One thing

[WHT_MTNMAN]

I've also been somewhat intrigued by survival and have found the only thing I would ask for is a good strong knife. Preferrably one with a strong tip, straight/serrated edge, like this one.

 

SOG KNIVES

 

With a knife you can make fire without matches, strikers etc... just good ol rubbing two pieces of wood together.

[r p coulter]

I do have a personalizes first aid kit and a emergency survival kit but I would never grab those without also grabing a good strong sharp knife.

[DesertBull]

Jim Beam

[azpackhorse]

depends on where I was, down south here you don't need nutt'n......you can find just bout anything you need hang'n in trees or down in washes..........especially black garbage bags

 

I would have to say phone, then a very close second would be no doubt SKOAL

[singleshot]

I keep a canvas klien tool pouch with survival gear. Whenever I change packs I just throw in that zippered pouch and I'm good to go. I keep three of the cheap 99 cent ponchos a heavy duty garbage bag, space blanket etc. For fire starter try taking a cardboard egg carton and stuffing the egg holes with lint from your dryer. Pour on melted parafine wax and you have a dozen individual fire starters that will put out an intense flame in any weather for about twenty minutes. My pouch ends up being kinda heavy at about a pound and a half but it's proven itself on an inky black rainy night in the New Mexico forest. Thats another story.

[Outdoor Writer]

I wrote the following in 1990. It sort of provides a clue as to what I think is important. -TONY

 

********

Copyright by Tony Mandile

 

ONE-DOG NIGHT

 

 

Thirty years have passed since my first venture into Arizona's great outdoors. During that time I've had both some good and bad experiences. Thankfully, most have been of the former variety.

 

One experience I never had was getting lost. Oh, I had times when I was slightly "turned around," but none where I had absolutely no clue as to my location. Consequently, I've never spent a night away from my main camp unless it was intentional -- with at least a basic supply of necessities. Like most of us probably do, though, I frequently wondered how I'd handle it.

 

My late grandfather indoctrinated me early about the perils of being unprepared if it becomes necessary to spend the night away from camp. So I committed myself to carrying matches, an extra candy bar or two and water in areas where it is scarce. Under the right circumstances a person can live many days without food or water other than in the hot desert. So the candy and water were simply feel-good conveniences. But the matches seemed the most important to me.

 

We often read stories about people getting lost and dying. These accounts continually upset me, especially when the victim had spent only a night or two in the woods. I always wondered how someone becomes a casualty in such a short time. Yet it happens too many times every year.

 

Most folks who get lost and die usually succumb to hypothermia, the medical name for exposure. Characterized by a rapid lowering of one's body temperature and uncontrollable shivering, it soon causes disorientation and a loss of energy. Death is the final consequence. Hypothermia frequently follows panic, a common occurrence when a person becomes lost. Of course, it's very disheartening because the tragedy can be avoided if a person keeps his head on straight.

 

About five years ago on a lion hunt with Joe Mitchell in the Mazatzal Wilderness Area near Rye, I finally found out what's it like to spend a night in the wilderness alone without any food, water or equipment.

 

We had cut a fresh cat track early that morning and had followed the yipping hounds for six hours. Eventually, that track crossed another set. The dogs, confused by the second track, split into two groups. I trailed one bunch, while the guide followed the other. At sunset, my group of dogs had disappeared somewhere in the wilderness. I dropped off the ridge into the canyon where Mitchell had been about an hour earlier. He was gone, too, and everything had gone quiet.

 

Realizing it was at least a five or six-hour uphill hike to camp and thinking I could make it before midnight, I stumbled through the darkness along the meandering trail. Bad decision. Along the way, I swore at myself several times for forgetting the flashlight I had diligently set aside to put in my daypack. It remained on my desk at home, where I had left it.

 

I lost the trail three different times when it crossed the stream bed, got smacked in the face by an unseen branch and had more than one prickly pear cactus deposit its spines in my shins. I decided hiking in the dark without any moonlight was not my thing.

 

Thoughts flowed readily, but panic was not among them. Instead, everything I had read or been taught about this kind of situation came to mind. At that point, I decided I was spending the night in that canyon.

 

Although I knew where I was, my camera, a .357 handgun, butane lighter, a few six-inch square shards of black roofing paper, a candy bar, a light rain jacket and one of those reflective-silver Space blankets made up my meager supplies. Still, about the only panic came from the realization of having only three cigarettes. I knew I had to ration them to make it through the night and part of the next morning.

 

I began looking for a protected place on the trail with enough nearby firewood to get me through the night. Such a place existed only a few yards farther up the trail under a big cottonwood. A large fallen branch from the same tree, though rotten and a bit damp, offered plenty of firewood, and the light from my cigarette lighter revealed enough dry kindling nearby to sustain the wet wood. After building a fire ring out of rocks on some level ground, I gathered enough small wood to get a blaze started, stacked it on top of a piece of tar paper and lit it. A cloud of black, smelly smoke rose as the flame grew. When the kindling began to crackle, I added a few larger pieces to the pyre to sustain it while I broke the rotten log into smaller chunks and stacked them outside the fire ring. The pieces would dry from the heat of the fire, providing me a continuous supply of larger chunks to burn.

 

The warmth from leaping flames helped thwart the growing chill of the March evening. Hungry and weary from hiking around the up-&-down wilderness all day, I ate half of my candy bar and saved the rest for breakfast. I then cleared a "bed" next to the fire within easy reach of the drying wood. With my rolled up daypack tucked beneath my head and the Space blanket covering my torso, I snuggled up beside the now blazing fire and savored a few puffs from one of my three cigarettes.

 

A few minutes later, a noise that sounded like something walking through dry leaves came from the blackness. Just as I reached for my handgun, one of Mitchell 's hounds wandered into the light of the fire. I let out a sigh of relief.

 

"Here, Jake," I called.

 

The hound moved warily toward me, then stopped several feet away, moved to edge of some oak brush and laid down on a bed of fallen leaves.

 

Thinking it was nice to have company anyway, I shrugged and said, "Suit yourself. See you in the morning."

 

I turned, facing the fire, and tried sleeping again but worried about Joe and what he would think. No doubt he might imagine the worst. Just then, the sound of rustling leaves made me look over my shoulder.

 

Jake, with head lowered, cautiously crept to where I lay, circled once and then lowered himself to the ground and pushed up against my back. Providing a bit of body heat for each other, my canine buddy and I went to sleep.

 

Over the next 11 or 12 hours, I woke often to awaken the flames with a fresh supply of wood from the dead tree. And each time, I lay back down, Jake wiggled his body closer to mine until he finally managed to get under the blanket, as well.

 

The next morning, after the five-hour uphill trek, Jake and I reached the main road. I knew which direction I had to go but had no idea how far I was from the truck. A minute later I heard the whine of an ATV. As the three-wheeler came around a bend, the driver spotted me and stopped.

 

"Are you Tony?" he asked.

 

"Yes."

 

He then told me he was Mitchell?s dad and had arrived the previous night."Joe called me and said you might be lost. He drove down to Rye this morning because he thought you might come out that way. Did you have a bad night?"

 

"Well, I could use a cigarette and a sandwich. But other than that, I'm fine. I spent the night with a warm fire in front of me and a warm dog behind me."

 

The man smiled. "Oh, you had a one-dog night, huh? Hop on."

[WFGinNM]

To stick with the topic I would have to say some way to start a fire, and Ibuprofin. The Ibuprofin helps the knees so I can still walk, and also wards off any migraine headaches that might arise due to lack of food, sleep.

 

Outdoor Writer,

Your post described quite a few nights following my dogs here in NM. It's amazing how a dog curling up and pressing into the small of your back can warm you up.

 

--Bill

[.270]

bullwidgeon-inflatable sheep

casey-inflatable banjo

me-inflatable .270

[KGAINES]

I think a lot of these are great and it is probably something that makes you feel a little more comfortable while outdoors. To those of you that have had trouble or spent the night when not wanting to, when you look back what was most important.

I will also say that when it comes to things that I trust the least that I carry when it comes to survival are, flashlights, cell phones, gps, or maybe just any battery powered tool, I carry every single one of them in my pack, but I don't trust them in an emergency, batteries go dead and I carry plenty of spares, but it seems to me that when you need these items they let you down. I would pick a compass over a gps, a lighter or matches over a flashlight, and even though cell phones work better now than ever before batteries and signal are always suspect when outdoors, not to mention that not all of them are waterproof.

[Outdoor Writer]

To those of you that have had trouble or spent the night when not wanting to, when you look back what was most important.

 

No question: my cigarettes. Now I always carry a spare pack or two even when I think I'll be back in camp in a couple hours.

 

Now seriously, for me, having the ability to build a fire was most important. It would have been a long chilly night without it. Of course, if I was lost, per se, something else such as a GPS or compass or map would have mattered more. But I still would have needed the fire, regardless. -TONY