What You Need to Survive Outdoors
Why I practice bushcraft & survival
I'm a keen camper, but I'm certainly not as hardy as the likes of Ray Mears or Bear Grylls. For me it's fair weather all the way.
But a few of my tougher camping buddies were discussing what they would need, as a minimum, in order to spend a few nights outdoors at this time of year in the UK (its springtime and still very cold at night).
We concluded that the bare essentials would consist of shelter, somewhere warm to sleep and the means to create fire and find food and water. So the outcome of the beer fuelled conversation has been the challenge for us to spend two days and nights surviving and sleeping outdoors.
We will take some tents, a cosy and warm sleeping bag for each of us along with a knife, some water along with warm clothes and footwear. This is all the camping gear that we'll be taking.
We're not allowed to take any lighters or matches (but I shall definitely be taking my firesteel) and we're not going to take any food. So we'll be trying to snare a rabbit or two, or maybe scraping some road-kill for a road-kill cook off.
This reminds me of a similar challenge that I undertook way back when I was a boy scout. On that occasion we were allowed to take a little food, but no shelter and no means of starting a fire. We started a fire using the friction method and built bivouacs using branches, leaves and straw. I recall that this was a lot of hard work, but we did it.
The most useful thing that each of us took with us that time was our knives. You may have noticed how this is the key survival essential that Bear Grylls always has with him when he parachutes into a wilderness somewhere. Equipped with a well made knife you're able to cut wood for fire or a shelter. You have the tool you need to make a snare to trap rabbits and then skin it ready for cooking.
So wish me luck on my forthcoming survival challenge weekend. But I shall definitely be taking my mobile phone so if we don't have any luck with rabbits or road kill I'll be able to call for a pizza!
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