Due to the military occupation I chose, I have spent a considerable amount of time training in extreme outdoor cold temperature environments. Operating in outdoor temperatures of -20 celsius for days at a time was pretty normal but I have also encountered more extreme environments where it was down to -45 celsius.
A lot of these things I'm going to mention might sound like common sense but they're really not... until you experience hypothermia first hand... twice... like me. Not fun. Then it becomes common sense pretty quickly.
These are some of my personal lessons, first classroom taught (when nobody paid attention) and then experienced first hand:
- The very first thing I would recommend is not to risk voluntarily placing yourself in extreme cold weather environments (and especially not alone) unless you have proper planning, preparations, training and cold weather kit.
- For all the hardcore types who think cold temperatures are just another mental mind obstacle to overcome, I only have one thing to say: Frostbite is real.
- Alcohol will dehydrate your body quickly. When hydration means life or death, alcohol is like anti-water in survival situations. There is no reason to drink alcohol when trying to stay alive in an extreme cold environment (...Unless it's your buddy's birthday and he's a really awesome guy and survival isn't important anyways in which case, I guess it's ok).
- Try to stay in pairs, especially at night so that someone will know if you accidentally fall down somewhere. Wild animals will be less likely to approach you if you're in pairs. This includes when answering nature's call.
- If nature calls, do it often. This will keep your body efficient by not having to maintain everything inside your intestines at a certain body temperature required to survive.
- Liquid water is exceedingly difficult to come by in extreme cold climate environments and is absolutely crucial to your survival. Treat it like gold because it might as well be. I have experienced water freezing within two or three minutes of being exposed to extreme cold. It could take several hours to slowly freeze in their containers even if packed away in a bag. This varies with the temperature and type of container the water is stored in. Thermos containers will eventually freeze but much slower than a plastic water bottle for example.
You will have to learn to keep water liquid. If possible, keep the water container close to your body to keep it warm. I have learned first hand that Tetra-Pak juice beverage bag containers insulated by layers of fleece and packed deep in a rucksack will keep its contents liquid up to an outdoor temperature of -45c where water in bottles will freeze solid.
The tetra pak beverage pouch I am referring to looks like this.
You'll inevitably have to carry some tinder and matches or lighter in a waterproof container to start a fire that can boil frozen water. In my experience, when approaching close to -45c, electronic kit including GPS stop functioning until the batteries were warmed up to a certain temperature. Even devices like simple portable stove designs stop functioning as any residual liquid fuel inside froze in the fuel pipe so I always kept some tinder and a magnesium rod and steel striker for emergencies.
- This one is specific to firearms for hunting and military purposes: weapons are to be left in the cold outdoors and not to be brought into tents. The reasoning behind this is that any snow inside the nooks and crannies of the weapon could melt from body heat alone and then re-freeze, therefore seizing all the internal moving parts. I have not been able to cock my weapon more than once even without bringing it into a tent, you just have to maintain the weapon whenever possible.
- We always traveled efficiently by wearing snow shoes and skis. I often faced moving through knee high unbroken soft snow. Snow shoes will distribute your body weight and you'll sink into the snow slightly less which means you don't use as much energy to lift your leg to take the next step.
We pulled sleds to carry all our necessary kit required to survive the cold like tents, cooking equipment, etc. Using snow shoes and manually pulling sleds that weighed up to 300 pounds, moving unassisted, a distance of five kilometers through wilderness with no roads and plenty of hills and woods can take up to eight hours to travel.
- You may not be able to think clearly under extreme cold weather environments. I've seen the most hardcore guys simply shut down. It wasn't always a cold but clear sunny day. Rarely was there no wind chill or the wrath of a never ending blizzard pouring down upon us where we went. Plan your route ahead of time. I hope you have a map and compass. I always remembered that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
- If you don't have a tent for the night, build a lean-to shelter or an igloo if it's cold enough to cut solid blocks of snow. I was taught to build very, very small one man igloos that can just enclose my body as an emergency survival measure. Do this as soon as possible before the sun light disappears. Do anything important during sunlight hours.
- Stay warm, stay dry, stay clean. This is much more difficult than it sounds and probably isn't always possible. Avoid walking through bodies of water. Change your socks and wear your underwear inside out. Sweating is bad so try not to exert too much energy like running unless absolutely necessary. Sweat is meant to cool down your body via evaporation, which is good when you're at the gym but freezes in cold weather environments, which can be lethal.
- Don't over-layer yourself with too many layers of socks and clothes. In fact, if you find yourself feeling hot from walking or wearing clothes, open your clothing zippers to try to cool down without sweating. Change your socks at night if you can and dry them out by keeping the socks close to your body while you sleep (I was never truly able to "sleep" in those environments, my body shivered the entire night away and I was always slightly consciously awake but with my eyes closed). Wrap something else around your feet to keep them warm at night. Your feet is guaranteed to sweat which could cause frostbite if you don't keep it dry and warm.
- If it's just warm enough that snow and dirt can make some mud (especially during daylight hours), completely covering yourself in mud is an extremely effective body heat insulator. You'll have to literally roll around in mud to ensure you have head to toe coverage. I have had to do this once. Once the mud dried out, it was very effective at keeping me warm for hours as if the chill just wasn't able to penetrate through my layers.
- If you somehow become completely wet, whether it's falling in water or being rained on by frozen rain... well, strip off all wet clothes and use any means to get dry and get warm fast. It can amount to a death sentence or at the very least, cause quick hypothermia as I learned the hard way. It's easy to recognize symptoms of hypothermia. I couldn't think straight. My teeth began chattering uncontrollably and my body was shivering violently. I was physically unable to properly hold a plastic spoon to eat my meal ration and kept dropping the spoon repeatedly. I was lucky we had emergency chemical heat packs that we stuffed in between my layers to keep me alive. It's not a good experience.
- Don't eat snow no matter how thirsty you become. There were several instances where all I thought about was finding water when everything was frozen solid and I eventually succumbed to desperation and ate snow. Eating snow lowers your core body temperature very, very, very rapidly and you can become an immobile liability to whoever you're with. Eating snow can also amount to a death sentence. Your body will scream at you to drink your limited supply of water but you'll have to ration water to make it last the longest when it counts the most. We had to lick ice in desperation once.
- Without a firearm, the chances of you catching a wild animal for food in a snare is statistically unlikely. We had to setup something like 80+ noose snares in a small area and the next morning, we found only one small rodent had been ensnared and strangled to death by one of the 80 snares we setup. You may choose to survive on water only as you head towards help to save the energy of setting up wire or rope snares.
I do know more tips from reading and watching various survival TV shows but these above points I have written here are things I have actually had to learn and do in real life to survive in cold weather environments. I can personally attest to each of them.
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