In this episode of Ready Radio, host John Rush delves into the nuances of winter preparedness as the holiday season approaches. With only weeks left until Christmas, it’s imperative to not only consider gift ideas but also how to stay prepared for the unexpected challenges winter brings, from minor roadside emergencies to serious survival situations in snowy conditions. Discover the evolution of rechargeable flashlight technology and why they make the perfect gift for the mechanically inclined. John emphasizes the importance of preparedness as a way of life, highlighting the essential gear and strategies for surviving in extreme winter weather.
SPEAKER 09 :
This is Ready Radio, preparing you to be ready for anything, now.
SPEAKER 07 :
Here’s your survival guide for Ready Radio, John Rush. And it is Ready Radio KLZ 560, a live show today. If you’re listening to a replay, you know the date. It is December the 6th as we head down this stretch into Christmas. So the year is about done. So there will not be many days left. In fact, I keep reminding a lot of folk that after today, we have literally two weeks before the week of Christmas. And with Christmas being on a Wednesday, it will be here tomorrow. sooner than you know. So really, two weeks left before Christmas is all. So for some of you, I didn’t have this in my notes. I’ll try to do a show on this next week. So for those of you listening, the next episode. I will do my best to bring to you maybe some gift ideas that you could get that person in your life where you know this is something that is near and dear to them, or maybe they’re just on the beginning journey of this. And as I say all the time on this program, Ready Radio, when it comes to being prepared, this is all aspects of life. not just the end of the world scenario. We talk a lot about that, of course, but it could be everything from, you know, you have a flat tire and need to pull over onto the side of the road and get that taken care of to any number of other things that could come up. So this is not just about the end of the world preparedness. It’s really being prepared. As we say, the what ifs of life so again if you’re listening to this as a replay thank you very much we appreciate that very much as well december the 6th is today’s date and i’ve got several things to go over today and again as i as i said i will do my best to bring you uh next week let me make sure i look at the calendar correctly make sure we’re giving folks enough time yeah if i do this next week well you guys will have plenty of time to get whatever you would need to do for those you know that that are around you and we talk a lot about this and by the way you go to the website ready-radio.com, so ready-radio.com. And we’ve got all sorts of things we’ve already put up on the website of those items we’ve talked about for the past year plus. So you are more than welcome to go check some of those things out as far as gift ideas and that go. And, again, it just depends on where somebody’s at in that particular journey, what do they need. And in some cases they may already have – Something, but getting them another of is never a bad idea. And just as a side note for a lot of you listening, may talk about a little bit of this in Drive Radio tomorrow as far as, you know, good gifts to get those hard-to-buy folks in your life. I’ll just tell you straight up. There’s hardly a mechanical-type individual, somebody that is into this end of things. that you would not be safe in buying a rechargeable flashlight for, period. Small, large. The list is long when it comes to rechargeable flashlights and what they’re capable of doing. And the reason I say that is they make them now to where you can plug them into a USB port, throw them into the console of the car, glove box of the car, in your toolbox. You can mount them on walls. Literally, there’s about every size and shape possible. And you talk about something that has changed over the years, given that I’ve been in the automotive industry my whole life. Back in the day, you couldn’t hardly buy a good flashlight. Mag lights back in the day were about the only good flashlight you can buy. And even they were decent. But compared to what we have today with even some of the cheap brands that are out there, and Maglite was never cheap. But my point is with the LED, the rechargeability and so on that we have today, flashlights have come a long way. And I say flashlight. It could be a stationary light that has a magnetic back to it. It could be one that you carry around in your hand or you could throw in your backpack. It could be one that goes on your head as a headlamp. They make some combo units that’ll do not all of those together, but two or three things at one time. It really, I mean, they’ve even got, you know, illumination-type lights. I wouldn’t call them flashlights, that if you’re out working in an area, your barn or your shop or whatever, and you just need a bunch of extra light, instead of having to plug something in, you just put a battery on it and put it on a pedestal, and you can light things up that way. Again… The lighting end of things and what we’ve been able to do with LED over the past decade has literally changed that whole – at my place, I think I still have a few incandescent bulb flashlights kicking around just sort of as a spare. You’re just sort of like, okay, I have it. I’m not going to toss it. But those even can be converted in a lot of cases over to LED, even the old mag lights and such. And the reality is they are so much more efficient and work so much better with LEDs than they did the other one. The battery life is longer. Of course, the brightness, you know, the illumination, way different than what it used to be. And, again, as I was a kid growing up in the industry, you were doing really well to have any kind of a decent light to look at anything. And now we have got literally a plethora. of choices I’m not exaggerating it thousands thousands of choices when it comes to the different types of flashlights and things along those lines so my point is for those of you always wondering you know what do I buy that hard to hard to buy thing you know what would that hard to buy for a person in my life what do I get them you can hardly ever go wrong with any kind of a a you know better than you know the ten dollar flashlight I mean those work as well but You know where I’m going with this. If you’re really looking for something, getting somebody a high-quality, rechargeable LED flashlight, even if they’ve already got some, they’ll use it, trust me. They’ll put it someplace where it’s just at their fingertips, and that makes it really easy. And I’m one of those where I just don’t think you can ever have enough flashlights kicking around. So just a side note, and I can talk more about some of those gift ideas next week when it comes to preparedness. But I want to talk today – Dan, thank you, by the way. You send me all sorts of great ideas on things we can talk about on the program. And I know we haven’t got into, at least here at the lower elevations, haven’t gotten into full bore snow season quite yet. Yes, we’ve had a few little storms roll through. Nothing really significant to speak of. Honestly, they’ve been pretty light as far as storms go. I get it. Up in the mountains, there’s a lot of snow in different places. Our snowpack is way up. But what I wanted to talk about today is how to survive in the snow. So this can go all sorts of different directions as far as how you end up here. You know, did you get stranded somehow? Is it an end of the world type scenario where you’re now having to travel in winter months? Maybe you’re up, you know, backpacking and get caught in the snow. Maybe you’re actually, you know, traveling, snowshoeing, et cetera, and something happens and you get stuck. could be on a snow machine, and something along those lines happens. I mean, we hear all these different stories where people are traveling, traveling the backcountry, something happens, and all of a sudden they’re stuck. They send out search parties, and sometimes it ends up really well, and they find the individual. And in other cases, they do find the individual, and it’s not good because the person’s not alive or alive. There are those stories as well where they don’t find said person until next spring when the snow melts. And that’s the last thing you ever want to have happen. So we’re going to give some tips on some of this throughout this particular, not quite an hour, but we’re going to talk about some of that today and how you can survive. Because, again, it doesn’t necessarily have to be an end-of-the-world scenario where you’re traveling someplace to get away from something or to go someplace. This could just be something happens and you end up traveling in a snowy situation. We hear those stories even where somebody’s traveling and they get off on the wrong road and something happens and they get stuck and it’s way off the beaten path and nobody really knows they’re there. I mean, I know it sounds freakish. And the old saying is, well, that’ll never happen to me. Well, then it does. And again, we hear these stories where these things happen. In some cases, they have really good endings. And in other cases, they have terrible endings. And a lot of that, I believe, comes down to how prepared were those individuals as they went into that particular situation. And as always, if you want to join in on this, text line 307-282-22, 307-282-22. A lot of you text way outside of the programs, which is fine by me. I do my best to answer those back as quickly as I can. And in some cases, it’s a reference type text message. And yes, I do put those things into my notes as well. You can also call us directly on air live right now. Again, this is December the 6th, so if you’re listening to a replay, you can’t call in, but you can today while we’re live, 303-477-5600. Okay, so surviving in the snow. First thing, understand your risks. And these are some basic things that you would think people would recognize and But they don’t always. And one thing, too, I should always point out about our program. We record all of these. These go up onto our website, ready-radio.com. You can listen to past episodes. And if there’s some folks out there, kids, grandkids, relatives, coworkers, whatever, and you think, hey, that was a really good item that people need to know about, you can always refer them to the website in a particular day even that we’re talking about something and have them listen. They don’t have to be listening live to gain this information, and you don’t have to memorize it. You can just pass on today’s date, again, December the 6th, and they can go look up that particular episode and listen that way as well. So several risks that come into the snow end of things because it’s cold. Again, common sense. If it’s snowing, it’s cold, and we pretty much know that. Hypothermia increases. Now, hypothermia can happen even in warm weather scenarios, but when it’s cold out and there’s snow on the ground, much higher chance for hypothermia. And again, people probably don’t… have enough healthy respect for hypothermia because it’s a killer in and of itself. And most don’t understand that, but it is. And it does. Food, much harder to come by when there’s snow on the ground. Again, common sense would tell you these things, but we need to make note of it. Travel, of course, becomes much more difficult in the snow and the cold. Just being cold in general makes it harder to travel. But if there’s snow on the ground, depending upon how deep the snow is, definitely makes it harder to travel. I mean, again, common sense. If it gets deep enough to where it’s beyond your ankle, which folks don’t realize how snow depth really works. We all think that two inches of snow isn’t much. Two inches is quite a bit. Stack two to four to six to eight and so on, and six inches of snow becomes pretty tough to travel in. You start getting up into that 8 to 10 to 12 inches, and without snowshoes, it becomes very hard to travel. And then you end up with snow drifts and things like that, depending upon where you’re actually traveling to and where you’re at. And I’ll get into some of that as we go through this. But basically, traveling becomes very difficult. Bottom line, understand the risks first. And then I inserted this into my own notes. This didn’t come from what was sent to me. But do you really need to go out? So in some cases, you end up in it regardless. It wasn’t by choice. But in other cases, it is by choice. And then you really have to ask the question, am I prepared and do I need to go out? So first things first, do you have the right gear, clothing, I mean? In other words, how do you stay warm and also dry? Especially if you’re going to be traveling in the snow, how do you stay warm and dry? So you need to layer your clothing. We talk about that a lot in Colorado. Most of us that have lived here for any length of time understand the whole layering aspect of things because we in Colorado layer a lot. and it’s becoming easier to layer clothing because clothing is much better now than when Charlie and I both were kids. Back when I was a kid, you didn’t have very good boots, and you used Wonder Bread bags to put over your feet and put that inside of the boot to keep your feet halfway dry. Yeah, that’s how we grew up because we didn’t have the Gore-Texas and all of these different things that we have today that make things so much better to travel around in. We didn’t have that as a kid. You had leather boots, and they got wet. You did everything you possibly could to keep that dry. You snow-sealed them. You did all sorts of things to try to waterproof those as much as you possibly could. But at the end of the day, your feet were still wet. So you did double socks and plastic baggies, and the problem there is your feet slid all around inside of it, and you ended up with blisters and other things, so that wasn’t fun either. But the point is, things are much better today, clothing-wise, than ever. We have more options on that than we’ve ever had. And, frankly, thank the oil and gas industry for that, because a lot of what we use comes from that industry in regards to the clothing that I just mentioned. So layers, make sure that you are layering, doing that in a way to where your base layer is wicking the moisture away from you, you’re going to sweat, perspire, no matter what, no matter how cold it is outside. If you are exerting any kind of strenuous exercise, et cetera, walking, climbing, et cetera, you’re going to perspire, and that has a chance of making your clothes, your first layer, wet, meaning that as soon as you stop and slow down, you will get cold. That’s why you don’t want to wear cotton against your skin. Cotton is like the worst thing you could wear against your skin. Wearing any kind of the polypropylene type undergarments, and they make special undergarments for what I’m talking about that literally wick the water away from you and or dry quickly. That’s the other thing they do. Not only do they wick it away quickly, but they’ll dry faster. And that’s what you want to be as your base layer, something that’s wicking. Next layer, of course, you want for warmth, whatever that is. And each person’s different. This is not a one-size-fits-all. To some people, they need a lot more layer than others. Some of that depends upon how much of a natural layer do you have yourself. Some of it also has to do with how well do you do at cold temperatures. Some people don’t do well at cold temperatures at all. Circulation, whatever, they just don’t do as well in the cold. Others are fine in the cold. I have sons that don’t ever put pants on in the wintertime. It’s got to be like below zero before they put a pair of pants on. And I frankly don’t know how they do it because just looking at them makes me cold, but they do just fine. So everybody’s different, so you have to do what works for you. Lastly, that outer layer, make sure that it’s waterproof. And again, we have so many more materials today than what we had as kids growing up, what Charlie and I and a lot of you listening had as kids. So much better. The ability to stay warm and dry and comfortable and layer it all at the same time, so much easier today than it’s ever been. There’s no excuse to not have the proper clothing. Now, I talked about boots a moment ago. Yes, proper boots, hat, and gloves are key. And again, this is not a one-size-fits-all. For some, one particular boot might be great, and you might get along just great with it. The next person might want something completely different. Typically, if you’re going to be out in the snow, in the cold, and you’re going to be walking and so on, you want an insulated-type boot. Now, something to know is any boot with any kind of a rubber outside, which, yes, keeps things nice and waterproof, will be colder. And some would say, why? Why would that make the boot colder? Because the rubber… takes that cold and just pushes it right into your boot. That rubber material will hold that cold and just make it that much colder inside the boot. That’s typically why when you see boots like Sorrells and so on or the Sorrell-type boots, they’ve got a big, thick wool or felt inner liner that’s trying to protect you from that cold that’s coming through the rubber part of the boot. So there’s also boots made where they can insert air in between and have that be a layer and so on. And again, I have no preference. This comes down to you and what works for you. Some people struggle to keep their feet warm. I’m one of those. I can do pretty well on the rest of my body, but my feet tend to get cold. Why? I’ve been that way since I was a kid. I don’t know why. Again, everybody’s different. My feet are worse for me than my extremities and my hands. I can go by with lighter gloves but yet need heavier boots. Some could do lighter boots but heavier gloves. Everybody’s going to be different. So do whatever you need to do for you. Boots, hat, gloves. And remember that a lot of the heat, and they’ve said there’s some wives’ tales on this, although I don’t agree. The heat does come out of your head. The warmer you keep your head, naturally the warmer you’ll be. That’s why we wear hats. I know I’ve seen some of the studies that go against this to say, no, that’s just a wives’ tale, has nothing to do with it. I disagree. I think it does. So it’s why we wear hats and so on. Next, if you’re going to be out traveling and you think there might be a chance that you have to spend the night somewhere, and this could be for some of you that are even snowmobiling and things like that, putting a sleeping bag of sorts in your gear, not a bad idea. What are you going to sleep now? If you’re trekking across something and you know you’re going to be stopping, that’s a whole other scenario that you need to pack for, and we’ll talk through some of this today in regards to food and shelter and so on. But making sure that you’re staying warm with all of your gear, including your sleeping bag and then your shelter, which I’m going to get to next. If you find yourself in a place where you’ve got a shack up for the night, or it could be even a bad storm you get yourself involved in, and all of a sudden you’re just going to hunker down until this thing passes over, okay. What’s your shelter going to look like? I’ll talk about that next as soon as we come back. Again, for tips, things that you’d like to look at, even some of the links that we have on things to buy, go to ready-radio.com.
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SPEAKER 07 :
All right, we are back. Ready Radio, KLZ 560. Thanks so much for listening. Again, live program December the 6th. If you’re listening to a replay, we appreciate that as well. Somebody texted a moment ago and said, remember, if you’re traveling a lot of places, he specifically said, or they specifically said I-80, but this can apply to a lot of places. You’re using a mapping system or Waze or whatever, and all of a sudden there’s a problem and it tells you to get off the road. It has been very well known that a lot of times it will take you so far off the beaten path that you’re now in the situation we’re talking about. More than one have been caught in the circumstances I just explained. So be really careful with some of those mapping apps, especially in the winter months where it’s saying, you know, get off and go here might not be your best option. So thank you, by the way, for that. That’s very true. This person also said, remember, in your vehicle as you’re traveling, have enough food, water, and so on to last a couple of days. Yeah, I’d say at a minimum, absolutely. So thank you, by the way, for that tip because that’s also very important. And we talk about that a lot on Drive Radio as well, making sure that you’ve got what you need as you’re traveling around just to make sure that you’re able to handle something that might come up along those lines. John and Cheyenne, you’re up, sir.
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Hey, how’s it going, John? Good, sir. Yeah, one of the things that I did years ago, and I’ll do it when I have to be out in the cold, is you know what Reflectix is? It’s that foil stuff you can use for insulation. Take your insole out of your boot, cut a piece the same size as your insole, and put it back in. And then all of a sudden now that will reflect the heat from your foot back up, but it will also reflect the cold back down.
SPEAKER 07 :
Good idea. Yeah, great idea.
SPEAKER 09 :
I’ve never done that. Great idea. And that’s a good thing. Just to change it a little bit, you know the dehydrated backpacking meals? Yes. At higher altitudes, they take longer to rehydrate. So what we found, we saw somebody was using a store-bought one. They make like that same foil. They make a pouch where after you’ve rehydrated it and mixed it up and now you have to wait, whatever, 12 minutes, you stick it in this pouch and it stays warmer and it rehydrates better. Well, I made one out of the Reflectix for about $3. Oh, nice. And, yeah, so you can buy one for $25, or you can make one for, you know, whatever. Little enough.
SPEAKER 07 :
I had the Reflectix. Yeah, little enough. You know, and that Reflectix you can use around the house. Yeah, I was just going to say, it’s one of those items that just having a little bit around doesn’t hurt anything.
SPEAKER 09 :
No, and the rolls, you can get them anywhere, and that foil tape that you use to seal it up, I mean, between the two of them, If it costs you $15, it’s a lot to have around the house. Great idea. The other thing you were talking about, if I know I’m going out, I want a base layer, a mid layer, a warm layer, and a hard shell, if you know what I mean. Right. Because you see a lot of people wearing puffy jackets now, which down or synthetic down, which are great and very warm. But they were wet through.
SPEAKER 07 :
I was going to say, they don’t do anything for the wet, though. Not a thing.
SPEAKER 09 :
No. And once down gets wet, it stops providing warmth. So if you have a rain jacket that you can put over the top of it, that’ll keep that jacket from wetting out.
SPEAKER 07 :
And if you can handle it, and I know not everybody can, John, and they still make wool clothing. It’s very expensive, and it’s gotten super expensive, although it will last your lifetime. I’m not exaggerating when I say that. If you have the ability to do the wool sides of things, it’s one of the few materials out there, John, as you know, that even when wet keeps you warm.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, and the new Merino wool blends are, you know, they’re not itchy anymore. Right. You know, the stuff that we had, like I got when I went in the Army in 81, was so itchy that by the time you got it washed soft enough to wear, you’d wore it out.
SPEAKER 07 :
How come sheep aren’t always itching, by the way?
SPEAKER 09 :
No.
SPEAKER 07 :
No, I mean, I’m not joking. It’s kind of a serious, you know, why do sheep not scratch all the time, John? I mean, it’s itchy to us, but it’s not to them. Right. But I never thought of that. Yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
I mean, I’m talking about it.
SPEAKER 07 :
I mean, it is because you’re right. I mean, it’s a lot of reason why some people really struggle with wool and can’t hardly wear it at all. They’re just allergic and it drives them crazy. I can wear it. It’s not a big deal to me. I do fine with it. And it really works for what we’re talking about. It works very well.
SPEAKER 09 :
It does. Absolutely. Now, the other thing you got to think about is your phone. If you’re going out and you’re going out maybe a little rural, you said snowmobiling, cross-country skiing or anything like that, and you’re away, put your phone in airplane mode if you don’t want to turn it off. Yeah, it saves the battery big time. Big time because it’s not looking for a signal. Yep. The other thing is like some of the satellite, like the one I have, the satellite transponders that will work with your phone. they will work because they connect via Bluetooth.
SPEAKER 07 :
And the new phones, for those of you that have some of the newer models, it’s there already.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yep, the iPhones, was it 15 or 16?
SPEAKER 07 :
I think 15 started doing that, yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, but I heard the one that they put in the 16 really works well. Yeah. So, yeah, but that’s the other thing, and If you’re going to go out and do stuff like this, I know we’re not talking about survival situation. We’re talking about you get caught in a survival situation.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, you know, it could or it could be that, you know, John, it’s an end of the world scenario. Something happens in midwinter and you’re bugging out and you could be in the same boat.
SPEAKER 09 :
Right, right. But then hopefully you’re bugging out from home where you can. Like I could, I could get my backpacking gear hiked up and everything.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, you know, although we’ve, you know, we’ve been through some of those scenarios in the past as well. You know, what if you’re, you know, 20 miles from home when that happens?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yep. Then you got to have, now you better be figuring out how you’re going to even get home. Well, yeah. And can you walk it?
SPEAKER 07 :
Right.
SPEAKER 09 :
If, right. If like you were saying, if you got a foot of snow on the ground, you ain’t walking far.
SPEAKER 07 :
No, and again, some of these scenarios, John, and I’m not trying to, you know, again, we’re just kind of throwing everything out there that could potentially happen. But, you know, the thing that people forget is now, especially in the cities, it snows and the plows go out. And, you know, we may get six or eight inches that feel like it’s not much at all because everything’s been plowed off. Well, in the scenario you and I are talking about, that ain’t happening.
SPEAKER 09 :
Anybody wants to see how hard it is to walk, the next time we get a foot of snow out at my place, which is not plowed, you’re more than happy to come out and walk up the hill from where I park by the county road to my house without snowshoes.
SPEAKER 07 :
It is a lot more difficult than people – and part of this, John, I know just from one of the businesses that I have where we do snow removal, again – Talk about this a lot. People think two inches of snow isn’t much. It’s a lot more than people think. And you start stacking that up and you get to that six inch mark. And yeah, trudging through that gets very difficult.
SPEAKER 09 :
One of the things that I usually have with me in the wintertime is gators. Great idea. And because then all of a sudden, even if you have your, like I’ve got a set of water resistant and nothing’s waterproof, everything is water resistant. And there’s a certain level where it’s going to wet out and your feet are going to get wet or your hands are going to get wet or the, your jacket is going to wet through. So something’s going to wet out at some point. But, um, the gaiters will keep the snow from going down into your boots if it’s deeper than the top of your boot. Great point. And the higher your boot is, unless it’s designed for a hike, if you’re just wearing a winter snow boot, the harder it is to walk in.
SPEAKER 07 :
I have, believe it or not, and I’ve had these things for years. I mean, decades I’ve had these things. I actually have a pair of wool gaiters. Oh, I bet you that would be a couple of hundred bucks today. You know what? I bought these things probably 30 plus years ago. And yeah, they were probably 100 and 100 and a quarter back then. So, John, probably 300 today.
SPEAKER 09 :
The the other thing which won’t hurt you for an extra layer is. is a set of rain pants if you don’t have them. Great point. You can get those because that’ll break the wind against your legs. So even if you have, you know, good pants on and everything, the wind’s going to go through if it’s cold and windy. And if you put a hard shell, rain pants, rain jacket on, that’ll break the wind, and then that’ll help keep you warmer. But the other thing is, first thing that should be in any car or survival pack is… some way to light a fire. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know if you’ve gotten to that. I haven’t got that point yet, but absolutely, yes, should be. And if you can find them, and I found them, I think I found them online, the old, I always call them cowboy matches, the Strike Anywhere matches. Yep. And if you go into Walmart or whatever pharmacy you use and ask them for a tall pill case, they fit perfectly in there. Good idea. And then this way you’ve got, you know, what is it, you know, the diameter of a quarter, maybe a half a dollar, and you put it in with your survival stuff and you’ve got it full of matches that you don’t need a striker for. And that, you know, you might have a BIC, even if you have a lighter. Nice. Having a second source. And, you know, like we can get a six-pack of BIC lighters, I think, for $4 or $5.
SPEAKER 07 :
No, I did talk about that a few weeks ago and having, you know, I don’t know that you can have enough lighters, John.
SPEAKER 09 :
No, no. That’s trade material when we were talking about that. Mm-hmm. Lighters and, you know, the other thing we talked about is if you’re in your car and it’s part of your car survival kit should be a candle. Yeah, I agree. Because that’s the amount of heat that comes off of it. You see, I read an article, homeless people. that don’t want to go to shelters and are living in tents will ask for candles because they can keep them. That’s why. It’ll provide just enough. But, of course, it’s dangerous. But, I mean, what can you do at that point? If they’re going to do it anyway, have one for yourself, though. And if you’re going at all, remember this. This is a big thing. Most of your water filters… If they freeze, they’re no good.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, that’s right. Not only does it damage the fibers, and you could even crack them. So, yeah, absolutely don’t want those freezing. So if you… You’d have to carry those inside somehow and keep it warm.
SPEAKER 09 :
If you had an inside pocket on your jacket, put it against, like if you’re camping and backpacking and stuff, and I think it’s going to be below freezing, I’ll put it in the Ziploc and put it in my sleeping bag. Great idea. I mean, or if it’s not, or pack it up. Just not leave it exposed to the total cold. Right. The other thing, you were talking about flashlights. You can’t… A headlamp is so much better than a flashlight. Yep, for that situation it is. Well, the brand, for any situation really, because your hands are free, the brand I like is Petzl, P-E-T-Z-L. Okay. They’re rechargeable, but the battery that you recharge is removable. And you can put three AAAs in and it’s designed that way. So you can have the rechargeable battery fully charged, throw three AAA batteries in your survival gear, and if it goes dead, you can take the battery out, plug the battery in to recharge it, and then at the same time put three AAAs in and you’re off in the races again. And that’s another thing. If you are carrying a flashlight, even if it is rechargeable, make sure you have a way to charge it.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yep, absolutely. Doesn’t do you any good to have it if you can’t.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, you know, because some of them have a USB-C, some of them still have a micro-USB. Make sure you have the right connector.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right, right. And or, you know, for some of you listening, they make some, I have one, universal ones where you can change the tips out and do whatever you need to, and that’s a really easy thing to have.
SPEAKER 09 :
I was just going to suggest that, the one where it’s got one USB-A on one side and about five different connectors on the other. And it’s, again, throw in your day pack, throw in your pack, keep in your car. Makes it easy. And that’s the other thing. If you’ve got to stay in your car. I like – Coleman makes it. I got it at Walmart, $30. It’s a fleece sleeping bag. It says it’s good down to 40 degrees. Perfect to just throw in there.
SPEAKER 07 :
You can zip in it. Absolutely.
SPEAKER 09 :
But if you don’t have a place for it, you can leave it and lay it over your – if you have a car, lay it over your back seat. Nice. If you don’t have enough room to keep it.
SPEAKER 01 :
You know, just put it on the back seat. That’s right.
SPEAKER 09 :
And then when you need it, you know, right where it is. Great idea. The other thing, and it doesn’t happen as much anymore with the remotes and everything, but I used to, back in the day, carry a cigarette lighter in my pocket in case my car door was frozen shut. The key wouldn’t turn. And I would heat the key up and put it in and work back and forth. How many of us have to use the key? Rarely anymore does anybody have to. Yeah. I have to use it on my old truck because I don’t have a remote anymore, but it does have a remote. I just don’t have one. But how many people actually use the key? Great idea. And the other thing, and tomorrow for Drive Radio, this should be, you should talk about where that spare key in the remote is because a lot of people don’t have that.
SPEAKER 07 :
You know what? That’s a good idea. I’ll throw that in my notes for tomorrow. That’s a great idea, John.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, because that’s something that, you know, if the car’s dead, but you have that key, at least you can get inside and you can get out of the cold. Yeah, great idea. Yep.
SPEAKER 07 :
I’m putting that on there now for tomorrow. I’ll do that. John, appreciate you very much. Have a great rest of your evening, and hopefully we’ll talk to you tomorrow. Mickey, what’s going on?
SPEAKER 08 :
Two things. I’m from the Great White North and older than you, so maybe you don’t remember, but we had galoshes. galoshes yes i do actually yes yep nothing made it they’re all rubber they made it all you know they kept your yeah they kept your leather boots dry yep very true pain but but they did work very true good point this might save somebody’s butt when you get into if you’ve got a good sleeping bag take your clothes off and put them hopefully you’ve got a ground pad A pad to put under the bag.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right.
SPEAKER 08 :
But you take your clothes off in the bag, put them between the bag and the ground pad so that, because if you stay in the bag with your clothes on, when you wake up in the morning, you’re going to freeze because your clothes are soaked because you were warm enough.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, and in a lot of cases too, Mickey, you won’t be as warm because you need your natural body heat to help that bag heat up. Right. Yep.
SPEAKER 08 :
Learned that one in the military.
SPEAKER 07 :
I learned that a long time ago.
SPEAKER 08 :
I tried that one. I said, no, nah, I’m too tired. I went to sleep. Next morning, I froze for hours until my clothes dried out.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yep. Absolutely. Helpful hint. Appreciate it. Mickey, thank you very much. Have a great rest of your day as well. We’ll take a break. I’ll come back and add a few things to our list. I don’t know if I’ll get through all of our lists today, but we’ll do the best that we can. And if not, we always have next week, so never fear. But we’ll be right back. Sorry, this is Ready Radio. Ready-radio.com is the website. Ready Radio, KLZ 560.
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SPEAKER 07 :
All right, we are back. Ready Radio, KLZ 560. Thanks for listening today. We appreciate it very much. And shelters. I kind of started talking about that before the last segment. We had some great calls, so… I’m not going to spend a lot of time on shelters because this is one where really, you know, go look some of these up yourself. You can build, of course, if you’re out in the snow and you find yourself getting trapped, you could build yourself a snow cave. If you’ve got a lot of time, you can even build yourself an igloo. Igloos are made from blocks. Snow caves are carved out of the snow in either situation. Make sure you’re at least ventilating it some way, somehow, because otherwise you’ll run out of air, which you don’t want. either so you’ve got to know how to do a shelter in the snow as well and one thing that again i was taught at an early age is if you’re out you’re trapped it’s snowing remember that just because that tree is giving you some nice shelter underneath depending upon how much snow is on the limbs of said tree may not be the best shelter place Because as you build a fire and do some things, you’re going to heat up the snow on the limbs above you. And before you know it, the snow on those limbs is going to be on top of you and your fire and so on. So just because it looks nice and dry underneath those limbs, depending upon that particular tree and how everything is looking and so on, it may not be such a great idea. Again, every scenario is a little different. This is where you need to either practice up on or read and study as much as you can so when you’re in these circumstances, you’ll know exactly what to do. I’ve said this before, but it cracks me up on some of the survival shows, Naked and Afraid and so on, where they do their shelters. And I’m thinking to myself, you people are quote-unquote survivalists, and you just put the shelter someplace I wouldn’t have. And I’m not on the program, but I wouldn’t have put it there. Again, just because somebody is on one of these programs and claims to be an expert, as I’ve watched some of these shows progress, they’re not. Some of you listening are more experts at it than they are. They show that through the show. And I get it. It’s a shtick, and it’s what they do with the program and so on, and I understand all of that. But at times you wonder, this person’s really a survivalist. They don’t act like much of one. So, navigating. This is a bigger deal than probably anything else on the list. Yes, you’ve got to stay warm. Yes, you have to have the right clothing. Yes, you’ve got to be able to hang out overnight in some sort of a shelter if possible. And I’ll get into some other things that are on my list as well. But navigating in the snow, this gets difficult because I’ve been there, done that. When all of a sudden a foot of snow drops, which by the way, in our mountains, even down here, can happen quickly, everything on the landscape changes. And by the way, starts to look the same. Because when everything gets a fresh blanket of snow, you don’t see some of the outcroppings and lay of the land and so on like you once would because everything now is covered in, I say, a foot of snow. It could be two or three feet depending upon how long you’ve had to hunker down. And what used to be very navigable prior to that storm may not be now. It comes back into the deep snow and how do you move around in it and so on. And what do you have to even get around when it gets that deep? The video that I watched talked about snowshoes and skis. Well, I’m not a skier, so that would do me no good. I suppose in a pinch, if you had to learn how to use them, you would. But snowshoes would be the way to get around. Now, that’s another area where they have made huge advancements in from when I was a kid. Back when I was a kid, they were so big and clumsy and so on, you hated walking into things and they wore you out using them. They’ve become a lot better and more efficient than what they used to be. And for some of you that travel certain areas frequently, it might not be a bad idea to throw one of the small pair in your car, in your truck, whatever, just to have. They’ve become so much better than they used to be. But how are you going to navigate around? Now, going back to when everything looks alike, what do you have to help you navigate? Now, GPS on the phone may work. I’m talking to John about that in the last segment. On the same token, if you find yourself in some sort of an end-of-the-world scenario or no power, battery goes dead, you lose the phone, phone gets wet, whatever the case may be, you’re without it. How are you now navigating? Do you have a compass? Do you know which way is north, south, east, west? And do you know that at all times? And remember, we’re talking in snow depth of a couple of feet and some of our higher elevations. It can be deeper than that. The entire landscape changes, and do you know where you’re going? And frankly, what I just said – is typically, I feel, I’ve never been in a situation where you’re lost and I’ve never been one of those individuals that hasn’t been found that you then find next spring, but I have to believe they start wandering off, trying to find their way back to quote-unquote civilization, and some way, somehow, they get off track. And then again, another storm can come in, and even those people that are looking to help rescue them, there’s no footprints because those are now covered up. And by the way, it doesn’t even have to be a storm where it snows. It could be wind, and those tracks now get covered up. A lot of people think, well, if I start wandering off, somebody will follow my tracks. Well, maybe not. Maybe not. Again, I’ve done a lot of things in the snow over the years, given the business that I have. And I’ve been in some of our big storms where it’s snowing sideways and you get 40 inches in one storm. And yes, we’ve had those here in the Denver area. And in fact, where you’ve… traveled even in a car an hour earlier you wouldn’t know you traveled and i’m not exaggerating when i say that that’s how much snow we can get that quickly so don’t count on somebody finding you because of your tracks and don’t count on you finding somebody else because of said tracks my point is do you know how to navigate in the snow when you can’t recognize anything We’ve all seen those movies or you’ve been out in this yourself. I’ve done both. I’ve seen the movies and I’ve been in it both. Whereby you start looking around and a big snowstorm just came through maybe the night before and you’re out in it the next day and everything looks different from a place you very much recognize the day before. So a few tips on this because I’ve been there, done it. When you’ve got these snowshoes on now and you’re starting to traverse and go someplace… Things can happen. What I mean by that is you get enough snow, even small bushes that would have been covered up in the snow now become a big air pocket. And no matter what kind of snowshoe you’ve got on, you’re not staying on top of that. You’re falling through. And you don’t know where those are. And all of a sudden you’re walking along and all of a sudden one fit goes boop. down into the hole. And now you’re digging yourself out, and in a lot of cases where you’ve got a pack on or something, and it’s heavy, and now you’re trying to dig yourself out of that, and you go to the next step, and you get the drift. It becomes very strenuous. And as you can tell, I’ve done some of these things in my career, I guess you could say, hunting fish and so on. And it’s not fun. It’s miserable, actually. It makes the whole experience not fun. But what I’m saying is those things can happen. I’ve been in hunting situations or in a camping situation where you’ve got everything all dialed in, you go to bed, you wake up the next morning, and there’s a foot of snow or more. And again, you’re looking around like, oh, man, are we in the same place? Did somebody take our tent and drop it someplace we’ve never been before? I’m not exaggerating when I say that. That’s exactly what it’s like. And now you’re walking out of the tent, getting everything ready to go, and you’re looking around like, holy cow, this isn’t what we looked at last night. So point being, you need to learn some of these things to know how you would get around in these particular scenarios I’m mentioning to know how to get out, how to stay safe. And we’re talking about how to survive. And again, this could be not only an end of the world scenario, it could be any number of things I opened up the program with. You just find yourself here. And again, these are things where, by the way, a lot of you may know these things I’m talking about and have experienced it. How many of your family, friends, kids, and so on know? The idea is we want to share this information as much as we can, have you? Do they know what it’s like to be in these particular scenarios? So going back to what John was talking about earlier, John from Cheyenne, in your day pack and so on, what do you have in it? Can you start a fire? Do you have that lighter? Do you have a compass? Do you have some rope? I mean, some of these basic essentials that will enable you to get from A to B, do you have that? Lastly, stay hydrated. I cannot stress enough that when it gets cold, we naturally don’t want to drink as much. But believe it or not, our body is using more water then than it is on a hot day. Because your body is burning water. things to stay warm, fluids, meaning we can get just as dehydrated in the cold and the snow as you can on a hot day hiking. And we tend to forget that. So make sure you’re staying hydrated. Signs that you need more water, by the way, fatigue, dizziness, and you’re not going to the bathroom enough. The last one being very key. If you don’t find yourself going to the bathroom every hour or two, You’re not drinking enough. Number one sign. And then, of course, the dizziness and fatigue on top of that. But the cold dries you out. It tricks you into thinking that you don’t need as much water when you do. So make sure that you’re dialed in on that. And then, of course, lastly, just make sure that you’re staying fueled up. High fats. High fats. proteins, nuts, things along those lines, making sure that you’re keeping your body fueled up. Because again, as I said a moment ago, it’s actually working harder in the scenario I’m describing in this particular situation with the snow and the cold as it is. on a hot day when you’re out hiking. So hope some of these things help. I did get through all of them. I will come back next week, so next episode, and talk about some things for that person that’s hard to buy for or that person that you know is sort of into some of these things. I’ll give you some tips on some things to buy for Christmas that you guys can get handled right before then as well. Again, Ready Radio, ready-radio.com is the website.
SPEAKER 02 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
