[Meldon]

The grape is supposed to be better to see against the white snow. Since you don't see purple anything in the winter woods, it definately would stand out.

I've never used it myself, and don't even carry it, but I thought it was interesting how one can adapt something very simple into something useful.

[Celticwarrior]

Originally Posted by Meldon

The grape is supposed to be better to see against the white snow. Since you don't see purple anything in the winter woods, it definately would stand out.

I've never used it myself, and don't even carry it, but I thought it was interesting how one can adapt something very simple into something useful.

While I would not carry a packet just for this purpose, I have to give props for thinking outside the box for improvising a signal with something like that. Anytime you can come up with some other use for an item you are carrying anyway, I am all for it.

[crazydave]

potassium permanganate - nuff said really

[DirtyDave]

We used to do this sort of thing as kids just for fun. It stains the snow. I've never seen it blow away. It makes sense too because its an unnatural colour against a white snowy background. It might not be the best signal, but it is a handy idea.

[rogerstevens]

Ive seen some expensive power that turns the snow yellow , but kool aid is a better idea!

[ozarks dave]

i remember watching a movie years ago that people were trapped under a huge snowfall(in an underground cave of sorts) and they used a bunch of ski poles tied together to lift a bag of blood up through a hole in the snow to stain the topside snow for rescue to find them. once they poked the bag up top they pulled a string or something to open the bag.
not saying id open a vein to fill a baggie or anything but its kinda what cw is saying about using red or orange flavored kool aid. thats right i said red or orange flavored. i prefer the taste of green myself lol. take a small packet and mix with melted snow and it would go a long way.

[Baldninja]

That movie was Vertical Limit and the blood came from a guy who had already died due to injuries suffered when they'd fallen into that "cave". They then set it off using a signal flare placed in between the bags of blood.


As for the Kool Aid idea, purple may not be a bad color to use, since that color doesn't often present itself in nature, especially in extremely cold environments. And being Kool Aid, that does give it an additional use, though I, too, am not certain it would be a tremendously efficient concept, as others have mentioned already. I would think normal dye or food coloring would work better. Food coloring generally only needs about one drop to color 4 ounces of water and by adding it to the water first, you could color a fairly large area without using all that much food coloring. I'm still not sure that would be a great idea, though, as now you're dipping into your water supply. Now if you use melted, but unfiltered/unpurified, snow as your water source, then it becomes increasingly useful, though how much, I couldn't begin to guess.

In a perfect world, I think I'd prefer to use animal blood, which hopefully I'd manage to kill something for food and have plenty of blood on hand just for such a snow signal, as it were.

[Pat/Rick]

Will there be multiple sightings of wierdly colored snowmen this year? Yo Frosty, sup?

[NYrattlesnake]

Yeah, and if you yell "HEY !! KOOL-AID" loud enough the big kool-aid dude would pop out of nowhere and save you, LOL.

I have 1 small packet of the single bottle size Gatorade in my Altoid tin and I keep a box in my BOB.

[kevin]

I assume the idea is to mix the cool aid w/ water first rather than just pouring the power on the snow?