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Subscribe to RSSI was having a discussion this weekend with some of the other members of the MitchellWinter.com group, and I posed the question, “What do you know about snow?” Below are a few of the facts that I thought I would share. If you have anything to add, please comment below. Information, after all, s your best survival tool.
Snow is frozen water
OK, I know that sounds like a smart-ass answer, but seeing how I grew up in Florida, it is an important fact. Not everyone realizes that as you hike in the snow, two things are happening: you are getting snow on you, and you are heating up your body. In turn, the snow is melting on your clothes. This can be really bad once you stop hiking and cool off. The water in your clothes will freeze. Not good.
On the flip side of this, you can eat snow to help you hydrate, but be careful with this one. Snow s tapping your body heat in order to melt the snow into ice, so by eating snow you are lowering your core temperature, and therefore that much closer to hypothermia. As mentioned earlier, though, when you are moving you are heating yourself up. Finding the balance between the heat of hiking and the cooling of eating snow is the key.
Snow is a great insulator
The Inuit know what they are doing when it comes to cold weather, and their use of the igloo (iglu) for shelter illustrates this best. The fact is, unpacked snow is mostly air (90% or better) trapped between ice crystals. The fact that the air cannot circulate causes it not to transfer heat, and thus insulate.
Snow absorbs water
If you find yourself suddenly wet (slipped on that rock in the stream, did you?) and you are in freezing temperatures, you must get your wet clothes off ASAP. What you may not realize is that by rolling your clothes in the snow, or even parts of yourself, you can dry up a lot of the water. Then the snow can be brushed off rather easily. Keep in mind you are still going to have to dry your clothes completely near a fire (or other heat source) but the time it will take will have been reduced. Hopefull your sleeping bag was in a water tight bag during this time, so that you can get into it while your clothes dry!
Your turn. What do you know about snow?
Jeffery… Very fascinating thought!
First off… in hiking or backwoods camping, Never eat snow for hydration. Always do your best to melt snow first. I can’t remember which website I got it off of, but they actually ran the amount of energy the human body would have to use to change the snow to water. And from their data, they showed that consuming snow would cause a person to fall into hypothermia a lot faster than if they would have gone without water for a couple of hours and actually worked on melting snow.
Then the question becomes.. “How do you melt snow?” I recently came accross another fact on a website (REI’s I believe) and they stated that if you melt snow on your stove, do so with just a little bit at a time and over low heat, otherwise the water would actually just evaporate off and you would end up with: 1) no water and 2) less fuel.
So I know I didn’t answer your question, but I thought those two points would be another good discussion point.
After reading your response, I had to go back and look at the post. Seems that little diatribe on my post was accidentally erased. Basically, it was supposed to say what you stated, adding only to eat the snow when there is no other means to melt it. Also, we are not talking about going hours without water. We are talking days.
The truth is that you can find both suggestions with enough digging. The conservatve way to state this fact is, “don’t do it.” This seems to mainly stem from the fact that a lot of people are lazy and will screw it up. If you are not generating the “extra” body heat, you simply cannot do this.
As commented on other posts, the words of Les Stroud, “You sweat, you die.” Eating snow can help bring down the body temperature if you are exerting yourself too much in the cold. Speaking of Les Stroud, I have seen multiple videos where he is eating snow while hiking. I want to say that one of those times I heard a narrator (this was not Survivor Man) say sonmething about not eating snow. Go figure.
What it always comes down to is balance, which most people will screw up. Here’s my quote, “You screw up, you die.”
As far as staying dry in the snow, I cannot emphasize having a waterproof or resistant outerlayer on enough. There are plenty of products on the market to renew the finish if the outerwear that you currently own is losing its water resistance.
And if its snowing while you hike, dont be afraid to use your pack cover to keep all your valuable gear nice and dry during a hike.
I remember a Survivorman (the Baffin Island one I believe) where Les Stroud brought up the eat snow/don’t eat snow debate. He basically said what you guys are saying. He said that most will say not to eat snow for hydration, but his situation was extremely physically exerting and it was a good means of bringing his temp down to prevent perspiration.
Here is a clip with a warning about red snow / watermelon snow. http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/survivorman-3-be-careful-of-red-snow.html
Another clip, on building a snow cave: http://science.discovery.com/videos/les-strouds-survival-tips-snow-cave.html