Dude, getting stuck in the cold is no joke. The weather here in Montana changes so fast you would not believe it. In the time it takes you to go pretty much anywhere out here the weather can go from clear, sunny, and above freezing (in winter) to blinding, blowing, and scrotum-shriveling cold in less time than it takes you to pass a few exits on the interstate. Getting stuck is some serious business. Death is the second worst thing that can happen to you, IMHO…first worst is losing your feet, hands, ears, and perhaps nose to frostbite.
I tend to err on the side of overkill. Hey, why not? I’m pretty big on looking out for Numbah One. I keep a few of the following in the Box O’ Gear:
- Road flares – Just the usual variety. I vacuum seal them to keep them dry.
- Parachute flares – Just two oughtta do it.
- Hand flares – And two of these
- Smoke device – And one of these. For when you’re really stuck and they’ve got helicopters locating stranded folks.
(Signal mirror? Uhm..no. There’s at least three or four mirrors already monted on the vehicle. Why use a playing-card sized ‘survival mirror’ when I can just yank a larger one off the windshield?)
And those are great for signalling and whatnot but they are rather ‘active’…you need to be waving them around or actively using them. For ‘passive’ signalling, the Streamlight Siege or any other battery-powered LED light with a blinking or strobe function will do. Make sure you’ve got batteries for it, secure it with some paracord so it doesn’t get lost, and set it on the roof of the car as you sit there patiently waiting for the highway patrol or a snowplow to come by.
If you’re just tooling along I-90 you’ll probably not even be out overnight. Someone in some sort of 6-wheel automotive T-rex will come along and ask if you need a ride. (Accept graciously, offer to pay for their gas, and come back and get your vehicle in a day or two.) If you’re traveling on some of the smaller roads or byways of Montana, well, you better err on the side of overkill. You’re going to want road flares, high-intensity strobes, lotsa batteries and anything else thats going to draw attention.
Cell phones are awesome but we all know that there are places where, sometimes, there just isn’t a signal. Don’t count on your cell phone. Let folks know where you’re going and what route you are taking to get there. That last part is a huge deal. And, most importantly, if it looks like icy weather, blowing snow, deathly cold, and that sort of thing – stay home. Why buy trouble? First rule of surviving any disaster: Don’t be there.
(By the way, while looking for images for this post I discovered that Rule 34 applies to cars getting stuck. NSFW here. I..I..have no words.)
You’re correct about the lack of cell phone coverage. The lowest level of Ham Radio license, the Technician license, is easy to get. That coupled with some relatively in-expensive radio gear can greatly increase your range.
Matt
“I..I..have no words”. You just happen on this site, just now…!
I’m 100% with you on “First rule of surviving any disaster: Don’t be there”. I’ve long said the easiest way not to lose a fight is not get in one.
A pot a kids powdered water paint makes a good snow marker and it will be non toxic.
A light stick or small LED light on a boot lace spin around is very notable from a distance.
As for the signal mirror just buy 10 mirror tiles (they will not be glass or stainless) for a dollar off of Ebay they do the same job at 2% of the cost of a survival/signal mirror and no ripping the car apart. Sorry to say they will be from China but so would any survival/signal mirror you buy.
Not a visual signal but I find that now-a-days Whistle are left behind a lot so add one as a zip pull on your coat I’d also add a small LED light you have more than one zip.
My Dad said too me some years ago no one he knows under 30 has a good coat and looking round he’s right (it had to happen some day).
Good call on the shower mirror tile. I was going to suggest one of those bath shower shaving mirrors, but the tile are likely less expensive.
Check out the UV Paqlite for non battery long life light source.
I’ve just looked up Mirror Tiles on ebay and they have gone up from the last time I got any – it’s not that long ago as well. For a good size (6″ x 6″) you will now pay $1.50 – $2 for three, still a lot less expensive than any Survival/Signal Mirror.
I was just looking up UV Paqlite (it looks go) and I have just found out that you can get glow in the dark powdered paint – see my note above.
$5 for a hand held signal mirror versus $100 to fix the one I tore off the car? I don’t think so.
I keep a couple of glow sticks with string tied on them so I can tie them on my car to to help mark its location.
Since I’m big on bicycles I bought a few etrxa rear bike lights and keep one or two of those in my car with the batteries removed. Set on flash you can see them from pretty far away and they have a fairly long runtime.
I love lightsticks but my experience has been that they freeze and when thawed they don’t always work properly.
Hmm… Sounds like I should pull mine out and give them a test. Can’t believe I never even thought about that.
Enjoying this series of posts, -6 degrees here this morning. Second the amateur radio suggestion by Matt, there aren’t too many places in the lower 48 where you can’t reach an amateur repeater with a HT, especially with an external antenna or from high ground. We live in the north woods and have a HT with a cig lighter power adapter and mag mount roof antenna in each of the secondary vehicles, and a FT2900 and 2 HTs (with charger and spare batteries) in the primary driver – can outfit a small SAR team at a moments notice. Pre-planning/programming is essential of course, besides the freqs and CTCSS tones having the autopatch instructions from the repeater/club owner written down beforehand could easily turn a life-threatening survival exercise into not much more than an inconvenience when you just call AAA. If you live in an area of spotty cell phone coverage then having a comm plan with family/friends makes sense. Even assuming only 1 mile of range (HT-HT, or mobile-HT) with a $25 Baofeng, that’s over a 3 mile area of coverage (uuummm, pi….) and going to make it a lot easier to make contact with a search party. Laminated index cards with the comm plan/autopatch instructions for each vehicle is what we use.
Road flares are a gimme, as much for fire starting as signalling imo. No experience with the parachute/hand flares, but maybe a good reason to have an inexpensive 12ga packed in the vehicle with a couple marine flares in addition to a box of bird/buck shotshells? A good smoke signal could be burning the spare tire (after puncturing or removing the valve stem) at midday if there was sufficient wood/fuel nearby to get a fire with enough heat and coals going first, but admittedly I’ve never actually tried burning a tire.
uhhh, ignore my math there (lol)
Mark, thoughtful comments, and it is GOOD to have alternatives.
Having said that, I recently finished working a contract that took me around 150 miles from my home one way, and, well, some of rural Michigan does not have cell coverage available for your basic “smart” phone.
Being a ham, I researched the repeaters from the ARRL repeater directory, and programmed them into my 50 watt vehicle radio, with an external antenna sporting roughly 2-3 dB gain on VHF.
I was unable to raise anyone on most of the repeaters I had programmed. Several of then would not even “kerchunk” in response to my transmission.
My take home point, is that redundancy to back up your redundant communication tools, is worth considering and planning for. (Now, to get that HF radio mounted in my car….)