I have just started a youtube channel about similar subject matter and
am creating this blog to discuss the same subject I've been thinking
about. you can check out my channel here
https://www.youtube.com/user/rocksthetrail
So who am I and what made me come to the conclusion that planning on
using survival skills in a SHTF situation is stupid?
I have been practicing wilderness survival and primitive living skills
for 16 years. I began as a child learning at a primitive living skills
summer camp I went on to work as a counselor there teaching wilderness
survival and primitive living skills. I went on to work as a wilderness
field instructor for a wilderness therapy program that focused on
primitive living skills and self sufficiency both for practical
applications and as a mind set. I made it to being a master wilderness
field instructor, the highest level of instructors. I have spent a total
of 4 years or around 1,460 nights sleeping in the woods. While I never
worked for BOSS or Tom Brown school I believe my experience has given me
a solid base to understand wilderness survival skills. I am confident
in my ability to survive with nothing more than some decent clothes on
my back, a knife and a metal water bottle. I stopped working as a field
instructor last April and am currently working as a mental health
professional. I am engaged to be married this summer and plan on
starting a family in the near future. As such the option to bug out and
live in the woods is no longer an option. As I have begun my journey to
being prepared some I have done some rethinking of my previous plan for a
SHTF situation and seen that it was based more on my ego and attempts
to derive identity from my wilderness survival skills rather than
logical or practical. Often when my students asked me what I would do in
a SHTF situation I would reply with something involving bugging out to a
wilderness location, living off the land setting up traps for the
"zombies" or other intruders and limiting myself to a .22 rifle for
hunting and protection.
This was based more in fantasy than reality. While I am confident that
if I needed to right now I could go out into the woods with minimal
supplies and survive for an indefinite period. However survive is the
key word here, I would be in a constant state of survival. looking for
food, building a camp etc. would consume all of my time. The more
supplies I would bring out with me the easier go at it i'd have. I've
carried a 90 pound bag over glaciers in Patagonia, it sucks, and that's
pretty much my limit. my car can hold even more and my house even more
than that. even If I were to build on awesome camp where I was
relatively comfortable there is no way it would be a defensible as my
home with equal amounts of time and effort put into security and hey I
can start working on home security now, I don't have to weight for SHTF
to go off into the woods and starting building something from tree
branches and cordage.
point #1 even if you have the skills to survive in the wilderness most
of you time initial time is going to be spent on thing that can easily
be stored in a house.
Ok so lets imagine SHTF, how many people have similar ideas that I did? A
lot and the wilderness survival industry tends to perpetuate these
ideas. lets take a quick look at Tom Brown, I loved his books when I was
getting into wilderness survival, however sometimes he writes things
like we found a nice spot to spend the night, in two hours we had debris
huts constructed, built a bowdrill from scratch and were about to roast
the two rabbits our dead fall traps had caught (not an actual quote but
he states similar things a lot in his books). I thought wow if I really
learn these skills I'll be able to do that. WRONG. I don't care who you
are or how fast you are with you skills in summer the fastest I have
ever made a debris hut is around 5 hours, I can construct a bow drill
set and get a fire going normally in 1-2 hours if the woods relatively
dry otherwise, sure I've busted a coal in 8 seconds but that was with a
set that I spent way longer than 2 hours constructing. As far as traps
go to catch 2 rabbits, especially using natural bait your probably going
to need well over 100 traps. Just setting these up is going to take you
at least 2 hours and that is if you have the traps already made and can
find a good location, lots of signs of small game, find a good sized
rock and get your trap up all in just a little over 1 minute. So Tom
Brown has magic survival skills that gives newer survivalist an
unrealistic picture of what it means to survive. In my experience most
simulated survival situation involve a good amount of being hungry and
cold. Now who knows what the wilderness is gonna be like post event,
lots of refugee and not too much food. Even if you can survive in the
woods now does not mean you will be able to post event. we just don't
know whats going to happen and how the country will respond. more to
come later
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