Survival, no kit
- Thread starter CACTUS ELF
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so i guess what i should take from this is that without tools, you'd look fools
Surviving with nothing is hard. Your knife shouldn't be anywhere but strapped to you so unless you were stripped on purpose of everything, your always gonna have something. Thinking outside the box is key. No one is certainly a "fool"
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No, what you should take from this is that in the UK you are never so far from civilisation that you wouldn't be able to walk out of the forest
Bushcraft is Chill the hell out asap, Survival is get the hell out asap.
Fire making comes down the list from safety, shelter, water, etc., and it's worth bearing in mind that we've only *had* metal tools for the past couple of thousand years; there's a lot of stone about.
Stuart wrote an article, about a cup of tea being the first activity when one finds oneself 'lost'.
There'll be a link somewhere; it's worth reading
cheers,
Toddy
Bushcraft is Chill the hell out asap, Survival is get the hell out asap.
Fire making comes down the list from safety, shelter, water, etc., and it's worth bearing in mind that we've only *had* metal tools for the past couple of thousand years; there's a lot of stone about.
Stuart wrote an article, about a cup of tea being the first activity when one finds oneself 'lost'.
There'll be a link somewhere; it's worth reading
cheers,
Toddy
To answer the question seriously i think it's pretty simple to 'survive', you just have to use your head.
If you are lost in the middle of nowhere with nothing around for miles then the first thing you want to do is figure out where you are, from there scout out the area and find a good safe place with the most resources to set up a shelter. The next step is finding water! If it's raining then you are in luck or you might find some plant containing some water. You obviously don't want to drink right from a water source but if you have NO means of fire or don't know how to improvise a filter and you really need water then you are better off drinking it from whatever source you find as you wont get sick right away, it takes a few days before you get real sick from nasty water.. hopefully by that time you got home free. Really drinking unsafe water is a last resort but its better to drink unsafe water than NO water, otherwise you are never going to make it home.
Obviously fire is important so i guess you could improvise some kind of bow drill if you find some good stones to use as cutting tools + boot laces as cord. If you get a fire going you could use a hot rocks method to boil water. Most easy way to improvise a bowl is dig a small hole in the ground and line it with a water proof jacket (if you have one) and then fashion a drinking straw if you can. I guess you could also use your boot as a way to contain water? Not sure how well that would work.
Next step is shelter. If you cannot find a natural shelter, building one is pretty simple (just time consuming).
I guess the next morning i would set up ground to air signals AKA mark out a massive X on the ground in the hope someone is going to spot it and also set up 3 fires in a triangle ready to be lit if something does fly over.
Then you got to think about food and such.. really depends how long you are stuck for but it's just a game of common sense and using everything you have really.
If you are lost in the middle of nowhere with nothing around for miles then the first thing you want to do is figure out where you are, from there scout out the area and find a good safe place with the most resources to set up a shelter. The next step is finding water! If it's raining then you are in luck or you might find some plant containing some water. You obviously don't want to drink right from a water source but if you have NO means of fire or don't know how to improvise a filter and you really need water then you are better off drinking it from whatever source you find as you wont get sick right away, it takes a few days before you get real sick from nasty water.. hopefully by that time you got home free. Really drinking unsafe water is a last resort but its better to drink unsafe water than NO water, otherwise you are never going to make it home.
Obviously fire is important so i guess you could improvise some kind of bow drill if you find some good stones to use as cutting tools + boot laces as cord. If you get a fire going you could use a hot rocks method to boil water. Most easy way to improvise a bowl is dig a small hole in the ground and line it with a water proof jacket (if you have one) and then fashion a drinking straw if you can. I guess you could also use your boot as a way to contain water? Not sure how well that would work.
Next step is shelter. If you cannot find a natural shelter, building one is pretty simple (just time consuming).
I guess the next morning i would set up ground to air signals AKA mark out a massive X on the ground in the hope someone is going to spot it and also set up 3 fires in a triangle ready to be lit if something does fly over.
Then you got to think about food and such.. really depends how long you are stuck for but it's just a game of common sense and using everything you have really.
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The point of the thread was to identify the sklills people have that can be used in a survival situation, any survival situation that dont involve the use of GPS, super fabrics, indesructable knives or glittering fancy's etc. I dont think its silly to ask such a question because if you were fully kitted out with satellite phones and full bug out bag then you probably wouldnt be in a survival situation in the first place. Like wise if i was ten mins walk from a city centre.
I understand this forum is about bushcraft, but bushcraft is about survival to many who use it day to day.
So would you be able to get by? If so, how?
Easy to mock, not so easy to answer the question it would seem.
I didn't mean to insult people. I meant that an expert in one situation is a novice in another. for example, i might know everything about survival when i have my kit but without it i may perish within days or hours. i was hoping to perhaps get some info on primative skills, not to have the p*&s taken for making what is in my opinion a fair and valid point. However, it would seem that perhaps the knowledge isn't out there. Shame that as people who welcomed me to the forum sugested this was the place to ask such questions. maybe i should just ask about the latest shiny bright thing.
I'm trying to think how one would end up in that situation. If I were on a dog walk I'd have the dogs for warmth plus leads for cordage. If I were in a 'plane crash there'd be plenty of stuff to use (or cordage & a shelter if I'd parachuted in).
Don't take it too personally, we get the odd Rambo coming on here wanting to know or tell stories of how to survive a year in the wild with a toothpick and a soggy knapkin, the jest is an auto-immune response. If you'd asked a simple question about primative survival techniques you'd have got plenty of useful answers re flint knapping and the like, but how can I survive in me unddies type threads always get this response...
personally I dont own any of the gizmos you've described (don't even own a fixed blade) and I'm ok 38 odd years later, I've kipped out with just the cloths on my back in my youth, hypothermia will be the biggest survival risk over here so thats what you need to plan for
Don't take it so hard, you are new, you haven't contributed much (if anything) to the forum, no tutorials, no pictures etc. so we don't know you, the question you posed pops up far to frequently, sometimes it is the same guy posting again and again under different names, sometimes I wonder if these questions are being posted by members of the press looking for a few looneys to make an easy headline, so perhaps that is why you are getting a bit of a ribbing. It isn't personal, contribute a bit more and get to know the place.
Oh and use the search function.
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Hi, i suppose someone may be kidnapped in some far flung remote place for a ransom or something and if they escaped they would be in a similar position to that described by Cactus Elf, perhaps not even having boots as they may be taken away in the first place to slow down escaper should they escape, in such a situation i expect the brain and improvisation and an injury free body are the only tools that may get you to safety, as to if it can be done well you will only know the answer to that if you come out of it alive or dead.
You give no indication of location other than forest, what kind, What's the temp, what season, mountain or jungle basin, if all I have are my boots teeshirt and skirt then I would stop and look where I am, think about how I got there, then breaking every stick,twig,large leaf I pass I would start to scout in a as close a box pattern as I could to try and find either the trail that lead me there, poeple or signs of or water, if water is found I would fold my tee shirt into three layers and suck the water through that to reduce the large particles getting in, if people were found I would assess there intent(I still have no idea why I'm out here) if I reckon they are friendly I'm in, if not I would attempt to steal what ever I could to help me, pots, clothes,tools, vehicles, food and proceed from there under the assumption they are now following me. If I found no peeps and no trail and no water I would stop using searching with the intent of stayin put, try to find a high point to attempt to locate a water course visually if not possible I would head down hill and attempt to walk out, if I came across suitable material to make tools from such as a rock I could smash on another to Geth an edge to cut with I would give it ago, I would look for suitable wood to make a fire plough from as it need minimal working, I would still be breaking and snapping to show others where I have gone and show me where I have been should I need to back track, keep an eye out for foods but only as a distant. Second to finding water. If I'm in temperate zone I would want to make some kind of water shedding cover, if in colder climbes. Fire would become second only to shelter, if inn a desert shelter, water.
But still your very sparse on your info.
But still your very sparse on your info.
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