So I fancy myself pretty well equipped mentally to survive in the forests and Rocky Mountain foothills surrounding my home. I'm fairly well versed in bushcraft, and I've done a bit of winter camping, etc.
Two weeks ago I head up in a helicopter to service one of our mountain top radio repeater sites. The weather is gorgeous, and I eat my lunch in a snow bank at 10,000' at about 40F. All of a sudden a storm rolls in, and I call the pilot to come and get me ASAP. By the time he gets on scene, the wind is 60MPH, and the visibility is less than 500'. He can't land, so he leaves and heads home. I'm now spending the night with a coworker in a 7X10' unheated building. No problem, we have water, food, candles, extra clothes, etc. This situation is always a possibility, so we carry backpacks full of survival stuff.
The next morning, the wind is now 110MPH, and the temp has dropped to 10F. No way in hell they can come and get us. We're out of water, so we melt snow in our little Jetboil stove, and we heat up some freeze dried food. That Jetboil works awesome, by the way.
We spend all day huddled in our sleeping bags, feeling sorry for ourselves. This is where I start thinking that most of my bushcraft skills are of no use up here. I'm completely out of my element here. Shelter building would be impossible. The wind would fill in a snow cave as fast as you could dig. No trees or foliage of any sort. No natural terrain anomalies to exploit for protection that I could see. Fire building skills are of little use, other than lighting a candle. Lighting a fire outside would be impossible in the wind, even if there was fuel available. Heck, I barely even had use for my knives.
So day three arrives, and the wind had died down to 80 MPH, so no helicopter rescue again today. They send up mountain rescue climbers, and escort us down to where the helicopter can pick us up.
I did a serious rethink of what survival preparation means. I used to think that I needed stuff like survival knives or better yet, a survival .22 rifle, PSK's, BOB's, and all that jazz. I realize now, that if I actually had all those items, I probably wouldn't be in a survival situation in the first place. I don't need fancy stuff like special tools and gadgets. I just need a calm cool head, and a good helping of ingenuity. My little Spyderco Cricket worked well for all the cutting necessary, and my Leatherman Tool, while nice to have for certain tasks, I could have survived without. A box cutter might have proved more useful than either of those in this situation.
I've reworked my survival backpack for the next time adding some items, and deleting others. I've also started imaging myself in other unfamiliar locales to decide if I could survive in those circumstances as well. I've pretty much beat every Boreal Forest survival scenario to death in my head over the last 30 years, but I know realize it is silly to concentrate on only one. There are thousands of ways to get dead, and you can only practice survival skills for a few. i.e. You on a ferry that overturns in rough seas, or your stuck by a tsunami on a vacation down south.
I was lucky this time. I got away with minor dehydration and slight hypothermia.
BB
Two weeks ago I head up in a helicopter to service one of our mountain top radio repeater sites. The weather is gorgeous, and I eat my lunch in a snow bank at 10,000' at about 40F. All of a sudden a storm rolls in, and I call the pilot to come and get me ASAP. By the time he gets on scene, the wind is 60MPH, and the visibility is less than 500'. He can't land, so he leaves and heads home. I'm now spending the night with a coworker in a 7X10' unheated building. No problem, we have water, food, candles, extra clothes, etc. This situation is always a possibility, so we carry backpacks full of survival stuff.
The next morning, the wind is now 110MPH, and the temp has dropped to 10F. No way in hell they can come and get us. We're out of water, so we melt snow in our little Jetboil stove, and we heat up some freeze dried food. That Jetboil works awesome, by the way.
We spend all day huddled in our sleeping bags, feeling sorry for ourselves. This is where I start thinking that most of my bushcraft skills are of no use up here. I'm completely out of my element here. Shelter building would be impossible. The wind would fill in a snow cave as fast as you could dig. No trees or foliage of any sort. No natural terrain anomalies to exploit for protection that I could see. Fire building skills are of little use, other than lighting a candle. Lighting a fire outside would be impossible in the wind, even if there was fuel available. Heck, I barely even had use for my knives.
So day three arrives, and the wind had died down to 80 MPH, so no helicopter rescue again today. They send up mountain rescue climbers, and escort us down to where the helicopter can pick us up.
I did a serious rethink of what survival preparation means. I used to think that I needed stuff like survival knives or better yet, a survival .22 rifle, PSK's, BOB's, and all that jazz. I realize now, that if I actually had all those items, I probably wouldn't be in a survival situation in the first place. I don't need fancy stuff like special tools and gadgets. I just need a calm cool head, and a good helping of ingenuity. My little Spyderco Cricket worked well for all the cutting necessary, and my Leatherman Tool, while nice to have for certain tasks, I could have survived without. A box cutter might have proved more useful than either of those in this situation.
I've reworked my survival backpack for the next time adding some items, and deleting others. I've also started imaging myself in other unfamiliar locales to decide if I could survive in those circumstances as well. I've pretty much beat every Boreal Forest survival scenario to death in my head over the last 30 years, but I know realize it is silly to concentrate on only one. There are thousands of ways to get dead, and you can only practice survival skills for a few. i.e. You on a ferry that overturns in rough seas, or your stuck by a tsunami on a vacation down south.
I was lucky this time. I got away with minor dehydration and slight hypothermia.
BB
