Unplanned bivi last night-importance of an emergency kit

After thousand of days spent in the wilderness, last night was the first unplanned bivi I¢ve experienced.    I thought it a good idea to bring up the importance of an emergency kit.      We were well prepared, but it would have been much worse had we not brought an emergency kit. Anyway, I¢ll post a full trip report later, but here¢s the general synopsis of what happened: The Division of Wildlife Resources contacted me for help to retrieve a radio collar located high on Outlaw Peak in Dinosaur National Monument.     The DWR and National Park Service were unable to find a route up there (or to get a helicopter to retrieve it) so they contacted me for help since I have explored the area extensively and had climbed Outlaw Peak (which has had only two known ascents).     We retrieved the collar and descended Outlaw Canyon, but had to spend the night out on the plateau. No real mistakes were made to cause us to get caught out overnight, but it was a series of small events.    The first event was that we got a flat tire just before reaching the trailhead in the morning which cost us over an hour of valuable daylight.    I have been in the area several times, but in August and September with longer days and warmer mornings and nights and because we were going in late November, we were carrying a lot more extra gear (all of which was used and needed) and had much heavier packs.    We were also carrying the collar locating equipment.   Because we would be wading (or swimming!) the Yampa River twice we brought along full wetsuits, which are bulky and relatively heavy.    It took us an hour to locate the collar.   It also Justin also got a minor sprained ankle just before we descended Outlaw Canyon, which we thought would be the quickest route back to the river.     Last time I did the Outlaw Canyon route it was dry, but this time it had several ice covered potholes and one huge swimming pool sized pool of water at the bottom of the rappel.    As mentioned, we were prepared with wetsuits, but this all slowed us down.  Navigating through the boulder jams in the lower end of the canyon was a trial in the dark.     I also thought I could find the route back to the trailhead in the dark using a map and compass but somehow our compass ended up breaking and finding the route back was hard on a moonless night. Anyway after located the route up seven cliff-bands by headlamps we thought we were home free and just had to walk across the plateau and drainages back to the vehicle.     With the broken compass however, this was not easy.      I thought all as we had to do was follow the rim of a nameless canyon to a ridgeline and follow that back until have to cross several drainages and head for a hill where the vehicle was parked.     It was dark enough however; that every canyon and drainage looked the same and we couldn¢t tell which hill was which on the skyline.     We wandered around until just after 10 PM until we were walled in by a cliff on the left.    I thought we were following the correct canyon, but this confused me and as soon as we were walled in I knew that I had no idea where we were and that it was pointless to continue wandering without daylight or an idea of our location. We spent the night on the plateau next to a couple dead trees.    In my emergency kit for fire starting items I had two lighters and to boxes of waterproof matches and a fire starter.     We spend an hour and a half gathering a large pile of wood to get us through the night (it is rare that I have a campfire anymore, but this one was needed).     We quickly got a fire going and ate some snacks and were grateful that we had the sense to bring extra water (1-1.5 gallons each) to replenish our dehydrated bodies.    Dinosaur National Monument is a cold desert at this time of year and has a different climate than the deserts farther south say around Moab.    Even when we stopped for the night it was noticed that our water bottles were already frozen.   The temperature dropped quickly and bottomed out at 8F degrees and we spent the night either lying around, standing around or sitting around the fire.    When you lay down one side of your body was very warm and one side very cold depending on which side was facing the fire, so it was hard to sleep (the ground itself was also freezing).   I think I slept about a total of an hour and Justin 2-3.    We had wood, but it was small branches rather than big logs so it had to be replenished every 30 minutes or so.    I had an emergency bivi sack, but it was noticed that after only a few minutes condensation started so I just slept on top of it.    It was a long night, but we were no worse for the wear and we were safe.    We also enjoyed several shooting stars. In the morning when it got light it was rather easy to figure out where we were after a few minutes (since it was so dark we had somehow got turned around ended up at the rim of the river canyon rather than the side canyon we thought we were following).    We returned to the vehicle tired, but safe. Anyway, our emergency kit came in very handy.    If we wouldn¢t have been able to start a fire we likely would have survived the night out OK, but we wouldn¢t have been able to stop for very long and would have had keep walking just to keep our bodies moving to keep warm.   We wouldn¢t have certainly quickly ran out of water doing so and would have dehydrated us severely by morning.   We also brought along extra clothing and both had hats which came in very handy.     We had also left a detailed plan of where we were going (though the terrain is rugged and it would have been difficult to locate us in places along the route).    We had stopped when we knew we were off track. To sum it up, always bring an emergency kit along and always be prepared to survive a night out.    I hate to think of how thing could have turned out if we didn¢t have one.    Always take one along.    Despite having to spend one out, I think we made all the right choices and returned unharmed. Â