 days wouldn’t be bad if you had time to pack. Beyond that, bringing enough food gets problematical.
There are shelters you can make from snow that make a big difference in survivability in sub-zero temperatures. A quinzee (snow hut) can be 20 to 30 degrees inside when it is 20 below outside. A snow coffin (3′ deep, 3′ wide, 8′ long hole in the snow and a tarp can be plenty warm enough if you have a good bag.
Bring enough layers of warm clothes (no cotton), but strip down while you’re traveling/working hard. Your skin should feel somewhat cold while you’re working, otherwise you will get all sweaty and freeze when you cool off. Once you settle down, add clothing as your body cools off. Hats, gloves, face masks and over-mittens are crucial, as are warm boots.
An aluminum backpacking coffee pot is also essential to melt/heat water for cooking and drinking. Also an empty #6 can with a homemade wire bail can be filled with water, placed by the fire and used to thaw out water bottles or whatever.
Touring skis or snowshoes are necessary for travel in deep snow, and gear can be hauled in a 6′ long kids or ice fisherman’s sled. Poke some holes in the side rails with a hot nail, wrap your gear in a plastic tarp and bungie it to the sled. Hook a bungie to your belt pack and to the sled rope to absorb shocks on the trail.