UKH

Have just been thinking about this scenario.

Not that I have ever found myself in this position, but it may well happen to people.

If you were on a long route in summer and a storm came in and you were above the snow line, if you were fully clothed, in a down jacket with base layer, how long would you last in a bivvy bag, without a sleeping bag?

Would you survive the night?

How many days could you survive?

In reply to The Ice Doctor:


There are too many variables for an accurate answer, I think, e.g. altitude, air temperature, food supplies, fitness, wind, if you were wet or dry/ exhausted or not, how long the storm lasted. Tentatively I'd say definitely the night at least.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

Survive, and be rescued albeit incapable of doing much yourself. Or survive and be capable of getting yourself down again under your own steam? I suspect there might be a fairly big difference between the two.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:
Blimey, have you never read any of the classic, epic ascents by the likes Harrer, Casin, Bonatti etc. etc. They often survived multiple epic bivis battling on through stoms for often days. Mind you, all the party didn't always survive.....

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

Years ago, I spent the night in a bivvy bag in damp fleece (polartec 100 layer and polartec 200 jacket. It was a little below zero. It wasn't particularly pleasant and I didn't sleep much, but it would have to have been a fair bit colder before I was in any real danger.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:
Bivvy bag or survival bag? I spent a few comfortable nights in a cheepo bivvy bag and crap summer sleeping bag at low level but never used one at altitude or in the cold. I suppose there's. Fair few variables, one person or group bivvy is a big one I guess as far as warmth goes

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

I survived for 3 days. The first night was a planned bivi the second was forced because my mate broke his ankle and it took us two days to get down. It wasn't what you would class as above the snow line but it was in a horrendous storm and well below freezing.

Al

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

In about 1970 my unkle was on the Walker Spur bivied above the Grey Tower when a huge storm hit. They battled their way up and down to find the Chamonix valley devastated by floods an landslides. I know you asked if you would survive. I think I would, hopefully, in summer.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:






In enforced summer Alps bivis, at up to 4000m, with less clothing than you describe I have had no problem sleeping most of the night. Just several wake ups to change position and have an occasional shiver session to warm up. Like my beauty sleep too much to brew up in the night but probably a good idea.

Read the White Spider and count up how long some of the casualties suffered. You can probably double this for using modern clothing materials and lengthen it again because of global warming.

You have more chance of missing your flight home than copping out

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

A lot of these early 20th centuary heroic storm survivals were helped by all the amphetamines they took back then!

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

I read this book about the PGHM a while ago: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hanging-Thread-Toughest-Missions-Helicopter/dp/1845...

Quite a lot of the tragedies described within it made it clear that if a grim storm rolls in then unless you are very well prepared then the ending can be dire. I'm sure that lots of people survive unplanned bivvies, but a few don't too...

In reply to The New NickB:


Damp fleece is potentially better than damp down though...

In reply to Rick Graham:


Just shorts and an old jumper Rick?


Don't start on this again.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:






I would imagine there are many folk on here who have been in this position a few times - including myself - for sometimes more than one night, and lived to tell the tale.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

I had two bivvies on the Nant blanc face of the Aiguille verte in winter, only about -17, luckily i did have a duvet, while victor climbed into his down bag, i snuggled up in my orange vango survival bag, as an impoverished climber in the eighties, i couldn't afford a lightweight down bag at the time, we were slow due to endless hard black ice, luckily only got a little frost nip, topping out in the sun made up for it though.