Personal survival kit
-
Snake River Marksman
- 3 point
- Posts: 382
- Joined: Sun Mar 11, 2007 11:52 am
- Location: Etna, Wyoming
Personal survival kit
There are lots of commercial ones around. If you go the the NRA store web site, they sell one for around $15.00 dollars (last I checked) which is where mine started off. The case it comes in is usually sold for more than $15.00 so it is a bargain. That's what I had in my pocket, plus some extras that I threw in the case. The problem was, the case came right out of my jacket pocket while I was in the river, and I didn't have it when I needed it, once I was OUT of the river.
This is about PERSONAL SURVIVAL, so PERSONALIZE your kit. I mean, if you have meds you HAVE to take, or HAVE to have near you, (epi pen, benadryl, nitroglyerin?) put in as much of that as you feel is necessary.
What I needed Friday night, and upon reflection would probably most likely need again, would have been a dry shelter, and a fire. Now I know how to make a debris shelter and all that but with the rain and snow falling, and everything dripping wet, I would have needed something to put over me while I worked at getting some dry tinder together to get the fire going. Half of one of those $2.00 space blankets would have been perfect, and it can be folded and rolled till it would have fit into a match container along with some matches, a boy scout sparker and some dry tinder like dryer lint coated in wax. A kitchen size garbage bag would have worked too. I doesn’t have to be either high tech or “cool” And boys and girls trust me when I tell you that I will be carrying those very things, IN MY POCKET when I go to the woods next. Not just on hunting trips but ALL THE TIME.
OF EQUAL IMPORTANCE to having that kit ON YOU, is having told someone one RESPONSIBLE, where you are going to be, and when to call search and rescue. One of the first rules of diving : Plan the dive. Dive the plan. DON’T DEVIATE! At least not without notifying your home guard. Someone has to know where to start looking. It’s kind of a pain in the rear, especially for a guy like me that sort of feels like that is constraining me some, but it would have made a world of difference if Billy and I had ended up on the same, wrong side of the river. At least we would only have been looking at 26 hours before someone came looking, and not almost 72 when we didn’t show up for work on Monday. Of course by then we’d have tried to walk out over the ridge, through a foot of snow. I shudder to think how that would have been. Especially if we couldn’t get dry. It snowed, rained, and the wind blew like mad at times on Saturday, those are DEADLY conditions if you are wet, even at just 40̊F.
You can get real creative about this. Ever see those M&M pop top containers at the store? They’re about an inch in diameter and about 3 inches tall? They’re water resistant for about half an hour or so of full submersion. I tested one once just to see. They’re a little bigger than your average match case so you can fit a couple more ways to start a fire into them, and the space blanket, plastic sheet, shelter whatever, fits in better. They’re cheap, and you get to eat the candy!
Dryer lint makes great fire starter, and a quick dunking in barely melted wax makes it water proof. Wad it up into marble size balls, dunk it real fast in and out of the wax, and it is water tight sealed, break it open and the inside is still fluffy enough to catch a spark from the boy scout sparker. Soak it too much, and you have trouble catching that spark.
Do you carry your cell phone hunting with you? Is it in a pouch, like the one Nite Ize sells (find Nite Ize at Lowes)? Can you stick a sparker, or a wind proof, waterproof lighter in it? Maybe a sandwich baggie to cover your tinder as well, how about a small whistle? My cell doesn’t work in most of the places that I hunt, but you know what? I grab it out of habit. What if some survival gear came with it? I had the phone with me on the river Friday night. Even had a Victrinox classic pocket knife in the cell holder. But not any of the other stuff. I do now!
By the way, I could hear the SAR guys talking on the other side of the river as they cast their lites up and down the shore looking for me. I used the back light on my GPS as a locator beacon for them. The GPS was on my belt, in one of those handy Nite Ize pouches, that had all those empty spaces where the fire starters are now.
Garmin E trex Legend, proven waterproof, by yours truly! FWIW
SUMMARIZED:
You need to be able to get or keep warm and that basically means a fire. At least three ways of making a fire on your person at all times. And PRACTICE doing it. Especially in WET weather. It seems basic and easy, but sometimes that just isn’t so.
Shelter: If it is raining or snowing or foggy or whatever, you are at least going to need enough shelter to get your fire through those first tender moments. After that, having a dry place, even if it is just you, sheltered under a plastic bag, protected from that life stealing 2 mph wind (that’s right I said 2mph)can mean the difference between a rescue mission and a recovery effort.
Personal meds. You know what you have to have, keep it ON YOU.
Water:
I haven’t touched on this because it wasn’t an issue for me Friday night. Assuming I could keep hypothermia at bay, I could have walked out of there in less than two days, and I would have drank surface water and dealt with any intestinal consequences later. A couple of purification tabs like they sell in the camping section at walmart or any other place where outdoor gear is sold would take care of the issue as long as you could collect and hold it in your space blanket half or your plastic bag or what ever, if you needed to do so.
Remember that this is PERSONAL survival. Think about where you go, what you do, and what you would NEED. Most of these things start out as essentials and end up being full of nice to haves. And then they end up in a pack, instead of a pocket, and then they end up floating down river with the rest of the gear! A fire, and some shelter, and probably some water, and they will most likely find you miserable, but alive!
If you want way more info go to
http://www.knifeforums.com and scroll way down to the OUTDOOR SURVIVAL FORUM.
This is about PERSONAL SURVIVAL, so PERSONALIZE your kit. I mean, if you have meds you HAVE to take, or HAVE to have near you, (epi pen, benadryl, nitroglyerin?) put in as much of that as you feel is necessary.
What I needed Friday night, and upon reflection would probably most likely need again, would have been a dry shelter, and a fire. Now I know how to make a debris shelter and all that but with the rain and snow falling, and everything dripping wet, I would have needed something to put over me while I worked at getting some dry tinder together to get the fire going. Half of one of those $2.00 space blankets would have been perfect, and it can be folded and rolled till it would have fit into a match container along with some matches, a boy scout sparker and some dry tinder like dryer lint coated in wax. A kitchen size garbage bag would have worked too. I doesn’t have to be either high tech or “cool” And boys and girls trust me when I tell you that I will be carrying those very things, IN MY POCKET when I go to the woods next. Not just on hunting trips but ALL THE TIME.
OF EQUAL IMPORTANCE to having that kit ON YOU, is having told someone one RESPONSIBLE, where you are going to be, and when to call search and rescue. One of the first rules of diving : Plan the dive. Dive the plan. DON’T DEVIATE! At least not without notifying your home guard. Someone has to know where to start looking. It’s kind of a pain in the rear, especially for a guy like me that sort of feels like that is constraining me some, but it would have made a world of difference if Billy and I had ended up on the same, wrong side of the river. At least we would only have been looking at 26 hours before someone came looking, and not almost 72 when we didn’t show up for work on Monday. Of course by then we’d have tried to walk out over the ridge, through a foot of snow. I shudder to think how that would have been. Especially if we couldn’t get dry. It snowed, rained, and the wind blew like mad at times on Saturday, those are DEADLY conditions if you are wet, even at just 40̊F.
You can get real creative about this. Ever see those M&M pop top containers at the store? They’re about an inch in diameter and about 3 inches tall? They’re water resistant for about half an hour or so of full submersion. I tested one once just to see. They’re a little bigger than your average match case so you can fit a couple more ways to start a fire into them, and the space blanket, plastic sheet, shelter whatever, fits in better. They’re cheap, and you get to eat the candy!
Dryer lint makes great fire starter, and a quick dunking in barely melted wax makes it water proof. Wad it up into marble size balls, dunk it real fast in and out of the wax, and it is water tight sealed, break it open and the inside is still fluffy enough to catch a spark from the boy scout sparker. Soak it too much, and you have trouble catching that spark.
Do you carry your cell phone hunting with you? Is it in a pouch, like the one Nite Ize sells (find Nite Ize at Lowes)? Can you stick a sparker, or a wind proof, waterproof lighter in it? Maybe a sandwich baggie to cover your tinder as well, how about a small whistle? My cell doesn’t work in most of the places that I hunt, but you know what? I grab it out of habit. What if some survival gear came with it? I had the phone with me on the river Friday night. Even had a Victrinox classic pocket knife in the cell holder. But not any of the other stuff. I do now!
By the way, I could hear the SAR guys talking on the other side of the river as they cast their lites up and down the shore looking for me. I used the back light on my GPS as a locator beacon for them. The GPS was on my belt, in one of those handy Nite Ize pouches, that had all those empty spaces where the fire starters are now.
Garmin E trex Legend, proven waterproof, by yours truly! FWIW
SUMMARIZED:
You need to be able to get or keep warm and that basically means a fire. At least three ways of making a fire on your person at all times. And PRACTICE doing it. Especially in WET weather. It seems basic and easy, but sometimes that just isn’t so.
Shelter: If it is raining or snowing or foggy or whatever, you are at least going to need enough shelter to get your fire through those first tender moments. After that, having a dry place, even if it is just you, sheltered under a plastic bag, protected from that life stealing 2 mph wind (that’s right I said 2mph)can mean the difference between a rescue mission and a recovery effort.
Personal meds. You know what you have to have, keep it ON YOU.
Water:
I haven’t touched on this because it wasn’t an issue for me Friday night. Assuming I could keep hypothermia at bay, I could have walked out of there in less than two days, and I would have drank surface water and dealt with any intestinal consequences later. A couple of purification tabs like they sell in the camping section at walmart or any other place where outdoor gear is sold would take care of the issue as long as you could collect and hold it in your space blanket half or your plastic bag or what ever, if you needed to do so.
Remember that this is PERSONAL survival. Think about where you go, what you do, and what you would NEED. Most of these things start out as essentials and end up being full of nice to haves. And then they end up in a pack, instead of a pocket, and then they end up floating down river with the rest of the gear! A fire, and some shelter, and probably some water, and they will most likely find you miserable, but alive!
If you want way more info go to
http://www.knifeforums.com and scroll way down to the OUTDOOR SURVIVAL FORUM.
Stupidity is expensive
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horse sense
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MuleyMadness
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