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Thank you and Happy Trails!
You’re on an open hillside,
a storm is rolling in from the west, heading your way, it’s already started to
rain, and your miles from camp. You decide to stay where you are, immediately
seeking shelter and making do with the available terrain.
Could you survive? You chose to stay put, choice ‘D’, the worst
choice according to survival experts at Fairchild AFB, to survive you need to get out of the wind and
rain. A trash bag might be your only
hope.
First
off, you need protection from the wind, as wind will enhance heat loss from convection
and combines with conduction and evaporation to further chill you. Convection alone is responsible for about 15
percent of the body’s heat loss, and evaporation from a body at rest can add another
20 percent.
Look
for a large boulder, a natural parapet, a tree trunk, the root ball of a downed
tree, anything to block the wind. You
can make a windbreak of rocks or logs, or if you are in a snow field, you can make
a wall of snow blocks or kick out a snow-hole.
Next
you need shelter from the rain. It is important to stay dry, because wet
clothing conducts heat away from your body 25 times faster than dry clothing, and
moisture evaporating from wet layers of clothing also causes substantial heat
loss. Also wet clothes lose their
ability to trap air, significantly lowering their insulating ability.
If
you have a plastic trash bag you can quickly make a trash-bag shelter. If you have a space blanket, which when
unfolded measure around 52” x 84, or a similarly sized piece of plastic or tarpaulin,
you can either make a match-coat or any type of tarp shelter to protect
yourself from the rain.
Trash-bag shelters are highly effective in
cold, wet, or windy conditions. They prevent
hypothermia by trapping your body heat, acting as a vapor barrier and a
windbreak, and can significantly increase the temperature inside the bag. An experiment on YouTube by Alex Coker showing a
trash-bag shelter raising the interior temperature from 29°F (-1.6°C) up to
90°F (32°C) in just a few minutes,
Use a large (55-gallon), 3-mil thick contractor bag rather than a thin
household garbage bag for better durability.
Cut
a small, roughly 5-inch hole in one corner or at the top of the bag as a face
hole. The hole allows you to breathe,
preventing suffocation and condensation from your breath building up inside the
bag, wetting and chilling you. Avoid
making the hole too large, as this allows heat to escape and reduces the
shelter's effectiveness.
Some
authors suggest cutting two arm holes to create a “poncho”, however the more
holes you put in the bag the more your body heat will escape.
Place
the bag over your head, pulling the bag down over your body. Remember your shelter should only be large
enough for you to sit or lie down in. A
smaller space is easier to heat. Also tuck
the bottom of the bag under your legs to prevent a “chimney-effect”, as
the body-warmed air escapes up through the face hole and draws in cold air from
below.
Don’t sit on the ground.
Pile up dry insulation, like leaves, spruce
boughs, your pack, because the ground will drain your body heat much faster
than the air. If nothing else, crouch so
that only your feet touch the ground.
Stuff
the bag for added insulation, with dry leaves, grass, or pine needles to increase
its effectiveness by providing loft and actual insulation, rather than it just being
a vapor barrier.
Black bags absorb solar energy during the day
to help warm the inside but are harder for rescuers to see. Orange bags are easier to see, but don’t
absorb as much warmth from the Sun.
If possible, remove any wet clothes before
using a trash-bag shelter, as wet clothing significantly accelerates
hypothermia. Removing
wet clothing or using a vapor barrier to decrease convection and evaporation can
reduce total heat loss by 19–42%
Why
Take Them Off? Wet clothes against your
skin will draw body heat away, even if you are out of the wind. If you have dry spares, change into dry
clothes before getting into the shelter. If you don’t have dry spare clothing, remove
your wet clothes and wring them out before putting them back and entering your
shelter. This reduces evaporative heat
loss, allowing your body to warm up faster.
When should
you keep them on? If stripping down to
remove your wet clothing puts you in an immediate, severe danger of freezing
due to extreme, gusty cold, leave them on to provide a small amount of
insulation and use the shelter bag as a wind and vapor barrier. However, your priority is to get dry as soon
as possible.
For
more information on trash-bag shelters read “Using your poncho or a trash bag
as an Emergency Shelter ©”, HERE.
Don’t forget to come back next week and read “Tea
Candles can Save Your Life!©”, where we will talk how tea candles can save your
life.
I hope that you enjoy
learning from this resource! To help me
to continue to provide valuable free content, please consider showing your
appreciation by leaving a donation HERE.
Thank you and Happy Trails!
I
hope that you continue to enjoy The Woodsman’s Journal Online and look for me
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That
is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!
Sources
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Marines learning to cope with cold weather”, Wilmington Morning Star, March 3,
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accessed April 18, 2026
Auerbach,
Paul S. Ed.; Auerbach's Wilderness Medicine E-Book, 7th
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April 18, 2026
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LT, Brattebø G, Dipl-Math JA, Wiggen Ø, Østerås Ø, Mydske S, Thomassen Ø.; “Effect
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accessed April 18, 2026
Henriksson,
Otto; Lundgren, Peter; Kuklane, Kalev; Holmér, Ingvar; Naredi, Peter and
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access April 18, 2026
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accessed April 18, 2026
