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they all use hollow hairs to trap air. Same thing with the igloo. The Innuit had no fire inside of their igloos at -50F and didn't need any. Trapped body heat does the trick and it's trapped air that provides the insulating effect. Trapped air stops heat loss to conduction, if nothing but air is touching the heat source. If there's no air movement being allowed, no heat can be lost to convection, either. Air is a very, very poor conductor of heat and only about 10% of heat is lost to radiation. So, if you trap enough air around a heat source, the source stays hot, as long as it's got an on-going way of producing heat (ie, your metabolism). If you stay active and well fed, your metabolism is roaring right along on cold weather, because it HAS to do so. OLympic swimmers MUST eat 10,000 calories per day while in training. and they AINT fat. Water is 20x more efficient at conducting heat away from a source than is trapped air. Those guys work out heavily for 4-5 hours per day, in cool water. So, yes, they burn 6000+ calories more per day than a guy who just walked that many hours at room temps on flat pavement.
It does not matter how you get the insulative effect, as long as you dont have to CARRY the insulation. When you're talking a shelter, then the insulation can be quite bulky and heavy and it wont matter in the slightest, but that shelter has to be SMALL, sealed and dense enough to trap all of your body heat. If the shelter is too big, your body heat is dissipated into the air inside of a too-large shelter and thus, wasted/wont warm you.
People seem to "think' that modern clothing is not as effective as caribou or seal skins. The skins might be thinner and lighter than layers of various types of insulation/wool garments, but if you put enough of such things around you, you'll stay warm enough. The issue is, can you still accomplish tasks while lugging around this clothing? However, if you score enough food in the first 50 days of the Alone challenge, all you'll be doing for the last 50 days is holing up inside of your shelter. With 7 layers of clothing around you, using fine, soft debris between each layer,, 18" of soft, dry debris and 4 layers of tarp sealed around you, you'll be warm enough inside of your triangular 4x4x7 ft sleeping shelter. This is especially true if you've made the 5 ft high wind-breaks around your shelter and the Siberian fire lay. Make them out of poles, brush, debris, and there will be no way that high winds will be able to steal heat from your shelter.
You do NOT want to have to heat your shelter with fire, or even with hot rocks, if you can help it, cause doing so requires you to be burning calories getting the firewood. You need to be careful and efficient with what you do out there, so injury doesn't take you out and so that you minimize your calorie-losses.
It does not matter how you get the insulative effect, as long as you dont have to CARRY the insulation. When you're talking a shelter, then the insulation can be quite bulky and heavy and it wont matter in the slightest, but that shelter has to be SMALL, sealed and dense enough to trap all of your body heat. If the shelter is too big, your body heat is dissipated into the air inside of a too-large shelter and thus, wasted/wont warm you.
People seem to "think' that modern clothing is not as effective as caribou or seal skins. The skins might be thinner and lighter than layers of various types of insulation/wool garments, but if you put enough of such things around you, you'll stay warm enough. The issue is, can you still accomplish tasks while lugging around this clothing? However, if you score enough food in the first 50 days of the Alone challenge, all you'll be doing for the last 50 days is holing up inside of your shelter. With 7 layers of clothing around you, using fine, soft debris between each layer,, 18" of soft, dry debris and 4 layers of tarp sealed around you, you'll be warm enough inside of your triangular 4x4x7 ft sleeping shelter. This is especially true if you've made the 5 ft high wind-breaks around your shelter and the Siberian fire lay. Make them out of poles, brush, debris, and there will be no way that high winds will be able to steal heat from your shelter.
You do NOT want to have to heat your shelter with fire, or even with hot rocks, if you can help it, cause doing so requires you to be burning calories getting the firewood. You need to be careful and efficient with what you do out there, so injury doesn't take you out and so that you minimize your calorie-losses.
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