I just got back from a night hike and it was very fun. You
get home put a pack together turn on your head lamp and walk.
at 4:30 I set my shelter and woke up at 9:00 had sum brakefast.
and went back to the house. do this with that bug out bag
hanging up in your bacement and test your gear it's very fun.


litlefoot01
see you out on the trail.

I need to do just that!!!!

Leave suddenly with my BoB and stay out a couple of nights!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

start out slow and have a plan.a few hours and make a fire.next time a very simple shelter-poncho or whatever-and a fire.next try a half day with a meal,shelter,fire.then carry this on into an evening with a foil sleeping bag or whatever you plan to use along with the fire,shelter,meal.after all that try a over nite.
i suggest this because unless you have camped out a lot you just may find that simple"survival" is much more than it's cracked up to be and without a sleeping mat,bag,tent,stove,food and so on that on returning home you just might toss the whole BOB as a unworkable "hobby" and give up on something that parts of could be useful.

that sounds like a great way to test your gear. it goes with the way i designed my bob its more of a backpacking/camping setup with extra emergancy items.

Good sensible approach ... test things gradually so you don't experience too much discomfort all at once.

By the way - I always thought that foil sleeping bags were a complete scam. I don't care what the advertising says. You will freeze to death on a cold night if all you've got is a piece of foil to keep you warm. The foil bags may have some value as a heat reflective shield - but only if you have some other source of heat. You might put them up as a "reflector" near a fire and they might reflect a bit more heat on your body. But they are NO substitute for a proper sleeping bag, plus staying warm and dry. You need real insulation to retain heat, or good fire building skills.

Good sleeping bags have weight to them, and they are bulky. It may be inconvenient - but it's needed. People need to come to the realization that some gear is essential, and pack their emergency supplies accordingly. I'm not saying that survival is impossible without a sleeping bag, but the skills required are more demanding and the experience may be very unpleasant.

America is infected with far too many scams. There's a lot of "intellectual junkfood" on the Web that deceives people into thinking they have a solution. That's inexcusable when it comes to a serious topic like survival.

The good thing about a survival forum - like this one - is that readers have time to go and check ideas ... and see what really works.

Try things out and REPORT back the real facts.
That's what's important.

Pete

I guess I agree and disagree Pete. Foil sleeping bags aren't a complete scam, they're just often put to inappropriate uses. For more than 20 years I couldn't leave on any dayhike without packing a foil blanket and Tacoma Mountain Rescue emergency tent, because basically that's what prepared hikers and climbers of my particular vintage would do. I agree, the typical foil blanket isn't good for much more than temporarily placing over a patient during treatment in an effort to block wind and retain body heat. A blanket is far less efficient in design than anything that wraps around your body, like a bivv sack. And a sleeping bag (or two) is always better, but who always has Better on them in an emergency. Foil emergency blankets and TMR tents were compact, and importantly would keep you dry in an emergency, which by itself ups your odds of survival greatly, at least here in the moist Pacific Northwest.

Times change, products change for the better. The AMK bivvy isn't foil, it doesn't rip like foil, it reflects heat, and does a decent job at that. I agree, a bivvy without some ground insulation below you in most terrains won't do you much good, but with an insulating pad (either body length or smaller for sitting up while trying to sleep) you will conserve body heat, and stay dry. And in a pinch, rip down some branches, make a pile, and make do with that for ground insulation. I have spent a comfortable night outdoors in an AMK bivvy, with full outdoors clothing. It acts as a wind break, and reflected heat as well. So my daypack these days includes ground insulation - I find that a Big Agnes Air Core mat is a good compromise between insulation and packable weight / space - and an AMK bivvy, because without one the other is pretty ineffective. Although, if I am dayhiking where I might see sudden snowfall, I automatically pack a real bivvy sack (like my Montbell) and sometimes a small down sleeping bag. The Montbell bivvy is light enough that I should really just pack it all the time, but the reality is I pack an AMK bivvy for rescue situations, where I may need to slit it down the side to get it around a victim and conserve their body heat. Sure, I would to that to a $99 Montbell bivvy if I really had to, but I'd rather do it to an $11 AMK bivvy instead.

I think it all comes down to what options you have, and what you can improvise.

I've yet to actually sleep in my AMK Thermolite II, but I've used it a few times to knock the chill off or as a windbreak and it's worked very well every time.

I don't deceive myself into thinking that it'll perform as well as a $500 bag, but it does work a lot better than having nothing. Plus, when packed it's the size of a Coke can and weighs next to nothing. And it's a lot tougher than a simple mylar blanket.

I don't think they are a complete scam. They can be used to improve your chances in a really tough situation. I have bivouacked with less in grim conditions where I would have welcomed a foil blanket, had they been available at the time.

It is misleading to talk about their ability to reflect most of your radiant heat, neglecting to point out that most of your head loss occurs though conduction (unless you are in outer space), but we find that out pretty quick, don't we?

Like most of us, I have pretty much gone on to Thermolite and other better products. Also, I plan better than I did when I was a kid....

The foil bags are a very reasonable aid to wilderness camping as a "supplemental" survival tool. They would be fine for draping over a sleeping bag and increasing your heat rentention. The point here is that you already have adequate body heat, so the foil bag can be of some assistance.

But the concern is that inexperienced people who go to a camping store might mistakenly think that these foil bags alone could save your life in a really cold environment.

Imagine a serious situation ... where you are thrust into a very cold environment (freezing) and your clothing is inadequate (e.g. most of your clothes are wet and freezing cold, and you cannot dry them until the next day). Imagine also that it's late in the day, so there is limited daylight before darkness.

Under these conditions, survival for the next 12 hours depends critically upon finding shelter and preserving your body heat. You don't have time to find food or water, and may not even be able to find fuel for a fire. Therefore, you absolutely need a good sleeping bag and preferably a bivy sack as well. With these essential items, and a survival tool (good knife or tomahawk or machete)you might have much greater hope of improvising some form of temp shelter, getting into a warm sleeping bag, and living to the following sunrise.

This logic leads you to realize how important it is to have a few essential items that you can really depend on - to ensure you can stay warm and get some sort of shelter. With adequate body heat, people have a much better chance of keeping a positive mental attitude. Without these vital things (warmth and positive thinking) - death can come quite quickly.

Something to consider.

Pete

At some point, as has been illustrated, you cross the line from, essentially, emergency gear, to being prepared. If you go hiking, particularly overnighting, you normally carry the gear you need with you-shelter, clotrhing, sleeping gear, cooking gear-so, essential survival equipment is kept minimal, if at all.
However, if youre taking a dayhike, and DONT pack that, you are looking for items that are small enough to stuff into pockets, or carry in a small pouch. The basic premise is that they are just in case items-things to get you through a couple of days, tops.
Me, I work in layers; I have a neck lanyard with my RSK Mk V, a combo compass/whistle/matchcase, I also have a pouch that has a heatsheet, a fully stocked survival tin, a small FAK, a SAK with a saw (I dont recall the model), a Silva compass, and a collapsible 1L water container. I also always carry a 1L canteen with cup, an Esbit stove, my Seal Pup knife, and my Leatherman. This is all, surprising, lightweight (except the canteen, when full), and all fits nicely onto a belt. So, I am never separated from it.

I like to see people test their gear in a safe situation first.
If you are going to do an overnight attempt I suggest to people that they try it in the backyard first.
If it does go wrong and you find yourself freezing to death, being able to stop the experiment and go warm up sure helps.

some years ago i tested the foil blanket out at my cabin.on a cool,wet day like i might find on a spring or fall canoe trip i wet myself down with the outside hose,went off into the woods a bit and wrapped up in a good quality foil blanket,not the 99 cent ones you find around that you can just about see thru.anyway it did not take long to find out that one-they are not magic,if your wet they will not reflect enough heat to warm you up. two-your head gets very cold. three-they don't cover very well,grabbing the sides and pulling them around you still leaves air gaps.as a last part of the test i took off my shirt,i was really cold by this time,to see if it worked better next to bare skin.nope--it was like having cold wet plastic plastered across your back.i got back inside and warmed up in a hot shower..this was sort of a rushed"lets see if it works" test that lead me to make sure i had some sort of sure fire,fire making gear in my PFD and now i'm looking for a small stove to fill that need.if i did this test again i would have my wife film it for Youtube,try with dry clothes or just damp and not drenched.try a foil bag and not blanket.maybe waste a Heat sheet as a test.as a result of this the foil blanket in my Ditch Vest would only be used as a waterproof cover for a shelter.some things i thought about later were that maybe rather than just hunker down i should have walked around or just hopped up and down to make more body heat or made the blanket into a poncho by cutting a small slit on top and using my belt around it to hold it closed and work at fire making or shelter building with the foil poncho on and see if working at that warmed me up at all..anyway..before you test think about it and everything you might want to try and don't do what i did which was just run outside cold and wet it "see if it works"

Dousing yourself with a hose will put you at a disadvantage in any scenario Canoedogs - if you don't have available dry clothing you may be relegating yourself to either starting a fire for warmth (iffy and may be alot of work around here in the PNW, depending on season), or a long night of walking and wakefulness, using up your energy to keep warm. I know one hiker who fell into Thompson Lake one day and spent the next 24 hours awake and keeping warm. He was lucky, he knew the trail home and started out by moonlight around 2am, but before that he had spent about 6 hours walking in a circle to stay warm. By the time he hit the trailhead he had pretty much dried out except for his socks and boots, and he had blisters. Ultralighter, once - the guy never left for a hike without a change of clothes again.

Personally I would ditch any foil type blanket in a survival kit and replace it with either a Montane Featherlite or Jetsteam. They only take up marginally more space and weight than a foil type blanket.

Each to his own, and clothing + gear appropriate for the season. With the possible exception of the warmest summer days I never hike anywhere without my "technical" wind+waterproof jacket (similar to goretex mountaineer-type jackets, except the menbrane is not from goretex). Technical hood (i.e. one that works in foul weather), complete water proof, somewhat breathable and lots of ventilation zippers.


I also bring my bivy bag, which weighs 600 grams. Now 600 grams is a lot for the ultralight experts... but unlike "space blankets" my bivy bag is sturdy enough to be used on a regular basis. Most of the time, I unzip and unfold it into a rectangular sheet that I use as a wind break, rain tarp or heat reflector, using the pre-made rope rivets and para chord. Making lunch breaks comfortable is one of the true joys of hiking in a harsh climate... If it's very cold I unzip a ventilation opening and enjoy lunch inside my own micro climate. The bivy bag is even spacious enough that I can add my own heat source, such as a candle or a stove.


While space blankets is better than nothing, using it effectively requires a lot of practice - to the point that tossing a space blanket into your pack will be useless if you haven't practiced with it. You need to destroy a few to experience what works and what doesn't work. Also realize that wrapping a blanket is seeking a goal which is perfected in the shape of - A BAG! Why people don't use "space bags" instead of "space blankets" is certainly beyond me. A bag can be converted into a blanket with a knife in 15 seconds. Wrapping a blanket into a bag is next to impossible....Which is exactly why many survival manuals advise to bring some big plastic bags to make emergency ponchos / bivy bags.

Now uninsulated bivy bags are cold - but they are much warmer than nothing because you're now in a water proof and wind proof container. But even wind+waterproof, you still need to add insulation, both to the ground and between you and that cold bag material. Could anyone please invent some inflatable bubble wrap material that weighs and compress into next to nothing?

Another problem with non-breathing bags is that you will get condensation on the inside. Most likely, your clothes will get wet, or at least damp. Yet another reason to wear wool...

The one survival experience with the older foil type blankets left me worse off than without-I was young, and didnt understand the mechanics of heat generation, and put the foil blanket around me, then a fleece blanket over that. I dozed off, only to wake up later to condensation that had frozen to the blanket. Not a really pleasant experience...
I have an AMK bivy bag, and, should it be used, I think I would stuff leaves, pine branches, or something else in there, to give some insulation. The heat sheets I could wrap up temporarily till I get a fire going, then build a shelter from there...and use it to reflect heat.