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Location: where you sip the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nor'Eastah
This "mountain man" stuff is great for dreaming, but for hard-core reality, most people require a shelter of some sort, a way to get and purify water, and some food put by. They could survive without too much else. To suggest that everyone will either learn to do with nothing but "skills", or perish, is insane. Yes, you DO need some skills, the more the better, but you will be much better off with some gear, as well.
The OP has illustrated some gear for outdoor camping or backpacking, which is not suitable for surviving in a SHTF scenario. It just won't last (and I realize that this was the point, made by others). Becoming a refugee is virtually a guarantee of death. "Mountain man" skills or not, a refugee is not what you want to be for any prolonged period of time. The whole idea of a retreat, with smaller outbuildings on a sizeable lot or acreage, is to provide folks with primary, secondary, and possibly tertiary shelter, so that they can remain on their own land, in one of their own buildings. Hopefully they will have spread out some gear among those buildings. All you would need is a fire in the primary residence, during the wrath of winter, and you'd be a refugee. Don't go there.
This is a very good post, except that it's possible for anyone to become a refugee, and that should be prepared for even if it's not the main focus. For example you may not be able to keep paying a mortgage or property taxes for some reason, and be forcibly evicted. Or civilization and its laws could end, and you might be thrown off your own land by some gang or rogue army unit that wants it. Or all your shelters could become destroyed by a wildfire.
So you should have some camping gear, and some backpacking gear. I define camping as being heavier, more substantial gear that needs to be hauled with a car, or a pack animal such as a mule or your wife. Backpacking gear on the other hand should be extremely light, limited, and meant for a bugout on foot perhaps to a friend, or at least to a warmer climate.
The primary place to find medium to high quality backpacking gear is at rei.com . There are several places to get quality heavier camping gear, among them cabellas.com .
A good example of the difference is in tents. A high end 3 person backpacking tent might cost over $500 but would usually weigh less than 10 lbs. backpacking tents at REI.com
Both of the latter are built to withstand heavy weather for years of use, while the REI tents are more for backpacking expediction of a few days or weeks in each year.
A survivalist would know how to construct a shelter quickly from natural materials found in the area ...... but that can be a little tricky, not always guaranteed success. In general everyone should have some primitive survival skills learned, just in case.
Location: where you sip the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
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Camping - and backpacking even more - need to be practiced occasionally, for a full week if possible. It's amazing the number of things you think would be important that aren't, or important things you didn't even think of while making your packing list.
By the way, perhaps the most important of the OP items is the sleeping pad - at least for a good night's sleep and morale (though Ray Jardine would disagree with me). It should be of very high quality (Thermarest is the gold standard). They make backpacking types and camping types, and the best place to find good quality ones is REI.com .
There should be a variety of firestarting equipment, from simple lighters, birthday candles, and wooden strike-anywhere matches, to the OP's magnesium spark device and fire paste. The candles, paste, or vaseline-soaked cotton balls are good as a sort of tinder for getting a fire going in wet conditions once they've been lit.
The first item on my list is a roll of TP in a plastic bag. My knife is always on my side. The rest is just skill and the desire to live.
The three most difficult things to create in a survival situation are (1) fire, (2) a cutting edge, and (3) cordage or rope. Some would debate the ranking of Numbers 1 and 2, but that's their choice. After all, it is quite difficult to determine which comes first.
Though I appreciate (and even understand) your position, ferretkona, I differ.
Location: where you sip the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
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My opinion is:
1. Shelter with insulation if it is wet (thick debris hut from surrounding materials). This comes before fire because it's not always possible to get a fire going before sundown - unless you judge the conditions are good for an easy fire.
2. fire - if there is plenty of dry wood around and you have a lighter or other, this would be first. Firemaking bows take more skill than most of us want to bother with, and need a knife to make - also even more unlikely to work in wet conditions.
3. camp near water
You can make tools such as "knives" from knapping rocks as our paleo ancestors did, if you're going to be out there a very long time, but it shouldn't be necessary if your bugout is temporary - say for example to walk out for a week to civilization. You can go a long time without eating (I'm assuming the knife is for making traps more quickly).
Like the ones taught to me by my father when I was 10 -14 years old?
I don't know what skills you have and I never met your father. If he did teach you bushcraft then great for you. Not all of us had fathers with such skills and must seek out knowledge on our own. Thankfully there are some willing to share knowledge and skills with other rather than simply degrade those not having similar life experience.
Location: where you sip the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
8,297 posts, read 14,157,672 times
Reputation: 8105
Oh, I just want to point out that you don't have to make a finely knapped knife for most purposes in survival. In this video, Cody Lundin simply uses a sharp bit of stone for butchering his packrat:
I don't know what skills you have and I never met your father. If he did teach you bushcraft then great for you. Not all of us had fathers with such skills and must seek out knowledge on our own. Thankfully there are some willing to share knowledge and skills with other rather than simply degrade those not having similar life experience.
If my words led you to think that I was degrading anyone, I need to re-examine my words. That was not my intent.
One may easily share knowlege in a forum like this. However, because it requires both demonstration and supervised practice, sharing actual physical skills is a different matter entirely. I think that generally (the occasional faux pas notwithstanding ), I have tried to share my knowledge with all and sundry. In other threads I have shared my personal priority system for wilderness survival (immediate life safety = minutes, adequate body temperature = hours, adequate hydration = days, and food = weeks). In this thread I mentioned the three most difficult things to fabricate/create in the wild -- a cutting edge, fire, and cordage. I did NOT say that they were universally the most important; I said they are the most difficult to fabricate. There is a difference.
I also mentioned that the most important survival tool is an alert and prepared mind. If one is in the woodlands of the Gulf Coast in August, for example, the alert and prepared mind knows that field-expedient "cordage" is easily found. Fire is probably not important for warmth, but its smoke may be vital -- to keep the millions of mosquitoes at bay.
Now, should one find oneself in west-central Nevada in January...
Last edited by Nighteyes; 12-15-2011 at 10:17 AM..
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), I have tried to share my knowledge with all and sundry. In other threads I have shared my personal priority system for wilderness survival (immediate life safety = minutes, adequate body temperature = hours, adequate hydration = days, and food = weeks). In this thread I mentioned the three most difficult things to fabricate/create in the wild -- a cutting edge, fire, and cordage. I did NOT say that they were universally the most important; I said they are the most difficult to fabricate. There is a difference.
