9 Hours in Life Tent Survival Shelter - A Very Wet & Grim Experience

​9 Hours in a Survival Shelter.. this was grim! But a real eye-opener

It was a sopping wet, rainy day in February and thought I’d see what it would be like to find myself lost in the wild and having to spend an unexpected night out, using only what was in my day-hiking rucksack. For this scenario, I had my usual day hiking bits & bobs.. food, stove, head torch, something to sit on, my down puffy, waterproof pack liner, med kit, hand warmers and an emergency shelter

This time my shelter was a ‘Life Tent’ – a tiny lil thing, not much bigger than a drinks can and weighing around 300g. Something that I would chuck into a day pack, probably never think about again and *hopefully* never have to actually use. But for this scenario I did have to use it, so I found a spot between 2 trees where I would be able to string it up and got to work

Click on 'read more' at the bottom of this blog post for the rest of the write-up..

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EMERGENCY SHELTER - Life Tent (no affiliation) https://amzn.to/3HUZ3Ex
 
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20L RUCKSACK - Decathlon
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Music in this Video

Thank you to these amazing artists for producing such great music!
 
Adrián Berenguer – Premiere
IamDayLight - Seine River
Life in Colour - Waking Up
Loya - Another Green World
Rotem Cinamon - Saving a Rainforest
Sémø - Eternal Play
 
All from Artlist with license
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​​​I choose not to be sponsored, affiliated with any particular brands, and don't accept free gear to try or gifts. Every piece of gear that I’m using is something that I've chosen to buy for myself – my opinions on it & experiences with it are completely impartial

​The shelter was simple enough to put up, it’s basically a bag on a string.. a thin, tubular sheet of mylar plastic, with a 20ft length of paracord included. I crawled inside the shelter before the light started to fade. It was 4:18pm and the ordeal had begun!

Firstly, I decided to close the back end with a hair band, to stop the breeze coming through. This would make it a condensation hell of course, but that didn’t really matter, because I was already wet and the inside of the shelter was already wet. Everything was wet. So I decided that heat retention was now the priority

I decided to make a hot meal, but my pot slid off my stove, sending half of my noodles and all of the flavour into the mud. No bother, I made some sandwiches instead. But it wasn’t long before I started to feel chilly. The shelter was protecting me from the rain and the wind, but I was already damp, so staying warm was going to be difficult. I realised I had to keep moving, and started periodically having little workouts inside the shelter – pumping my arms and legs back and forth to keep my temperature up - but not to the point where I would start to sweat and make myself wetter

I realised I would be warmer further back in the shelter, so removed my boots and retreated. I was surprised to find that there was more than 2°C temperature difference between outside the shelter and inside! (9°C outside and over 11°C inside). This shelter claims to reflect back 90% of your own body heat.. I can’t say if that’s true or not, but this heat difference was impressive, and could make all the difference in a real emergency situation

As the hours wore on, I grew tired from having to stay active in the tiny shelter. At one point the back of the shelter where I was sitting suddenly let a load of water in, which soaked me from the waist down. Having to keep moving was draining, and although I was able to keep my body temperature normal, I felt cold in my wet clothes

I fashioned my own heated blanket by placing my hand warmers inside my waterproof pack liner. The handwarmers warmed the air in the pack liner, and I draped this over myself and enjoyed some slight warmth. I tried resting for a short time under my makeshift blanket, but it was not to be.. my body wanted me up and alert and moving and handling the situation. There would be no rest here.

I made it over 9 hours this way, deciding some time around 2am that I’d well and truly had enough. My car, along with my car bed, warm dry clothes and other comfortable things, was parked close in a layby within sight of where I was trying this scenario. The pull of comfort and sleep was too strong, and whatever mental toughness that had got me through the first 9 hours suddenly left me. I was mentally and physically drained, but, I was alive and well, and successfully kept hypothermia at bay, despite being wet

So, this exercise taught me a few things. Firstly – it’s definitely worth taking along some form of emergency shelter on day hikes, just in case the worst happens. The extra 2 degrees of warmth provided by the shelter made a huge difference – this is more heat retention than many of my tents can provide. While it felt miserable at the time being inside the shelter, as soon as I emerged to pack it away, I started shivering. Only then could I really feel and appreciate the difference it had made.

Secondly, that an emergency shelter isn’t enough. Survival is hard, especially if you’re wet with no way of drying yourself, you’re gonna have to work – you cannot stop moving for long. It requires mental stamina, and it's physically tiring. This was a mild winter night too.. if it had been colder, this would have been a relentless fight against the cold and there’s no chance I would have chosen to endure 9 hours of it

Thirdly – clothing matters, specifically, the fabrics you choose to wear. In winter I’m wearing merino layers. As well as being comparatively quick drying compared to cotton for example, merino also has a very useful quality of being able to help you retain heat even when it’s damp. On the other hand, wearing damp cotton in this situation could be catastrophic, as it would just suck the heat from your body. I was also really grateful for my down puffy. I don’t wear this hiking as it needs to stay dry, but carrying it in my rucksack in a dry bag proved to be valuable. It did get slightly damp but has since been floofed back up by a tumble in the dryer

And lastly, it taught me another valuable lesson in gratitude. For those simple things that are so easy to take for granted.. a warm, dry bed. A roof over my head.

Overall, I guess the main take away is that survival is never going to be easy, but some form of emergency shelter will give you more of a fighting chance.

I had such a lovely sleep in my car bed that night!