Travelling through a hiking trail provides visitors and travellers with a safe way to enjoy the vast mountain range and beautiful forests without worrying about getting lost. However, certain circumstances may prevent hikers from losing track of the trail and finding themselves lost in the mountains. It may be important to prepare to survive the night in the mountains if this is the case.
Clear a space for your fire. Scrape away brush, leaf litter, duff, and surface soil to square off a space at least three feet across. In snow cover, you can either dig to bare ground or make a platform of green logs or branches on which to light your fire.
Consider building a wall around your fire site with rocks or logs, but don’t stack it so high that you block airflow. Place a pile of tinder in the center of your fire space. If you’re using newspaper strips, tie them in a loose knot to increase the ignitable surface area and prolong burning time.
Brace twigs in a rough cone form around this tinder bundle. Then stack some larger pieces of kindling around that structure, being sure not to pack the wood too tight to impede airflow.
Light the tinder, then gently blow on the sparks to grow them into flame. Once the kindling catches, add a few more pieces to start building a bed of embers. When you’ve got embers and burning kindling going, begin adding larger fuel wood.
Below are some examples:
Snow cave: If you have at least 4 feet of strong snow, you can dig yourself a snow cave to stay in. The problem? It will probably be freezing in there. The benefit? Freezing temperatures will actually be warm compared to outside of the snow cave. Digging a snow cave, of course, requires a shovel. Thus, a shovel can help would-be frigid mountain trekkers in more than one way.
Tent: A four season tent can be great. However, the wind can sometimes make a tent a noisy place to be (constant flapping). Thus, people may choose to build walls (out of snow or brush) around it for added shelter. If you want tent recommendations take a look at our list of the best survival tents.
Bivy: Get in a sleeping bag and lay down for a good night! Usually, people do this in cracks in rocks or in a dug trench. This is about as basic as it gets, of course. In other words, only if you have to.
If you are in an alpine area, you should use the alpine distress signal, which works as follows:
The proper response to this is:
If you happen to be in a non-alpine area, you can use SOS morse code as the distress signal. In addition, you could also use the full morse code alphabet to communicate full sentences. However, SOS is simple and easily recognisable by many as a distress signal. SOS in Morse is as follows:
3 dots, 3 dashes, then 3 dots, or 3 short flashes, 3 long flashes, then 3 short flashes.
