wilderness_survival

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We had a SAREX today with 453 Squadron ......... SARTECH jump.......

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Hi Gang,

EVENT

So this weekend, April 20 & 21 a bunch of us headed out to a forestry airport in Alberta for a wilderness survival exercise. It was put on by COPA (Canadian Owners & Pilots Association) and it was for aircraft pilots to crack open their survival kits that they keep in their aircraft and try them in a controlled environment.

Everyone had various ideas and kits made but the biggest take away was that most of them didn't have ANY sort of decent ground pad to use. That's OK if you can just de-limb pine trees and use the pine bough's to build a nice 2 foot thick bed of pine boughs to sleep on ....... however because we were in a forestry area we can't cut down a dozen trees to use to build a dozen lean-to shelters.

PADS

So a few people had the standard blow up sleeping pads like, Big Agnes Divide, and a Thermarest NeoAir, etc., and of course all of them on the real ground outside got holes in them and became pancakes in about 4 minutes.

So quite a few people learned why those old closed cell Blue Foam Camp Mats work. They're big and bulky and a pain in the butt to deal with but they don't deflate. They also learned about laying directly on the ground versus sleeping up on something to act as insulation between your butt and mother earth!

3 people had camp hammocks and that would have been ok to except that none of them bought under quilts for the hammocks and all of them had never actually heard of them, or new that they were a thing. They also had no camp pads to put in the hammocks as well so again laying in the hammock in a sleeping bag or SOL bivy was fine except for that cold night air hitting their butts.

TENTS

All of the new folks built traditional camp sites and their were a few tents setup as well. We explained that tents are great for a few reasons, A: - you save the 4 hours of work it would take to make a decent lean-to shelter, B: - if its pelting down snow or rain it's an instant way to get out of the elements, C:- if its summer and buggy out being able to escape the torture that is black flies and mosquitos eating you alive is fantastic.

However they also discovered that without a nice insulating pad under you and a full proper sleeping bag you'll get NO sleep and have no comfort......

The three guys who built campsites and had a small 2 foot fire ring learned that while its nice to have during the day when the sun was out and you can chat and stand around the fire and chat it won't help you after you go to your shelter and lay down for the night.

LEAN-TO

You need to build your lean-to get it setup and close in the sides with tarps or pine boughs and then get a fire going...... but NOT a nice two foot round fire ring like the other guys built. It should be about 18" to 2 feet away from the front of your lean-to and 6 FEET long. One of the guys did build that and he also constructed a log wall reflector on the outside of the fire that burned a bit to keep the fire going and also reflected that heat back in to the lean-to. We got the pilots to crawl in to the shelter and feel the heat being bounced back in to the lean-to and everyone commented on how hot it was in there. That was at 3:00 in the afternoon and by the time it was dark at 10:00 and the sun was gone they really figured it out why you literally sleep in front of the fire. And yes, there were plenty of holes in pads and tarps from the sparks. Your beside the fire and most people were using nylon based fabrics, oh well.......

COUGAR

As it was, everyone was told to bail out of their shelters at 11:00 PM because the wildlife monitor found a cougar about 50 yards away from one of the lean-to sites pissing every where and sticking up the place. (grin) So everyone was pulled back in to the airport strip and had to sleep in cars buildings and beg group tents for the night, even then a few folks commented on even in the big tents using their survival gear in the tents they froze.

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So even in a exercise things won't go as planned but its better to go out for one over night and TRY your survival kits versus using them for the first time in a real emergency. Lastly, lots of people learned what a pain in the butt it is, when the river water source is a 25 mins (out and back) walk from the camping area. :-)

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Here is everything opened up .......

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Hi,

Here is my pocket survival kit. It's a small bag of stuff in one pocket and 3 things in the other.

I carry them all day, every day, but I don't call it that EDC stuff. Because 9 times out of ten, I'm at or going to work, or out for beer or anyplace else doing anything but outdoor recreating but it's just easier to forget about it and leave it in the jacket rather pop it in and out all the time.

It's what I rely on if something happens, it's also why I don't think getting lost, or hurt, or stranded, is such a big deal if you have all your stuff and you're in a survival scenario. I do know that if I dump my canoe on trip down the South Sask river that after I'm overdue they'll start looking for me from where I put in to where I got stuck. Or if I break an ankle on the trail going up over Abbot Pass they'll start looking for me at the trailhead along the route till they find me. If I have all my gear its at best an unplanned extended stay somewplace and if lose everything while it would be a damm site more uncomfortable than having all my equipment I can stay alive and safe.

It's changed a bit over the years and gotten lighter so that helps a bit so that's always a good thing and it can cover more than just emergency needs so there are things in it like bandaids that I might dip in to the odd time or so but for the most part I just for get it s there. There is also a ton of stuff in it thats not always needed but since I find I don't notice it in my pocket anymore - it just sits there.

Here's the list o' stuff:

All this stuff is in a #.5 size adventure medical bag in an extra heavy plastic zip lock bag that comes with the med kit, except for the lanyard. It goes over the neck as soon as you’re in trouble so it never gets lost or misplaced but its in the yellow bag to start with.

ON THE LANYARD -PELICAN 1810 Mini Flashlight, - Brass Compass, - Whistle, -EXOTAC ferro rod

- 10 AQUATAB water treatment tablets - 6 UCO storm matches

- Snap-off Utility Blades - Credit Card size sharping stone

- Fishing kit - Pencil and paper

- Small Thin Folding knife - Compressed Hand Towels

- SOL Fire Tinder-Quiks - Paper Matches & Safety Pins & Small Nails

- Medicine Bag (Advil, Px, Aspirin, etc) - Zip Ties (yellow)

- Plastic Fresnel Lens - 20' Orange Flagging Tape

- 2 OXO Beef Broth - Sheet of Tin Foil

- Duct Tape, Spare Hooks, Needle - BIC Lighter, Cord, Snare Wire (dbl bagged)

- WHIRL-PAC 32 oz. Water Bag - Survival Booklet

- The HD Plastic Zip-lock Bag for inside the Yellow Bag, has black duct tape on it for storage.

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First Aid Stuff (in the same bag)

- Moleskin Patches - Burn Gel

- Band-Aids - DERMALON Curved Needle Suture’s

- Tweezers - 6 IMODIUM

- Alcohol Prep Pads - AFTER BITE Wipes

- Wound Closure Strips - Personal Meds

In my other cost pocket is a SOL heavy duty space blanket, a tough folding pocket knife and 350 yards of 30 lb nylon line for cordage(in Yellow tube).

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What do you use?

The next thing out of the top ones: SHELTER - FIRE - WATER - FOOD

I'm hungry, you hungry? I could eat ....... and just for fun I'm going to eat: FOOD

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So yea, hungry, do you want some food? Well again as normal if you're lost someplace or stuck or again whatever ....... (grin) Open the pack and dig in, what's for dinner a nice tasty hot mountain house Lasagna? (prob not, they're too expensive these days- grin) but anyway food is nice, so if you have your pack and your gear and you're lost the emergency isn't so emergency while you wait for the SAR teams to some and find you.

However as we talked about before if you lose everything and you have NO food, gasp! What do you do in that case? Nothing ......

Food is not like water in anyway shape for form, you need water because without it, in about 3 days you're dead and that's it. Now food, as Les Stroud showed us in Survivorman for a week at a time and then in later Series for 10 days at a time. It's not that important, and then with TV shows like Alone a lot of people who do outdoor "things' have learned that food is no biggie in the first few weeks. In fact that's how you win Alone, can you scavenge or obtain food out in the woods. If you don't eat for a week or two or even longer it'll suck of course but is it vital. Nope!

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In my pocket survival kit I have a water bag and tablets to treat about 10 litres of water but oddly enough not a scrap of food and its simply because it's not needed. I'm off in the outdoors in the backcountry canoeing, skiing, camping, backpacking whatever ..... when that survival scenario kicks off I need the big things: SHELTER - FIRE - WATER - FOOD

But SHELTER can wait a night or two till I get light the next day to build or find a good spot to build a lean-to maybe if its summer, FIRE can wait till after I get the shelter built or maybe its goes first if its cold out, I need to find/get water within three days or I'm dead and if I'm in a desert climate it might go first. FOOD however can take a back seat to all of the other items and if I don't get around to it for a week or so it won't kill me, yea, it will suck but its not higher up the list.

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So again in our proper Wilderness Survival situation that lasts for a few days or even a week it's just not on the horizon. I think that's where a lot of people don't get it ....... when they hear the world survival, it's NOT that cut and dried...... it like pizza it's all the same stuff "pizza" but they're are many kinds.

This forum or sub is about normal realistic everyday common emergency wilderness survival.

It's not about prepping for the end of the world where all the streets and 7-11's and pizza huts go poof gone and you need to get in your mad max truck and survive and mostly because that's NOT realistic and very unlikely to happen.

It's als not about some guy getting fed up with the world and grabbing his backpack to go play WALDEN POND or become the next Dick Proenneke or a Christopher McCandless because that's NOT realistic either.

It's about you going about your normal everyday common outdoor recreational activity and then something happens that was unplanned and it becomes an emergency wilderness survival situation.

Food is just way down the list in this world ...... of course: "Your millage may vary"

The next thing out of the top ones: SHELTER - FIRE - WATER - FOOD

OK, so the only thing thats immediate to your survival after the elements is WATER !!

In fact if the weather is not crappy - for example: cold, wet, below freezing etc it's the one thing you HAVE to have always and forever...... the season, weather, location, creed, color, sex, everything else does not matter ....

The entire world knows and has memorized the phrase" "Water is life" if its a normal day out wherever you are in the mountains, on the beach, in your backyard you have to have water, it's the one thing you MUST have period!

It doesn't even have to be an outdoor wilderness survival situation , you could be sitting on the couch at home watching "Friends" and without water after about 3 days - yer dead.

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So obviously in a wilderness survival situation if everything is lovely and ducky and happy, you have your gear, you've setup camp, you even have food, while thats great and just dandy if you don't have any water you're gonna die. You're still lost or have a broken leg or whatever caused your outdoor to go south and now you're in that survival situation the new emergency is water.

Sometimes it's really easy in your case, OK you're lost, stuck, injured or whatever but you're beside a river, WOOT ! It's now way back down the list of another thing to worry about, or same thing, lost struck, injured whatever but its winter and there are piles of that annoying what stuff to have to shovel to setup camp. The super mega survival tip here is Snow is actually frozen water, but don't tell anyone it's kind of an advanced outdoor secret! (grin)

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You need water, first and foremost, the second part of that equation is you also need to be able to treat that water to make it safe to drink. That makes the first solved problem now another one to solve, you need water and you're struck by a river or stream or lake or whatever. After getting water can you treat the water.

Wilderness survival is about challenges and problems and managing them, for example if its winter and you were out backcountry skiing and got "lost" OK, so you're still lost but finding water isn't problem it's, in this case, staying warm and being able to melt that snow to make water.

Obtaining water and the second part of having the ability to treat it is gone - snow is an OK water source and its usually around in bulk and treatment isn't needed but its a lot of work to melt it.

So with the river or lake or stream source you have should treat it, with snow, not so much but it's cold out so like before,it makes sense to address the problems you have in your survival situation with managmeing them. It's not gonna do you any good to get water if you die of exposure after 3 hours.

It sounds stupid to have to type this stuff out and say it, but it is real issue - learning what to do and in what order and what "thing" needs to be prioritized or done first matters.

An interesting tid-bit I've heard from SAR experts is that: "a lot is more people die of exposure in cool weather rather then full on winter" So why, because of its a OK +5 out and you get wet you may not notice how cold you're getting - where as when its -15 outside it already has your attention and because of that you're bundled up already.

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Here is where my bloated opinion differs quite vastly from what other people say about WATER in the backcountry: We'll jump back to the worse case scenario where you have nothing but the clothes on your back and what's in the pockets again ...... so no gear, no tent, no stove, adn not even a pot to piss in.

You're someplace with gear and you taken care of the: Shelter - Fire - WATER - FOOD ......

So water, there is a stream running by you, or a river, or a lake, and you have NO way of treating it - DO YOU DRINK IT?

Traditional folks say: "Oh no, you can't, you have to treat it first!" .....

Well think about it again, the average SAR emergency in Canada anyway lasts about 72 hours and if you go without water for about 3 days you're dead. OF COURSE YOU DRINK IT !

When you're found after a while and let's go with even a number like from 2 days to 2 weeks if you don't drink water in that time frame you're dead anyway. Remember, when you're found they can treat tummy bugs like Giardia and stuff but they can't treat dead.

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Remember this is Wilderness Survival not long term wilderness living or prepping, you didn't plan or tipping the canore or losing the backpack somehow, you went out to the wilderness to have fun doing XYZ outdoor thing, and something happened and after you're overdue they WILL come looking for you and if you filed a flight plan with friends and family they will show up and find you.

Drink the water you need to have during that time while you wait for rescue.

The next thing out of the four biggies: SHELTER - FIRE - WATER - FOOD

OK, so you really need a FIRE ......... it provides quite a number of things, the first is the phycological aspect of it, everything just feels better when you’re sitting around a campfire, and yes that includes being lost in a survival situation, trust me.

Plus, you have the option of sitting alone in your tent or Lean-to or whatever shelter all night in the dark or have some light from a campfire, so sitting in pitch black darkness all night in the woods and hearing all the strange noises going on around you – so sitting in the light and glow of a campfire – nuff said!

Another even more important thing is (depending on the weather) that oh-so-handy life saving warmth and heat. If you’re wet and cold and in a survival situation you may not last the night or if its real winter you may not last a few hours. Like I said before SHELTER is usually first thing to build and then a FIRE, but let’s get real, if for example you go down in an airplane crash because of a blizzard you’re gonna probably want a fire going Licky-Split huh?

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What else is it good for? Well cooking if you have food is a nice thing but more importantly if you have a pot it’s still one of the best ways to process drinkable water, and if its cold out a nice pine needle tea is a good way to stay warm too.

Also a few warm rocks (not hot) at your feet are nice too if its old out or in your jacket. Lastly there is the critter aspect, most animals aren’t fans of fire so you have a big blazer of a fire going that will deter some animals from checking you out. Hopefully one critter that it will deter is blackflies and mosquitoes, if you have a fire going and you can toss on the occasional green pine bough that smoke will keep the bugs at bay sometimes and that’s always a good thing.

There is also the opportunity dry out gear and that’s fantastic if its cold out or you got dumped on and got soaked, you can dry out your boots and gloves and gear around the campfire after you bed down and call it a night. Also putting on boots that are warm from sitting near the fire compared to a ice cold frozen pair is pure bliss.

Lastly - you’re lost and in a survival situation right!? If you have a decent campfire going and you want to signal for help and rescue, fire is one of the MAIN things that SAR teams look for.

In fact, after these top four main things I prioritize in, one of the most important to-do things is build a signal fire tripod once I get the first four figured out. I have a 6 to 8 foot-tall tripod built out of 4 inch diameter logs with a platform/deck woven in to it about 3 feet off the ground and it’s got very fine tinder on that platform then higher up I have twigs on top of the tinder and then thicker pieces of wood, above the twig stuff. Draped on the outside of the tripod I have hooked layers of green pine boughs over the tops of all three poles so if I hear an aircraft and I light one match under that platform the whole thing will go up within a minute and those green pine boughs product a ton of smoke.

I also keep a pile of green pine boughs beside the campfire and if I had to I’d toss on the ones I put in my bed to sleep on if I thought it would help – actively signaling for help is something you need to think about. So now that we found out that fire has a few handy uses, let’s just go back to the usual and more probable “dammit I’m lost” scenario as opposed to an airplane crash instead. Your disaster may vary, but anyway! (grin)

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Let’s assume your shelter is up and that could be a tent or a lean-to but you have a way to get out of the elements. If you’re in a tent that’s fine but I’m still going with the I lost all my gear and stuff premise.

Think about it for a sec – you have on you hopefully a knife on you and a Bic lighter and that’s it. If you have your backpack of stuff, you don’t need the shelter and if you have a sleeping bag and a sleep pad you won’t NEED to nap in front of a fire all night. If your gear is gone, you will need to do this.

Out in front of the lean-to you should plan on making a campfire and initially that will be standard campfire so if you can get rocks or stones to make a fire ring great but understand that once it’s going that fire is going to eventually be about 5 feet long if you are 5 feet tall or even 6 feet tall if you are a 6 foot tall person. The size of the fire you’re going to build will be the size of you and that’s called a long-fire it’ll reach all way across the opening of the shelter and ideally should be about 18” to 2 feet away from the edge of that pine bough bed you made in the shelter.

Get the fire going initially, and if you have rocks available great, make a fire ring initially and then later you can get more rocks and make a long row of them to stop burning logs from rolling back towards the shelter.

If you have access to sand or gravel you can lake a big row of it to stop the fire from getting in to the ground and starting a root fire so that’s always a nice thing to try NOT to do but then again, a full blown forest fire is a pretty good way to attract attention and get found! 😊

Now the fun part firewood, how much do you need for a night? Well again that depends on the overnight temperatures and the seasons. Go out and gather wood, hopefully you’re in an area with lots of blow down and stuff lower down. Of course, if you do have that handy axe and or saw then processing wood for a fire is pretty darn easy go make a pile, now when you think you have enough….. you don’t! Look at what you gathered and then go get 2 times more that amount for a night, THEN you have enough! It’s simple, running out of wood at 2:30 in the morning when you don’t have a light or a way to see to go get more is really dumb, and strolling around the woods in the dark is never a good idea.

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Now if you don’t have that axe or saw then you get to carry/drag whole logs of blow-down over to your campsite and trying to burn down 18 foot logs is a PIA. It’s doable, but without a way to break down the wood to a manageable length you don’t have an option. If you lay a big long log on a campfire, you can eventually burn it thru in to shorter pieces and then feed ends in to the fire or add them to the long fire. You also have to watch the fire doesn’t creep out of the fire pit area but its is what it is.

Anyway, get that long-fire burning and you’ll be able to sit in the shelter with your coats off and you’ll have a toasty evening and of course you won’t sleep but you’ll be able to have naps between stoking the fire and keeping it going.

Lastly, we now go over how to make a fire ……. yea no. To be nice, here is a list of the different ways you CAN make a fire using various techniques.

- Bic Lighter

- Storm Matches

- Strike Anywhere Matches

- Book of Paper Matches

- Ferrocerium Rod

- Fire Piston

- Flint and Steel

- Hand Drill

- Fire Plow

- Bow Drill

- Fresnel Lens

- Batteries and Steel Wool

- Soda Can and Chocolate

- Lighting

- Nuclear Bomb

BTW – If you feel the need to post here asking what the best way is to make a fire is, you probably shouldn't be in the outdoors or even off your leash. The best way to make a fire is the easiest way and by using what you have on you, and for 90% of us out in the woods it’s gonna be a lighter, now in my pocket survival kit I have 5 ways to make fire, but then again, I have 7 months of cold weather in my Province …so yea……

Again dust off the keyboard and go learn to Google-Fu it’s all out there !

There are a few things you need to have when in a survival situation and it's been sort of narrowed it down to: SHELTER - FIRE - WATER - FOOD

OK, so you need a shelter ......... what for, what does it need to do?

The shelter is usually something to stay out of the elements and the two most common are snow and rain. Some people think it will help with critters, nope, and mr bear won't care about your tent or lean-to. :-)

There is however, one critter that is affected a lot by a decent tent and if you've ever been up north in summer months those little bastards are mosquitoes and blackflies. If you've ever experienced a summer in a high bug area and for most of North America that's really further north then we think, like the North West Territories or the Yukon or Alaska regions. We can get annoying bugs in the lower 48 and Canada but the sky is never dark with them as it can be up there. Spend a night out in just a lean-to or debris shelter in bug season and you'll discover that its close to torture.

If you have your backpack and gear its as easy as setting up the tent and crawling in, and that’s one huge time and effort saver!!

If you lost all your stuff now you gotta build one and that can take a while and you'll spend time and calories but you will need it, and one big advantage over an open lean-to style of shelter as opposed to a tent or a debris-hut is warmth, if you build it right and you lay out the long-fire properly you'll spend a happy evening sitting in the lean to with the space blanket reflecting the heat off the back wall of the lean-to and have your jacket off and wet gear drying out at -10, it's pretty sweet.

It's also just "nice" to get in under something when its snowing or raining, I know a lot of backpackers will testify to just that a roof over your head from either snow or rain is glorious when you are trying to cook or sit around the fire. Its why God made tarps too! :-)

If you don't have your gear, then you're in a much more serious predicament but it can be fixed and remedied, it's just gonna cost you a lot of time and calories. There is also an important component of losing your gear or your pack of stuff and it will directly affect your ability to build a decent shelter and it can make construction of it very easy or very hard…….

Do you have an axe, or a saw, or in last place a knife? If you lose your pack of stuff, there a high probability that your axe or saw are, much like the tent and your sleeping bag - gonzo!! Now one of the main points I think people really need to think of when you are out in the wilderness recreating and having fun, what is physically on your person? What do you have in your pockets or on a belt around your waist?

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NOTE:

I think that if you're going to go out and do literally anything outdoors you should always have a knife of some kind in a pocket, or better yet on a belt, and a way to make fire. Those two little things can literally be the difference between life and death out in the wilderness if things go south.

If you lost your pack and your gear, and you have nothing for equipment then at least you have a single little cutting tool and a Bic lighter in a pocket someplace. You can build a shelter without any kind of knife or axe/saw and I've done it, but it does take a long time. If you haven't got a way to make fire, again depending on where you are, and the season, that's truly a life and death thing.

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So, lets assume that you have a cutting tool, even just a knife. To build a quick shelter you're gonna want our new best friends, the trees, trees are good, we like trees! If you have an axe or saw - start cutting ..... if all you have is a knife you need to scale down the size of the trees you chose to create the shelter from a nice 3" - 4" or even 6” round log down to something you can cut with a knife or more than likely just snap off at the base and start with those.

A handy tip to bust up trees into poles with no equipment is to put the stripped off sapling or small log between to other trees close together and use your body weight pushing against the log while wedged in between the two standing trees to break/snap off your poles/trees to the rough length you need.

Another important thing to note is the WIND, what direction is he wind coming from? You don’t want the wind blowing snow or rain in to the open side of the shelter.

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Find two decently large trees that are about 8 feet apart and look at the ground around them, if its winter is there a dry base around each tree a bit? If so great, if not, use your boot to scape away the snow around the trees and have a look at the ground if you can get down to it. Is it dirt, or sand, or forest duff or mud and water? You don't want to start building your shelter in a place where the ground is wet or boggy - pick a new spot, and yes if you can, stay up on a bit of hill or a rise in the ground, that way water won't pool around your "camp" if it really starts to rain or get wet from melting.

BTW camping at -10 is way better then right around freezing from about +3 -to about -4 or so. That damp wet heavy snow is a pain in the butt to deal with and stay to dry……

Find two good trees about 8 feet apart and plan to have the sloping side of the shelter facing in to the wind, (the wind should hit the back of the shelter like going up a ramp) then if you have decent dry ground around, start to break off some of the lower branches around the two main trees, up to about the height of about your armpits, you don’t want it too high or too short. Can you remain under the overhead lip of the main support pole and still sit up?

Breaking off some of the lower extra branches lets you thin it out a bit to leave you a space to get in there and work around the tree and then you can rest or wedge your main horizontal support pole in that 8 foot gap between the two trees on a remaining branch you didn’t break off or the fork you left on the tree after to you took off a branch.

If you had cordage, you can just tie that 8’ main horizontal support pole to the two trees at the height you like!

That main horizontal support pole that runs between the two trees should be ideally 4” to 6” in diameter but if you don’t have an axe or a saw you might have to pick something smaller and snap it off with your body weight and the wedging it between two trees technique we talked about earlier.

Also, you can get two more logs/poles about that same diameter and snap them off so they’re close to the armpit height you want the shelter to be, you can stand those two “prop” poles up against the two main trees on the roof pole side of the tree and then lay the main horizontal support pole on top of those two new prop poles/posts, and then start to put the roof pole on from the ground sloping up and over the top edge of your main horizontal support – you’re building one half of that letter A right ?!

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It’s a bit of a balancing act without cordage ….. the weight of the roof poles you lay on top of that main horizontal support pole will push that horizontal pole spanning the gap against the two main trees and the weight of the roof poles also pushes the horizonal pole down on to your prop poles/posts and as it gets heaver it holds things together a bit better. A picture is worth a thousand works but …… you get it. Everything is on one side of the two trees pushing against them.

As you add roof poles it will firm up and if you have a tarp to use you can cut down on the number of roof poles you need think you need. Again, picture yourself building a A frame with one side of the A missing – try to make the roof poles stick out over the top edge of that main horizontal support pole and they should go down to the ground at about a 45-degree angle.

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If you have a tarp, lucky you, then you only need to cut and lay about 6 to 10 roof poles in place and the roof will be water tight with the tarp on, so a nice dry bed. Set the tarp across the roof poles and tie it down of you have hooks or loops on the tarp or, if not, just toss a few more poles on to the topside of the tarp.

If you don’t have a tarp, and if you lost your gear it’s probably gone too, which is why you’re now building a lean-to shelter. So now you need way more poles, I suggest you place the roof poles in tighter together and touching so it makes a more solid roof over that 8 foot gap, it will block more rain and snow and you can also pile on pine boughs and forest floor debris and stuff on top of the logs to make it more water tight.

There are a billion videos and books on how to build shelters out there if you have to ask that basic question, it’s a bit lame. You might wanna learn to do the google-fu first ……..

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Once its up now the real work begins (grin) again if you have your pack and gear you’re golden if not, grab your pocket knife or a nice fixed blade full tang knife and start cutting pine boughs, lots of them. Without a sleeping bag or more importantly a sleeping pad life will suck! The main reason is if you just lay on the ground on your sexy new shelter mother earth will suck every single bit of heat right out of your body.

Losing heat to the outside air via convention is one thing and that why we have coats but if you lay down directly on to the ground you lose heat via conduction and its faster and way worse. You need to make a bed of pine boughs to lay down on. When I say bed I don’t mean 2 to 3 inches of pine boughs, you need a mountain of them so think more like a foot minimum and more like 2 feet of them!

Spend the night on a bed of them and when you get up the next day look at the amount of compaction your butt did to that bed – you can jump on it at 2 feet thick when you lay down and by morning, you’ll have only a few inches left. You’re tossing and turning compacts the heck out of them. But even that 2 or 3 inches off the ground is a thousand times better than laying directly on the ground. So, either start snapping them off with your hands and yes, a pair of gloves on while you’re doing all this a life saver too. Grab your knife and start cutting, or start breaking them off and get that bed built, but seriously get a 2-foot-thick bed built. Also remember that the curve of the pine bough branch goes down so stick the pointy end of the branch down in to the mass of the bed.

Fill in the sides of the lean-to with more vertical or horizontal branches or logs and you can pile more forest duff and debris to block the wind if need be, up against those logs or branches.

Lastly if you have a cheap disposable blanket put it up on the underside of the shelter roof to act as a heat reflector once you get the fire going! That is the steps and tricks you can use to build a shelter, so comments, ideas, suggestions?

OK, so dammit we're lost, or stuck, or something went wrong and now were in survival mode.

SO, again you tell me what do you think make things a survival situation? Before I talked about the most common one we can all relate to and that is getting lost........

So if you S.T.O.P. and determine that you found a good place to stay put now what?

What are the thing you think you need to Survive this while you wait to be found?

I think the main things you're going to want are:

- SHELTER

- FIRE

- WATER

- FOOD

Now that being said since I play in the Rocky Mountains, I'll have one set of priorities over someone else, but the list is still valid I think (and usually the order of things might get shuffled around a bit) but those 4 are the biggies I feel. What do you think?

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Anyway here's the main point I want to make, if the above items are the biggies we need what's it going to take to get them? I think it still boils down to what resources do you have right now with you versus what you will need to go find and obtain? If I have my backpack and it's all full of my gear I think the entire episode just got a lot easier to deal with,

- Shelter

if I have my tent (shelter) my sleeping bag (shelter and insulation ) my tarp (shelter) an emergency space blanket (shelter) the first one is covered. Do I need to know ho to build a lean-to shelter or a debris hut or a quinzee? Nope, and I won't have to spend the time or calories or the effort to have to create one either, That's really sweet and save me hours of time !! If I lost all my gear them its a matter of what do i have in my pockets and on my person that can help me build a "shelter" I'll address that later like the rest of the stuff on the list.

- Fire

Here a bit of an odd one, I put fire ahead of water all the time and the main reason for that is phycological, everything is always better around a campfire and the emotional well being you feel around a campfire versus sitting alone in the woods in the dark is massive !! Honest! Once my shelter is up and in place I start on the fire ring/pit and gathering firewood right away. Now if its a storm or I'm winter camping I might get the fire going first but I still need to think about where my shelter is in relationship to the fire. If I have my tent and gear I can just pop up the tent, toss my stuff in it, and then get to work on the fire next. If I have to build a shelter that could take a few hours or more if I don't have a knife or better yet an axe or a saw. That fire might be just a normal sized campfire if I have all my gear or if I have nothing it's gonna be a 6 foot "long-fire" about 18" to 2 feet away from my shelter opening.

- Water

Now my third thing is water, of course if I'm in the Nevada or Arizona desert like regions then water becomes number one of course. Think about it this way - if you're in a desert area during the day you can hunker down and stay out of the sun but the chances of needing a big shelter are much less than finding, obtaining, and processing water. If I'm in the mountains or anywhere else but a desert, water is usually easier to find. And again depending on the season there could be big pain-in-butt snow drifts of water that I need to shovel out of the way when building my shelter. (grin) When I was trucing along did I notice when I crossed a stream in a valley or a spring seepage, or was a big river in the way of my trail? When was the last time I saw water? This is way on my list water come after Shelter and Fire, but that's mostly because of where I am and what I do. Backpacking, canoetripping, and mountain biking trips. Either way, if its not storming out and miserable or its scorching hot and baking outside I have about 3 days to find water, after that you're in DEEP doo-doo.

- Food

That's always last, and it boils down to the rule of three's people toss around as a general guide like the STOP abbreviation. You have 3 minutes without air, you have 3 days without water, and you have 3 weeks without food. It's not entirely true but it IS a nice handy guide. It again boils down to, OK I'm lost, do I still have my pack and its contents? If you do changes are you have something in your pack or even your pockets to tide you over while you wait for the SAR guys to come and find you but it low down on the list.

I think for newbies and people who have never been lost or stranded or stuck someplace these are the big "needs" but what do you think? I really want to hear your opinions on this - was something missed or am I entirely out to lunch?

OK, so you had a thing happen, and things have gone sideways let's go with one of the most common problems and the one we all hear about....... Lost.

Skiing out of bounds for us Canucks, backpacking and lost the trail, hunting and got turned around and don't know which way to go, whatever you're lost.

OK, so what do you do?! I've been lost and one thing hits you right away and that little bastard is PANIC!! It's hard as hell to control and it sneaks up on you quietly, so what you must and need to do is not let it get ya.....

There is one simple thing you need to do, and as soon as you realize your lost:

S T O P

That's it, S T O P ...... But in this case break it down man!

S = STOP, just stop moving, hopefully you caught it before the panic set it because that just tricks you in to moving and practically running to get the hell out of where you are and back to " safety ".

Don't move, don't go any further just STOP where you are. Going further usually makes things worse because there is only one right direction to go back to where you came from and 359 more degrees to go the wrong way. Just stop.

T = THINK, just relax and think about what happened and just understand that it's not the end of the world, just think about what's going on and what you should do next. So then what ...... ?

O = OBSERVE, Stop trucking around in the bush, think about the fact that your lost and now you need to stop and have a look around you. You're in a spot so what is around you that can help you with where you are right now, the two main things your going to want are a place to stay that hopefully offers up the opportunity to make a shelter, if your up on a mountain ridge when you realize your lost, that's not gonna be a good place to stay put.

The second thing your going to need is water, so are you near some? Observe and look around...... Have a look around you and see if there is a bit better spot right around you where you are now, if you need to get to an arena to get things to help create a shelter or firewood or water go for it ....

Can you see a power line or a landmark you might recognize? Observe.....

P = PLAN, Start to make a plan of what you're going to need since your stuck where you are. Think about what imidiate needs you're going to have. Make plsn on how to get those things.

If you have your pack of gear - you're golden, you now have the 3 biggies already covered so life just got a ton easier, why !?!

Hey !

So I'm curious, what would have to happen to you when you're out in the wilderness, for you to treat it as a true wilderness survival situation?

To me, it's something unplanned that has to happen to you that could effect your ability to survive and not die from exposure or dehydration or in the worse case starvation.

If I'm out backpacking and I'm up a trail someplace and one scenario is I break a leg, that's nasty because I'm pretty much stuck there. But in that case I'd be worried but not panicked about it and the only reason I can say that is that I still have my backpack full of gear. So yea, I'm stuck there but I still have my tent, sleeping bag, stove, clothes, food etc.

So it's a "survival" situation but it's more like a forced stay. So do I have shelter and water those are my two concerns always, food, while nice is not that big of a deal and for me to be stuck someplace while I wait for rescue, while it would suck ...... I can do it.

Now all these statements are prefaced by the fact that every time I head out in to the wilderness, and that can be mountain biking with panniers full of stuff or a day trip, or going on canoe trip, or day hiking or whatever ...... I ALWAYS FILE A FLIGHT PLAN !!

If I go hunting, they know where I'm going, if it's a canoe trip they know what river it is and where I'm putting in and also where the take out is. So heck yea someone (friends or family) always know the places or the routes/trails that we're taking.

I think the biggest problem you'd have or where things get instantly serious is when you lose your pack, like the canoe tipped and poof its gone, or your pack nicely fell down the mountain or even if you were out hunting and you set it down to go chase down a deer you got.

I feel that if you only have the clothes on your back and what's on your belt or in your pockets, creates that instant feeling of "Oh Shit, now we have a problem"

What do you guys think? When does it get serious for you?

Well easy...

• You and some friends decide to go backpacking for a weekend, and one of you breaks a leg.

• Or your on a 4 day canoe trip and the boat tips and you lose your gear.

• You might be out hunting and you set your hunting pack down to go chase a deer you shot and got lost.

• You're hiking and you drop your pack as a distraction because you come across a bear.

• You went mountain biking for the day and you break the bike frame 40 km up the trail.

• You decide to hike the famous Appalachian Trail (A.T) and you step off the trail to go to the bathroom and get turned around and get lost. (True Story)

It doesn't take much and these things can happen !!! What it boils down to is your recreational event you are on has gone south and now its an unplanned emergency situation.

NOW, you need to know what to do to survive and make it, till you are found and rescued by a Search and Rescue group.

That unplanned emergency situation is what wilderness survival is all about !!!

Hi,

I made this sub to help people who have real genuine questions about how-to survive outdoors in the wilderness when something goes wrong. It's what people need to know and the skills they'll want to work on to be able to deal with an emergency situation in the wilderness.

It's NOT about prepping or wilderness living, let's face it the world is not gonna end any time soon so if you're looking for that kind of survival, you're in the wrong place. Sorry!!

The same goes for the Walden want to run away and go live in the woods crowd. First of all you can't, most governments in the world own all the public lands and have made it illegal to go out and build a cabin someplace.

For that, you need to go buy your own chunk of land someplace, but that it homesteading and wilderness living. Again, this is the wrong place for that as well.

This forum / sub-reddit is about what to do when you are out in the great outdoors doing things like, back county skiing, wilderness canoe tripping, backing in the backcountry, mountain bike trips, even day hikes and something happens that creates a true emergency wilderness survival situation.

Welcome ........