"Bear Grylls demonstrates how to use a camel as a shelter against a sandstorm. Warning: This is Bear Grylls, so that means gutting the camel and getting inside the camel for shelter."

Han Solo survived a sub-zero night and pulled his buddy, Luke Skywalker, through the freezing extremes of the planet Hoth. He used their fallen Ton-ton with the same means, gutting and getting INSIDE for shelter. Jeez, we thought they smelled bad on the outside!

cheers,
-Rogue Two

http://www.worldisround.com/articles/315814/photo11.html

A teamster in the late 1800's killed his horse, gutted it, and slept in it overnight under Boise Rock in Franconia Notch, NH.

This place is on the other side of the road (what is now sadly an interstate highway) from the Old Man of The Mountain site and a bunch of classic rock and ice climbs on Cannon Cliff. The AT passes by within a mile or two.

"He used their fallen Ton-ton with the same means, gutting and getting INSIDE for shelter. Jeez, we thought they smelled bad on the outside!"

It's a taun-taun.... [ /geek ]

+1 for Deep Survival - good read.

One of the SAR trainers I had occasion to listen to recently had good things to say about building a fire in a trench along a natural shelter, like a rock overhang. Evidently he slept comfortably in one in November at elevation during an extended search.

In December 1984, my dad and I went out on a day hike. It turned into a three day hike. The first night it rained. We had neither jackets nor rain gear, and we certainly didn't have a tent. We had only brought lunch and a few snacks. I was wearing cotton clothes (jeans, T shirt, cotton long john top, cotton flannel shirt, and a baseball type cap). It was in the 30's, and it poured all night long. We did jumping jacks in place to keep hypothermia at bay -- and this was after a difficult all day cross country/canyoneering hike. Any time we stopped to rest from exhaustion, we immediately started to shudder uncontrollably (first stages of hypothermia). Needless to say, this was by far the least pleasant hiking experience I've ever had. I found it interesting that in Touching Void, the protagonist wasn't moved to prayer. Quite the opposite for me. I've never prayed so earnestly in all my life.

HJ

P.S. Michel Blomgren of Sweden has posted a video about his spending the night without normal overnight gear in cold, snowy conditions.

My first thought is of Jim Wickwire's bivuoac just below the summit of K2 in 1978. He didn't want to try to do the famed "Bottleneck" and "Traverse" in the dark. His bivy sack nearly slid off the mountain during the night. He survived and made it back to camp the next morning.
Regarding "Touching the Void," an incredible story. An injured climber slides off a sheer cliff face. His parther struggles to hold him and keep him from death drop into crevasse below. Forced to cut the rope before both die. Partner returns to camp, knowing Joe Simpson is dead. Just hours before they break camp to return home to US, Simpson crawls into camp, having crawled the entire way.
So is The Naked Mountain, by Rheinhold Messner, describing bold ascent of Nanga Parbat with brother Gunther. Unable to descend the way they came up, they had to try to traverse to other side of mountain to Diamir valley.
Mountaineers are biggest egoists in the world, but their stories are incredibly dramatic.

Edited by Winterland76 on 10/31/2009 06:04:00 MDT.

Kurasawa's movie Dersu Uzala is based on a memoir by VK Arseniev, so this may be true rather than fiction:
Dersu, a Siberian native, and a Russian military cartographer/explorer are caught in winter in a wind storm in a Siberian marsh. Dersu builds a shelter out of grass and they survive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQDZ1ExrtEw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PulGI0XVVug&NR=1

Edited by Snowleopard on 10/31/2009 09:41:38 MDT.

Wow Jim, your dad must have felt pretty bad about that trip....

That video link is neat. As he said there, the key is a fire with lots of wood.

I have spent many nights out without shelter in Alaska -- no sleeping bag, no pad -- and the warmest nights have always been with fire.

Once I ripped a hole in the bottom of a packraft in the Wrangells (1986) and it was October. The temperature dropped to -10 F that night. All my gear was wet, so I built two fires and slept between them.

In the Wilderness Classic we routinely camp without bag or shelter and the key is as the Survival Savvy Swede said, "The key is a big fire and a lot of wood."

In the snow, spruce boughs make good, albeit pretty heavy trace-leaving, insulation to sleep/rest on.

Dersu Uzala is an underappreciated Kurosawa film and basically the source for "The Empire Strikes Back." Lucas copped the character of Yoda from Dersu and the scene with the grass shelter got morphed into the Tauntaun scene.

Dersu Uzala is one of my all time favorite movies, and I've read the book, too. I often dreamed of knowing as much as Dersu did about his forests and steppes. You rarely see a character like him, or an actor who can portray such a character so well.

When I was a boy I loved "My Side of the Mountain", by Jean Craighead George. Perhaps my first look into surviving and prospering in the wild.

And, of course, even though it isn't entirely realistic, my all-time favorite champion of the wilderness is Snufkin, from the Moomin series by Tove Jansson. I still read the books today for the wisdom they provide about life and nature.

Edited by butuki on 10/31/2009 14:13:14 MDT.

"Dougal Haston and Doug Scott summited Everest,
VERY hard men. VERY!"

Indeed. Men enough to think nothing of burying their feet in each other's groin to prevent frostbite.

"Just hours before they break camp to return home to US, Simpson crawls into camp, having crawled the entire way. "

Just to clarify a small point:

Joe Simpson and Simon Yates are British. They returned to the UK.

Wow Jim, your dad must have felt pretty bad about that trip...

That video link is neat. As he said there, the key is a fire with lots of wood.

All my gear was wet, so I built two fires and slept between them.

In the snow, spruce boughs make good, albeit pretty heavy trace-leaving, insulation to sleep/rest on.

It isn't exactly what you're looking for, but certainly worth watching:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lewis_pugh_swims_the_north_pole.html

I think "Alive" would qualify for inclusion in this thread.

Here is a summary of the book, taken from Amazon web site:

"On October 12, 1972, an Uruguayan Air Force plane carrying a team of rugby players crashed in the remote snowy peaks of the Andes. Ten weeks later, only sixteen of the forty-five passengers were found alive. This is the story of those ten weeks spent in the shelter of the plane's fuselage without food and with scarcely any hope of a rescue. The survivors protected and helped one another, and came to the difficult conclusion that to live meant doing the unimaginable. Confronting nature at its most furious, two brave young men risked their lives to hike through the mountains looking for help -- and ultimately found it."

"Into Thin Air" is excellent

"Endurance" is also a must read.

I think it's fiction, but the movie 'The Snow Walker' is excellent. The female lead is Inuit and was chosen for the role partly because she actually knows the traditional methods for survival in the north.
" The Snow Walker concerns a brave risk-taking pilot (Barry Pepper) and an Inuit woman in frail health who is his passenger. When the pair experience a plane crash, each is forced to learn from and help the other in order to survive the variety of obstacles the harsh landscape throws in their path." Based on a story by Farley Mowat.

The whole film on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgr1u4Fdii0

Great movie