hey guys this is kevin oselo with field craft survival a common question that i always receive
is if i'm a hunter and i get lost i get turned around i get injured and i have to spend the night
how do i spend the night in the great outdoors without dying let's face it
in this environment it's very very easy to get intimidated by your surroundings
especially when the snow is falling and when there's a fresh coating of powder it sounds
amplified very very easily so what we're going to do is we're going to take a look at the steps
you should take if you had to spend an unexpected night out uh i nicknamed it or my buddy told
me i should nickname it the uno right the unexpected night out it's very simple to do
you just have to keep a clear head and you'll be able to get through the night without an issue
all right guys so let's talk about the appropriate steps you should take if you decide to
take an unexpected night out in the woods away from home the first thing you should do is have
an established stop time right it's very very easy to just keep going and going and going run
your flashlight it's very easy to tell yourself hey i'm not lost super easy to tell yourself
uh not an issue but in reality what you should do is tell yourself i need to slow down i need
to think about just spending the night and everything's gonna be all right okay
so now in an area like this i know it's kind of hard to see but everything starts looking like
everything else the only thing that's standing out to me right here is this larger tree which will
make a suitable shelter when it comes to making a shelter in the great outdoors you only really need
to think about three elements in terms of having proper components something to sleep inside of
something to sleep on top of and something to sleep underneath now if you have selected
your hunting clothing appropriately then you're already in what you're gonna spend the night in
trust me uh and you probably know this already if you've been sitting in your deer stand or
if you've been walking around in the woods and your clothing has kept you warm it'll keep you
warm throughout the night maybe with a couple refinements that you might carry in your pack
but you already have part of your shelter on your body so you should always make it a point not to
leave your house unless you have clothes that you can spend the night in the next thing is
finding a shelter like this one something that maybe the snow cover on the ground
isn't as thick underneath it as it is around it and this will be what you're going to sleep
underneath the last thing that you have to worry about is what you're going to sleep on top of
in the winter time or in any cold weather the ground is going to win that battle when
it comes to taking heat away from you you're not going to heat it up it's going to cool you down
it's very easy just to sleep on top of your backpack put it down sit on top of it
but something that i found that's very useful is just carrying a garden pad
that gardeners kneel on in the garden as a seat pad and then i can use my bag to either
keep my feet warm or i can use my bag as a back rest and just spend the night up against a tree
okay so i've set up my temporary shelter and that's how i have to think about it very
temporary i've got my gardener's pad which is a very inexpensive investment that i picked up from
home depot or lowe's that's what i'm sitting on right now i'm sitting cross-legged right here if
my legs get cold i can always take my backpack and put them underneath my legs get myself up off the
ground a little bit more i've got a heavy-duty sportsman's blanket just to keep the moisture
off my back now if i'm wearing wool chances are if my wool starts to take on a little bit of moisture
and it's really howling through here really really cold that moisture is going to freeze to
the outside actually forming an ice crust the wool will continue to keep me warm and believe it or
not that ice crust will actually block the wind so i'm okay with a little bit of moisture inside of
the shelter i've got something that i'm sleeping inside of i've got something that i'm sleeping
underneath and i've got my seat pad that i'm sleeping on top of let's face it we don't
expect to get a lot of sleep on a night like this we just have to survive until we see the
day break until we see the morning that's all it takes now something that is going to come up
is your mind at some point in the night you may find yourself battling with yourself you may
find yourself dealing with the thoughts that are running through your mind it's totally fine right
we're human beings we're thinking creatures when it's dark outside our eyes aren't going to work
as efficiently and our ears are going to take over right our ears are going to compensate for
what we can't see uh even though we're filming this and i've got my headlamp on and i've got a
flashlight so you guys can see what's going on i'm gonna try to conserve my light as much as possible
and only use it when i need to i'm also going to do whatever i can to remember my worth and
remember why i need to make it out in the morning right if i'm a husband if i'm a brother if i'm a
best friend if i'm an uncle i want to remember all the people that will be upset at me for not
getting back to them if i don't make it through the night so that little bit of morale boost
might help me push through a little bit of the chill factor and get through until that sun rises
something else that's very helpful and for you western hunters this is absolutely applicable is
having the means of creating some sort of heat with a stove i can use a simple stove to create
what i need for a morale booster and something very very simple hot beverages
right something very simple is a quick meal these freeze-dried meals even though you
may not plan on spending you know multiple days out in the backcountry it doesn't hurt
to have a couple of these or even just one of them in your backpack for that unexpected night out
in the great outdoors and in survival situations it's all about building up little victories right
positive mental attitude and if i can control as many factors as possible in this unexpected night
out then i'm gonna make it through the night if i can get out of the wind i've just defeated the
wind if i can get up off the ground and off of the coldness of it i just won again if i can put hot
food in my belly i won again and how many hours is it that i really have to stay here until i can
see the tracks i can probably collect my bearings so i'm gonna do little tasks throughout the night
build up that morale build up those victories and in the morning i'll be able to get out of here
and deciding what type of survival shelter you're going to use for the night you have to realize
there are only four types of shelters and those four shelters can be broken up into open shelters
right where it's essentially this scenario where i don't have walls around me even nylon
tent walls around me it's an open shelter that's the open shelter without a fire that is probably
the coldest night you're going to experience but it is survivable with the right clothing
i can have an open shelter like this one with a campfire in front of me
now depending where you are you may have camp fire wood resources or you may not which is
why you want to carry a small backpacking stove because you can use that to heat water
i can take my metal canteen heat up water and tuck it next to me and hold on to it for the night
or i can simply uh use it to heat up meals and put the hot food in my belly
a closed shelter would be like a backpacking tent right clothes shelter without a flame not a bad
option but you need something like a sleeping bag in order to warm it up to keep yourself warm
through the night the best option is one that most people aren't going to carry but it is an
option still and that is a closed shelter with a fire if you think of the ultralight backpacking
tents that have collapsible stoves uh kefaru makes one i like using the sawtooth it's going to raise
the inside temperature of that tent 50 to 60 degrees when the outside could be below zero
it's really the best option for long-term hunting to dry out the loft that's inside your clothing
but given this scenario i'm going to work with what i have and that's simply something to sit
on the clothes that i'm wearing and a tarp that i can tuck over my head now if i don't have a
tarp something that you may want to carry are contractor cleanup bags big 55-gallon drum bags
i could literally put that entire bag over my head cut a slit from my face so i could breathe
out of it and do all of my work inside of this area another option to carry something very very
lightweight are these emergency blankets this is actually an emergency bivvy sack
and this is the two-person one now i've slept in both the one person and the two person and i'll
tell you the one person is tight the two person is roomy and there are those that will say well you
have to heat up all that extra space with the two person bibi sack well i'll put it to you this way
there is really not that much more space in the two person and just for my own sanity
i want the ability to move my arms around so i don't feel like i'm trapped inside of a cocoon
so this is yet another good option that i can pull up around my entire body just make sure that you
have something covering your head and you'll make it through the night without issue
all right guys
this is where this video started earlier and i will tell you that now that the sun
is on the horizon it's a lot easier to collect my bearings um i knew just by looking at my my watch
and referring back to my sunrise chart how long how many hours i'd have to make through right
and it's something that i can i can play in my head right only two hours left only one hour left
that type of thing when it comes to surviving the night it's not an entire day it's literally
just until the sun rises and when the sun rises i can now see more than i could the night before
i can now with less snow coming down too i could actually see that that's the direction that i came
and i can see on the horizon some of the catch points and some of the terrain features that i
can associate with my map and find my way out of here every year hunters get lost every year
hunters get injured every year there's going to be some type of scenario where a hunter is going
to have to spend an unexpected night out and by the way this is not just for hunters this
is for backpackers and this is for the day hiker make it a point to leave your house
with what you need to spend an unexpected night out it's not a matter of if it will happen to you
when you do this long enough it's a matter of when it will happen to you and like i said it could be
for something very very simple as getting turned around on a trail it could be for something very
dramatic as as getting injured be prepared for that scenario right it's just spending
the night but with the right preparation and the right training you'll be able to get through it