I enjoyed your very well written/illustrated article. This is surely the bottom line of what bushcraft is meant to be about!
Survival in the UK
- Thread starter bivouac
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I enjoyed your very well written/illustrated article. This is surely the bottom line of what bushcraft is meant to be about!
I enjoyed your very well written/illustrated article. This is surely the bottom line of what bushcraft is meant to be about!
Oh, thanks a lot. I appreciate it.
That's brilliant. Just what i was looking for, thanks. I've added your blog to my favorites bar.
well to test your self (but with all the safety kit as back up) you could do a 5 items thing or use a bit more kit as in these 2 threads...
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=74225&highlight=5+items
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=89191&highlight=5+items
they should get you started on your way to enlightenment....
regards.
chris.
Thank you, Grasshopper. I shall meditate further on your wisdom. Namaste.
My first ever real experience of enforced overnight "survival" was in the summer of 1985...I was in the Army Cadets and was on Summer Camp at Culltybraggen Camp nr Perth in Scotland.
I was a 3* Cpl and we were expected to be able to go out into the countryside and survive for two days...doesn't sound alot and to some of the lads who took their sleeping bags and had food stashed away it wasn't hard.
But I had been into survival since the age of 9 and I was determined to go out with nothing but the combats I was wearing and the SAK that my Dad had given me...
So there we were, dropped off in a woodland in the middle of nowhere and having had instruction on shelter building and firelighting we were left to our own devices to get on with it.
Everything was brilliant to start..beautiful sunny skies and a warm breeze...but then the midgies attacked...despite them between us we got a fire going and built our shelters...mine was one of those one-man kennel...at the time I was well chuffed..nothing to worry about...we settled down by the fire and just monged out, having a laugh and generally being idiots just like most teenagers are..
At about 11pm we all decided to hit the sack so I crawled into my shelter...happy days, well so I thought!!
within 10mins I was covered head to toe in ants...and I had to vacate the shelter...I made my way over to the fire which was still going strong thanks to half a tree which had been left to burn by one of the lads...I simply just lay there and fell asleep.
At about 2 or 3am I woke up shivering and soaked...the sunny clear skies had at some point become overcast and was now belting down with rain...it was pitch black because the fire had gone out and I did my best to find a tree to sit under and thats where I stayed for the next few hours till daylight..soaking wet and freezing cold...I could quite easily have slipped into hypothermia that night..how I didn't I don't know!!
This story re-iterates what can go wrong if you're not prepared when adventuring out into the wilderness...even in the UK.
Firstly..I over-estimated my skills...I was determined to succeed but was over confident.
Second...My choice of site to build a shelter was badly flawed...I never thought about the local wildlife and creepy crawlies
Third...with an experienced head on my shoulders now, I now know that the depth of insulation on that shelter I built would never in a million years have kept the rain out!
Fourth...I completely underestimated how the weather could change...the beuatiful sunny day made me complacent.
Luckily for me it was just an overnight stay and i was picked up and seen to the next morning....if however I had been out there on my own..who knows if I'd be sat here typing now...because it carried on raining and got windier & colder for the next few days afterwards!
Since that night, no matter where I go in the outdoors or at what time of year...I always always carry safety equipment, knife, food, water, wet weather gear, warm top, and my bivibag as a minimum!!
I was a 3* Cpl and we were expected to be able to go out into the countryside and survive for two days...doesn't sound alot and to some of the lads who took their sleeping bags and had food stashed away it wasn't hard.
But I had been into survival since the age of 9 and I was determined to go out with nothing but the combats I was wearing and the SAK that my Dad had given me...
So there we were, dropped off in a woodland in the middle of nowhere and having had instruction on shelter building and firelighting we were left to our own devices to get on with it.
Everything was brilliant to start..beautiful sunny skies and a warm breeze...but then the midgies attacked...despite them between us we got a fire going and built our shelters...mine was one of those one-man kennel...at the time I was well chuffed..nothing to worry about...we settled down by the fire and just monged out, having a laugh and generally being idiots just like most teenagers are..
At about 11pm we all decided to hit the sack so I crawled into my shelter...happy days, well so I thought!!
within 10mins I was covered head to toe in ants...and I had to vacate the shelter...I made my way over to the fire which was still going strong thanks to half a tree which had been left to burn by one of the lads...I simply just lay there and fell asleep.
At about 2 or 3am I woke up shivering and soaked...the sunny clear skies had at some point become overcast and was now belting down with rain...it was pitch black because the fire had gone out and I did my best to find a tree to sit under and thats where I stayed for the next few hours till daylight..soaking wet and freezing cold...I could quite easily have slipped into hypothermia that night..how I didn't I don't know!!
This story re-iterates what can go wrong if you're not prepared when adventuring out into the wilderness...even in the UK.
Firstly..I over-estimated my skills...I was determined to succeed but was over confident.
Second...My choice of site to build a shelter was badly flawed...I never thought about the local wildlife and creepy crawlies
Third...with an experienced head on my shoulders now, I now know that the depth of insulation on that shelter I built would never in a million years have kept the rain out!
Fourth...I completely underestimated how the weather could change...the beuatiful sunny day made me complacent.
Luckily for me it was just an overnight stay and i was picked up and seen to the next morning....if however I had been out there on my own..who knows if I'd be sat here typing now...because it carried on raining and got windier & colder for the next few days afterwards!
Since that night, no matter where I go in the outdoors or at what time of year...I always always carry safety equipment, knife, food, water, wet weather gear, warm top, and my bivibag as a minimum!!
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