those gold/silver emergency blankets: do they really work, and how?
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Not versed on the “how”, but they in fact work. They sometimes work too well, honestly.
When I was getting my camping merit badge in boyscouts, the goal to get the merit badge was to “survive” one night with nothing but the gear you could carry in your pockets, and build your own shelter.
Apparently I was the only one who took it seriously. I made a leanto shelter against a tree, coated the wall supports in mud, followed by dry grass stuffed in where the gaps were, and then just the dead leaves to patch up where any stickiness from the mud was.
Basically, it went from 80+ degrees Fahrenheit to below freezing during the course of the night. Every one was in a scout shirt and the pants (shorts, really), so they had very little insulation. The counselors that were in charge of the event decided to tell the kids that the badge was canceled because it was way too cold, they gathered everyone (or so they thought) built a campfire, and they all huddled around it the entire night to stay warm.
They didn’t get me because I actually strategically chose my spot and was pretty far away from the rest of the group. While every one else was shivering so bad they needed a fire, I was in my basically wind-proofed shelter, sweating half to death thanks to my emergency blanket.
By the morning my clothes were soaked through with sweat, I only woke up when I heard a distant yelling as they were gathering up all the kids… The counselors were honestly surprised *and* impressed because I was the only kid out of the 30-ish kids there who had actually completed the challenge, and also the only one who earned the merit badge that night.
They work extremely well, and I would keep one of those in my car along with a sleeping bag (Very harsh winters where I live, people routinely die in their cars due to being trapped by snow and not being found until it gets cleared).
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