I had the opportunity this past weekend to introduce a group of 10 Girl Scouts to some winter survival techniques and had a ball. The girls around 10 years old, members of my wife’s troop were going “camping” at a Girl Scout camp in southern PA. The “camping” was in a heated building with running water and a kitchen, but the latrines were outside, so they did have to contend with some discomfort. For many, this was their first semi-camping trip and we wanted to make it as much fun as possible, while still trying to introduce and cover various topics for some of their badge work.

With the snowstorm that hit most of the east coast, we were able to talk about winter survival. The road leading up to the camp is a steep hill, so Saturday morning we were able to go sledding and test out what clothing the girls brought with them. In the afternoon, the girls cut pictures of appropriate winter clothing from old catalogs and made collages. We discussed fabrics and layering, and then we discussed the causes, prevention and treatment of hypothermia and frostbite. I went over and discussed what you should carry with you, the PSK cheat sheet and what to do if you got lost. I gave each of them a whistle and a copy of the PSK cheat sheet on waterproof paper.

Later in the evening, we decided to make a fire in the outdoor fireplace. Another troop, who was also up for the weekend, tried to make a fire in the afternoon, but without success. I went over to look at the fireplace and noted they had stuffed it full of wood, mostly larger pieces and there was little ventilation. Just before we went outside to start the fire, I went over the importance of collecting enough tinder, kindling and having larger pieces to support the fire once we got it going. We went over various types of matches and other fire starters. I told them we were going to try and start the fire without matches using a standard ferrocerium rod and petroleum/cotton ball tinder. Most of the wood was already collected at the fireplace, but we had the girls collect additional wood to use and to replace the wood we planned on using. I pulled out all of the wood from the other troop and showed the girls how to correctly stack the kindling. We were able to start the fire with the ferroerium rod and cotton ball; soon we had a substantial fire going. We planned and did try to cook our “foil” dinners, but the metal plate on top of the fireplace was too far above and the weather was so cold, that the foil packages never got the chance to heat up despite building the fire higher. We were going to simply throw the foil packages into the coals, but we had too many to cook and the design of the fireplace did not allow us to do so easily, so we ended up finishing them in the oven. We did go out after dinner and made smoores over the fire.

The next day we were going to go over GPS and some geo-caching, but with the snow, the girls could have just followed the footprints to the caches. So we went over what to have in a winter survival kit for the car, then I gave each girl one of the key chain LED flashlights from Country Comm for their kits.

In all the girls had a good time, learned a few things and hopefully will be able to add to these skills the next time we go camping in April. Pete