In her , The Survivalist, Jessie Krebs writes about staying alive in dangerous backcountry scenarios. Krebs is a former Air Force S.E.R.E (survival, evasion, resistance, and escape) instructor and owner of .

Many aspiring campers have romantic visions of Then, they try it. The result is often bread with a gooey middle, crunchy rice, charcoal in the pancakes, ash in the cocoa, burnt eggs鈥攈eck, burnt everything. Open-fire cooking isn鈥檛 advanced mathematics, but it is certainly different from cooking at home, especially if you鈥檙e someone with a talent for 鈥渂urning water.鈥� Here are some pointers to get you started.

Flame is the enemy. Its temperature is well above 鈥渉igh鈥� on a typical stove, and trying to get a pot at just the right height above it is tricky, since a fire fluctuates dramatically depending on when and how you add wood. A thick bed of coals, on the other hand, gives even heat that lasts for an hour or more. Coals are much more forgiving to a burgeoning fire chef. My strategy is to , burn some wrist-diameter or larger fuel for an hour or so, and then split it into a bed of coals on one side and a small fire on the other. I use the fire itself mostly for light, to create more coals for later, or to keep water warm.

For survival purposes, boiling is the best of all cooking methods. It鈥檚 pretty difficult to screw up or burn, the food鈥檚 nutrients are reasonably well-retained, and you get some hydration along with your meal. Baking tends to be your next best bet; roasting or grilling over a fire means losing a lot of calorie-rich oil as it drips away. If boiling isn鈥檛 feasible or you鈥檙e not in survival mode and want to use another method (boiling pancake batter sounds decidedly unappetizing), there are some other options. When cooking over a campfire, always be sure to mind local burn bans, and

Boiling over a fire

This requires a container of some kind. There are using hot rocks, but a pot comes in very handy. A lid is also helpful to keep inedibles out, hold a steady boil, and keep the inside of the pot moist for easier clean-up. I usually get the water boiling over a flame and then lower things to a simmer by suspending the pot an inch or so above the coals. Add in your ingredients, spices, and more water as needed.

To cook rice, quinoa, pasta, or other grains, get the water boiling as indicated above, then add your starch. Give it a good stir and get it all back to boiling. Then, simmer over coals for two-thirds of the recommended cooking time. Take it off the heat and let it sit, covered and preferably insulated, for the remaining time. The main mistakes folks make with cooking rice in particular is putting in the rice before the water is boiling, keeping the pot over direct flame, and leaving it on the fire for the full recommended cooking time.

Cooking in a Dutch oven over a fire

I鈥檝e made yummy cookies, cakes, lasagna, naan, and more in Dutch ovens. The key to success: Maintain even heat by putting coals on the lid and allowing airflow underneath. Whenever you place a pot directly on coals, you snuff them out. This is why many Dutch ovens have feet to keep them elevated. If your dutch oven doesn鈥檛 have feet, hang it or improvise another method to raise it half an inch to an inch above the coals. If your oven is near the fire, rotate it every 5 to 10 minutes so one side doesn鈥檛 burn.

Baking with fire

My mom and I used to make 鈥渉obo meals鈥� in a fire on the beach when I was a kid. This consisted of at least 2 layers of aluminum foil filled with sliced veggies, meat, spices, and a healthy dollop of butter. We rolled the edges up tight, stabbed the bundle a couple times to let steam escape, and tossed the whole thing into the fire for 30 to 40 minutes. The results were haphazard, sometimes with food half-cooked on one side and burned on the other.

If I鈥檇 only known then鈥�. We were doing well until we threw it in the fire. Instead, hollow out a spot in the soil in the middle of the fire about twice the size of the bundle and scrape in some of the hot coals and ash. Place the food in the hole on top of the coals and ash, cover with more coals and ash, and even some hot sand or dirt. Then, build the fire back up on top of it. In 20 to 30 minutes, uncover the foil bundle, flip it over, and re-cover. Wait another 15 to 20 minutes and dinner is served. The insulation of the ash and gentle heat of the coals is conducive to baking. I bake potatoes this way, but skip the aluminum foil. I clean the potatoes well, and then bury them as-is in the dirt or sand an inch or so below the hot fire bed. Then flip them after a half-hour and take them out after a total of an hour or so. Just brush off the ash, sand, and dirt and dig in.

Roasting and grilling over a fire

While visiting with the , hunter-gatherers in Tanzania, I鈥檝e seen fire used as a primary method for roasting meat. They sharpen some green sticks, weave meat onto it, and then stab the other end in the ground at an angle so the meat roasts just above the coals or a little further from direct flame. As flame licks food, it can deposit a black layer of soot that really isn鈥檛 appetizing, so it鈥檚 important to maintain distance.

As a S.E.R.E. instructor, I was fond of freaking out students using a roasting technique with one of their few precious tiny steaks they were given for a six-day trip in the woods. I鈥檇 throw a steak directly onto coals scraped out from , eliciting gasps of horror. After about three minutes, I鈥檇 flip it over and then pull it off the coals after a total of about five minutes. The outside would be perfectly seared, keeping the juices inside and giving the meat a delicious smoky flavor.

Frying over a fire

This is the most similar to cooking at home of any of the methods, though the fire still tends to lend an extra smoky flavor that is really nice. I prep all of my and veggies before I head to the woods to make things easier. If you鈥檙e car camping or don鈥檛 mind packing heavy, a wok is ideal for use over an open fire as it balances easily. Add the items that you want cooked the longest first. I usually start with oil, onion, and whatever meat I鈥檓 using, if any, followed a few minutes later by veggies and spices. Stir frequently with a long utensil, keep leather gloves or hotpads handy, keep the handle turned away from any open flames, and adjust the location of the wok and heat of the coals or fire as needed. For pancakes, a griddle or large frying pan will work best; use just the coals to cook over, adjusting your height to get just the right, steady heat for the perfect flapjacks.

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In her , The Survivalist, Jessie Krebs writes about staying alive in dangerous backcountry scenarios. Krebs is a former Air Force S.E.R.E (survival, evasion, resistance, and escape) instructor and owner of .

The fear of feeling cold and losing sleep due to cold stops a lot of people from going hiking or camping in winter. On the first night of my overnight survival classes, I 鈥渢uck鈥� my students in, visiting each shelter to give personalized advice on everyone鈥檚 sleep system. Here are my top tips for keeping toasty in the most frigid conditions.聽

Clothing

Keeping your clothing and equipment in good shape is important. With that being said, it鈥檚 not actually your clothes that keep you feeling warm鈥攊t鈥檚 dead air space. Clothing helps hold a layer of air near you, which your body heats up to make you feel warmer.聽

I remember playing out in the snow as a kid in Michigan. My feet got cold, so I put on another pair of socks, stuffed my feet into the same boots and went back out, but my feet felt even colder. I鈥檇 reduced the circulation in my feet and increased the conductivity. If I鈥檇 put on fluffy, looser socks and wore a half-size larger boot, I would have stayed warm.聽

There are five main ways in which we lose heat. In order to survive in the cold, I tell my students, 鈥� Radiation, Respiration, Evaporation, Convection, and Conduction.鈥澛�

Creating dead air space can help with all of these. I never wear winter gear that is form-fitting or tight. I want my jackets baggy, so if I start getting cold I can add layers under it, or stuff the sleeves and core with insulating debris like leaves and punk wood.聽

In SERE training, we used the following acronym to discuss clothing: C.O.L.D.E.R.聽

Keep it clean. Dirt under a microscope looks like little pieces of glass. Get that in your clothes and every time you move it slices up the fibers. Clogging the dead air space of your clothes also means it conducts the heat away from you faster.

Avoid overheating. If you鈥檙e sweating, you鈥檙e wasting energy and water, and when you stop you鈥檙e way more likely to go hypothermic. Survivors鈥� motto: If you don鈥檛 have to be moving, be standing still; if you don鈥檛 have to stand, sit; if you don鈥檛 have to sit, lay down; and if you don鈥檛 have to be awake, be asleep. Slow, deliberate movement is what we鈥檙e after in a survival situation.

Loose and layered clothes create dead air space and allow us to dress up and down based on the weather and our activity level.聽

Dry your clothes as soon as possible if they get wet. We sweat to cool down for a reason. If it鈥檚 cold or it鈥檚 going to be cold within an hour or two, do your best to stay dry. If you do get wet, there are multiple techniques for drying things out, Powdery snow, for example, can act like a sponge to wick moisture from cloth. You can wear damp clothes and move until you generate enough heat to dry them out. I recommend curling up in the fetal position inside your sleeping bag (or improvised sleeping bag) and clenching your muscles for a few seconds, then relaxing. Repeat this over and over to generate heat without moving excessively.

Examine what鈥檚 working and what鈥檚 not. If you have a white jacket and a dark sweatshirt on a sunny but very cold day, see if the sweatshirt will fit over the jacket to help you gather more radiant light. Hands cold?聽 Improvise a muff or gloves.

Repair problems ASAP. Most of us SERE instructors keep a threaded sail needle in our hat so if a seam opens or someone tears their clothes we can quickly stitch it up. It鈥檚 hard to thread a needle in cold weather.

Sleep Systems

There is such a thing as too much dead air space. If I sit naked in a sealed 6-square-foot room on a frozen lake, I鈥檓 not going to be warm. There is too much space for my little body to heat up. The same principle applies to sleep systems, which can be your ticket to surviving in the cold. Don鈥檛 be afraid to get creative: At one point, I was issued a sleeping bag that was designed for someone much taller and larger than me. To reduce the volume of dead air space, I turned it inside out, tied a line around the bottom section of the bag, then turned it back right side out. Now it fit my length better and had a fluffy 鈥減illow鈥� at my feet. Then I took my rain gear, zipped up the jacket, turned it inside out, and slipped it over the foot of my bag so it came up to about mid thigh. That pulled in the sides to make a still loose-fitting but comfortably snug area around my feet and legs that stayed deliciously warm.

, you can鈥檛 afford to deal with a popped, leaky, or too-cold inflatable sleeping pad. I鈥檝e used a single closed-cell foam sleeping pad between me and the ground for years. They are foolproof, and come in handy in situations where inflatables can fail, like around a fire with flying embers or on rough ground. You鈥檒l never have to worry about patching your foam pad, which can be especially tricky in cold weather (glue and freezing temperatures don鈥檛 often mix).聽

Plus, inflatables can have too much dead air space that traps cold鈥攅specially uninsulated or lightly insulated pads made for warm weather. Ever sleep on those inflatable mattresses as a guest in someone鈥檚 home? It can get chilly. If you like the softness of a nice thick inflatable pad, look for one with a high R-value or top it with a thin non-inflatable pad for warmth. Just remember that while inflatables might work fine for , a foam pad is most reliable if you find yourself in a high-stakes survival situation.聽

Hydration

Staying hydrated is key to surviving in the cold. Most water filters are useless in freezing temps. They freeze up and can鈥檛 filter or form micro cracks that ruin them. Learn which water sources in winter do not need to be disinfected, and make sure you have chemical purification available for those that do.聽

If you fill your water bottles to the top and then they freeze, they are likely to break or bulge. Leave an inch or so of air space. If you don鈥檛 want to or can鈥檛 sleep with them (there is danger of hypothermia if they leak into your sleeping bag) then there are techniques to keep them from freezing solid. Add some hot water to the container if possible. Flip the sealed container upside down (to help keep the lid from freezing shut) and bury it in about a foot of snow or bulky insulative material.

Electronics

can degrade or destroy most batteries. This can be dangerous in a survival situation when you need your electronics to navigate or signal for help. Remove the batteries from your devices when possible and keep both next to your body. The next best option is to keep your devices off and keep them warm (this means sleeping with your electronics). The least you can do is keep just the batteries warm and put them back in just when you want to use the device.

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