Being prepared...here's why.

Good snow here in WA last weekend. Boys and I went for first ride this season. They're 12 and 16 now. FWiW they've been on sleds and outdoors since they were infants and have rode from Arizona to Alaska.
Went up to a new area. It was cold (for Washington, lol). Told them to bundle up and made sure they went through their gear the night before.
Got maybe 10 mi in from the truck and snow was great but it was blowing sideways and below zero windchill and white outs.
Older boy says he's cold or his hands are cold, don't remember, when we stopped for a minute.
Told the kids we'd ride back down into the trees and make a fire. Screw the wind for a while.
Took a lap in a meadow before pulling into the trees and the older boy dumped his sled in the powder and got lawn darted into the snow. When I go over to help him roll it over her says Dad I'm really cold.
Ok let's go. Into the trees, we stop take helmets off etc and he looks like a zombie and is just shaking.
Oh sh__!
To top it off he calmly says he feels really tired and says he wants to go to sleep.
F____ he's very hypothermic!
Get a couple extra sweaters on him and the best hat we got and my big insulated spare gloves.
Start hauling butt to make a fire. Get a flare, always carry one. It lights and and burns for about a minute or 2 and starts dying. Done. Wind is bad enough it blows my helmet off the handlebars.....in the trees!
No fire, sht, not the right time to try to build tinder and little fire with a match and lighter...
Quit drinking around, pull some gas froma sled and instant Bon fire.
His younger brother feeds him Gatorade and keeps him awake and in front of the fire while I gather more wood until we got a Fire!
He starts coming around, gets some fluid and warm and we all haul ____down the Mountian to the truck.
All was well, but it was a close call and while prepared we should have been much better prepared in hindsight.
Fire? check.....but, flare was old and bad and only had one in one pack. Other fire starting was lacking. Took me several minutes to find one lighter in the bottom of my pack when we usually have several. The mag stick and matches were a distant 4th place option in this situation. I should have been able to have a fire going at least 5 min quicker but wasn't well prepared.
Didn't have much for extra clothing packed. It's never that cold in WA, right?
And TJs hypothermia was due to neither of us recognizing the signs of hypothermia early and kind of a perfect storm of several minor errors. That's the scary part.
1. His helmet didn't fit with a ski mask underneath and he didn't test fit it before we left home.
2. Said his jacket wasn't totally zipped on the ride but we never really stopped because of the weather. So he never fixed it. Stupid teen move
3. He was dehydrated. Had 1 soda with Mc Ds breakfast the whole day and this happened about 1-2pm.
4. We kept riding into the the wind the whole time. Coulda turned around.
5. He got helmet and down his back full of snow when he wiped out in the meadow. Shouldn't have been playing around in his condtion.
6. Didn't pack the usual bevy of extra clothing etc like when they were kids. And TJs gear wasn't quite as warm as His younger brothers. Even though he was layered up pretty well and not his first rodeo, it wasn't enough.

Bottom line, I'm pretty proud of both my boys. Both were scared. So was I, and we all knew it. But they didn't lose their cool. They followed instructions well and didn't freak out. And both of them took turns leading the way in....and out of an area we've never been before in basically a white out and they found their way out without any direction from me except a couple confirmatory "yes, go that way" nods from me.

^ Yup learned a long time ago, saw and hatchet both have their place. Hatchet makes a good hammer too and has helped me get a sled able to ride out vs tow a couple times. I carry both.

Good call on the tampon firestarters don't have any of those in the kit. But fortunately the M7 has the big ole gas cap. I ladled a bottle of gas out of the tank easy. (Instead of wasting the expensive stuff in the spare gas can on the bike! Lol.).

Yes could have turned around or not gone out because it was cold, but it wasn't "that" cold. Just skiied in UT in below zero weather a month ago and we've rode in AK for a season. -25 a few times. It wasn't a stretch to ride in these conditions. This could have been a normal day or it could have been colder even.

It really was just the wrong combination of several minor things that all happened in succession and we didn't realize it.

Thank you all for the kind words.

Hoping to get back up there this weekend!

volcano buster said:

Glad it worked out.

Four of us were out riding some years ago in rough conditions. We were right at freezing level so if we dipped down we rode in rain and any higher we were in really wet snow. We pulled into a group of trees for lunch. I suggested we make this a learning event and see if we could build a survival fire in the event one of us had fallen into a creek during a crossing, or some other scenario. We quickly learned that folding saws cut wood but the exterior is still wet. You split wood at home so why not out in the woods. We now carry saws, hatchets and flares. Granted, we have lighters, flints, vaseline cotton balls etc. but when it is crunch time having a handful of 15 minutes flares from everyone in the group should produce a fire in short order. On our club trips periodically we stop and build fires, survival shelter options, and GPS scavenger hunts just to get more people involved with how to use the equipment and make sure they have what they need.

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Yes it's good practice to do these things. Different on the wet side too. I pulled us in right next to a burned out area so endless dry seasoned wood. I could have gone snomologging and knocked down some small trees without even busting out a saw and that was the next step if a 4' tall fire didn't do the trick!

FWIW, spent a solid 45 min to an hour warming him up. Was difficult to not just pull the plug and take him down the hill when he didn't appear to be warming up right away. Just relaying the timeline as every little bit of knowledge helps if you're in a situation.