- Joined
- Oct 10, 2002
- Messages
- 1,551
Wow! What a fun trip!
I got there on Saturday and met the camp manager, Beth. George would not be showing up until late that night. I set my hammock up, and got my camp put together. I was happy to see a very primative camp setup for us. Our classroom was a couple tarps lashed to poles cut from the forest we were in, with a couple picnic tables under it.
Sunday, the rest of the class arrived. In total, there were 5 students. Most of the others new everyone else. I was the only one who didn't know anyone, but that lasted about 5 minutes. These were some of the nicest people I've ever met. We had a special guest instructor on the first day. Bob Love, a Vietnam vet, and expert in navigation and weather prediction, came to teach a session. We did compass navigation, learned to how to plot an azimuth, learned how to read topo maps, and learned the PAUL method of finding your way back to a starting point. We learned how to use nature to predict weather. I had no idea that you could predict the coming weather from the amount of dew on the ground in the morning. That night we did celestial navigation and time estimations. We learned how you can tell time lapsed from the movement of stars. We were also treated to some great stories from Bob's life of learning about navigation. Bob has a life notebook of things he's learned about navigation and weather. He's going to author a book soon, and I know I'll be looking for a signed copy.
We hung out the rest of the night in our tepee. George has a HUGE tepee. It's the chief's style tepee, which is much larger than a standard family's tepee. I want to say it was 18' diameter. I know it had 36' poles. Let's just say at one point we had 8 people in coleman camping chairs around a fire and there was still plenty of room. 18' may be a little short. It was big, that's all I know. What an amazing wonder of engineering they are too! You wrap the tepee's outer layer so it's a foot off the ground or so. Then inside you have a 4' high inner layer that you secure to the ground with rocks. Then when you get a fire going, the air goes under the edge of the outer layer, between the layers, and shoots out above the inner layer. You can actually feel the draft if you reach your hand up over the inner layer. What this does is sucks the smoke right out the top of the tepee. It also regulates the temperature. We had a roaring fire going, and there was no smoke, no bugs, and it was probably about 80 degrees at most inside the tepee. Awesome!
Monday was shelter day. We learned about various tarp shelters, wood shelters, bark shelters, etc... We learned about swamp beds (which are actually rather comfortable). We learned about using bark as shingles to make an A-frame water tight. Then it was off to the beach for baths. We hung out that night in the tepee. We told jokes and stories until long into the night.
Tuesday was fire day. We learned about the mechanics of a fire, and what makes a fire fail. We learned about the various food sources for fire like tinder, kindling, etc... We learned about lots of different tinder sources like tinder fungus, birch bark, fat wood, jute twine, etc... We made bow drills, and George was thrilled that all 5 of us managed to get a bow drill fire started.
Wednesday was water day. We learned about water requirements in different climates. We learned about the various ways your body loses water. We learned about various ways to get and purify water. We did transporation bags on trees. We boiled water in a bunch of crazy containers. It blew my mind that you could boil water in birch bark, considering birch bark goes up like it's soaked in gasoline if you touch a flame to it. We made birch bark containers and boiled water in them. We boiled water in plastic bottles. George says you can boil water in a potato chip bag if you need to. We learned about charcoal filters. This was also my favorite lesson day..... we learned about knife sharpening. Wow! George can put an edge on a knife that will split an atom. I seriously have never felt an edge like that before. He took a knife I got from a maker here, and brought it to a razor edge. I went out and cut some wood with it and I swear it was like using a light sabre. I will have lots of fun sharpening all my knives this week.
Thursday was wildcrafting day. We took a nice long plant walk and learned about lots of medicinal and edible plants. I knew nothing of plants before this. Some of my favorites were Yarrow and Sheep Sorrel. Yarrow is basically the miracle healer. Sheep Sorrel is just damned tasty, but don't eat a ton of it. We learned about various poisonous plants to stay away from as well. I wasn't happy to see that poison hemlock and yarrow look a little similar.
Friday was hunting and fishing day. We learned about food requirements in a survival situation. We learned about, and made 4 different types of traps. That was fun, by the way. We all got our traps working, which again made George very happy. We made leisters for spearing fish. George said mine looked like a textbook example, and wanted a picture. That made me happy
We also made fire hardened digging sticks completely primative. I'm happy to say, I was the only one with the determination to complete the digging stick. It took me a good 3 hours to shape the tip using a shard of rock. Then another hour to properly fire harden it. I now have a nice sharp, rock hard digging stick.
Saturday we did primative cordage. I have a bunch of dogsbane to make more at home. We also did hand drill fires, but unfortunately broke our only spindle before we got one going. I just simply did not have the stamina in my arms and hands to get one going. I think it's time to hit the gym
After a quick stop at General Jim's to pick up some awesome german wool blankets, I headed home.
I slept in my hammock every night. It worked beautifully. I rode out a NASTY thunderstorm in it. The thunder hit so hard that it shook me. It was like being at a rock concert and standing next to the speakers. I was attacked by a racoon in the middle of the night on Thursday
Let me tell you, when you are woken up at 1AM to the sounds of some animal crunching around near you, and you're in a hammock, that will get your heart racing. I have this vision of waking up nose to nose with a bear or something. I tried to get my flashlight on him, but couldn't. Once I heard him chatter, I was a lot happier. I can deal with racoons walking around under me.
It was an AWESOME trip. I can't recommend George Hedgepeth enough. He kept the flow of class moving along nicely. He let the students interject things they wanted to learn all throughout the week. I really think we couldn't stump this guy! We'd be talking about something and a student would go "Well... I'm curious about this survival skill" and George would go "OK let's talk about that" and off he'd go with buckets full of knowledge about the topic.
I will post some pictures most likely tomorrow. I have to get them off my camera.
I got there on Saturday and met the camp manager, Beth. George would not be showing up until late that night. I set my hammock up, and got my camp put together. I was happy to see a very primative camp setup for us. Our classroom was a couple tarps lashed to poles cut from the forest we were in, with a couple picnic tables under it.
Sunday, the rest of the class arrived. In total, there were 5 students. Most of the others new everyone else. I was the only one who didn't know anyone, but that lasted about 5 minutes. These were some of the nicest people I've ever met. We had a special guest instructor on the first day. Bob Love, a Vietnam vet, and expert in navigation and weather prediction, came to teach a session. We did compass navigation, learned to how to plot an azimuth, learned how to read topo maps, and learned the PAUL method of finding your way back to a starting point. We learned how to use nature to predict weather. I had no idea that you could predict the coming weather from the amount of dew on the ground in the morning. That night we did celestial navigation and time estimations. We learned how you can tell time lapsed from the movement of stars. We were also treated to some great stories from Bob's life of learning about navigation. Bob has a life notebook of things he's learned about navigation and weather. He's going to author a book soon, and I know I'll be looking for a signed copy.
We hung out the rest of the night in our tepee. George has a HUGE tepee. It's the chief's style tepee, which is much larger than a standard family's tepee. I want to say it was 18' diameter. I know it had 36' poles. Let's just say at one point we had 8 people in coleman camping chairs around a fire and there was still plenty of room. 18' may be a little short. It was big, that's all I know. What an amazing wonder of engineering they are too! You wrap the tepee's outer layer so it's a foot off the ground or so. Then inside you have a 4' high inner layer that you secure to the ground with rocks. Then when you get a fire going, the air goes under the edge of the outer layer, between the layers, and shoots out above the inner layer. You can actually feel the draft if you reach your hand up over the inner layer. What this does is sucks the smoke right out the top of the tepee. It also regulates the temperature. We had a roaring fire going, and there was no smoke, no bugs, and it was probably about 80 degrees at most inside the tepee. Awesome!
Monday was shelter day. We learned about various tarp shelters, wood shelters, bark shelters, etc... We learned about swamp beds (which are actually rather comfortable). We learned about using bark as shingles to make an A-frame water tight. Then it was off to the beach for baths. We hung out that night in the tepee. We told jokes and stories until long into the night.
Tuesday was fire day. We learned about the mechanics of a fire, and what makes a fire fail. We learned about the various food sources for fire like tinder, kindling, etc... We learned about lots of different tinder sources like tinder fungus, birch bark, fat wood, jute twine, etc... We made bow drills, and George was thrilled that all 5 of us managed to get a bow drill fire started.
Wednesday was water day. We learned about water requirements in different climates. We learned about the various ways your body loses water. We learned about various ways to get and purify water. We did transporation bags on trees. We boiled water in a bunch of crazy containers. It blew my mind that you could boil water in birch bark, considering birch bark goes up like it's soaked in gasoline if you touch a flame to it. We made birch bark containers and boiled water in them. We boiled water in plastic bottles. George says you can boil water in a potato chip bag if you need to. We learned about charcoal filters. This was also my favorite lesson day..... we learned about knife sharpening. Wow! George can put an edge on a knife that will split an atom. I seriously have never felt an edge like that before. He took a knife I got from a maker here, and brought it to a razor edge. I went out and cut some wood with it and I swear it was like using a light sabre. I will have lots of fun sharpening all my knives this week.
Thursday was wildcrafting day. We took a nice long plant walk and learned about lots of medicinal and edible plants. I knew nothing of plants before this. Some of my favorites were Yarrow and Sheep Sorrel. Yarrow is basically the miracle healer. Sheep Sorrel is just damned tasty, but don't eat a ton of it. We learned about various poisonous plants to stay away from as well. I wasn't happy to see that poison hemlock and yarrow look a little similar.
Friday was hunting and fishing day. We learned about food requirements in a survival situation. We learned about, and made 4 different types of traps. That was fun, by the way. We all got our traps working, which again made George very happy. We made leisters for spearing fish. George said mine looked like a textbook example, and wanted a picture. That made me happy
We also made fire hardened digging sticks completely primative. I'm happy to say, I was the only one with the determination to complete the digging stick. It took me a good 3 hours to shape the tip using a shard of rock. Then another hour to properly fire harden it. I now have a nice sharp, rock hard digging stick.Saturday we did primative cordage. I have a bunch of dogsbane to make more at home. We also did hand drill fires, but unfortunately broke our only spindle before we got one going. I just simply did not have the stamina in my arms and hands to get one going. I think it's time to hit the gym
After a quick stop at General Jim's to pick up some awesome german wool blankets, I headed home.I slept in my hammock every night. It worked beautifully. I rode out a NASTY thunderstorm in it. The thunder hit so hard that it shook me. It was like being at a rock concert and standing next to the speakers. I was attacked by a racoon in the middle of the night on Thursday
Let me tell you, when you are woken up at 1AM to the sounds of some animal crunching around near you, and you're in a hammock, that will get your heart racing. I have this vision of waking up nose to nose with a bear or something. I tried to get my flashlight on him, but couldn't. Once I heard him chatter, I was a lot happier. I can deal with racoons walking around under me.It was an AWESOME trip. I can't recommend George Hedgepeth enough. He kept the flow of class moving along nicely. He let the students interject things they wanted to learn all throughout the week. I really think we couldn't stump this guy! We'd be talking about something and a student would go "Well... I'm curious about this survival skill" and George would go "OK let's talk about that" and off he'd go with buckets full of knowledge about the topic.
I will post some pictures most likely tomorrow. I have to get them off my camera.
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