This one isn't quite a hike, but Casey and I finally had an opportunity to take a survival course, something that I've been meaning to do for some time. The course that we chose was the Primitive Survival Crash Course run by
Advanced Survival Training near Fredericksburg, VA. I don't have any affiliation to the individuals who run the training, but I can say that Casey and I both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and learned a lot in the process. The crash course went from 9 a.m. - 4 p.m., but the instructor was willing to keep the class going until 5:30 p.m. because we hadn't finished everything that he hoped to cover in the allotted time frame. I was thrilled for the extra time to learn. The course covered how to survive for a brief period of time outdoors with no supplies. As avid day hikers, we thought that this could be useful to know (although we always to carry a handful of supplies for all but the shortest and most populated day hikes - think Burke Lake level for those types of "hikes" that might forgo the kit). In any case, we do not always carry tents, knives, sleeping bags, and lighters (although after this course, the knife and the lighter might get added to the day-hike "just in case" kit). So on to the fun stuff! What we learned (noting that I am not a survival professional and am merely sharing some of the neat things we got to do):
This list is shared in order of urgency as according to our instructor.
Pre-Anything Else: Mindset! He highlighted that having a positive attitude and tenacity is crucial to survival.
1) Shelter. He said that shelter should only be second on the list if someone needs immediate first-aid (i.e. bleeding out, suffocating, or otherwise will die without immediate treatment).
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| Our leaf hut when it was just bare bones. Two ~3' 'Y' shaped sticks leaned together with a long, ~12' stick forming the "spine" of the structure. Ribs were then leaned against the spine to form this frame. We got to do this all ourselves! |
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| Beginning to add some leaves to the shelter. |
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| With a few more leaves. A functional shelter should apparently have ~2' of leaves on top and actually be filled inside with leaves as well. |
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| Side view. You can see that it's tight, but that a grown man fits fully inside! |
Water: He said that water is only second to shelter because while you can get hypothermia in 3-4 hours in poor weather, you can die of dehydration in 3-4 days.
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| We learned how to boil water using rocks that were heated in a fire in the case that a pot was unavailable (you could even use a rock depression as your "bowl" and place small hot rocks in the water within this depression to boil it. |
Fire:
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| Casey and another gentleman in our training use a bow-drill to attempt to get a fire going. The drill and board were both cedar in this case. |
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| Successful fire creation! It is way harder than our instructor made it look. |
This particular crash course didn't go too far into identifying edible plants and trapping animals, but it was extremely useful for our purposes (we also covered a bit about making tools from rocks). There was an option for a longer course (a bit out of my current budget), in which we would have been able to spend the night in our shelter and learn far more about finding food and other survival essentials. I would love to return - it was a great and informative time!
