How can people survive really cold nights outside with minimal equipment?
There are people who had to survive one or more nights in altitudes above 7000 m at temperatures far below zero, without tent, sometimes without sleeping bag or even a proper jacket. Some examples are described here. Some dug snow caves. What are other helpful strategies/personal traits to survive such bivoucs?
This post was sourced from https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/q/15287. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
1 answer
I that most of the cases in the article you linked are an example of selection bias, most people in those situations would die.
In other words, the people in that article became famous by surviving things that would kill the vast majority of people. They got lucky, if you will.
The one who bivyed on K2 didn't survive by much.
The next morning, John Roskelley and Rick Ridgeway found him continuing down while on their way to the summit. Wickwire lost parts of two toes and underwent lung surgery due to blood clots on his lungs (pulmonary emboli); he also caught pneumonia and pleurisy. The Pakistani army helicoptered Wickwire right from the glacier at the bottom of the mountain, and Wickwire immediately underwent lung surgery.[10] The surgeon expressed uncertainty about Wickwire's ever climbing at high altitudes again.
The man in the first example on Nanga Parbat was aided by Pervitin (Meth)
Buhl took the drug Pervitin (methamphetamine) during his solo climb to the summit and back.
Which apparently protected against the frostbite,
There was no prospect of movement without light, and nowhere to lie down or even to sit. He took some Padutin tablets to stimulate the circulation and protect against frostbite. His spare pullover was far below, in his rucksack. He had no bivouac sack. Fortunately, the night was virtually windless.
But in the end the frostbit still got to him.
Buhl was carried to the roadhead and was treated for his frostbite injuries in hospital first in Gilgit, and then in Lahore. In the end he lost two toes.
So I wouldn't use these stories as an example of something that you could survive.
0 comment threads
0 comment threads