Thread: "Oh sh#t" overnight kit

I would add a silky saw to that list and small blowtorch kind of lighter,tiny but hot enough to get most wood burning.

And cable ties..

Some awesome tips there guys, thanks for the info....I carry some small pieces of 'fatwood' great fire starter and a couple of plastic tent pegs

I've been contemplating getting a Jerven bag https://jerven.shop/collections/jervenbag. Not only for an emergency night out but for glassing from your favorite spot waiting for last light.
Couple it with some hand warmers and you'd be toasty as https://www.whitbyandco.co.uk/produc...by-hand-warmer

Spent an unexpected night in the bush a few years back luckily for me I had a large thick black bin bag from work in the bottom of my backpack
Kept me dry on a cold and rainy night, after that experience I went out and bought a sol emergency bivvy it weighs nowt and could make all the difference
It’s the escape bivvy edit to add

I've spent two unpleasant unscheduled nights in the hill in my hunting career

I won't tell you what to carry but I you can learn from my experiences

1- Westland mid winter with a friend we got our time management wrong on the way to a very remote and rarely visited hut.
The track was poorly marked and completely overgrown. So we were way over the track time signage and still hours short of the hut.
We made the call while it was just still light to try and bivvy up and sit it out.
In anticipation of that I had noted a small dry area under a very large rimu tree a while earlier.
We back tracked and made the best of the night under emergency blankets.
A fire was simply not an option as it was deepest darkest wettest Westland bush.

Lots of learning in this one. Some time later I talked to an older gent who used to possum there and he said it was an easy 5 hour walk in the day.
And that visibility in the bush in those days was 100m due to high possum and deer numbers

2- South Westland mid winter tahr hunting. Had a friend from Germany with me. We saw a very good bull tahr late afternoon and got underneath it on the hill expecting him to descend pre darkness.
We were aware that we wouldn't be able to safely get back to out main camp if we stayed to get the shot.
So it was a decision we made and the consequences were entirely of our making.
The bull came down to us very very late and Josef missed it with 5 shots from his custom made 300 Magnum, which was heartbreaking ! ( custom rifle built by one of Germany's best gunsmiths and supposedly sighted in and good to go. But not known to me at the time of shooting ) .
We back tracked to a rough rock bivvy above a glacier and at very high altitude.
Josef who was very well insulated seemed to have a fairly comfortable nights sleep in all his cloths and a survival blanket.
I had easily the most unpleasant night of my life despite having plenty of layers on, a tussock bed, a little overhead shelter, enough food and drink.
The kestrel told me it was -9 degrees C
We were well above any fuel for a fire

Lots of learning here also.
Always validate rifles that are someone else's on my personal range before a trip like this ( the pain of the cold would have been lessened by the satisfaction of a trophy tahr in the bivvy with us )
I started carrying a very light summer down sleeping bag with me on those mid winter trips just for a similar situation.
We started shooting bulls late in the day and recovering the following day.
We started having a staging point at major fords, the bottom of major climbs or at the packrafts as a fall back well supplied location if things got messy

I have been back and stayed in the rock bivvy intentionally and it was still pretty unpleasant mid winter even with lots of gear.

So during your days hunt take a note of any interesting features that naturally created shelter.
Mark it in your GPS.
Put it in the nearest hut book.
Someone might just use it one day.
Take a note of anywhere unusually dry you pass through in a wet forest, you might just need it.
Always think about a plan B for if things do go wrong

Pack something warm.

A long haired dog might have been better, but you do what you can with what you have. At least it didn't snow.

I’ve had the odd shit night in the bush, unprepared.

One time Got stuck up the west coast, waitaha river, overnight, in the early 90s. Hadn’t been hunting South Island much, 1st or second west coast trip.
We had planned to be up there a few days.
The tiny creeks along the track began to flood mid afternoon and were waist high on the way in. Got a bit caught out by that, they came up fast. No checking forecasts whoops.
pre plb and pre Windy app etc, no led headlights, no gps, walking back at night not an option. Probably had a crappy torch or bike light.
We had a map might as well have been from outer space though (was a travel atlas book) and couldn’t find the hut and the main river was flooding hard so couldn’t get across the river, getting dark.
Wasn’t on to it, to look for dry spots , but the bush was sopping wet. Got real dark and heavy, heavy rain.
We had no tent so built a Manuka shelter. Our good down sleeping bags went on the ground. They ended up soaked and a were only few mm thick when wet. A long night but had swanndri etc so wasn’t super cold luckily, but still cold from the wet. With four of us it was a bit of a laugh anyway. A bit of huddling during the night, lucky I had my girlfriend with me, my other two mates got cosy, but not brokeback style. But Very happy to see sunrise. It fined up and the creeks suddenly dropped, the side creeks down from knee/waist high to a trickle under your boot. The main river was probably still flooding and every single thing was soaked through so we bailed quick as we could and hightailed to the Mahinapua Hotel for pies and beer.

Lessons learned taking into account the new gear available easily now:
A lightweight fly would have kept us dry, I don’t tend to rely on huts anymore and pack a lightweight 600g Durston tent, this gets you on to better spots anyway.
Headlights are gold take two lightweight ones. Eg nu25s.
for a reserve warm non bush bash stationary jacket, I pack an enlightened equipment synthetic puffy which is a bit less than 300g. Better than down in the wet.
Even a section of a cheap thin foldy mat would have been a bonus, I carry one now for sitting glassing, cooking at night etc, and put under my blow up mattress as back up.

When I flew “ bush “ in Alaska.. we were REQUIRED to have a survival kit…., much the same as what is being relayed in some of these posts… small pack weighing about 10-15 kilo…. Always had some firearm and ammo of sorts ,most had a break-down 410 shotgin/.22 arrangement,cracker litte gun…..flares,etc….

Might seem a little extreme,but there is a fine line sometimes between surviving and not… our limitations (personal) are only really ever tested when we are in the shit ,and are able to manage to get out of it to tell the story….

Some bloody great advice on this thread

Yep bet the dog tried to push you off the jacket at night! 🤣

Originally Posted by Ross Nolan

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Pack something warm.

A long haired dog might have been better, but you do what you can with what you have. At least it didn't snow.

Originally Posted by MB

Genuinely interested. How confident are you that you could start a fire, even when you have the essentials? To be honest, I struggle when everything is wet. May not be an issue in the open, drier parts of the country, but I don't visit those places very often. Others have said the same including a mate who is ex-army.

This is a skill/art form that we simply don't practise enough anymore. I have spent a couple or three unexpected nights out,funnily enough two were in same area a year of two apart. First we lost track in dark so simply slept where we were,not bad or cold but really dry,was happy to find swampy patch for drink next morning.we awoke and were literally still on track. The other night in same spot,three of us all young,I was most experienced.we had ditched tent n took fly only.it snowed.we on bushline.i got fire going had meal.we made nest in under trees with fly over top.my mates got into sleeping bags.i took my wet swannie off and got cold while waiting to crawl into bed...one of the coldest I can remember being. If had got straight into sleeping bag I would've been still warm. Two other nights out no drama.

South opuha,shitty paper map pre GPS days.shot two young that,the first I had ever seen.we dropped down to where we thought hut should be just on dark.got to creek.oh shit no hut,now what? Turned around,over hanging Rock made bit of a cave,bit of driftwood so we got fire going in cave and spent night in relative comfort.i gave my swannie to skinny mate.

Easter 1993 my photo album tells me,shikes that makes me feel old.not ten foot tall n bullet proof anymore.

Rolled an ankle recently. On day 5 of a 5 day trip in high country, luckily only a short distance from a track. Made me think though, I could walk/grovel on it for about 20 mins before it got too sore, would have been interesting if a day earlier on my own in the tussock. Had a PLB and inreach, bt they don't help much with hypothermia if a night out at 1100m was the outcome. Some great advice and stories on here, the key one being to have the emergency gear with you when the emergency happens.....

When I was a NZ Mountain Safety Council bushcraft instructor, had to attend a 2 day "Instructor Development" course, based at an outdoor education centre. It was raining, and after a roast dinner on Saturday evening, the 18 instructors were tasked to meet in the main lounge with our "survival kits". The facilitator asked the group if anybody had ever had to use their survival kit. Only 2 of us had (we were both hunters). The facilitator said: "So you all discuss survival kits on the courses you run, but apart from the 2 hunters, none of you have actually put the kit to the test? Right, follow me, and bring your kits with you". He led the group outside and into the adjoining bush, and selected a sleeping position for each of us, about 50 metres apart. After informing us that all doors in the centre would now be locked, he said he would see us for breakfast. I had a comfortable night, having taken my "in the shit" hunting daypack as my survival kit, as had the other hunter. At breakfast, when we were asked how many people would now modify their survival kit, 16 hands went up. It was an innovative teaching method, had inherent controls, and very effective. It wasn't cold overnight, but most people were very uncomfortable.