SOL emergency blanket as rain tarp?

Use it in place of polycro.

If all your gear is dark green or grey or other nature colors and you hike solo IMO it is a good idea to have something in your kit that is a contrasting color.  If you are stranded and not ambulatory, when people are searching for you, you are easier to see.

So if this is one of the mylar blankets that weighs 1 or 2 oz in can server as a shelter footprint and as part of a rescue signal.

Does anyone else start tidying up their storage and find things they didn’t know they had?!

Worse than that. I’ll put something on my shopping list, buy it, then go to put it away, and discover I already own one.

IME super-thin mylar blankets are almost single-use. Quickly develop holes.

— Rex

Rex, I think Karen is talking about a blanket that has the metallic foil blanket laminated to a thin sheet of clear orange (or more rarely, dark green) plastic. They seem much more durable than the single layer sheet you are referencing.

Yeah, it’s not mylar. It is orange on one side and silver on the other. I tried ripping it at a side just to see and it does tear but very slowly, like bread dough when ripe (sorry for the reference, only thing I could think of!). And it doesn’t seem to continue, it doesn’t shred. So it seems like it will hold up ok.  I think I’ll put some grommets in the corners and see if I can use it as a footprint, and also as a daytime tarp for rain. I guess if it destroys itself, I didn’t really lose anything.

There are more mysteries out in my gear storage…and soooo many short bits of cordage! I have become my mother, and never throw anything out!

I made a tarp out of a SOL blanket (metalized polyethylene) many years ago.

I beefed up the tie out points (4) by going corner-to-corner (X pattern) with a thin mylar-type tape.   You can then add  tie out loops to the corners–I used thin shock cord to make mine.   The tape & cord obviously adds some weight but it worked out better than I had expected…within limits.

Tape used: