Guest guest Posted October 7, 2008 Report Share Posted October 7, 2008 Hey, is anyone interested in going out in the wilderness and practicing survival? I was thinking it may be fun and educational to go with a group of people who want to hone survival skills. Try to live on wild edibles, building a shelter, etc.. I was thinking of going for a weekend. I have been collecting information about this. What do you think? Too radical? hehe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 8, 2008 Report Share Posted October 8, 2008 Before you deside to do this I highly recommend seeing the movie " Into the Wild " Catherine - Diane Tuesday, October 07, 2008 9:02 PM wilderness survival Hey, is anyone interested in going out in the wilderness and practicing survival? I was thinking it may be fun and educational to go with a group of people who want to hone survival skills. Try to live on wild edibles, building a shelter, etc.. I was thinking of going for a weekend. I have been collecting information about this. What do you think? Too radical? hehe Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.173 / Virus Database: 270.7.6/1713 - Release 10/7/2008 6:40 PM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 8, 2008 Report Share Posted October 8, 2008 I just rented a movie from the library called Prepared to Survive and it might be better for you in my opinion than into the wild b/c it is not a movie it is more of a documentary instructional video with some experts and a lot of tips on how to survive in the wild. Into the Wild is a great movie but it is emotional and not full of advice on surviving the wild. There is also a great fieldguide flip book for the pacific nw that is full of what is edible and what is not it is very descriptive and well written. We have thought this would be fun so we are obviously researching but since we have tots we will be saving this for next summer when they are out of cloth diapers. Good Luck and stay safe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 8, 2008 Report Share Posted October 8, 2008 suggesting " Into THe Wild " was not meant to be 'informational' but rather a wake up call that you really have to know what you are doing before you give living in the wild a go. C - Kristina Turner Wednesday, October 08, 2008 7:44 AM Re: wilderness survival I just rented a movie from the library called Prepared to Survive and it might be better for you in my opinion than into the wild b/c it is not a movie it is more of a documentary instructional video with some experts and a lot of tips on how to survive in the wild. Into the Wild is a great movie but it is emotional and not full of advice on surviving the wild. There is also a great fieldguide flip book for the pacific nw that is full of what is edible and what is not it is very descriptive and well written. We have thought this would be fun so we are obviously researching but since we have tots we will be saving this for next summer when they are out of cloth diapers. Good Luck and stay safe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 8, 2008 Report Share Posted October 8, 2008 I was not intending any offense Catherine I just was giving my opinion on an informative movie rather than an entertaining one. I think any of us has the capability with the right training and or education. Into the wild is a great movie based on some facts but the subject of that story might have benefited from some real survival education it is a sad story. Peace Kristina Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 8, 2008 Report Share Posted October 8, 2008 Hi Diane, Have you considered a minimalist bivouacking experience instead? That can be pretty fun and challenging in itself, and includes the practice of many wilderness survival skills. I quit learning and practicing living-on-the-land survival skills a long time ago because it is severely disrupting to the wilderness, and there is so little wilderness left. Making bedding out of sword fern fronds and a roof out of fir branches uses up a huge amount of vegetation quickly. This issue is magnified because most of the remaining wide open expanses of forest are at higher elevations where the vegetation grows slowly. A related problem is that most of the sources of nutritious food were in the Puget Sound lowlands where there aren't any wide open expanses of forest left. There never was much food for humans at higher elevations, except for huckleberry season, and that is pretty much over for this year. There is speculation that the Native Americans in the North American Pacific Northwest ended up on a food economy of trading and storing dried berries, camas bulbs, salmon, and jerky because even at very low population pressures there just wasn't enough food to be gathered each month of the year to support humans. Then, considering the focus of this discussion group, there is the problem that most of the high calorie food needed to be cooked or wasn't vegan. While there are lots of vitamins in dandelion greens, there are negligible calories, and doing survival training (especially now that winter is arriving in the higher elevations where the wilderness is) uses up huge amounts of calories. If a person isn't eating an adequate level of calories, and doesn't have enough body fat to supply them, the calories come out of muscle mass, which is hard to replace. A minimalist bivouacking experience puts a person closer to nature than most camping does and is challenging enough to be very satisfying when succeeding with it. Looking for corners, that are out of the wind and possibly out of the rain and fog drip, causes a person to see the landscape in a whole different way than when a person is looking for scenic picture possibilities. This way you are more part of the wild than living within a small cocoon of civilization within the wild. You can also see nature much better without the obstruction of a tent around you In the wet season, most people have a hard time starting and maintaining a fire, even if you give them several matches. When you get away from the popular areas, there is usually plenty of dead wood below the tree line. So building fires in low use areas is much less disruptive than making shelters out of found material or gathering food. Providing a fire is an essential part of surviving for the warmth, for disinfecting water, and for providing warm water to drink. Because of the calories gained though drinking heated water, doing this is an essential requirement for winter mountaineering. If a person is already low on calories or energy, drinking water that is near freezing significantly reduces a person's capability, and eating snow is a killer. Then there is the cheerfulness of a warm fire and drinking warm water, and the morale factor of this is huge. Many people try for world class, three course menus when backpacking, and in many ways this is a handicap for enjoying the wilderness. A person doing hard work in the woods in winter needs 3,000-5,000 calories a day. A pound of almonds is 3,752 calories and a pound of dates is 1,258 calories. Being a bit short of calories for one weekend isn't a huge issue, and drinking lots of water helps the body process the food more effectively and stretch the calories better. Eating small meals more frequently also helps stretch the calories. You might want to include a few figs and greens to help prevent constipation when living on a diet like this. Though greens don't provide much in calories, collecting them doesn't kill the plant if you leave some leaves behind, and this would provide useful minerals and living vitamins to supplement the dried food. Scurvy used to be a common fatal disease, so learning about wild crafting greens is a useful fallback strategy to know regardless of where you are living. Besides the fact that an almond/fig/date diet is 100% raw and vegan, it is quite freeing and empowering to subsist on food that can be carried in the pockets, and merely has to be chewed rather than prepared. It is even more important to be drinking lots of warm water when 100% of the food is dehydrated, and ideally some warm water is drunk while eating the dehydrated food. Another reason for getting an adequate amount of calories and warm water is that the most common factor in winter mountaineering fatalities is the loss of judgment and physical coordination due to hypothermia. A related factor in fatal accidents is the loss of judgment and physical coordination caused by dehydration because of how fast you dehydrate in cold weather. So this gets back to taking concentrated calories with you and drinking plenty of heated water. Taking a day pack with the 10 essentials, a couple pounds of dried food, a small folding saw (to make gathering firewood easier), a pot for heating water in, a few extra layers of head-to-foot synthetic fleece, a small piece of foam to provide insulation from the ground, and a bivy sack is a nice balance between surviving with nothing but the clothing on your back and a knife, and carrying a complete miniature version of civilization with you. It takes quite a while to build the skills, habits, and reflexes needed for roughing it in the wilderness (especially in inclement weather), and this is hard to pick up if you didn't grow up this way. Unfortunately, with most people growing up in metropolitan areas, most people don't have the experience to be able to judge their proficiency (or lack of it) in dealing with the wilderness on its terms. So I'd be pretty cautious about heading out with people who don't have a solid background in roughing it in the wilderness, and approach this project in incremental steps. This gets back to the advantages of a minimalist bivouacking experience. Here a link that will explain what I mean by a bivy sack used for bivouacking and it also talks a bit about Spartan minimalist wilderness experiences: www.rei.com/expertadvice/articles/bivy+sack.html Once you get good at bivouacking and fire building, you could try " hunting food " the same way photographers hunt wildlife with cameras. You could keep a log of how much of which kinds of food you find, and leave it growing where you found it. This would be good training for food gathering and give you an idea of how many calories you were able to find each day. If something is abundant, like berries in berry season, you could see how far you can stretch your dried food with gathered food. Possibly the greatest advantage to bivouacking with a bag of dried food is that it greatly decreases the time and energy spent on surviving and increases the time you have to be still and deeply listen to and watch nature, and to become part of it rather than just visiting it. In the long run, a deep foundation of becoming part of nature is the most essential wilderness survival skill because then you are working and flowing with it rather than fighting or resisting it. While working up to doing classical survival training in places like NE Washington and Idaho, where there are more woods than people, doesn't sound radical to me, I'm not very typical of most of the population either. I grew up playing games like " jump off the cliff into a snow bank " . The game was to see who could jump the farthest without getting hurt bad enough to get into trouble. After a childhood like this, the wilderness seems pretty easy and comparatively safe Since many people think living in a tent in a state campground is too radical (even if the campground does have running water and restrooms), you might get more interest in a bivouacking trip with a focus on learning woods skills than in a trip to do survival training and food foraging. Have you read " Mountaineering: the freedom of the hills, 7th edition " ? Whether you are going on a high-tech or low-tech trip to the wilderness, this is a great book for information on successfully traveling through the wilderness in all conditions, and has an extensive and useful bibliography. It also covers techniques and strategies for dealing with a wide range of contingencies, which is something most books gloss over or even avoid. Being prepared to successfully deal with contingencies helps guarantee successful and pleasant trips through the wilderness. May your day be filled with clarity, grace, strength, progress, and warm laugher, Roger - " Diane " <dicombs Tuesday, October 07, 2008 9:02 PM wilderness survival > Hey, is anyone interested in going out in the wilderness and > practicing survival? I was thinking it may be fun and educational to > go with a group of people who want to hone survival skills. Try to > live on wild edibles, building a shelter, etc.. I was thinking of > going for a weekend. I have been collecting information about this. > What do you think? Too radical? hehe > > > --- > > Visit the Seattle Raw Foods Community: http://.org! Groups Links > > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 8, 2008 Report Share Posted October 8, 2008 Wow, Roger!!! Fantastic information. If we ever have to survive in the wilderness, can I go with you? No kidding, great info and lots to think about. Thanks. Peace on earth. Cheryl - Roger Padvorac<roger < > Wednesday, October 08, 2008 1:25 PM Re: wilderness survival Hi Diane, Have you considered a minimalist bivouacking experience instead? That can be pretty fun and challenging in itself, and includes the practice of many wilderness survival skills. May your day be filled with clarity, grace, strength, progress, and warm laugher, Roger - " Diane " <dicombs<dicombs%40gmail.com>> < <%40>> Tuesday, October 07, 2008 9:02 PM wilderness survival > Hey, is anyone interested in going out in the wilderness and > practicing survival? I was thinking it may be fun and educational to > go with a group of people who want to hone survival skills. Try to > live on wild edibles, building a shelter, etc.. I was thinking of > going for a weekend. I have been collecting information about this. > What do you think? Too radical? hehe > > > --- > > Visit the Seattle Raw Foods Community: http://.org<http://.org/>! Groups Links > > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 8, 2008 Report Share Posted October 8, 2008 Hi Diane, The Wilderness Survival School in Duvall is a great resource with a long track record (the founder is a student of Tom Brown, aka " The Tracker " ) of teaching people how to survive in the wilderness. The Neighborhood Forager by Robert K Henderson is a good resource with a little more urban bent that allows you to practice close to home but still practical for forest foraging. Mountaineer Books have a number of survival and foraging books. FYI, next year we, Doug Walsh (raw hiker of both the Pacific Crest and Continental Divide Trails, climber of Colorado's 100 highest mountains, 5 year professional hiking guide in Hawaii, Living Light and Tree of Life trained raw chef), Samantha Lewis (long time instructor at The Wilderness Survival School, veteran of living off the land for 2 years in eastern Washington), and myself (a long time backpacker, climber, kayaker, mountain biker) will be creating 1 to 7 day Raw In The Wild experiences in the Pacific NW, Colorado and Hawaii focusing on deepening our appreciation and oneness with nature while learning foraging and other survival skills (all the while enjoying awesome raw food & company). Reply to me if you want to be put on our notification list to hear when we start sending out more details. Tom Armstrong _____ On Behalf Of Diane Tuesday, October 07, 2008 9:02 PM wilderness survival Hey, is anyone interested in going out in the wilderness and practicing survival? I was thinking it may be fun and educational to go with a group of people who want to hone survival skills. Try to live on wild edibles, building a shelter, etc.. I was thinking of going for a weekend. I have been collecting information about this. What do you think? Too radical? hehe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 9, 2008 Report Share Posted October 9, 2008 Thanks Tom, I would like to be put on the list for notification. That sounds exactly what I am looking for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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