n regards to the too cold fingers to start a fire'
i have for some time now carry a couple of OLIN mini flares
they are for worst case senario like some mentioned here.
not only will they start a fire they provide light and aat as a signaling device,
Thanks for resurrecting this thread, and for the tip on Olin mini flares, I'd forgotten about this thread, though it was only a couple of years ago that it started I'm reminded that much has changed in my life and in my kit over the years.
In my youth I used to take off by myself for a day of hunting or fishing some wild stream, I rarely told anyone where I was going, my gear was usually what ever I carried in my pocket and perhaps a canteen, and my gun or fishing gear, when you're young you really don't think anything exists that can hurt you or that you can't overcome.
Later in my mid thirties I found myself in a real life survival situation that only lasted a short time but was a big learning experience, I learned that I wasn't bullet proof, I wasn't properly equipped gear wise or experience wise to meet a real life wilderness survival threat, however, I did survive, but mostly because of luck, I was wet, cold, scared and lacked the confidence in myself that I had always assumed I'd have.
After that experience I revamped my emergency kit, practiced my survival skills until I owned them, and have been refining my kit and my skills ever since, as I get older my abilities, skills, and kit change to meet the challenges of aging, I read somewhere that wisdom comes with age, that may have some truth, I believe wisdom has more to do with life experiences that teach us to overcome potential problems before they get bad enough to bite us on the ass, and if we get blindsided, gives us the confidence to think before we act, then make the best possible choices.
I'm also reminded of three incidents that happened since this thread died and your recent post, one was of a woman, she was in her sixties, an experienced hiker and backpacker from New York who was hiking a portion of the AT near Mount Kathadin in Maine, somehow she got lost, Game wardens searched for several weeks before ending the search, that was three years ago, her remains were found this year by hunters.
In another last year, in MA. another experienced woman hiker was on a three day hike alone climbing MT. Washington, the weather turned bad and she also was lost, her remains were found by other hikers almost a year later, she had injured her leg, they think she lived for over a week curled up in her one person tent inside of her down sleeping bag, she apparently died of starvation and thirst, she was found just 80 feet off an established hiking trail.
The third was just a couple of weeks ago, a team of five people were doing some kind of environmental research near a small body of water, they were gathered around an evening campfire and the conversation turned to the iced over water, one, a young man in his mid twenties stated that he thought the ice was safe enough for him to walk to the opposite shore, his team mates warned him that it wasn't a good idea, but he went out on the thin ice anyway, he had crossed about halfway when the ice gave way, his team mates had no means to safely rescue him, his body was recovered the next morning by the local fire and police dept.
In the first two incidents the women were elderly, but they were experienced and in good health, had they carried a satellite GPS emergency signaling device they probably would not have perished, and if the young man had heeded the words of his team mates he would not have gone out on the thin ice, a bit of extra gear and a little fore thought and common sense could have saved three lives.
