This is a mix of gear and anecdotes of using it in wet conditions.
A good friend of mine spent a night in sleet and high wind in a steep wet canyon right on the border northwest of Mt. Baker, (can you say wet?) a few years ago. He got rim rocked at dark dragging a buck down and wisely stayed put for the night. He spent the night propped against a big fir tree on a fearsomely steep slope of icy slick on frozen ground, no fire. He stayed warm and comfortable he said, and the uphill side of such trees usually have a small flat spot, big enough to sit on if not lie down. He had Gore-tex shell top and bottom over fleece and wool layers and some snack food for inner fuel. Don�t know if he used his space blanket but he had one. Horrible stormy night, everybody really worried about him though I told the search master at 3:00 AM that he was the best qualified to survive of anybody I knew, and if he hadn�t broken a femur or something like that, he was OK.
One of my routines is to be downright fanatical about not getting wet, if there is a chance that I may spend the night out. On backpack hunts away from a vehicle or fixed shelter, staying dry may be the single biggest difference in staying alive, no matter what you have in your pack. If I am quite sure I�ll be back in a dry warm place for the night, I don�t mind getting wet and hunt accordingly.
No cotton on my body is another rule I�m fanatical about, but I live on the wet side of the world. Buying and having several pairs of synthetic shorts and/or wool underwear, pants and shirts handy and routine for any outing makes that a reasonable deal, even for outings when you don�t plan to be away from your vehicle.
If and when you get really wet, the biggest and most immediate survival decision is whether to quickly head for someplace warm and dry or start that minute to do what you can to dry out on the spot. You are losing core body heat and mental abilities by the minute, so act while you can still use muscle and mind well. I.e. Salish, in his thread, decided to try to walk out and then to walk to a farm he could see in the distance (if I remember his account correctly.) It worked, especially as he met some warm, dry and helpful hunters on the way. With wet cotton clothes and no way to start a fire, he had little option other than walk out, unless he could find a hay stack. Golly hay is warm when you burrow into it or pull it over you.
I've waded to retrieve ducks in near zero F. temps andhad a partner swim to retrieve some. My pants froze like stovepipes with a crack at the knees. My friend stripped naked, swam to get the ducks, slicked off what water he could and dressed again. Teen agers. He was warming within minutes as we walked three miles home, which shows that dry clothes will warm you up again if your metabolisim is still functioning to generate heat.
As I look at the survival gear pictured on this thread, I would leave some out and lighten some of the rest, at least for hunting. I always hope to carry out a lot of meat, so take mininimal gear in my pack or day pack. For wet or winter camping just to be camping, I take more survival/comfort gear.
The fluorescent flagging tape is good, but a whole roll is heavy. Most of this we have posted at times in the past so please forgive the repeats. I wind several yards of the flagging tape on itself, so that there is no useless hefty center, and then cut it with a sharp knife around the roll, lengthwise. One cut in the center makes two half width tapes. I usually do two cuts to make one width of tape into three narrow ones. I put a rubber band or some adhesive tape on it to hold the roll together and usually put it in a small Ziploc bag with other items, like spare batteries. The tape weighs less, goes three times as far and I recognize my own from anybody else�s. You don�t need much if you are looking for it. I've only used it to mark down game or a route into a good place.
Most of my cord is now even thinner and lighter than parachute cord, still plenty strong for tying down a tarp or meat to a pack. I dye it bright orange if I can't buy bright colours, so I can find it on snow or dry ground. I don�t need to rappel with it, though I usually have one longer piece of parachute cord strength. For knives, I carry a smallish pocket knife and a lock blade light weight Buck folder, and unless it is a long multi day trip, no sharpener.
I often sit on my pack at impromptu stands, rather than take the pad out of it to sit on. The day pack itself will add to insulation, either under you, over you or with your feet and as much of your body stuck in as possible. Have bivvied that way, and one pack I have has an extra long extension top that I can pull up past my waist.
I carry two lighter weight flashlights, one a micro head lamp and the other a mini LED so I can see to change batteries in the headlamp. Had to change those one night just at the snow line while packing out a buck on a steep trail. With cold wet hands and dumb fuddled tired brain, I dropped one of the batteries. At that elevation, on the line between snow above and rain below, it was kind of a slushy rain on a muddy, steep, rocky, brushy trail. With the mini light I found the battery I dropped. Otherwise, the instant I dropped it, I knew that if I didn�t find it, I would spend the night right there, under the nearest tree.
During that stop I ate one of the little marathoner envelopes of energy gel and it seemed to give me a huge boost. Have tried them under less stressed situations and have not noticed any difference, but I carry one or two of them and save them for emergencies or the latter stage of a pack out.
If any of us spend a night out in the wet and cold, if we are wet, God help us and I hope we survive.
