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  1. #21
    Registered User shelterbuilder's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Weasel View Post
    "Don't 'Be Prepared' for emergencies. 'Be Prepared' to avoid them."

    - Douglas C. Wolfe, SM T106, Clinton Valley Council BSA

    In my experience, those who want to learn "how to survive in the woods" are often survivalist wannabees, who are secretly hoping for a disaster so they can show off their honkin' big survival-knife-with-compass-and-matches-and-fish-hooh-and-bandaid." You don't learn how to "survive" in the woods: You learn how to live there. In dry times, when water is scarce, or snowy times, when you might be stranded, or times when you (or a friend) is injured or otherwise. Those are simply learning skills for an environment, much as one learns how to "survive" in school, or work, or a new town. If you're going into the woods - or the desert, or mountains, or plains - at a particular time, you learn the skills that you need for shelter, food, water, and safety, and then go forth. The rest - skinning snakes and all the other TV adventures - can await the apocalypse that "survivalists" appear to crave so mightily.

    TW
    Tom Brown (and others of like mind) teaches survival from the viewpoint of the Native Americans, who lived in harmony with (and WITHIN) nature. To the Native Americans, nature was not something to be conquered or overcome...nature was that great storehouse of supplies from which you took what you needed to live, with an "attitude of gratitude". With apologies to Bear Gryllis, I think that old Tom is onto somethin' here....

    WOO - I'll PM you later, I'm out of time right now.
    Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass - it's about learning how to dance in the rain!

  2. #22

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    actually my survival knife can be alot of things. my friend redwolf can cut a pressurized popcan stove out in 5 minutes with a hangnail. hes done it with a staple as well. survival is knowlage and a worthy pursuit. makeing a birchbark torch is alot of fun. makeing fire from ice formed into a convex lense is amazing. but the self relience is a deeply moveing spiritual vehical takeing us back to our roots that we might bloom the better.

    never met a guy down on survival before.
    matthewski

  3. #23
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    Survival skills are like first aid training. Hope you never need to use them but nice to have. I would focus more on edible plants to help supplement meals. Wild ramps spiced up numerous of my back country meals. Numerous berries helped along the way, along with countless other plants. Tom Brown has an excellent book "Edible & Medicinal Plants" although pics are just drawings.

  4. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by couscous View Post
    "A backpacker shouldn't need to know how to rub two sticks together for fire, flag down a passing plane, snare rabbits or cook without pots. He's supposed to have all the essentials on his back and be prepared to travel through the country he has chosen to visit." - Robert S. Wood / March 1982 .. author of the 2oz Backpacker
    I carry what I need in the pack, but having survival skills is common sense. Basically, it is like gambling, but you die if you lose.

    The best one I used was "The SAS Survival Handbook" by John Wiseman. I bought that book and went through everything in it over and over until I got really good, other than catching rabbits in snares and a few other things.

  5. #25
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    SAS covers more than is needed for surviving on the AT, as many others do, best bet would be to read multiple books. if you need to take anything with you rip the pages out for first aide and knot tying to take along. you probably dont need to know how to survive at sea if you're hiking in the mountains, and i doubt you'll need to know how to find water in the desert either. solar stills, camp craft, etc are just good all around knowledge.
    Now I see the secret of making the best person, it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.
    --Walt Whitman

  6. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by 10-K View Post
    Ok, it's Sunday - how about a compromise?

    Can we agree that you should know *basic* survival skills such as how to build a fire, what hypothermia is and how to prevent it, etc. but you can probably skip *advanced* survival skills which include snaring small animals, making solar stills, knowing about edible plants and such.
    This sounds right to me.

    Best book but dated: Horace Kephart, Camping and Woodcraft, http://www.amazon.com/Our-Southern-H...1074310&sr=8-1
    It dates from the days when the Smokies were wilderness and not a park.
    Some of the woodcraft can't be done anymore except on your own property, don't trench tents, etc.

    Supplement this with readings on the AMC or ADK websites on how not to die in the northern mountains and readings on hypothermia and cold injuries.

  7. #27
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    Sorry, link to wrong Kephart book. It should be http://www.amazon.com/woodcraft-hand...1075501&sr=1-2
    If you search you can find it free online.

  8. #28

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    After hearing hair-raising tales of my travels to Africa and Bolivia my poor mother bought me this book:

    "Come Back Alive--The ultimate guide to surviving disasters, kidnappings, animal attacks, and other nasty perils of modern travel" by Robert Young Pelton, 1999

    Pelton has the credentials to write a book like this, and it lives up to it's title. As others have said the best advice if to avoid bad situations, and Pelton says this as well ("If you need to use your survival skills, you've probably already screwed up").

    For potential AT hikers, he has a lot to say about hypothermia, defense against human and animal attacks, finding water, water treatment, navigation, fire making, use of money, quite a bit of info on gear, and he writes some interesting things about fear and adventure. The book is humorous, in a droll gallows humor kind of way.

    I recommend the book.

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