Hello All!!
Had an interesting trip this weekend and I thought I would give a quick overview.
So our local Search and Rescue group was doing an overnight training trip and I was asked to come along. There are a few rules on these trips that are designed to simulate an unplanned overnight experience in the bush.
1. No tent
2. No Sleeping Bag
3. No Blanket
4. No food outside of what is regularly in pack
5. Carry only tools and equipment you would normally have in your day pack.
Conditions at time of trip:
Temp. ranging from -1 degree Celsius to 5 or 6 above
Cloudy, sleeting rain, hail, some strong winds. Not sustained but gusting.
I was asked to go out in advance and find a suitable practice site. I drove about 35 kilometers from town, and crossed a large bridge to an isolated side of our large local river. I walked upstream through old growth forest until I found a suitable site. Vegetation consisted of devils club, some alder, and huge spruce, hemlock and cedar trees (1 to 2 meter diameter at the base)
I have been on these trips before and they always wind up being an exercise in endurance. Feeding a small fire every twenty minutes or so and waiting for the sky to show a hint of light. This time I was determined to try using larger wood with a long log fire to prolong sleeping times.
I built up a kochanski super shelter as per the directions in his shelters DVD. Here is the link to the video.
http://karamat.com/index.php/hikash...1/name-bushcraft-shelters/category_pathway-22
This took me at least an hour. Next the hunt for wood. I located a large cedar snag about 25 feet high. I always carry a 42 inch bowsaw blade in a small film cannister in my pack. I knocked up a frame from some dead wood (30 mins), and set to work on the snag. Even if it was half its size it would have been far too large for me to put my arms around, and it took a lot of axe (full size gransfors Scandinavian forest axe) and saw work to finally fall (Another 30 mins). When it did fall I saw that it was bone dry to the center. A further half hour of sawing and I had the giant slab cut into three pieces of roughly equal length. Bone dry cedar is light as a feather but these chunks were so gargantuan that the smallest of them weighed over 100 pounds. I struggled greatly and had all three pieces packed back to camp in another 20 minutes or so.
This is where I made my biggest mistake. I had worked hard for roughly three hours without stopping or even taking a drink of water. When I sat down on my bough bed my legs began to shake, and I felt light headed. My second mistake was to reach for my axe when I was in this condition. I tried to place the sheath on but in my clumsiness I touched the bit of the axe to the back of my hand. Even that slight touch opened up a 1 centimeter slice in my hand. There was some blood but it could have been far worse. I was so determined to obtain large firewood that I didn't pay attention to how I was feeling. The bushcraft gods were teaching me an important lesson.
I spent a little while resting and drinking water. After a while the rest of the group arrived and began to build shelters around the site I had chosen.
We lit up our fire some time around 11 p.m. The smallest of the huge cedar chunks was the first to go on. It took about 20 minutes to blaze up to it's full length but when it did there was heat and light in all directions. I remember thinking how easy we had it to have such a good night for our survival trip. That was until I left the camp to get some water by the river. By now it was dark, and wet icy rain was thrown around by gusting winds. I was instantly struck by how scary it would be to have to endure something like that without a fire. By our camp in the timber, 25 paces away, there was no rain or wind to speak of. It was all soaked up by the huge old growth forest.
We all retired for the evening, and I was surprised to be woken up by the voice of one of my comrades, 6 hours later. He was expressing amazement at the fact that the original cedar slab was still burning, and still throwing heat. We threw the second piece on the fire just the see. My friend had a thermostat in his "supershelter" and within 10 minutes the temperature in his shelter climbed to 45 degrees Celsius. We didn't need to add the third piece of wood to make it through the night.
I encourage anyone interested to look up variations of the supershelter on the internet.
(BTW, big medicine is the name for my 42 inch bucksaw blade)
Had an interesting trip this weekend and I thought I would give a quick overview.
So our local Search and Rescue group was doing an overnight training trip and I was asked to come along. There are a few rules on these trips that are designed to simulate an unplanned overnight experience in the bush.
1. No tent
2. No Sleeping Bag
3. No Blanket
4. No food outside of what is regularly in pack
5. Carry only tools and equipment you would normally have in your day pack.
Conditions at time of trip:
Temp. ranging from -1 degree Celsius to 5 or 6 above
Cloudy, sleeting rain, hail, some strong winds. Not sustained but gusting.
I was asked to go out in advance and find a suitable practice site. I drove about 35 kilometers from town, and crossed a large bridge to an isolated side of our large local river. I walked upstream through old growth forest until I found a suitable site. Vegetation consisted of devils club, some alder, and huge spruce, hemlock and cedar trees (1 to 2 meter diameter at the base)
I have been on these trips before and they always wind up being an exercise in endurance. Feeding a small fire every twenty minutes or so and waiting for the sky to show a hint of light. This time I was determined to try using larger wood with a long log fire to prolong sleeping times.
I built up a kochanski super shelter as per the directions in his shelters DVD. Here is the link to the video.
http://karamat.com/index.php/hikash...1/name-bushcraft-shelters/category_pathway-22
This took me at least an hour. Next the hunt for wood. I located a large cedar snag about 25 feet high. I always carry a 42 inch bowsaw blade in a small film cannister in my pack. I knocked up a frame from some dead wood (30 mins), and set to work on the snag. Even if it was half its size it would have been far too large for me to put my arms around, and it took a lot of axe (full size gransfors Scandinavian forest axe) and saw work to finally fall (Another 30 mins). When it did fall I saw that it was bone dry to the center. A further half hour of sawing and I had the giant slab cut into three pieces of roughly equal length. Bone dry cedar is light as a feather but these chunks were so gargantuan that the smallest of them weighed over 100 pounds. I struggled greatly and had all three pieces packed back to camp in another 20 minutes or so.
This is where I made my biggest mistake. I had worked hard for roughly three hours without stopping or even taking a drink of water. When I sat down on my bough bed my legs began to shake, and I felt light headed. My second mistake was to reach for my axe when I was in this condition. I tried to place the sheath on but in my clumsiness I touched the bit of the axe to the back of my hand. Even that slight touch opened up a 1 centimeter slice in my hand. There was some blood but it could have been far worse. I was so determined to obtain large firewood that I didn't pay attention to how I was feeling. The bushcraft gods were teaching me an important lesson.
I spent a little while resting and drinking water. After a while the rest of the group arrived and began to build shelters around the site I had chosen.
We lit up our fire some time around 11 p.m. The smallest of the huge cedar chunks was the first to go on. It took about 20 minutes to blaze up to it's full length but when it did there was heat and light in all directions. I remember thinking how easy we had it to have such a good night for our survival trip. That was until I left the camp to get some water by the river. By now it was dark, and wet icy rain was thrown around by gusting winds. I was instantly struck by how scary it would be to have to endure something like that without a fire. By our camp in the timber, 25 paces away, there was no rain or wind to speak of. It was all soaked up by the huge old growth forest.
We all retired for the evening, and I was surprised to be woken up by the voice of one of my comrades, 6 hours later. He was expressing amazement at the fact that the original cedar slab was still burning, and still throwing heat. We threw the second piece on the fire just the see. My friend had a thermostat in his "supershelter" and within 10 minutes the temperature in his shelter climbed to 45 degrees Celsius. We didn't need to add the third piece of wood to make it through the night.
I encourage anyone interested to look up variations of the supershelter on the internet.
(BTW, big medicine is the name for my 42 inch bucksaw blade)
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