Professional tourists know what winter travel is and what risks it entails. But if you are a beginner, you can not do without a few useful tips. They will allow you to avoid unnecessary actions and enjoy the trip or fully concentrate on the task at hand.
Clothing and personal items
In the modern world, more and more goods for outdoor activities are being produced, materials and technologies are being improved, but this does not mean that you need to run to the nearest store and buy everything. First you need to get thermal underwear. It is very important that the body breathes and the clothes can wick moisture away. A dry body is a warm body.
Many beginners, going on a hike, take with them a lot of extra, unnecessary things, not that they were not needed at all, but they are absolutely not needed on this trip. For example, any massive, heavy electronic equipment, such as tape recorders, laptops and similar things. Going on a hike, you find yourself alone with nature, enjoying its unique beauty, plunging into the primary sources of this mysterious power. When packing things for the road, you need to think several times about what you take with you, because when traveling on foot, every extra kilogram of weight will seem like a ton, the farther you move away from home. But the main thing to take with is of course a rechargeable LED flashlight.
Tent
A tent is an essential piece of camping equipment (except for professionals who use special sleeping bags in which you can sleep right on the snow, hiding only with a little wind protection.) Know that you should not take summer tents with you, because each tent is good for its season, and non-compliance with these rules can put you in a very uncomfortable situation. A summer tent will not protect you from the cold. In the summer, it can handle the currents of the wind, but the winter wind is a completely different matter. During sleep, body temperature drops by several degrees, which makes it difficult to warm up. During sleep, even a slight loss of heat is not desirable. You can catch a cold or get hypothermia, which will put your life and your trip at serious risk.
A winter tent should accommodate the entire group or at least 2-3 people, this will increase the chances of getting warm quickly even in extreme conditions. It should be easy to install on any terrain, be it forest, plain or mountainous terrain. The tent should be strong and wind resistant, with a reasonable height and width, capable of accommodating the required number of people plus equipment, a place for installing a heating element (required when traveling with extremely low temperature conditions), as well as a place for changing clothes.
Modern winter tents have the shape of a hemisphere, this is the most optimal and proven shape. When choosing a tent, it is necessary to take into account its water resistance and color. During camping, the generated heat melts the snow under the bottom and on the top of the tent (if it snowed). Accordingly, some of the moisture can penetrate inside and give you trouble. In the white monochrome tones of the winter forest, a brightly colored tent will be easy to spot. So you yourself will not lose sight of it, and you will always be able to be found in an emergency.
Place for setting up a tent
Find a place that is fairly level and dry, slightly larger than a fully deployed tent, preferably not in a low area or on an open hill. The middle option is the best. Make sure the area is clear of sticks, cones, roots, glass, and other debris. Collect some spruce branches and lay them on the spot where the tent will be set up. This way you will increase the level of distance from the frozen ground, the snow will melt less under you, thus you will save a few minutes of precious sleep.
Sleeping bag
This is your individual bed for the whole trip. The wrong choice of bag guarantees you a bad mood and chronic lack of sleep, which can result in a spoiled impression of communication with nature. The sleeping bag should be suitable for your physical data and temperature conditions. When purchasing a bag, take a length 20-25 cm longer than your height and one shoulder wider in width (length between the shoulder and elbow joints). But sleeping bags don’t always have to be too loose or tight, it depends on the type of sleeping bag.
Cocoon – sleeping bag, tapering to the bottom. The trapezoid shape will provide the tightest fit of the bag to the body, which will allow you to be in colder conditions and save space in your backpack. In some sleeping bags of this type, in addition to the hood, there is an additional collar around the shoulders and more enhanced thermal protection from below. The seams are located on opposite sides of each other, which reduces heat loss.
Combined sleeping bags – have a rectangular shape and can be fully opened with a zipper sewn around the entire edge of the sleeping bag. Such bags are left or right (according to the location of the zipper) and can be combined into one large one to increase the level of warming. As a rule, such bags indicate all temperature regimes.
Remember that the more often you wash your sleeping bag, the worse it works. You need to store the sleeping bag straightened, free-lying or hanging. It is recommended to fold the bag randomly by putting it into the case. This is necessary so that the materials of the sleeping bag do not have permanent bending lines through which heat will escape.
Mat
In one sleeping bag, no matter how many spruce branches you put in, it will still be hard and uncomfortable. Of course, if you are not a yogi. Previously, they used literally everything that was possible: they put bags, blankets, clothes. But now there is a special “Foam” for these purposes. This is a sheet product made of fastened halves of polyethylene foam from 0.8 to 1.5 cm wide. This leaf is enough to keep the frost from getting to you and make your stay in the winter night forest a little softer.
Practice shows that foam, in addition to its intended purpose, can also become a table, an additional frame in a backpack, if you fold it with a cylinder inside, wind protection and many other useful auxiliary things.
There are special rugs for extreme circumstances in a separate article. They are made of a reflective film reinforced with the finest metal threads. These rugs serve as both a thermal blanket and a sleeping carpet. Its convenience is also in the fact that it fits in your pocket.
Orientation aids
In geography lessons, we all went through the basics of orienteering on the ground using the sun, stones, trees. But first of all – by compass, despite all the innovative technologies such as the GPS navigator. Undoubtedly, this is a very useful device that even a difficult transition can ease almost to the status of a walk.
First aid kit
A first aid kit must be available during any trip, whether it is a serious event or a simple country walk. Neglecting the presence of this piece of equipment can backfire on you, especially at the moment when you need it most. After all, even a small splinter not treated in time can cause serious problems. In addition to the first aid kit, do not be too lazy to go through or at least listen to a first aid course.