As responsible hikers – and hopefully you are too – we never leave the house without a good first aid kit packed full of items like a bothy bag and an emergency blanket to help us survive an unplanned night in the wild.
An emergency blanket – also known as a space blanket, survival blanket or first aid blanket – is an ultra lightweight and extremely packable metallic blanket made from heat reflective plastic sheeting called Mylar. Usually one side is brightly colored so that rescuers can spot you, and the other side is aluminium, though sometimes both are aluminium. An emergency blanket basically looks a lot like a large sheet of foil and is used by athletes, mountaineers, medics and even astronauts to keep warm in extreme situations.
