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.