Keeping to the following clothing hacks to stay warm without appropriate clothing on a winter trip will take no cajoling if you are familiar with the common dangers associated with the snowy season. And you should be well aware of likely risks before taking an outdoor adventure.
So, I’m guessing you recognize the high possibility of things going wrong and know the various ways through which disaster may occur. As I first said, keeping to safety tips should take you no hesitation considering this.
3 Excellent Practical Clothing Hacks to Stay Warm without Appropriate Clothing on a Winter Trip
First, to make a necessary distinction, these tips to stay warm are different from the overall hacks to know when winter camping. Whereas there are general tips to ensure your survival in the cold wild, this article will focus solely on keeping you warm.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think you’d be glad to learn that staying warm when you go winter camping, hiking, or hunting does not demand much. You just have to be adequately prepared & know the simple things to do.
Here we go.
Keeping Warm Even Without Your Jacket
We all know you should dress warmly, so there’s no need to stress this point. However, I need to point out that several people are still caught in the cold without a winter jacket every season. I know that sounds dumb, but people do it, mostly due to the initial deceitful warmness of the morning sun.
As we know, this changes quickly & without warning too, so more often than not, some persons have no jackets when they leave their campsite to gather wood, water or do whatever. That’s what the statistics say. No winter season ending without several campers catching hypothermia, frozen bones & more, or God forbid, without a camper found face buried in the snow.
Now, onto solutions, what should you do if you ever find yourself in that situation?
Keep Dry
It should be obvious that this has to be your first step and arguably the most important. Should you find yourself in the rain, you have to find shelter as fast as possible. You just have to keep dry. In fact, you’ll lose body heat faster (about 300 times) being in wet clothes than being naked under the rain. But again, this depends on your choice of fabric.
Virgin wool is hollow & has a natural oily water repellant. So, when this fabric is wet, it can retain about half of its insulating ability. There are other fabrics with this spec, but there’s a difference between water-resistant & waterproof, and the former is what these fabrics are. The best thing is to seek shelter & avoid the downpour. The same applies for a snowstorm.
Fortunately, in the wild, there’s always a natural shelter somewhere. I’ll advise you now that you take note of caves & other shelters as you stroll or go about your daily activities. If you can’t find any, a pine tree will be helpful. You can crawl under a large pine tree and have the sheltering leaves cover you as you rest against the tree’s base. For more warmth, gather pine leaves from other trees and pike against where you’re resting.
Make A ‘Natural’ Jacket
As we were saying, you’re without a jacket when the weather becomes harsh. Maybe it starts raining or whatever. You can make a jacket from specific tree types if there’s no shelter to run to. This jacket made of leaves and branches will save you from the heavy brunt of a downpour and retain little heat using roots & branches.
To make this jacket, find a flexible yet strong root or branch & make a loop that can go over the head & cover the shoulders. This loop has to be tied together using shoelaces, a paracord, or a braid of long grasses. Just ensure the loop can support the heaviness of branches hanging down from it.
Get some leafy leaves, making a “Y” inscription by their cut. This Y will serve as the hangar to connect your leaves to the circle (loop) you made. Gather a lot of these leaves, arranging them to overlap, and you’re done. This may not be the most effective way, but it will do you much better than having nothing at all.
Stuff Your Clothing
Basically, stuffing helps to foster insulation. You may not be interested in the science of how this works but do know that the higher the pocket count of a dressing or insulator, the more effective it is in keeping you warm. Here’s how it works.
At its very basic level, insulation is all about keeping the warm air in circulation throughout your body, but this requires a large number of small air pockets to take place. Think of having an air pocket between the outside air & your skin. Have you ever noticed that the temperature of your skin is always the same as that of the pocket nearest to your skin?
On the other hand, the pocket closest to the outside air feels just as cold as the outside air. If there’s a long line of pockets, you’ll observe that the coldest is the one outside and that the coldness reduces according to the proximity to your body.
This means, since you’re wearing only one layer of clothing (as you are without your jacket), you’ll have a small amount of air pockets, probably 1 or 2, and be very vulnerable.
To solve this problem, you should stuff your dressing with leaves or pine branches, just as the homeless stuff their dressing with old crumpled up newspapers. The leaves will be itchy but keep you insulated, and that’s really enough. Take care not to overstuff your clothing, though, as this will collapse the whole air pockets, and it’s back to nothing for you.
Concluding The Clothing Hacks to Stay Warm Without Appropriate Clothing on a Winter Trip
Forgetting an important item doesn’t have to ruin your winter camping or hunting. You may be very meticulous and careful, but there’s always a margin for error when you hit the wilderness. Keep these tips in mind.
With the option to seek cover in several shelters, make a natural jacket from trees or stuff your clothing, you should, without doubt, know how to survive the stinging cold without complete gear. Let’s hear from you: are there other clothing hacks to stay warm without appropriate clothing on a winter trip that we have missed?