Surviving the cold without a tent or a sleeping bag

[Walter Carrington]

Kurasawa's movie Dersu Uzala is based on a memoir by VK Arseniev, so this may be true rather than fiction:
Dersu, a Siberian native, and a Russian military cartographer/explorer are caught in winter in a wind storm in a Siberian marsh. Dersu builds a shelter out of grass and they survive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQDZ1ExrtEw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PulGI0XVVug&NR=1

[Roman Dial]

Wow Jim, your dad must have felt pretty bad about that trip….

That video link is neat. As he said there, the key is a fire with lots of wood.

I have spent many nights out without shelter in Alaska — no sleeping bag, no pad — and the warmest nights have always been with fire.

Once I ripped a hole in the bottom of a packraft in the Wrangells (1986) and it was October. The temperature dropped to -10 F that night. All my gear was wet, so I built two fires and slept between them.

In the Wilderness Classic we routinely camp without bag or shelter and the key is as the Survival Savvy Swede said, "The key is a big fire and a lot of wood."

In the snow, spruce boughs make good, albeit pretty heavy trace-leaving, insulation to sleep/rest on.

[Tohru Ohnuki]

Dersu Uzala is an underappreciated Kurosawa film and basically the source for "The Empire Strikes Back." Lucas copped the character of Yoda from Dersu and the scene with the grass shelter got morphed into the Tauntaun scene.

[Miguel Arboleda]

Dersu Uzala is one of my all time favorite movies, and I've read the book, too. I often dreamed of knowing as much as Dersu did about his forests and steppes. You rarely see a character like him, or an actor who can portray such a character so well.

When I was a boy I loved "My Side of the Mountain", by Jean Craighead George. Perhaps my first look into surviving and prospering in the wild.

And, of course, even though it isn't entirely realistic, my all-time favorite champion of the wilderness is Snufkin, from the Moomin series by Tove Jansson. I still read the books today for the wisdom they provide about life and nature.

[Anonymous]

"Dougal Haston and Doug Scott summited Everest,
VERY hard men. VERY!"

Indeed. Men enough to think nothing of burying their feet in each other's groin to prevent frostbite.

[M G]

"Just hours before they break camp to return home to US, Simpson crawls into camp, having crawled the entire way. "

Just to clarify a small point:

Joe Simpson and Simon Yates are British. They returned to the UK.

[Hikin’ Jim]

Wow Jim, your dad must have felt pretty bad about that trip…

Some trips you look back on and say "that was tough, but it really was an adventure." Other trips, you just shake your head and thank God you're alive. This was the latter kind of trip. I've read about plenty of people dying in those circumstances.

Dad really liked to talk about old hikes and such. He never talked about that trip.

That video link is neat. As he said there, the key is a fire with lots of wood.

Michel has a lot of good ideas, and puts together a pretty good video, doesn't he?

All my gear was wet, so I built two fires and slept between them.

Hmm. That's a good one to bear in mind. The reason we survived was at least in part because dad liked John Muir's writings. Muir described how he would "dance" all night to stay warm. Dad drew that out of his memory that night back in '84, and we lived. Sometimes videos or books will give you an idea that could be really useful someday. Worth a read even though you obviously can't remember everything.

In the snow, spruce boughs make good, albeit pretty heavy trace-leaving, insulation to sleep/rest on.

Better to leave a trace than to vanish without one. (shudder)

[* *]

It isn't exactly what you're looking for, but certainly worth watching:

[Chris Jones]

I think "Alive" would qualify for inclusion in this thread.

Here is a summary of the book, taken from Amazon web site:

"On October 12, 1972, an Uruguayan Air Force plane carrying a team of rugby players crashed in the remote snowy peaks of the Andes. Ten weeks later, only sixteen of the forty-five passengers were found alive. This is the story of those ten weeks spent in the shelter of the plane's fuselage without food and with scarcely any hope of a rescue. The survivors protected and helped one another, and came to the difficult conclusion that to live meant doing the unimaginable. Confronting nature at its most furious, two brave young men risked their lives to hike through the mountains looking for help — and ultimately found it."

[Tom Bender]

"Into Thin Air" is excellent

"Endurance" is also a must read.

[Walter Carrington]

I think it's fiction, but the movie 'The Snow Walker' is excellent. The female lead is Inuit and was chosen for the role partly because she actually knows the traditional methods for survival in the north.
" The Snow Walker concerns a brave risk-taking pilot (Barry Pepper) and an Inuit woman in frail health who is his passenger. When the pair experience a plane crash, each is forced to learn from and help the other in order to survive the variety of obstacles the harsh landscape throws in their path." Based on a story by Farley Mowat.

The whole film on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgr1u4Fdii0

[Troy Ammons]

Great movie

[Author]

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