Category: Outdoor Survival

Pareto’s Law and How I Survived a Real Disaster With a Survival Cache: Learning How to Learn, by David H.

In cold weather climate emergencies, one does not have the luxury of bumbling around with unfamiliar, time consuming, or downright questionable strategies for securing shelter, food and water. One’s gear must not be delicate or high maintenance, and one’s plan must be founded in strategies that have been thoroughly tested and improved upon. If one is ill-prepared or caught off guard, the cold will quickly strip away heat, water, and life.  Among some friends, there is a yearly tradition of heading to Quebec, over in Canada, where we go winter camping for about 2-3 weeks or so. Childhood friends now …


Desert Survival, by Amy H.

Every year, a group of my friends go on a week-long camping trip in a Nevada desert.  Sounds silly, right?  No trees, plants or animals, no running water. Not even roads–usually the nearest hospital is well over an hour away, sometimes two, and that’s if you don’t get lost by trying to cut across an impassable part of the desert trying to get to it.  But, it’s a good test to see if we can be self-sufficient for even just a week.  Also, in a bug out situation, some people may just find themselves having to cross through barren desert …


Basic Climbing Gear for Preppers, by T.F.

As preppers I think we all have the same mindset. If we did not, we would not be returning to SurvivalBlog on a daily basis, or stockpiling all the things we do. I am four months new to the blog and have always been a prepper at heart. With the blog, several things have been brought to my attention that I was lacking in my prepping. As these issues surface, I take immediate action either to correct them right away, or they make my very short “To Do” list. With that, I bring to your attention the need of some …


Lessons From Christchurch: Urban Earthquake Preparedness and Survival by Alex F.

Let’s be honest. Thinking about the end of the world is kind of fun. If it weren’t, there wouldn’t be so many post-apocalyptic novels, movies and television shows. Preparing for a relatively slow-moving Armageddon like a civil war or pandemic demands a lot of shopping which is an enjoyable pastime. However, as the grieving citizens of Christchurch, New Zealand attest, the most likely threats are also the most sudden, the least glamorous, and not fun at all. TEOTWAWKI may or may not happen in our lifetimes, but almost everyone has to deal with a natural disaster at one time or …


Letter Re: Off-Grid Living on an Alaskan Island

Hello, Many US military personal who serve on an isolated duty station, in effect live off grid.  For example I was in the U.S. Coast Guard and stationed at Cape Sarichef, Alaska for a year. [It is at the end of Unimak Island.]           We had three large Caterpillar generators.  We got our water from a reservoir that was filled from mountain runoff.  I would go the reservoir when needed and start a small hand pull pump (during the winter could take almost 30 minutes to get started.) This would pump the water along a buried pipe line, with …


Letter Re: A Vehicular Get-Me-Home Kit

I recently took a job that requires a short automobile commute of about ten miles into a nearby small city of 60,000. After a few months I finally got around to packing a ‘get home’ kit to store in my car. The city in question has very few routes out of it. My normal commute is on a highway that travels through a marsh/wetlands area. The other possible routes are along surfaces streets that lead out of the downtown area through very bad neighborhoods until breaking into suburban areas. In the event of a large scale emergency or ‘unrest’ in …


Letter Re: Tips on Wild Food Foraging

Jim: I just wanted to add a note to a well-written article. In addition to wild plant collection, I would seriously look to ornamental plants in the landscape as sources of both edible foods and medicinal plants. I currently work at a botanic garden and have been identifying and eating wild plants as well as ornamental ones for more than 20 years. I also teach plant identification. As your article points out, season is everything. I am confident that I could walk into the woods from May through September and probably not starve to death. Late Fall and Winter are …


Cold Weather Patrol Tactics and Techniques, by B.P. in Colorado

With the onset of widespread severe winter weather over most of the continental United States, I thought it prudent to share my experiences with cold-weather small unit tactical operations. A little about me: As part of my active duty Army career, I spent three years stationed in Alaska in a leadership position in an Airborne Infantry battalion.  During those three years, we spent a significant amount of field time in sub-Arctic conditions, my longest deployment being two weeks in a tactical field environment in the frigid interior at temperatures pushing -40 degrees.  Through these exercises, I learned a lot about …


Tips on Wild Food Foraging, by T.B.P.

From the time I was a young boy I have been fascinated with wild foods. The idea that there was food out there just for the taking made a connection with something deep inside of me. That something was mainly my stomach, which at that age always seemed to be a bit on the empty side. Since then I’ve spent years practicing the art of foraging along with studying a veritable mountain of books. The reason is simple: you never know when you’ll be out in the woods and find out your hiking buddy ate the last granola bar. I …


Building a Dry and Warm Temporary Shelter With No Tools, by Richard B.

Building a Dry and Warm Temporary Shelter With No Tools, by Richard B. If you ever find yourself in the wilderness without any hope of finding rescue in a day or more, you don’t have any camping equipment, fire starting tools  and no way of knitting a 0 degree sleeping bag before nightfall, you may need to build a shelter.  The only other alternative in cold weather is to sleep during the day and stay awake all night with a fire or continually move to stay warm.  In this type of situation, you may be there for multiple days, and …


Incorporating Preparedness into Your Everyday Lifestyle, by Mike M.

My foray into prepping began over a decade ago after I became hopelessly lost in the Adirondack Mountains.  My birthday falls on October 24th and on this particular year, the day was uncharacteristically warm.  I felt the urge to take advantage of my good fortune by scouting out some new area for the upcoming deer season.  Telling no one of my intentions that day, I jumped into my four-door beater sedan that I fondly called “The Kevorkian” and resolved to boldly go where no man had gone before.  I went off the beaten path and drove the Kevorkian down some …


Letter Re: Using Wild Yarrow

The Wild Yarrow, Achillea Millefolium, also known as Milfoil, Soldiers woundwort, Nose Bleed Weed, Sanguinary, and Devil’s Nettle is a very useful medicinal herb.       Growing Wild Yarrow: This plant makes a wonderful addendum to a domestic garden in the Spring. Although now cultivated and available everywhere in nurseries, there is still a quaint but practical feeling to include a wild species in a domestic garden for a feel of times past. Red and yellow varieties are used as ornamentals, but by far the most common variety is white. I think the colors are hybrids of the wild white species. Some cautions …


Letter Re: In Praise of Productive Dumpster Diving

JW,R:   Ever since I was a young’n, it has been hard for me to pass a dumpster or trash heap without investigating it.  I quickly learned that folks throw out a lot of good stuff, thinking it is worthless (someone said “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”); e.g. I’ve found appliances which only need a new electrical plug!  Nowadays, the same habit has greatly enhanced my prepping inventory, and best of all, it’s free, leaving more of my tight budget to buy store-bought items.  If you collect more things than you can use, the extras can be bartered, …


Surviving in Caves, by Caver X.

I got hooked on spelunking in the early 1990s in Tennessee. It was an adventure that would last for about 5 years and take me in several different caves including one that I went in between 35 to 40 times. There are basics to know when planning a cave trip and you need to have a good plan up front before starting out on your journey. I can’t say that I had them all right when I first started but I think my guardian angel kept me safe. Leave an Itinerary Make sure to get plenty of sleep the night …


The Disappearance of the Anasazi Explained, by Ben F.

Staring at the “Arrival: Imminent” message flashing on the screen of my Garmin Etrex, I stumbled into the canyon below the Banister Ruins cliff dwellings in Grand Gulch Utah at about midnight. I couldn’t be sure where I was, because darkness obscured the familiar landmark of the ruins. I dropped the 50-lb pack with 10 days of freeze-dried foods and other paraphernalia, marked the spot on the e-Trex GPS, and then tried to follow the shifting arrow to the spring that was supposed to be there.     Instead, I would confront an 800-year-old secret for which my technology would be no …