Outdoor Survival Info

Archive for the ‘Outdoors’ Category

People die from the heat every summer. If you’re out in the wilderness, in some survival situation, you need to take some extra precautions to stay safe. There are two key safety areas you need to keep in mind: protection from direct sunlight and hydration.

Protection From Sunlight

Sunburns hurt. The longer you are out in the sun unprotected, the more you can get hurt. Burn enough and you won’t be able to move without some fairly severe pain. In addition to that, direct sun exposure can lead to an increased risk of heat exhaustion.

Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to protect yourself from an excessive amount of sun. Here are a few things to keep in mind.

• Find or make some shade to rest under when the sun is at its peak (midday).
• Wear clothes. This might make you a bit warm, but it’s important to find a balance between skin exposure and overheating. Unless you’re working on a tan, try to keep your skin protected.
• Use sunscreen if you have it.
• Lip balm protects your lips from becoming dry and cracked (which is very uncomfortable).
• Wear a hat. This is a good way to keep your head in the shade even if the rest of your body isn’t.

Hydration

Keeping properly hydrated takes care of two necessary bodily functions. It will keep your cells working properly and act as a coolant system fuel for your body. Without sufficient hydration, you won’t last long in the heat.

Your body’s natural coolant system is sweat. As you probably know, sweat is mostly water. It acts by cooling down your body from the outside, and “catching the wind” to increase the cooling. The more you sweat, the more your body uses water. If you are sweating a lot, you will need to drink more water to make up for it.

You won’t last very long without water in your day to day life, but that timeframe shrinks when you are in the heat, exerting yourself. To stay hydrated, simple steps will do:

• Keep water or some type of sports drink with you.
• Keep enough water for your planned journey.
• Have a refillable container, so you can refill your water supply when necessary. It’s also a good idea to have some type of water purification system in your pack, too.
• Stay cool. The less you sweat, the less water your body will use (thus the less you have to drink).

Surviving the heat is not a problem if you take some simple precautions and use your head. Plan ahead, get your necessary gear and protective wear together, and you shouldn’t run into any serious problems.

The key points to keep in mind are to protect yourself from direct sunlight, and to keep yourself hydrated. Do those two things, and you can make it through even the hottest days. If the desert tribes of the Middle East have been doing it for hundreds of years (or more), you can too.

Want to learn more about preparing yourself for an emergency situation? Learn about disaster preparation, survival, and bugging out with The Bug Out Bag Book – How to build a personalized emergency gear kit.

Backpacking Safety Tips
By Natasha Fatale

The most important thing to think about when going on a backpacking adventure is to be prepared for anything. As the saying goes, if it can happen it will happen. These tips will help you avoid any misadventures and enjoy your backpacking trip to the fullest.

Keep Hydrated

It cannot be stressed enough how important it is to keep yourself hydrated no matter what type of a backpacking trip you are on. The best way to do this of course is through the drinking of large amounts of water. You of course do not want to drink it all at once, but spread it out over the course of the day. Making sure that there is plenty of purified drinking water that is available for you and your entire group will lead to many happy campers. Read the rest of this entry »

Hiking Tip – How to Find Water in the Wilderness
By Pauline Go

Hiking is an adventurous outdoor activity which involves walking and trekking day and night. Getting lost or stranded in the wilderness is something that could happen to just about anyone. When you are trapped in the wilderness the single most important thing you need to survive is water. An adult can survive without food for many days but only a few days without water.

Finding water is, therefore, one of the most important wilderness survival skills otherwise dehydration will inevitably occur. Here are some techniques to find water in the wilderness whether you are in desert or in forest: Read the rest of this entry »

Living in the wilderness for any length of time — even just a few days — takes some preparation. There’s more to it than just heading out in the wild and eating berries. You’ll need to tend to things like shelter, water, and fire. Read the rest of this entry »

You might have the warmest jacket around, but if you don’t layer your clothes, it may not be enough. Stacking your clothes in layers around your body is the best way to retain body heat when you are out in the elements.

As body heat escapes, your layers act as barriers to that escape. One layer will only retain so much body heat (the amount of retention varies), and the rest will escape. If you have two layers, the first will capture some of the heat and the rest will pass through. But that heat isn’t all going to get away from you. Another portion of it will be retained by your second layer, increasing your total percentage of heat retention. The more layers you add, the higher your retention will be.

There is something else to consider, too. Since your layers let some heat out, they are also capable of letting the cold in. You have to wear enough layers to not only retain body heat, but also to fight against the invading cold. An easy way to do this is to make sure your outer layer is thick and solid.

Many materials will work, but you need to make sure it is solid. Your grandmother’s knitted shawl might be pretty, but it won’t be very effective keeping out the biting wind. All those holes knitted in for looks will let the cold straight through!

Everyone is different, and everyone has varying levels of cold tolerance. For example, my wife says it’s freezing when I think it’s comfortable. Some people are just different. Take what you know about yourself and create a layer system that works for you. It can get really cold in some parts of the world, and you need to be prepared to deal with whatever weather nature throws at you.

Layer up and stay warm!

Winter Backpacking Survival Tips
By Steven Gillman

Why do you need survival tips for winter backpacking? Because even with the most careful planning there is always a greater risk with winter camping. Of course, getting lost or having an accident is always a possibility, but cold weather makes either of these a more serious matter.

Winter Survival Tip Number One

Stay warm! This is obvious. Hypothermia is the single biggest danger for backpackers, killing far more people than accidents or wild animals. What isn’t always so obvious is how poor planning and not thinking on the trail leads to getting cold.

One cold autumn day, a friend of mine fell in a stream while we were backpacking. He was soon chilled pretty severely. He naturally thought this was just an accident, but looking back on it now, it is clear that we didn’t have a proper survival mind set.

Streams have to be crossed, of course, but we were crossing this one as evening approached. A better plan would have been to get the hiking done earlier in the day. Why? Because it leaves time to deal with accidents like this. It may have been sunny enough to get his clothes dried before nightfall, and it is always easier to find fuel for a fire in the daylight.

In addition, we knew the rocks were slippery, yet we crossed as we were. Seeing the potential for a fall, we could have removed our coats and put them in a plastic bag until we were across. Had we taken this simple precaution, my friend would have at least had a dry coat to put on later.

Had this happened in colder weather (it was above freezing) it could have been very serious. You have to stay warm to survive. To stay warm it helps to stay dry. To stay dry, you have to think.

Insulation

Staying warm is about staying insulated. The value of insulation is determined by the thickness of the air around you that isn’t moving. This is the air trapped in your down coat, and between layers of clothing. Always think in terms of insulation thickness. In planning, this means you need more “loft”in your sleeping bag in winter, and more (or thicker) layers of clothing.

In a survival situation, this means you should immediately look for a way to create more insulation. This can mean setting your sleeping bag on a pile of leaves, or sleeping under a pile of dried grass. You might even stuff your jacket (if it is loose) with the fluff from cattail or milkweed plants, in order to increase the insulation value.

More Winter Backpacking Survival Tips

- Check the weather report before you go, and plan accordingly.

- Be careful when it is near or just above freezing. It is easier to get wet than when it is really cold.

- Drink enough fluids. Dehydration can cause a drop in body temperature.

- Down coats are great – if you can keep them dry. They are almost worthless when wet.

- Avoid sweating, to avoid getting chilled from the moisture later.

- Don’t use cotton clothes in winter, because they get wet easily and then don’t insulate well.

- Have more than one way to start a fire (matches, lighter, fire starter, skills).

- Learn to make a fire in cold wet conditions, and practice.

In 2006, I was trying to climb Crestone Peak here in Colorado, after an early snow. I gave up at about 13,000 in four feet of snow. I was in running shoes, and was soaked from the knees down. It would be below freezing that night, and I had just a tarp and 17-ounce sleeping bag. Does that sound risky? I was actually well prepared.

First of all, it was clear and sunny, and forecast to remain so for days. Back down near the lakes the snow was patchy, with many areas of dry grass. I quickly made a thick mattress of dry grass and thistle stalks to sleep on. I had quit early, so I had many hours to dry my shoes, socks and pants in the sun. They were completely dry long before dark.

As a back-up plan, I had a small fire laid, with a piece of bark covering it in case of rain or snow (I never needed to light it). I drank plenty of water and had fatty foods, which create heat as they digest. I also had more dry socks, and other necessary supplies, despite my 11-pound total pack weight. As you can see, survival when winter backpacking is as much about planning and thinking as it is about good gear.

Copyright Steve Gillman. To get the ebook “Ultralight Backpacking Secrets (And Wilderness Survival Tips)” for FREE, as well as photos, gear recommendations, and a new wilderness survival section, visit: http://www.The-Ultralight-Site.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steven_Gillman
Winter Backpacking Survival Tips

Don’t get enough outdoor and survival content from the blog alone? Your wait and your searching will soon be at an end!

OK, enough with the melodrama. I’m going to be putting together an outdoor and survival themed podcast. If you are a newsletter subscriber, you already know this. If not…now you know. Keep an eye on site (or just subscribe to the newsletter — on the left) to find out when the first episode is launched.

Here is a how-to great article about recycling an old circular saw blade into a nice guthook knife. Use it for hunting, toss it your bug out bag… Read the article here:

How to Make a Guthook Knife from an Old Saw Blade

Outdoor Survival Tips – Ten Uncommon Ones
By Steven Gillman

The outdoor survival tips you’ll find here are not the usual fare. They come from the unusual techniques that myself and others have experimented with. Keep them in mind in case the day comes when you are lost in the wilderness.

Outdoor Survival Tips – Fire Making

1. Pull a piece of pack rat nest loose to use for tinder. These are usually found under rock ledges and in small caves, so they are dry even when it is raining. They are commonly full of plant fuzz, dry grass and other flammable materials.

2. Polish the bottom of an aluminum pop or beer can, and you can use it to focus the sun’s rays to start a fire. Chocolate has been used to do the polishing, but you can also experiment with various natural substances. This is not easy, and probably not possible if the sun is too low, or the can not shiny enough, but I have seen it work. Point the can-bottom at the sun and focus the rays to a small point of light on a piece of natural tinder or paper (a dollar bill works well).

3. Another good source of dry tinder is from old milkweed pods. These often cling to the stalks all winter, and some of them usually have silky seed fuzz still in them, which can be dry even during pouring rain. Any source of flame, or even a spark will ignite this.

4. Bottles and other glass can be used like a magnifying glass to start a fire. Ever since the first forest fire investigator traced the cause of a fire back to a discarded pop bottle, we have known that in bright sunlight, various types of glass can focus the rays to start a fire. You might want to try your own eyeglasses as well, especially if they are a thick prescription.

5. Another source of dry tinder during wet weather is under things. Specifically, look under leaves for dry leaves, or under large logs for anything dry and flammable.

More Outdoor Survival Tips

6. Keep batteries against your body, or at least in your clothing during cold weather. They lose their power more quickly if they are cold, and depending on what they are for, they may be crucial to your survival.

7. To cross a stream on a slippery log, throw some sand, grainy dirt or gravel on it. It will provide some traction. Using any stick for balance helps as well.

8. Lost in the desert, but still have your tent? Use it to collect water. Let the rain fly drape over it, directly against it, so moisture won’t escape as it is normally supposed to. The resulting condensation may collect in small puddles on the tent floor. Scoop it up or drink it directly. You can also mop up moisture on the walls with a small piece of cloth and then wring out the water to drink it. This works especially well on cold nights.

9. Need food? Trout often hang out where faster water dumps into pools, so look there first. You can sometimes chase them into shallows and catch them by hand, which usually means scooping them up quickly and throwing them onto the shore. As a child, I regularly caught fish of several types by hand.

10. No shoes? Losing or destroying your footwear is always a possibility in a survival situation. If it happens, find pine trees that are oozing sap. Scrape it off with a piece of bark or wood. Spread it thickly on the soles of your feet, using it to glue strips of a soft bark to them. Cedar bark works well. It will provide some protection while you are walking. In cold weather, you may also want to cover your feet with plastic bags full of cattail seed fluff, to keep them warm.

Copyright Steve Gillman. See the Wilderness Survival Guide for more tips, and get a free backpacking and outdoor survival book, as well as photos, and gear recommendations, at: http://www.The-Ultralight-Site.com/wilderness-survival-guide.html

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steven_Gillman
Outdoor Survival Tips – Ten Uncommon Ones

Here’s a little slide show video I put together of my scope base project:

Rifle: Marlin 336

Hardware: Weaver two-piece scope base for Marlin 336

Tools: 2 flat head screwdrivers – one tiny, one regular