Moosez August Challenge

[dresnor]

Let me first say that this was my first challenge. I truly had such a good time that I didn't want to leave.
I have been wanting to do an outing like this for some time now and this was the kick in the pants I needed,
Thanks Moose!

The location I chose is a little pond that I spend alot of time at. There are 3 campsites and ALOT of woods to
hide away in. I picked a spot well out of the way on the backside of the pond. My 48 hours started at noon
8/23/2011 and ended 8/25/2011 ensuring 2 solid nights in the woods.

Just so you all know my camera showed the time and date on the screen but it didn't show up in the pictures. I contacted Moose about this and he told me to
just post anyway and that the date should be in the image code. Anyway...


My loadout, Molle 2 patrol pack, Guyout SS Nalgene, MSR cook pot, Katadyn water filter, cheapo FAK. 100 ft of
paracord, A bit of smaller cord that is good for traps, 2 Ramen beef flavor because beef is the best flavor, Petzel
headlamp. The altoids survival kits included one firesteel and striker, 5 tinder cubes, small piece or charred cloth,
snare wire, duct tape, allen key and fish hooks. As for clothing, cotton tee, long sleeve shirt, button up fishing shirt,
Cargo pants, light hiking shoes, baseball and winter hat.

We had a choice of 3 Becker knives but I only chose one, My BK2. There has been alot of talk about your "one knife"
so I decided to stick with my BK2. I never felt like I needed a larger knife, just a larger baton.

I didn't chop much but I did baton to beaver chew dead standing trees and to split wood. I usually used the two trees
method of breaking firewood to length like when I was a kid.

The first day I focused on making shelter and making a safe place for a fire. My shelter of choice was a debris Shelter.
They are easy to make and block the wind well. For this one I added birch bark for shingles in case of rain. I also
kept adding leaves as they settled. A firm stick with lots of fingers helped gather up the leaves.

The first night I wasn't hungry so I figured I would save my Ramen for the morning to have food energy early in the day.
With that said I didn't have a fire since I wasn't cooking. That was a mistake. It got down to 52 degrees that night
and I had to do pushups to stay warm. Sets of 10 for the BK10.

After doing pushups for a while I felt the need for a fire around 4:15am.

The some warm food.

While, I was eating I got into a shouting match with a Deer. He grunted at me quite loudly. So I yelled "Get out of here"
He grunted back twice more, So I yelled it again and clapped my hands nice and hard. I never saw the Deer but I heard
him crashing through the brush running away. He kept grunting while he was leaving like a little kid mumbling curse words
after being sent to his room.

The next day I focused on scouting locations for traps and setting a couple. While I was scouting I found some black berries
that I used for bait for squirrel poles and a snare trap.

While scouting I saw this little guy.

The second night was warmer but really windy and I didn't feel confident making a fire and sleeping in a giant tinder bundle.
Sorry guys!

The next morning checked my traps and got skunked! Win some and loose some I guess. I took down the traps since I would
be leaving at noon and the worked on breaking down my shelter and spreading the debris around so it wasn't so obvious
someone had camped there.

12:00 came sooner than I thought and my fun was over.

Good luck to everyone who enters!

 

[Moosez45]

WOW!!!!

dresnor, what can I say?

The bar is set HIGH, lads and ladies.

Moose

 

[DerekH]

I went out on the trip with an aspiring Beckerhead, ThePointyEnd, who will also be posting an entry in here. This was the first time either of us had done this, and also the first time I had taken part in one of the monthly challenges. It was a very enlightening trip.

We went to Little Beaver State Park, an area I have been to before with my scout troop, but I had never been as deep as we went. It was interesting to see so much of what I had missed coming here previously. I checked in on Friday at around 4:45PM with a park ranger, and let them know the general area we had planned to be in (I also left a plan with the missus, and a couple of friends as to where we would be and how long). Anyways, we got into the brush a little before five, and almost immediately found signs of people.

So, after some more scouting around for a suitable site, we located this gem here.

And after some digging around, an extra goody.

As there were two of us for this challenge, it couldn't be used for shelter as our shelters had to be some distance apart, however, it would make an excellent "living room" type place in which to have our fires, and also prove to be much safer than having a fire elsewhere in the area.

During the time we were looking at that, I found a location fairly close in which to build my shelter.

And here it is after the initial construction. I thought it was decent, but two days in the thing have taught me some valuable lessons in insulation. Namely, have more of it.

With that, Pointy got a small fire going, we sat around BS'ing, then turned in for the night to our respective shelters for the evening.

The next morning, I got busy getting some wood processed to make a fire to cook some breakfast in. I didn't have to chop anything down as the area was filled with fallen dead wood. I did have to split some though, and the BK2 was the tool for the job.

Derek make fire!

Here we were heating our gourmet breakfast of good 'ole bullion cubes from our survival kits. It ain't bacon and eggs, but it will do. (For some reason this picture came out really dark. I think the automatic light sensor thingy got a little washed out from the light coming off the fire.)

Next we have the obligatory gear shot. Since we were in a rush the night before, I didn't get a chance to get one in. Anyways, we have, starting from the top and proceeding generally clockwise, two packages of beef flavored ramen noodles, my 32oz Guyot Backpacker bottle, a cheap stainless steel container I ordered way back when to use as a billy can, a piece of newspaper that I found while walking and used to blow my nose in, a waterproof container I used exclusively for our cell phones (it was supposed to rain, and I didn't want to lose an important lifeline cause it got wet while I was sleeping), first aid kit, which contained the following: Small ziplock baggy of ibuprofen and tylenol, several packages of Goodies fast acting aspirin powder, a few bandages, a tube containing several small needles and some thread, duct tape, tick tweezers, some safety pins, and a whopping four bullion cubes. Attached via ranger bands was my emergency blanket. Then we have my survival kit in the tube vault. Now the size limit placed on the survival kit was, per Moose, "no bigger than an altoids tin". I did some terrible math, and the total space I came up with for an altoids tin was approximately 6.4 cubic inches, and the space for the tube vault was around 4.5 cubic inches, so I was in the clear as far as total space. Contained in the tube vault was several fish hooks, some split shot, some swivels, some snap hooks, two very small lures that were next to useless, brass snare wire, a razor blade, four stormproof matches, a bobber, and on the outside we had about 20 ft of bank line, and god only knows how much spiderwire fishing line. This would serve as a hand reel for fishing. Next I have a small Logitech mouse case that I use to hold my headlamp, the green bag which had my fleece stuff as the temperature has been dropping below comfortable at night here lately, somewhere in the low fifties I believe is what the weather.com said as well as extra pants and socks. The blue bag had two fifty foot bundles of paracord in it and about fifty foot of bank line that was used for the shelter, and held the survival kit and first aid kit and my headlamp. The red bag on the right hand side had my toothbrush and toothpaste. I know it wasn't on the gear list, but if you paid as much as I have recently for dental work, that is going to be one of the first things you toss in any bag to go anywhere. The backpack is a Maxped Monsoon Gearslinger.

Anyways, after some goofing off, making sure the fire was completely out, and getting our gear all stored up, we headed out to the lake to do some fishing. I will say that it felt very nice being able to travel so light.

Pointy, it turns out, is an avid fisherman. I am, however, terrible at it. He made a fly (which he should be posting pics of shortly) and used a stick, I used my survival kit fishing hand reel tihngamajig. I quickly discovered that, as usual, my lure was useless. However, the night before, when clearing ground for the fire, I found a worm, and we stuck it in some dirt in one of those delightful glass jars we found. That on a small hook turned out to be perfect, and with some encouragement from Pointy, I was able to catch the first fish I have caught since I was about 12 years old. (Did I mention I suck at fishing?) I soon caught another, and added to the ones Pointy managed to snag, we had ourselves some Bluegill to go with our meal for the day, approximately two each.

Anyways, back to camp, clean the tiny fish, get more fire going, and in the meantime carve up some chopsticks to eat with. The stick we used was the same stick Pointy used for his fishing pole and fly. There is some poetic justice in us using what he caught food with to eat said food.

Dinner was ramen with fish chunks, all of which sank to the bottom.

Chopsticks!

After that, we took an easy hike around, goofed off, and just basically did nothing but shoot the bull until it was time for bed.

The next day, it dawned on us that we hadn't taken any pictures of our water source. My camera was absent at the time of the picture taking, so Pointy has all the pics of that. There was a small creek about 300 hundred meters from the area of our shelters, and although it was small, it was moving through a goodly amount of rocks and whatnot so as to be somewhat filtered. I did snag a picture of my water being sterilized via bleach drops though. It had a slightly brown tint to it, and tasted about as appealing as that sounds. Still, it was drinkable, and a man could survive off of it if he needed to. ( I used an old eye dropper bottle to hold bleach, and it worked beautifully for the job, letting me measure out the perfect amount of bleach drop by drop.)

That said, we spent the rest of the day just sitting around, taking short hikes, or making our last meal of ramen. I got well over two hundred glamor shots of our knives, and have some fun ones as well, but those will have to go elsewhere since I can only have 16 pictures for my entry.

My camera died right at 4:45PM on the last day, but I knew if I turned it off and let it sit, I would get enough of a charge left to take one final picture, which was the following, confirming the final time out. Here are my two knives that saw me through the entire adventure, my BK2 and BK14.

FINAL IMPRESSIONS: Both Pointy and I went into this with some trepidation. Neither of us had done anything like this before, but we knew having two of us there would help us stay a little safer and make it a lot less boring. We each did our own stuff, but we did share fire as we had to keep that to a minimum due to the parks rules on campfires and whatnot, and safety was a big concern for us what with so much dead wood around. There was never a fire going without at least one of us there watching it, and always there was a goodly supply of water handy to put it out. (We found a ton of glass jars, plastic bottles, etc... that we kept filled with creek water just to put the fires out if they got out of hand.) Moose, it would seem, knows a thing or two about the survival game. Both of us figured food and hunger would be high on the list of things to deal with, but neither of us was very hungry most of the trip, and I think it came down to a mental game. We found several apple trees our first night very close to camp, and that gave us both a form of security blanket so we knew we wouldn't starve. All in all, neither of us ate that many apples. I think the entire weekend I had at most five of them, spread out around the weekend. The last package of ramen we ate on Sunday the 28th wasn't really needed, and I think we could have made it another couple of days easily. My shelter was inadequate to the task of keeping me warm, and I woke up the first night to put on my fleece stuff. Next time, that is going to be the first task, and will get a lot more attention than I gave it this time out. Aside from that, I did like Moose has said several times, and we spent a good deal of time just sitting around conserving calories. Overall, I had a great time, and it was incredibly liberating to know that not only could I do it, it was easier than I thought it would be. There were a ton of safety tips we have discussed here than helped me throughout the weekend, and a great deal of information learned here was used to accomplish the challenge. I can't say I am planning on heading out anytime soon, but I know that next time I will be able to travel lighter, farther, and easier than I ever thought possible.

Thanks for the push Moose.


(I plan on posting up a short thread with some of the plethora of pics I got sometime in the next couple of days. I have a few pics of Pointy that he needs and I will be sending him, and one to confirm the times he was out there as his camera wouldn't put the time on his pics, only the dates. I will post a link to the thread in here once I get it whipped up.)

 

[ThePointyEnd]

So, I went out for this challenge along with DerekH, the Beckerhead who introduced me to the world of Becker and much of the world of bushcraft. I felt it fit that we share this adventure to test our (largely theoretical) knowledge of bushcraft {and it fully saved me $$ on gas}. We went to Little Beaver State Park, which I had never been to before, and it provided a fun (and safe) environment for us to hone our skills a little (ok,ok, more like rough them out). Derek already did a great post on parts of the experience, so I'm going to focus on stuff that was unique to my side of the weekend. From the beginning I looked at this as a learning experience, And tried to keep my perception of everything aligned to that end. The forest proved to be an apt teacher, but there was still a steep learning curve. I'm very glad that this opportunity presented itself, not only as a good excuse to put my skills into practice, but to test them and diagnose my deficiencies in bushcraft and survival before I HAD to rely on them.

Disclaimer: I'm not a pro photographer, I'm a nerd. But, without further, boring ado... Here's a narrated photo-graphical account of the Adventure.

Here I am at the beginning, shortly after arriving in the woods, looking all smug and confident.



I found this little fella during our scout for a suitable spot for shelter, and I immediately thought (Feather)+(hook from fishing kit)+(string I hoped not to need for sutures)=Fly to fish with. Kinda a Macgyver moment, but more on that later.



Ok, campsite located, shelter time! I picked a spot already under partial cover of fallen trees and a canopy. I'm not gonna front, this was my first stab at a shelter of any kind (I've been spoiled to tents, etc.) and it was, IMO, far from adequate, but lead to a good lesson learned. I will study more on this and do better next time. Here's PointyHome Mk.I



After stumbling thru shelter-making, it was high time to get a confidence boost by succeeding at something I was better practiced at, Firecraft. Here I am sparking my first fire of the trip with my minty fresh BK-14 and a ferro rod. (I know, I know, it's barely visible in my huge mitts).



Fire Success, time to baton through some wood to stoke it-- with a BK-10 generously on loan from the DerekH collection (classy, isn't it?). Fortunately, there was no shortage of wood as we were in a piney/hemlock-y part of the wood that is seldom explored. and there was plenty of fallen branches for firewood and shelter-making. For the record, it went up like a blast furnace.



After the fire, it was bedtime. My shelter was cold, but I made it through the night safely, and awoke to a chilly but beautiful foggy morning.



After a brief morning fire for bullion-breakfast from my altoid-kit (a welcome warm-up), we set out to a nearby lake for some fishing. Here I am rigging up a stick to fish with. On a related note, I figured out that I was carrying a little way too much in the fishing gear dept. and will thin it out a little for future ventures.
A brief rundown of the kit itself:
firesteel
3x bullion cubes (2 already eaten as pictured)
2x foam bobbers
2x plastic bobbers
9x wire fishing leaders for trotlines/snares
baggie of PJCB's
many hooks
many sinkers
a few lures (jigs, spinners, etc.)
all wrapped in spiderwire



My Bushcraft fly-tying kit, pictured on top of my FAK, nothing too special in there except the thread pictured, just some bandaids, antibiotic, etc.



Tying my fly, using a handy piece of wood as a stand-in for a vise, and a couple of scrounged feathers for wings, tail, and hackle (that could have stood a little improvement)



Using my handy Eskabar, I was able to easily get through all the cutting and snipping tasks usually assigned to a large set of specialty tools and finish up the PointyBushFly Mk.I. It's far from pretty, largely due to the large, upholstery-sized thread I packed (fixing that, too). But it's important to remember: when fishing, one must only fool the fish...



Fortunately, I did fool the fish (a few), and as Derek already mentioned, helped him do the same. By this time I noticed that I was not thinking as clearly as usual (a likely result of a poor night's sleep) and with that, soup was on. Now how does one consume a fishy-ramen mixture? Chopsticks. Time to carve them.



After the meal, not only was my stomach surprisingly full, my brain was sharp again, and (believe it or not,) I was tasting the sweet flavor of victory... And fishy-ramen. Pictured here is my billy can, one of the weekend's all-stars.


As stated previously, I was less than satisfied with my shelter, so I tried to spruce the place up a little (pun intended). After Dinner, I hit a bit of an energy and motivation upswing and tried to add some insulation to the shelter. It still wasn't great, but it allowed me to get a decent night's sleep this time. Presenting: Pointy home Mk.II



Purifying water, straining, then bleach drops. I gotta say this was something I wrote off as easy. but turned out to need improvement. Even after these steps, the water still had an unpleasant taste that was off-putting. That being said, it beats dehydration. And I didn't get sick. The moral here is that safe water is crucial, taste isn't.



After that, we decided to have our second ramen for lunch. And, much to my surprise, I almost had to force myself to eat it. I suppose that I had simply grown used to not eating much (I assure you, that's weird). But I wanted to keep my mind in the game and energy up. After lunch, we went hiking about for a while, knowing that we were past the hump of the adventure, we decided to take pics of the surrounding terrain, few of which will fit here. I will include this one, a thank you to the team that made my time in the dirt much easier.


After hiking around for a time longer, we ran out of adventure time, So I thought i'd wrap it up with some Eskabar love.



This Adventure was a blast, it wasn't always easy, it wasn't always warm. But I did make it through, and I came out of it far more knowledgeable than I went in. At the least, I learned enough to know that I need to learn more; and that will be an adventure as well. I went in thinking that hunger would be the real challenge, but it was a cakewalk even for a fat boy like me. The hard part was the cold. I was under the impression that and "it's summer, I don't need to sweat shelter that much". But I learned that a plan for shelter is crucial, regardless of season. But, overall, there was a lot more "chill time" and less panic and loathing than I expected, I really enjoyed fishing with what I had at hand. There's loads more to this weekend than will fit here, hopefully, I'll get the chance to elaborate soon. I'm really glad that I took this as an excuse to get out there an learn a lot more about myself and my skills.

-Pointy

 

[maethor]

Pointy, if I were to judge this, you would win just because you're wearing the xkcd t-shirt. AWESOME!

 

[Moosez45]

Ok, September is up on us. I'm closing this one, and will get it judged tonight or tomorrow.

Next one will be up soon.

Moose

 

[Moosez45]

Ok, finally got a moment to breath, and judge the contest. It was a tough call, all three entries were off the charts fantastic.

dresnor- you win first place and a LE BK10, with all the bells and whistles.
Solo trip with minimal gear, and you aced it. Sound judgement, level headed thinking, and well done. Congratulations.

Pointy- you win second place, and a BK5, no bells and whistles
Your fly tying and fishing skills put you in a close race for second. With some fine tuning of your shelter skills and a few others, you'll be pulling knife only weekends for fun, and to show off for girls. Congrats.

Derek- WTH, I'm pretty sure you were staying in a hotel somewhere and only taking pics during the day. I'm kiddin', I'm kiddin'. Great work, my friend, you done well. So well in fact, I'm bumping up the BK13 to to a BK5. With a little refinement of your shelter skills, and if you can get Pointy to show you some fishing stuff, you're gonna be "the guy" when it comes to the woods and the Boy Scouts.

I'm proud of each one of ya'll, and you should be proud of yourselves as well. One, for taking the challenge and going through with it. Two, for doing as well as you did, and Three, learning from the trip. Its one of those things that builds confidence and makes you aware of what you are really capable of, when the chips are down, and when they aren't.

Great job guy, really great job. On to the next Challenge.

Email me with your addy's and put "August Contest Winner" in the title, I'll have those prizes out next week.

Moose

 

[Idaho Guy]

Awesome job guys! I feel like my son and I got beat fair and square..Dang it!!! Watch out next time though your all going down buhuhahaha,,,cough cough.

 

[DerekH]

Awesome! THanks! Address incoming

 

[Flexxx]

Congrats everyone.....

 

[One Legged Josh]

Nice work guys, and congrats!

 

[ThePointyEnd]

I'd like to thank the academy ... ... ...
seriously, thanks, and good job to everyone on this. As we say around here "good jams"
(( scuttles off to learn more about making shelters ))

address sent

 

[tradewater]

Way to go guys. Very nicely done. Congrats.

 

[The Warrior]

Congrats guys.

 

[Haze240]

Well done everyone. Glad everyone got to spruce up on their survival bushcraft skills. Congratulations on the knives, you earned em.

 

[dresnor]

Whooo Hoooo! Thanks Moose! That is the best news I have heard all day.

Congrats to Pointy and Derek, I want to see pics of the bk5s in action!

Jeremy

 

[GingivitisKahn]

Congrats and nice work!

---

Beckerhead #42

 

[Guyon]

Great job, fellas.
If I'd realized Derek won a BK-5, I'd have disqualified him from the Safety contest.
Derek, that's two contests you've won this month. You must be livin' right.

Dang, I wish somebody would send me a BK-5.

 

[Moosez45]

Great job, fellas.
If I'd realized Derek won a BK-5, I'd have disqualified him from the Safety contest.
Derek, that's two contests you've won this month. You must be livin' right.

Dang, I wish somebody would send me a BK-5.

Me too.

Moose