I wrote “Purpose in Survival” back in 2011 as part of a project I was working on. The concept is that we simply become human pinball’s bouncing off everything around us unless we establish a purpose for the actions we undertake. Why waste energy (calories) building a Lean-to or Debris Hut if we don’t need one for the conditions we are in? Hope you enjoy the article and that it may help you to effectively deal with situations you may encounter.

PURPOSE IN SURVIVAL

Those of us concerned with our futures, with survival, speak of many things, we assemble vast quantities food, water, fuel, tools, weapons, medical needs, various shelters, caches and the like, we study, we train, we evaluate, we plan and we act.

“Regardless of our skills and gear there is no point squandering resources.”

In some respects one has only to look to the founding and colonizing of North America to find many clues to the raw needs a group may have. Look at the explorers, the trappers, the military, look at those utilizing land grants, the gold rushers, the adventures and the pioneers. All suffered much in the proposition, some suffered all.

There are always the unknowns; plan and prepare as we will, yet we still cannot envision the varied and devious ways of man, nor can we begin to contemplate the disastrous effects of the natural world. The extremes to which we may find ourselves subjected seem as varied as the character of the human race.

In spite of all we know, and without regard to all our preparation, we will likely face at some time in the future a “beast” of a different form than we imagined in our minds as we planned for the adversity surely to come in the days and years ahead. Not so much a creature of flesh and blood, but an array of conditions consisting of people, weather, weapons, accident, war, famine, thirst, sickness and the like that combine to form that scenario by which our very nature is tested.

Purpose may well be the factor that determines our success or failure. It forms the broad expanse of our experience, leading us to examine ourselves, asking “what it the purpose of survival?” Is it for spouse and children, family; or is it for friends, for fame, or just the gut wrenching will to never give up.

Purpose also pecks it’s way into all the little details of our daily existence, like a hen scratching for food in the farmyard. Purpose is part of fire, and shelter, it is part of first aid and rescue, indeed it is part of all we do, that is, if we are looking for success.

AN EXAMPLE

“What is the Purpose of building the fire?”

A fire should never be built without taking a moment to ask yourself the question above. We spend so much time learning fire by bow drill, flint and steel, ferro rod, fire piston and so much more, but of what value is the fire if we don’t know it’s purpose?

A simple campfire may be one thing, where the fire is mainly for the benefit of socializing around with the group, yet still that is it’s purpose and should be considered as such. With the advent of difficult times, the question of purpose becomes ever more valuable, to preserve strength, to effectively use resources. Survival many times stretches people to the very limit, demanding far more out of them than ever seemed possible, many times the last breath is on it’s way as the rescue arrives. Any wasted effort may have tipped the scale just a bit too far, turning a rescue into a body retrieval; knowing purpose may make all the difference.

Consider this brief list of possibilities related to our example of fire

You look at your current situation and decide to build a fire, now before building it ask yourself this question, “what will be the purpose of the fire?”

•  I am a bit nervous, fire will comfort me
•  I need to purify some water for safe drinking
•  I need to cook a simple meal
•  There are several of us and we need to take the chill off the night
•  I need fire to assist in making some tools
• We may be here for a week or more, fire will be part of daily life
• It is bitter cold I need fire to heat my shelter and for cooking

These are just a few possible reasons for fire, by answering the purpose question it can be determined what type of fire should be built, or if it needs to be integrated into a shelter. We should ask the purpose question about all we do, it need not be an extensive laborious process, but enough to assure we are wise in our choices and that we don’t waste time, energy and resources.

Until next time this  is Perry Peacock, “Simplifying Survival”

Tips for a better Sleep at Camp

Last week my blog talked about Comfort Ratings of sleeping gear. The importance of it all is in reality comfort, and as I mentioned, if you are not sleeping, you are not comfortable. Over the years I have learned how to have a comfortable sleep, how did I learn this? From lots of uncomfortable nights trying to sleep. The problem is most people don’t give enough consideration to sleep, so it’s hit and miss. I have the gear to sleep well in virtually any condition, but lots of times I’m carrying minimal gear or testing something different. Since roughly a third of our lives are spent sleeping we should become very good at it. Quality sleep is especially important when away from home, such as out in the woods. Sleep is ultimately more important than anything else in a survival situation. That may seem like an odd statement to make, but it is nevertheless true. A couple years ago I did a blog on sleep deprivation, in my research I found that the effects of lack of sleep can be devastating, especially to the brain. Miss too much sleep and decision making can be impaired, reasoning nearly impossible, the effects can be deadly.

Getting to the heart of the subject, I want to list some of the factors that make sleep difficult, then some tips I have found that work for me to alleviate some of these. I touched on a couple things in last weeks blog, we’ll cover more in greater detail today. Here’s a list

•  Fear
•  Cold
•  No Mattress
•  Hot/humid
•  Mosquitoes/bugs
•  bumpy ground

Fear – fear of the unknown has caused many to lay awake all night, expecting the worst. Truth is, not much ever happens to most people, it’s the few we know about that put the fear into us. I think some of the TV programming adds to this unreasonable fear, with shows where everything that could go wrong does. What is there to fear, mostly people fear animals and creeping critters. Bears are one of the universal creatures that cause a lack of sleep. We should take the standard measures in dealing with food and such in bear populated areas, such as keeping food out of reach, eating in an area away from the sleeping area, beyond that don’t worry about it. People put a lot of faith in a tent which is no protection at all from a bear. I once camped with a group in which one of the members had never camped before in his life. We packed in to our camp spot high in the mountains. I helped some of the group get settled as we arrived at our camp after 10 pm. I was tired and just laid on the ground with a tarp over me. We were in a grove of large pine trees so the ground was thick with soft pine needles. I slept like a log. The new guy we found out the next morning hardly got any sleep at all. He lay in his new tent, fearing every noise, a small branch rubbing his tent became a bear. He finally got some sleep when he said to himself, Perry is out there just on the ground, if a bear comes around it will attack him first. Over the years I’ve slept in the desert, home to scorpions and snakes, in the southeast US with snakes and spiders and much more, never a problem. This is not to say something couldn’t happen, just that it usually doesn’t, most of our fears never come to pass. The more you camp the less fear you will have.

If you are cold, you will not sleep well, if at all. Most people who say they didn’t sleep well due to being too cold really have only one area that is cold, their feet. Solve that problem and you are good. Some things I’ve done for feet and the body in general over the years I’ll talk about next.

Keeping feet warm

•  Clean dry socks for bedtime, thick socks
•  Wrap a sweatshirt or sweater around them, or put them in a knit cap
•  Nothing tight around legs or feet, avoid reducing circulation
•  Hot rock from fire, must be cool enough to wrap in a towel, blanket, hoodie, or something to protect from burns
•  Water bottle with boiling hot water, pull a sock over the bottle to prevent burns

Keeping the body warm

• If ground is cold/cool elevate up off of it. Insulate between body and ground. Build up 8-12 inches of dry leaves, pine or juniper boughs, willows, reeds, small branches, or dry grass.
•  In winter weather, elevating gets you above the coldest air which settles to the ground
•  Build a long fire for a few hours, move the fire over removing all coals, add a layer of dirt and dry materials, then sleep on the warm ground.
•  If you build an elevated bed with poles and boughs, the whole underneath can be filled with hot rocks from the fire.
•  A row of hot rocks behind you when sleeping on your side can add lots of comfort, even if just behind the upper body
•  A cantaloupe sized hot rock nestled against the chest or abdomen can offer a great deal of comfort for 5 or more hours
•  One of my favorites that has less worry about burns is a stainless steel bottle like the Klean Kanteen 40 oz. Fill it with water, place by fire or on stove, bring to boil, put lid on. If too hot pull a sock over it. Cuddle up with it or put it down by your feet. If you sleep on your stomach you can put it between arm and chest or between legs. Used in this manner I will stay pretty cozy all night long.
• If you can sleep against a sizable fallen log, build a good fire a couple steps away and let the fires heat warm the log for a couple hours while doing other things. When you go to bed sleep close to the log, it will warm your back and the fire will warm your front. Tip-the colder the weather the closer the fire.

Sleeping when it’s hot and humid – In my years living in the Southeast US, I learned what for me was the most comfortable. I like to take a cotton bed sheet with me. When going to sleep strip down to underwear, then I take the sheet and drape over me. It seems to be more comfortable to me than just laying there with nothing over me.

Hammock sleeping-I don’t know if I even need to mention anything here as there is so much info out there.

•  I use our Poncho (PSS) as a hammock, I currently don’t own any other hammock. In cold or warm weather I often like the comfort of snapping in our fleece liner as it offers a pleasant layer between the body and the hammock fabric. I don’t have to do it, but it can make things even cozier.
•  In cool or cold weather I like to have a blanket inside the hammock, like our PSB survival blanket, then I wrap our large PSB (PSBL) around the hammock securing the head and foot ends closed with the included shock cord loops, the edge of the blanket can then overlap and hang over the side. I am totally enclosed and very comfortable.
•  An alternative if you have a sleeping bag that zips all the way down. Unzip it drape it over the hammock then zip up. Slide it down towards the foot end to get into the hammock, once in pull it up over you.
•  In rainy or very humid weather when using a tarp over the hammock be sure to pitch it away from the hammock enough that you are not always touching it. It will likely become damp with condensation. If you are able to, set up to allow a breeze to ventilate it. Pitch the tarp snugly to keep it off you.

Odds and Ends

• Although I’m generally a side sleeper, I have found it very comfortable to sleep on my stomach when sleeping on the ground. I never sleep on my stomach normally.
•  Most of my life I have fashioned a camp pillow from whatever I have and either folding or rolling it up. I have found a new luxury, I take a piece of soft foam about 14″ – 16″ wide and roll it up till about 8 or 10″ in diameter, it is heavenly all though plain and ugly looking.
•  One of the most important things to do for a good nights rest if you are not in a hammock, is to make sure where you lay is comfortable without anything bothersome or irritating under you. A good quality sleeping pad is well worth it since if where you lay is not comfortable your sleep will not be either. In the absence of a sleeping pad, a mattress of dry grass, leaves, pine or juniper boughs to a depth of around 12″ will do wonders.
•  Obviously if you are out during bug season, flies and mosquitoes can easily ruin what otherwise would be a good rest, in this case a good bug net can be invaluable.
•  In certain more extreme conditions it may be more practical to sleep in the day and stay up at night.

Well that’s a start and a few of many tips I could offer on how to obtain a good nights rest. Until next time this is Perry Peacock for “Simplifying Survival”

OK so now I’m really fired up, I just read a great article by Christian Noble over at Master Woodsman, the article or blog is about LNT or Leave No Trace. Chris documents the history and the results of this lifestyle, please read his article.

Here are a few points to consider

• I do not subscribe fully to the concept of Leave No Trace. Who says that’s the best way? In reality it is pretty hard to do.
• Lest you think I like to churn and burn my way through life, one of the the sights I hate the most is coming into an area where everyone who ever camped there from the beginning of time decided they needed to make their own campfire ten feet from the last one, what an ugly disaster.
• Another pet peave of mine is hatchet men, those who feel their whole week at camp must always consist of taking a hatchet and try to see how many trees in as wide a circumference  as they can manage they can mercilessly hack up. I made a video about this.
• Now let me get this one last thing out of the way. If you are capable of hauling stuff into camp, take what’s left back out with you. Don’t throw cans, bottles, wrappers all over, don’t leave wads of toilet paper everywhere, contrary to popular belief, it does not instantly degrade into top quality compost. I also made a video about cleaning up after ourselves.
• It is not ideal to celebrate on the 4th of July holiday (USA) by leaving the cleverly decorated red, white and blue beer cans all over creation.
• If you have brought a firearm with you, don’t think that you need to shoot up everything in sight, just to see what happens, be a little discreet about your target practice area. Clean up your shot up cans, bottles, plates, shoes, whatever it is, leave the area nice.
• I do not believe that if I happen to break a twig, the world will suddenly come to a screeching halt. As a former Master Gardener, I taught that proper pruning actually helps a tree be stronger, healthier, and more disease free, not that in the woods we are pruning trees to that end. The fact is, it does not hurt a tree to skim a few branches off, or to snap a few boughs to use as bedding.
  

  Some guys in front of Shelter built for rain

• Much of the time nature overproduces seedlings and young plants, an area may become a thick carpet of seedling trees, most of which over time will die out as competition for sunlight, water, and nutrients ensues. So, what if an area is loaded with eight foot tall pine saplings and I harvest a dozen for camp use? Is that going to harm the delicate balance of nature? I think not, it may help it.
• Do I go in and clear cut every single tree in a thirty foot radius? No I would usually take one tree where two are very close.
• I never use much of nature in areas that are heavily used by campers.
• Campfires seem to be one of the biggest offenders when it comes to ruining a pristine location. Keep fires practically sized, every fire doesn’t have to be a bonfire. If there is already a fire area in a location use it, don’t go start another nearby. Remember you don’t have to pile a dump truck load of rocks to make a fire ring, in fact you don’t really need rocks at all, at times they are useful for a particular style of fire, at other times, it’s just a pile of rocks. Many times I make a fire with no fire ring at all and when I’m done and the ashes are cold I can spread them around, they are fertilizer you know, when I’m done it’s hardly noticeable that I was ever there.

So common sense should come into play at some point, right? It is what makes things more simple without the need for hundreds of rules. We can easily adjust our activity based on the conditions. In a delicate area with sparse vegetation, a light footprint is called for, disturb very little. No one has to tell you this, you should know it instinctively. Much of the rest of the wilderness is filled with life, trees, flowers, animals; here you can use a little of the abundance to make camp life more comfortable. Using a little of nature while we are outdoors helps us to merge with it, creating wonderful life long memories. In a remote area, little used by others, make yourself a nice camp, one you visit often to get away, what’s wrong with that? I think there can be balance, we don’t have to go to the woods, feeling sterile, afraid to interact. I think instead of leave no trace, it should be more along the lines of, if you leave a trace, make it appropriate to the environment you are in.

Until next time, this is Perry Peacock for “Simplifying Survival”