Category: Outdoor Survival

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 …


Tactical Movement in a Post-TEOTWAWKI World

One of the most inevitable situations that you will find yourself in a WTSHTF situation is moving across a landscape of some kind. In the Army we always move with a “battle buddy” and of course a weapon. As I suggest both, this is not always the case. Having someone to help you and watch your back is great, especially if they are military trained. In a WTSHTF scenario, a weapon (with ammo) is priceless. What else is priceless is the knowledge of how to keep yourself alive. We will explore each avenue and its risks. The first part of …


Outdoor Survival–The Basics, by Alan B.

Your car broke down on the side of the road, miles from help. You didn’t even bring an heavier jacket, because you figured you wouldn’t even be getting out of the car. Your cell phone batteries dead or has no signal. You have no choose but to walk for it. It’s only 50 degrees out there. That 50 degrees is now going down to 30 as the night comes on. In the morning they found you all huddled up in a ditch, trying to get out of the wind. They took your body off to the morgue and they called …


The Forgotten Skills, by Andrew C.

First please allow me to give you a little background on myself. I have been preparing for TEOTWAWKI for about nineteen years but I have focused (until recently) on wilderness survival. I even managed to get a book published on how to survive when you get stranded in the middle of nowhere (it is called What We Forgot a lesson in survival). About a year ago I heard about this site while I was listening to Coast to Coast one night and I was so thrilled to find out that I was not alone in my thinking. Since then I …


Learning Traditional Skills, by R.I.P.

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There is only one sure thing about plans: at some point they have a good chance of failing. Not necessarily because the plans were faulty, but because it is nearly impossible to plan for everything. The universe has a way of ensuring that we get to experience the widest range of possibilities. So what if, after all your preparing, storing food, water, fuel, fortress etc., etc, what if you suddenly do not have access to all of that? We don’t have to go through all the ways that this might happen, I’ll let your imagination work on that. So, could …


Lighting a Fire Under Myself, by Matthew B.

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” – Robert A. Heinlein Heinlein’s quote leaves me feeling about half an inch tall and roughly the length of a worker bee. I was raised to trust God, not government, and my education through …


Product Review: The Don’t Die Out There! Card Deck

The Don’t Die Out There! Card Deck is one of the card decks that doubles as an information source, in this case, on disaster response. It’s printed on very sturdy plastic coated stock, about twice as heavy as typical decks, but the same overall thickness. It’s well organized, with each suit covering different areas–Diamonds: survival essentials, signals, navigation and shelters. Spades: situational assessment, evac techniques, water, fire and food. Hearts: First aid, environmental and medical concerns. Clubs: CPR, severe trauma and evacuation of the injured. The Aces serve as indexes, and Jokers as forewords. It’s a handy pocket survival book …