Survival Clothing For Outdoor Emergencies

Maybe you do not need to learn to dress for survival. Perhaps you have always hike with a spare jacket. Maybe you've never been in the wilderness overnight, but only for day hikes. Or bring many warm clothes when you go backpacking.

Nevertheless, hundreds of people die or come close, die each year from exposure. They thought they were ready. You did not expect that their clothes got wet fall into a stream, they do not think they would be out for the night, or theyget lost for days.

Coming down from Mount Whitney I met several young men in t-shirts on their way up, determined to get to the top. They had no gear, and not enough time, but they probably made it there by sunset anyhow. They also certainly didn't make it the eleven miles back to their car before dark. It was below freezing that night, so I imagine they were uncomfortable at best.

Quick Survival Clothing

What survival clothing could they have made in that situation? One of them has a light jacket. He could use his T-shirt as a hat have (a lot of heat lost through the head) and filled his jacket with the fluff from the cattail seedheads for insulation. (Cattail down was once the old orange life preservers to fill.)

Insulation is the important principle here. You can use a jacket, shirt, sweater or pants with dry leaves, stuff milkweed down, bracken ferns or almost anything that a lot of "dead air space provides." It is better if you have twolayers to sandwich it between, but being itchy is better than being frozen in any case.

In a jam, you can also use the flat leaves of cattail plants to weave a vest that will block the wind and some rain. Two bread bags full of milkweed down or other silky plant fibers make warm mittens (tie them at the wrists). A plastic bag full of the same could be tied onto your head as a hat.

Usually, you'll do better to look first at what you have, before looking to kill animals for their Skins, or weave grass skirts. If you have a sleeping bag, it can double as a jacket - so you wrap it around you. Socks, gloves and garbage bags can be made into snow pants.

A garbage bag can also be a raincoat. Otherwise, tie bunches of grass tightly together on a string or strip of cloth and then wrap it around her shoulders. This will repel a light rain. You can make a rain hood of birchbark fashion as well.

In the desert you can use a sun hat, large leaves, like those ofa fan palm. String some together to wrap around the shoulders to prevent sunburn.

You'll probably never use animal skins for the survival clothing. You can not lose and have to stick to shoes to your feet with pine bark, sap, for hiking. Still know how to improvise a few basic parts of survival clothing can you even more comfortable, and may save lives.