I break down a cold night where my military grade sleeping bag couldn’t save me from a simple mistake in my sleep system. This episode shows exactly what went wrong, what the cold taught me, and how to build a setup that actually keeps you warm when temperatures drop.
This episode digs into a cold night that didn’t go the way it should have gone. A simple overnight trip with Dave turned into a long reminder that winter camping will expose every weak spot in your gear and your planning. I took my military issue extreme cold weather sleeping bag, my Helinox ultralight cot, my wool blanket, and my down puffy blanket from East Hills Outdoors. On paper, everything looked solid. In reality, the setup had one flaw that turned the night miserable.
We walk through exactly what went wrong and why I froze in a bag rated for forty below. We break down how sleeping bags actually work, why compressed insulation fails under your back, and how convective cooling pulls heat out of you faster than you expect. We also get into the difference between top insulation and bottom insulation, why a cot lifts you but never warms you, and how wool blankets and puffy blankets fill the gaps that modern synthetics don’t always cover.
You’ll hear the honest field lessons learned that night, including what I should have done differently, how I now build my cold-weather sleep system, and why even seasoned campers get humbled when they overlook the basics. If you’ve ever slept cold, fought drafts, or misjudged a winter night, this one hits close to home.
Gear and topics discussed
Extreme Cold Weather Military Sleeping Bag
Intermediate Cold Weather Bag
Helinox Ultralight Cot: https://amzn.to/3XuLun8
Get out the Gear Down Puffy Blanket: https://amzn.to/4osn48K
Military Wool Blanket: https://amzn.to/44Dtr1S
Convective Cooling
Insulation R-Value
Cot vs Ground Setup
Winter Sleep System Layering
Primitive Camping Rations: All Products | Primitive Camping
Watch the camping video on Speir Outdoors https://youtu.be/l0O36IDCvRY
Grab the book and meals at Primitive-Camping.com
(upbeat music)
Welcome to the Primitive
Camping and Bushcraft Podcast.
I'm your host, Chris Spear.
So here we're gonna talk about gear,
red and the kind of stories
you only get around a fire.
It's all about learning, adapting
and keeping your faith strong.
So whether you're a seasoned outdoorsman
or just looking to unplug and reconnect,
you're in the right place.
So pull up a chair by the
fire and let's get into it.
All right.
Welcome back to the Primitive
Camping and Bushcraft Podcast.
And tonight we are sitting down
underneath the tarp.
at Camp Wut-Da-Heck
Got a fire rolling in the front here.
I got Ranger back here saying
it's kind of chilly outside.
(laughs) So bear with me here.
It's been raining, excuse
me, it's been raining all day.
It's just been one of those days.
This has been one of those weeks.
But we made it through Thanksgiving
and I had a great Thanksgiving,
had a great time with the family,
all the people at the
house, family, friends,
extended family, stuff like that,
everything was great.
How about you?
Was everything good?
Let me know, send a comment down
and let me know how
things went for you guys.
You know, I'm really interested to hear
about other people's
experiences as well as mine.
It was pretty cool.
We had a good time.
Then a couple of days later,
it was the grand baby's first birthday.
We went to his house
and watched a one-year-old
walking around and
not really understanding
everything that's happening,
but enjoying every minute of it.
So it was great times and
we had a good, a good week.
So, you know, welcome back.
And a couple of weeks ago,
Dave and I went on a little camping trip
and we got a little
wildlife management area out here
and we went out there, just drove up,
unloaded the trucks.
He brought his truck.
I brought mine and we just did a real
quick overnight trip.
Just get out into the woods
and get away from the
hustle and bustle of life.
So we get out there, drive
the truck up and we get out.
We unload, he sets up his
little tent and he has a cot
and he set up the
Nightcat Layflat hammock.
And he put that hammock on
his cot and he sets it up.
And so it is its own system.
It is completely standalone.
The Layflat hammock
works perfect on a cot.
And I believe Nightcat
actually sells the systems
like that with the cot as well.
And I was using the Helinox, Helinox.
I had a cot and I was
just sleeping underneath
a plypoint shelter on
this ultra light Helinox cot.
Helinox, Helinox.
And I rolled out my heavy
duty military original issue
green down sleeping bag.
I hardly ever, if I take
this sleeping bag anywhere,
it's because I drove
up to where I'm camping
or I took a boat to where I'm going or
something like that.
I hardly ever use a sleeping bag.
I mean, I use it, but I
usually don't bring it with me
on many trips, especially a hiking trip.
That ain't gonna happen.
So I get out there and
I get everything set up
and it was supposed to drop.
The temperature was supposed to drop.
And it got down in
the twenties that night.
It was like 26, it
was the first cold snap.
And so you could watch this video
on my Spear Outdoors channel.
And it is, it was
pretty cool little video.
Got out there, went
camping, cooked dinner, got up,
watched some deer, you
know, the next morning
when we woke up, there
was some deer chasing.
There was a buck chasing a bunch of doese
on the sandbar across the way from us.
So, you know, we just had a good time.
It was real quick.
We got out there, we
got a bunch of firewood,
loaded the back of the
truck up with firewood,
dug us a little pit for the fire,
and then lit our fire and
just enjoyed sitting around,
talking and having a good time
and just enjoying each other's company.
That's what camping's all about.
So, there was something
that this taught me though.
That night, it taught me
something that I already knew.
But I don't want to say I ignored it,
but I knew this to be true.
Yet, I still just
didn't pay attention to it.
I didn't, I guess,
ignored it, I guess ignored it.
And by the end of this episode,
you'll know that the physical
lesson that the woods gave me
is like, it's the same thing
that I talk about in the book.
You know, on page 71 right here,
I'm gonna read a little excerpt.
It says, "For additional bedding,
"there is no
substitute for a wool blanket.
"A genuine 100% wool
blanket will give you warm,
"on cold and wet nights.
"A sleeping bag made from
quality natural feather down
"or synthetic
material can also be useful.
"But the climate you're camping in
"should always determine the
type of bag that you select.
"A natural down bag, for example,
"is extremely difficult
to dry once it gets wet.
"Synthetic material is
easier to dry if it becomes damp,
"but it doesn't keep you as warm as
natural feather down.
"There are, however,
incredibly lightweight
"down stuff blankets that are 100%
waterproof on the market.
"And I have been
using one for a few years
"in conjunction with my wool blanket
"and have stayed very warm in a hammock
"when the temperature
was in the low to mid 30s.
"So if you're looking for
extra comfort while camping,
"lightweight hiking or camping chairs."
Oh, that's the next section.
But anyway, these blankets
that I was talking about,
I brought a puffy blanket with me.
I brought my wool blanket with me
and I brought my sleeping bag with me.
I knew it was gonna be 26 degrees
and I didn't think it
was gonna be an issue.
And buddy,
so Dave and I set up camp
and this little,
it was a bluff overlooking
the river, the Pearl River.
And we finally got the
fire to start rolling.
We're sitting there and
it was right about sunset.
We're watching the river
just roll down through there.
And I got a couple pictures of it.
It was pretty cool.
The video is pretty cool.
And the cold was starting to set in
as soon as the light started fading.
And we cooked some dinner and we ate
and we just sat
around for a little while.
And before you know it,
it's weird how when you go camping,
by the time you get
all your activities done,
like setting up your
shelter, setting up all this stuff,
and then you get your dinner cooked
and you sit around
and you're just staring
into the campfire and you're talking.
It's weird because time
flies by so fast, don't it?
You know, it gets
dark at 4.35 o'clock here
this time of year.
And before you know it, it's 11 o'clock.
You know, it's 11 o'clock.
These dogs keep getting
underneath this table.
Go.
So we get down, we get everything set up.
We eat our dinner.
We sit around, we
talk for a little while.
And then finally it's like,
hey man, it's time for good bed.
So I go off to my corner.
He goes off to his tent.
And we had some nice big logs.
We threw some big logs on the fire.
So it would burn longer, you know,
and I'd fall asleep.
And then it started getting cold.
It started getting real cold.
And I stretch out on this mummy bag.
And I'm having a
problem with the mummy bags
because I have
claustrophobia, I guess, you know,
dealing with the military all them years.
It gets worse and worse.
I mean worse and worse.
But I start feeling like I can't breathe.
And so I open it up and I try to get out
and then I freeze the death and I shut it
and I freeze the death.
And man, that night was ridiculous.
That whole night.
So by midnight that night,
I was like shifting around.
And about two o'clock in
the morning, I was freezing.
And I believe David was
actually making coffee
at three o'clock in the morning.
So I got up, I stoked the fire.
I added some more logs to the fire.
Me and David were sitting
there talking for a little while,
about three in the morning.
And then I threw
another big log on the fire
and I just moved my
cock closer to the fire.
And I tried to get to sleep that way.
And I'd roll over
with my back to the fire.
And, you know, it was
just, it was miserable.
But here's the thing, the
sleeping bag wasn't broken.
It was, the design wasn't flawed.
It was me.
And I ignored the basics and the woods
don't ignore mistakes.
I ignored the basics.
And it happens to seasoned people, they
go out all the time.
You know, I ignored the basics.
I was up off the ground and it zapped me.
It sucked out all.
So when you're laying in a sleeping bag,
and this sleeping bag
is rated for negative 40.
All right.
When you lay down, you
are compressing the fibers.
And the fibers, you ever
notice how you get colder
on your back and your
backside is a little bit colder
than the rest of your body?
You can be all warm and fuzzy on the top,
you know, in a sleeping bag,
but the backside is extremely freezing.
It's because you're
compressing the fibers
on the sleeping bag and
it's not holding the heat in
like it normally should.
And that typically happens
all the time with these things.
So here's something
most folks don't factor in
when they hear that these sleeping bags
are extremely cold weather sleeping bags.
The rating on the tag
is not going to save you.
You're going to save you.
And if the rest of the sleep
system isn't doing its job,
the best bag in the world is
not going to keep you warm.
And I learned this and I
knew this, I know this,
and I wrote about it, you
know, and I've done my research
and I know these things.
And on the ground or on a cot,
heat loss always goes down first.
It doesn't matter if the
bag is rated far below zero.
If cold air or cold metal sits underneath
without insulation, it
will drain you all night long.
It will slowly drain the heat out of you.
And that's what I ignored.
And let's see if I can
find it here in the book.
Where did I talk about it?
That when you get out into the woods
and there is no insulation between you
and whatever it is you're laying on,
it is a convective cooling.
And what happens is it is just like,
it just sucks and pulls
all the heat out of you.
And I remember talking
about it somewhere in here,
I think it was in the hammock section
where we're talking
about the convective cooling.
And that's why you use a blanket,
not a wool blanket, well,
you can use a wool blanket
to lay on, that will help some,
but it is a under quilt for a hammock
and that keeps you warm
and onto your backside.
Now I could have done
the same thing with this.
I get out there and I
did not put a pad down.
And or I didn't stuff a
bunch of stuff up underneath
the cot.
And that would have really like,
if I'd have put some leaves
or something underneath there
or stuffed all my
extra bedding or whatever
up underneath there,
it would have kept me
from freezing on my backside.
And this is something that's happened
ever since the beginning of history.
So I should have used
like a closed cell phone pad
or an air mattress or an air pad.
I should have layered
my East Hills Outdoor
puffy blanket underneath me.
I could have laid the wool
blanket down underneath me.
And I could have just
added a couple of layers there
and it would have really helped,
but I trusted the bag on this little cot.
And I thought, it ain't gonna be too bad.
It's only three or four
inches up off the ground.
And dude, it brutally tortured me.
It destroyed me.
It ruined my entire evening.
My camp out.
So here's what that night drove home.
Here are the lessons
that I learned that night.
That a sleep system is a system.
One piece doesn't do the whole job.
You need insulation.
You need it above and you need it below.
If you're using a cot in the wintertime,
you have to have
something to block the heat,
retain the heat, keep the heat in.
You have to have something
with some kind of R value
to lay on, like a foam pad
or something of the sort.
A cot is not insulation and
it keeps you up off the ground
and it's more comfortable to sleep on
than the ground most times.
But the air moving back
and forth underneath it
is gonna rob all your heat.
It's gonna take all your heat out.
It's just going to suck it out, zap it.
Now you've heard me talk about wool
blankets on here a lot.
And we've talked about
them, a wool blanket,
if that's all you have, a wool blanket
will keep you alive.
They've been used for thousands of years
and they are a
natural, 100% natural material
that is going to keep you warm.
And I cannot reiterate this enough
that a wool blanket
belongs in modern camping gear.
It really does.
I mean, it's relatively heavy
and the one that I use the most
is a military green 80% wool.
Now 100% wool is a little bit better.
It is gonna keep you a little bit warmer,
but 80% wool, the blankets that you get
from the military GI issued wool blankets
are gonna be your 80% wool blankets.
It's gonna be 80% wool and 20% I think
is either spandex or
something else, some other material.
I'll have to look into that and post it.
But a wool blanket still belongs
into a modern camping setup.
It really does.
And I use a wool
blanket more often than not.
Now I use a wool blanket and
I actually have two of them.
And even when I go hammock camping,
I have gone camping at 30 degree weather,
just like I mentioned in the book,
with nothing more than two wool blankets
and I was good to go.
And I had the underquilt on that hammock,
but a wool blanket is
going to keep you warm.
And a wool blanket is
going to fill the gaps
that synthetic insulation can't.
And I don't know how
to really explain that
other than it's the truth.
It really is a wool
blanket is gonna keep you warmer
on cold days and cooler on hot days.
And if it's soaking wet,
it's still gonna keep you warm.
You're gonna be wet, but
you're still gonna be warm.
So a down puffy
blanket, I have one of those,
it's an East Hills Outdoors.
And it is stuffed with all
kinds of little feathers.
And this thing is great.
It's a waterproof down puffy blanket.
Kind of looks like a
sleeping bag opened all the way up.
And it's got a couple
of buttons on the side
where you can fold it
in half and, you know,
but it's not a sleeping bag.
It's not a sleeping bag.
It's just a blanket.
It's a puffy blanket
and it does a good job
keeping you warm.
Now I like to use that as my base layer
and then cover up with my wool blanket.
And I usually turn myself into a burrito.
Like I will take that puffy down blanket
and lay it down.
And then I'll open up my
wool blanket on top of it.
And I'll lay down and I'll cover it up
like a sleeping bag.
And you talk about toasty,
that will keep you toasty right there.
That will keep you good more.
And I did that several weeks ago
when I took out the
Truth of Nature boys camping
and I camped on a cot that night too.
And it was still kind
of chilly, you know?
But I'm finding that the older I get,
the less I can handle the cold.
I don't know, you know, 51 years old
and the older I get, the
colder it is, you know?
And I hate cold.
But you don't want to
assume because the bag
keeps people warm on these TV shows
or like in Alaska or something like that.
It'll keep you warm
and poorly insulated cot
in South Mississippi
because if you're laying on a cot
in let's say South Mississippi,
it doesn't get as cold here as it does
in other parts of the country.
It just don't do it.
And if you are laying here
on a cot and it's 26 degrees
and the wind's constantly
blowing, you're gonna be cold.
I don't give a flying
flip if what's usually,
somebody's gonna say,
you're gonna get cold.
It's gonna get cold.
So cold exposes things.
When you get cold at night,
you start reevaluating your gear.
You start
reevaluating what you did wrong.
You start reevaluating all the mistakes.
You start thinking about your layers.
You start really
contemplating what did I wear?
You start remembering things.
So cold is a teacher and
it will teach you things
and you will reflect on them.
The cold is not going to lie.
It is gonna say, hey, you're cold.
And you're gonna say, hey, I'm cold.
And you're gonna start
reflecting and thinking.
And it's just gonna tell the truth.
But it's gonna tell the truth.
It's gonna tell the truth
slower than fire does fire.
(laughs)
Yeah, fire's gonna tell the truth.
Starting a fire is gonna tell the truth
whether you practiced or not.
But the cold is gonna tell you the truth
is whether you was ready to be
outside in the great outdoors.
So this is the part
here that is gonna tell you
that really had me start thinking that me
being in the great outdoors,
I was really, I walked out thinking,
yeah, I know what I'm doing.
I've done this a million times.
I've been camping.
I'm just going camping.
I'm going for an overnight camping trip.
And I got humbled because I went on an
overnight camping trip.
I didn't think about what
I needed to think about.
Yeah, I could have got my truck,
cranked it up, turned the heater on.
But that, you know, I don't know.
I'm not that prideful to go do that.
I will rather sit there and
reflect and fix the problem
than try to take a shortcut out of it.
So this whole situation
started sounding a lot like
something that I read
in the Bible a while back
about preparation.
And it's not the dramatic kind.
It's relatively a small kind.
And it's overlooked details
that make all the difference.
And this was a
situation of overlooked details.
It was just, it was, I knew better.
And I knew it was
going 26 degrees at night,
but I did not bring the
appropriate pad to lay on.
And cold weather, I took
an extreme cold weather.
And I was like, yeah, this thing's ready
for the cold weather.
Let's just go ahead and do that.
But that was me.
I was, I saw the cold front.
I knew the caught had no insulation.
I knew better.
It was my fault, but I kept going anyway.
So Proverbs 27, 12 says,
a prudent man sees
trouble coming and takes refuge.
But the simple keep
going and suffer for it.
Talk about put you in your place.
That right there is a Bible verse
that will hit home with you.
That like I said, just a
minute ago, that was me.
That was me.
I saw the trouble coming,
but I didn't take refuge in it.
I didn't, I was the simple man.
I just kept on going
and I suffered for it.
I didn't think it through.
I knew better, but I
just kept going anyway.
I suffered.
I wasn't in danger.
I didn't panic, anything like that.
There was no, there
was nothing that seemed
on the outside that I did wrong.
All I did was throw a
sleeping bag in a truck
and head out camping
for an overnight trip.
And I knew it was going to be 26 degrees,
but I assume that because
it said extreme cold weather
on the sleeping bag and
I've used it countless times,
I did not take into
account the fact that I would be
sleeping three to four
inches up off the ground
and had that cooling
happen up underneath there
and just getting zapped.
So the cold was just kind
of like that quiet cold.
It was that it crawled all night long
and it reminded me of
every single mistake
that I made that night.
And it was like, man, I
should have brought this.
I should have brought that.
I could have brought
this and I stayed, you know,
and for now on, if I'm sleeping on a cot,
I am bringing a pad to put
down between me and the ground.
I don't care if it's in the
middle of the summertime or not.
Well, it's in summertime,
I'd be in a hammock anyway.
(laughing)
So there's the deeper lesson.
Yeah.
God has told us the same
thing from the beginning of time.
Pay attention.
Prepare wisely.
Understand or notice what is coming.
Don't assume tomorrow will be soft
because today is easy.
When you get out into the woods,
you prepare for the cold that you expect
and the cold you don't.
So from my instant, in my situation,
I expected it to be 26 degrees,
but I didn't expect to
quote unquote freeze to death.
And I was out there under a cot.
(sighs)
Anytime in our lives,
we have to prepare for the storms.
The ones that we see,
the ones that we don't.
Wisdom, outdoor wisdom, biblical wisdom,
life wisdom, marriage
wisdom, parenting wisdom,
all these different, you plug in blank,
plug it, you know, fill in your blank.
It's not dramatic.
All it is is a simple discipline.
And the reason why it is called wisdom
is because you live
through it and it builds upon it
and you understand it.
You've been there, you've done that.
Cold weather is going
to teach you quicker
than a sermon ever will.
Cold weather is gonna teach you quicker
than any podcast ever will.
Cold weather is gonna teach you quicker
than any YouTube video ever will.
So when I think about
that right now, that night,
I'm like, man, for now
on, I am going to have
some kind of something to put down.
It was a tiny mistake and it can happen
to anybody at any time.
Now, let's say I was somewhere
where it got negative 30 that night.
That's brutal.
Would you survive it?
Who knows?
But one missing pad,
one little bad assumption,
one little, you know, how bad can it be?
It had a huge consequence.
It could have been even worse, you know?
That's how a lot of our lives work is
not the big disasters,
it's the small oversights
and the things we say.
No, it'll be fine.
It's gonna be okay and it's not.
Now we do that all the
time, all of us do it.
I don't care who you
are listening to this,
every single one of us do that.
But the great outdoors
are gonna be honest to you
and great outdoors are
always gonna tell the truth.
The great outdoors is gonna tell you
when you don't prepare.
And a lot of times
when you head outside in a camping trip,
you get way out there
in the woods by yourself
it can humble you quickly.
But anyway.
So yeah, that was it.
That was an overnight trip.
We went with Dave and man,
I'm telling you right now
it was good times, it was great times.
We got up there next morning,
we watched the deer chase a bunch of do's
on the opposite sandbar from
the river for about an hour.
And I'm thinking I might put
that video at the beginning
and end of this
podcast on the podcast video.
And I just say, we had a good
time, we had some breakfast.
We got up, we ate the breakfast,
the primitive camping in Bushcraft,
freeze dry breakfast meals, the rations.
If you haven't tried those, go ahead
and head over to primitive-camping.com.
Jody has been using some on,
he did the shepherd pie
in the group on Facebook.
And he's been posting
some photos in there
and it's good stuff.
He tried it out and he's
like, man, this is good stuff.
Yeah, head on over there.
And I tell you what, today is,
today is Cyber Monday
or something like that.
I am going to put on the website,
I'm gonna put everything on
the website on sale today.
So everything on primitive-camping.com
is gonna go on sale.
All the meals are gonna go on sale,
all the books, all the fire plugs,
all the fire kits, everything.
So if you're looking for something
for somebody for Christmas, head on over.
And if you're not buying
some of those stuff off of there
and you wanna buy
something like a lantern
or something like
that, head over to my links
and my affiliate links on Amazon
and get you something from there.
It's all good, if not,
I appreciate your
support for listening anyway.
All right, that's where
we're gonna end this today.
If this episode gave you
something to think about
and it kinda reminded
you of a frozen night
because you skipped one small detail,
then go ahead and share
this with somebody else.
And head on over to
primitive-camping.com,
pick up a copy of the
book, get you some of the meals
and listen to some of
the past episodes here
on the Primitive
Camping in Bushcraft podcast.
And until next time, I'll still be here.
Getting ready for the
fundamental Friday's video
and we'll start doing
that sometime this week.
But anyway, all right guys,
thank you so much for joining me today
and remembering all
your ways, acknowledge him
and he will direct your paths.
I'll see you in the next
video or the next podcast.
Thanks for sitting
around the fire with me today.
If this episode gave you
something to think about,
if it helped you feel a
little bit more prepared
or it even stirred your faith a tiny bit,
go ahead and share it with someone else
who might need it as well.
We don't go camping
to run away from life.
We come out here to
slow down and to recharge.
So grab another log, throw it on the fire
and remember this, in all
your ways, acknowledge him
and he will direct your path.
I'll see you next time, God bless you.