The world is a dangerous place, and much more so, if you’re not prepared to deal with it. Survival skills are highly underrated and underutilized these days. So, being inspired by the most prepared people we know, we’d like to share our list of the most important tips for staying safe in a tough wilderness environment:
Top 10 Tips to Be Ready for Anything
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Collecting Potable Water
Probably the most important tip that we can give you is to make sure that, wherever you end up, you always have ample drinking water. What’s the best way to do this? Tie a plastic bag around a tree branch (make sure to make it as airtight as possible). Because trees have a high concentration of water, condensation will cause a small amount of water to percolate into the bag. *Make sure to set up a multiple bags to yield a larger quantity of water.
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Escaping an Attack from a Bear
No, seriously. This can actually happen and, when it does, if you haven’t thought about what to do, you will be in a lot of trouble. If the bear is a fair distance away from you, stand tall and act big, but don’t make eye contact. If you truly fear that the bear will make a predatory attack (not usually the case with bear encounters) you can climb a tree or sidestep its advances. Of course, the best way to avoid a bear’s aggression is to make sure that you pick a campsite away from any signs of bears and keep that site clean.
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Creating a Makeshift Weapon
More useful than you would think, a big blunt object can be very helpful when you find yourself off the grid. The first step in making an efficient blunt weapon is to find a good-sized tree branch. Then strip the bark off of the branch and, if necessary, fashion a handle. Next hollow the tip of the branch and slide a rock or another hunk of wood through the hole – make sure its snug!
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Finding True North without a Compass
Prop a stick up high enough so that its shadow falls on the ground. Mark an “X” with a stick where the shadow begins. Wait 10-15 minutes. The shadow should move across the ground. Mark an “X” where the shadow ends. The first “X” should approximate east and the second “X” should approximate west. Draw a straight line between the two “X’s”. If you position yourself so that west is on top, then north will be to its right and south will be to its left.
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How to Make a Fire
Even if you have a set of matches with you, starting a fire is not the simplest task. First, find or make yourself some kindling - dry bark, pine needles or split wood should do the trick. Arrange it neatly in a pile. Flank the pile with two large logs and prop smaller, split pieces of wood across these logs directly above the pile of kindling. Use your matches (or other firestarter) to light the kindling. Make sure that the kindling gets enough air to catch well!
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Deter Bees
Bees are bad news and can really make your stay in the wilderness uncomfortable. There a quite a few ways to deter bees, but its good to know that smoke will daze bees and they often flee from it. And if that doesn’t work, adding vinegar to an open water source will also cause bees to look elsewhere for a home.
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What to Bring With You
So far we have covered to what to do if you ever find yourself in a wilderness area or survival situation, but, depending on how you got there, you might have the opportunity to bring a few things along. Here are the most important items: Knife, tarpaulin, compass, waterproof matches, water bottle, cordage (rope, etc…) and some sort of pack to carry it all in. Other things like first aid kits, hats and extra socks can help, but these are your bare essentials.
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Beware “Shallow-Water Blackout”
You know when you breathe-in and breathe-out a few quick times before we take a big breath? So you can get a good one in and hold your breath longer? Well, it turns out that its actually counterproductive. That method doesn’t allow you to hold additional oxygen in your lungs and it actually reduces the amount of CO2 in your body, so your brain won’t know that its running out of breathable air. Consequence? You pass out and drown.
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Beware the Cold
Hypothermia comes a lot quicker than you imagine. Most cases of hypothermia occur at seemingly warm temperatures (starting at 50° F), so be very careful to keep yourself as warm as possible and find shelter.
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Don’t Drink too Much Water
Counter intuitive advice right? You’ve spent a few days without drinking and you finally happen upon a large body of potable water! What’s the first thing you do? Dive in and gulp until your thirst is completely quenched! WRONG. Slowly bring yourself back up to hydrated levels otherwise you could induce exercise-associated hyponatremia where a sodium imbalance in your body forces your brain to swell. Unfortunately, this sometimes leads to death.
