Emergency bags have moved on from the traditional orange poly bag with both warm and ultra-lightweight options available.
This week's Monday Kit Tip is a timely sort of one about survival bags and what the options are for temporary shelter.
If you're part of a group, the most effective option is a group shelter and we've already run a tip article on those. Their strengths are that they pool body warmth, are great for morale and are versatile too as they can be used for shelter during stops in poor conditions.
Shelters are relatively large, heavy and expensive though, so you may prefer to use a solo survival bag. The budget option is a standard issue, orange poly bag – they're cheap and tough, but quite heavy and also totally non-breathable, so condensation prone.
Rather than carry one of these, we'd suggest a Blizzard Bag instead. The Blizzard is a vacuum-packed bag made from an elasticated, channeled, silvery substance called Reflexcell. It's slightly weighty at around 380g, but the great thing about it, is that not only is it windproof and waterproof, it also insulates with a thermal rating of around 8 TOG, roughly the same as a 2/3-season sleeping bag.
And it's reuseable too, meaning you can even get it out for planned but rustly bivvy use. It's British too and genius.
Finally, if you're a weight weenie, there's an option out there for you too in the form of the Adventure Medical Kits Heatsheets Emergency Bivvy. It's a tiny but reasonably robust waterproof and windproof bag with a reflective inner surface that weights just 105 grammes. It's so small you can simply stash it in a pack pocket or even a small mountain biking hydation pack without ever noticing it. And it's reuseable too.
We're not suggesting that it's as good as a Blizzard Bag or a group shelter, but if you're travelling fast and light, it's vastly better than anything else of comparative weight and bulk that we've seen and we suspect, that the alternative for a lot of folk, is not to carry a survival bag at all.
