Emergency shelter with lower extremity injury

Dennis, a small candle and emergency blanket would be a light and small packing solution. Check here: http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=102205

You might add enough tape to compress the ankle, a sit pad, and a down vest or jacket… Ideally you'd be elevating the ankle too, which may prove difficult with such a minimal setup.

The real Jack Elliot hiked out with a broken ankle.

OUCH!

I carry a SOL Two Person Bivy, plus a 20"x48"x1/2" CCF pad. It's big enough to get into, with gear, so everything stays dry.

I figure I'll just hunker under a tree till help arrives.

Catering to the 'what if' mind-set is what turns a lightweight pack into a heavy monster. Reality is that all these 'what-ifs' can create their own disasters.

Have you considered a mobile phone instead? Without being too melodramatic, asking for help is usually better than trying to handle all disasters yourself.

Cheers

Two Hefty trash bags. $0.35 each. Or two trash compactor bags (the white color and narrower cut has a slimming effect on your figure). Trash compactor bags are also a lot tougher and are a great skirt length but maybe not long enough for adults to bivouac in (32.5" long x 25 wide x 2.5 mil thickness).

If you're going to hike in them, cut/chew most of the bottom seam of one and wear it as a skirt. Chew 11" out of the center of the bottom seam of the other trash bag and pull it over your head. You'll be warmer if you don't cut out arm holes, but have better balance if you do.

If you're going to bivouac, slip your lower body into an unmodified one. And gnaw a small eye/nose hole on one side near the "bottom" of the other, so one bottom corner becomes your "hat" to shed rain and retain more heat. Sit on your pack, branches, pine needles or something insulative as you lean back against a tree trunk.

Some road-way clean-up trash bags are bright yellow. I snag some of those for this purpose. Usually I try to wear earth tones and minimize my visual impact. But if I'm ever bivouacked in a trash bag, I want to be seen.

“Have you considered a mobile phone instead?”

Worthless in many if not most wild areas in the Western United States. Even with a PLB one still needs to survive the night at the very least before a rescue can get to you in most cases.

A space blanket or the SOL emergency bivy (under 4oz) does the trick. To the OP, yes it would hurt getting in, but it is doable and protects you even in the wind. The things are amazingly tough.

http://www.adventuremedicalkits.com/survival/shelter/survive-outdoors-longer-emergency-bivvy.html

"(the white color and narrower cut has a slimming effect on your figure)"

generally dark colors are more slimming.

Take a first aide class and learn how to immobilize the injured extremity.

Purchase 1 contractor size, 55gallon capacity garbage bag to cover your entire body. Pre cut hole in closed end for your head.

Carry sufficient ibuprofen for pain and swelling.

Remember the film of the two climbers where one of them had to cut the rope? The guy who got out of the crevasse didn't try to walk or crawl. He turned around backward and scooted out on his butt. An eVent rain suit would allow you to do this.

The suggestions for the SOL emergency bivy sound great, especially if you paired it up with an S2S Thermal Reactor sleeping bag liner. But I'm assuming that you'd be too incapacitated to slither into to a bivy.

In the scenario you're describing I'd recommend carrying a 12 to 14 oz down blanket, something like the Brooks Range Cloak 45 or an EE Revalation 40 degree 900 down quilt. Something that packs up really small and weighs almost nothing.

Then I'd purchase 2 GG polycro groundsheets. I would use one for underneath and the other I'd tape about 10 little rock pockets onto the outer perimeter with clear Scotch packaging tape, using some spare pieces of 3 mil plastic for the pockets. Then all you'd have to do is put some small rocks (or sand, dirt, etc) into the pockets to keep the polycro weighted down (in case it gets windy). This of course would go on top. All of this for about a pound.

You could also carry a Klymit Inertia X-Lite inflatable pad for only another 5.9 oz.

that's the setup I carry outside of "winter" (winter I carry a down half bag/parka, longer pad, bivy)- a little over 10 oz- I use the AMK heavy duty blanket (6.4 oz), 12 hour beeswax candle (2.6 oz) and a 20×30" 1/8" ccf pad (1.2 oz)- always carry a lwt insulated jacket (usually down) along w/ a hardshell, beanie and gloves.

"It means that it would be horrible pain to slither in feet first into a bivy/sleeping bag."

Frankly, you're talking about a broken ankle, which is not an immobilizing injury, as if it's a compound fracture to one of the major bones in the leg.
Those can happen, too, but it may be worth pointing out to note the psychological effect of injury. If you're convinced you *can't* do something as a result of it, you can't-whether that's actually true or not.

Regardless, I like Mike's idea with the candle, emergency blanket and sitpad, having played with something similar(except sitting on a log wearing a poncho) many moons ago in the military.
What I actually carry on dayhikes is rain gear, a SOL emergency bivy, and a first aid kit with stuff for stabilizing an injured limb. Same stuff I have while backpacking, except for the bivy, which lives in the bottom of my daypack year-round. In cool to cold weather, I add a down jacket and Powerstretch or grid fleece bottom baselayer. Full-zip insulated pants(or Mike's custom "half bag") would be far better, though, especially if you actually had a broken leg or ankle.

Friend of mine was several miles and several drops into a cave and got a broken femur.

Trash bag pulled over her head and body, carbide lamp inside for warmth while she waited for rescue.

Carry a large trash bag in your helmet or pocket. Some heat source too.

Next time you have serious dental work, keep a couple of prescription pain pills back and add them to the Nsaids you carry in your first aid.

Blizzard bag … Test proved and used by the brit military and sar

My news feed seems to have plenty of foks who got injured and needed a rescue

Even with a spot u need to be able to survive the night

;)

What about a bivy with a full length zipper? That way you can unzip it, lay down, and zip it all the way up instead of trying to shove your broken leg in there.

I think a light puffy jacket, a waterproof bivy, and a small inflatable torso pad should get you through the night.

I am reminded of the incident that happened several years ago in the Emigrant Wilderness just north of Yosemite. A U.S. Marine had finished his training, so he was vacationing in Emigrant. He was hiking solo on a trail with virtually no gear. Somehow he fell off the trail and down a steep cliff to a streambed below. In the process, he broke both legs.

I bet that would sting.

He was just far enough off the trail that nobody else could hear him if he called. Since he was in a streambed, he had raw water to drink, but he really couldn't move much. Drawing on his training, he built himself a ground shelter (a "squirrel's nest") with leaves and debris. This was in the summer, so I'm sure the nights were cool but not cold. I don't believe that he had anything to eat.

After a few weeks, he summoned the energy to crawl back up the hill to the trail, and then to crawl several miles out to the highway where he was found.

In summary, the key to survival was his training.

–B.G.–