mckrob
Gold Member
- Joined
- Jan 15, 2007
- Messages
- 2,018
I just had the privilege of spending a couple days in Iquitos with five co-workers and Jeff Randall on a condensed jungle survival course.
The company I am working for has a contract for an airborne geophysical survey that involves six months of low level flying over the jungle in a single engine aircraft. After the unfortunate crash of a competitor's aircraft in Guyana management decided to the right thing and get the pilots and operators trained in jungle survival.
Although the course was meant for the airborne group, two of us from the ground geophysics group decided to participate as well.
We flew from Lima to Iquitos on Sunday night where Jeff met us at the airport, a one hour drive brought us to the training camp south of Iquitos. No sipping pina coladas by the pool here... this is a jungle survival training camp and I was happy to see that we were roughing it without electricity and sleeping outdoors.
The course began first thing Monday morning with a briefing from Jeff on jungle survival gear and dangers of the jungle. We then moved into the jungle to practice our machete use then went for a short hike where Jeff and Aguilar gave us instruction on water procurement (water vine, etc) and then we learned how to construct a survival shelter.
Here Aguilar and Jeff are showing us how to construct an elevated survival shelter with just a machete. Watching Aguilar work, it's quite obvious that he does this full time (with the Peruvian military).
Weaving palm fronds to form a three layer waterproof roof:
Next we moved on to fire building down by the river. It had been raining the night before and there was a definite shortage of dry tinder:
Jeff batonning with the RC-4:
In the afternoon we each built a survival shelter that we would spend the night in out in the jungle. Here is mine, not quite finished, just missing the roof:
We each had a Rat Cutlery Comprehensive Survival Kit complete with an RC-6. This kit is very well put together, I've seen various survival kits and I can honestly say this is one of the best. There was really nothing else that I would have added to this kit, maybe a second redundant fire steel as I tend to lose them (although this is really covered off by the bic lighter) and a second survival blanket. I love these survival blankets, they are much heavier construction than the mylar "single-use" space blankets, complete with grommets, they can be used as tarp, ground sheet, and signal flag. I would highly recommend this kit, and I think it's a steal at $217 especially considering it contains an RC-6 !
We used the orange tarps and rain ponchos to complete our shelters.
The six of us spent the night sleeping in our individual shelters; it poured rain all night, not letting up a bit until morning. The shelter held up well and I didn't get wet.
Unfortunately I didn't get my camera out on the second day; I know Jeff was taking some photos, so hopefully he can post some here.
We spent the day working on jungle navigation (pace and compass) and signalling (lots of fire building). We also learned how to improvise a balsa wood raft that could be used to float down river to safety.
In all a great experience and one I would highly recommend to anyone planning to spend some time in and around the jungle. I want to thank Jeff for everything and I hope one of these days I'll get the opportunity to participate in one of the longer trips.
One final photo of our group dinner at the local Chinese restaurant in Iquitos:
The company I am working for has a contract for an airborne geophysical survey that involves six months of low level flying over the jungle in a single engine aircraft. After the unfortunate crash of a competitor's aircraft in Guyana management decided to the right thing and get the pilots and operators trained in jungle survival.
Although the course was meant for the airborne group, two of us from the ground geophysics group decided to participate as well.
We flew from Lima to Iquitos on Sunday night where Jeff met us at the airport, a one hour drive brought us to the training camp south of Iquitos. No sipping pina coladas by the pool here... this is a jungle survival training camp and I was happy to see that we were roughing it without electricity and sleeping outdoors.
The course began first thing Monday morning with a briefing from Jeff on jungle survival gear and dangers of the jungle. We then moved into the jungle to practice our machete use then went for a short hike where Jeff and Aguilar gave us instruction on water procurement (water vine, etc) and then we learned how to construct a survival shelter.
Here Aguilar and Jeff are showing us how to construct an elevated survival shelter with just a machete. Watching Aguilar work, it's quite obvious that he does this full time (with the Peruvian military).
Weaving palm fronds to form a three layer waterproof roof:
Next we moved on to fire building down by the river. It had been raining the night before and there was a definite shortage of dry tinder:
Jeff batonning with the RC-4:
In the afternoon we each built a survival shelter that we would spend the night in out in the jungle. Here is mine, not quite finished, just missing the roof:
We each had a Rat Cutlery Comprehensive Survival Kit complete with an RC-6. This kit is very well put together, I've seen various survival kits and I can honestly say this is one of the best. There was really nothing else that I would have added to this kit, maybe a second redundant fire steel as I tend to lose them (although this is really covered off by the bic lighter) and a second survival blanket. I love these survival blankets, they are much heavier construction than the mylar "single-use" space blankets, complete with grommets, they can be used as tarp, ground sheet, and signal flag. I would highly recommend this kit, and I think it's a steal at $217 especially considering it contains an RC-6 !
We used the orange tarps and rain ponchos to complete our shelters.
The six of us spent the night sleeping in our individual shelters; it poured rain all night, not letting up a bit until morning. The shelter held up well and I didn't get wet.
Unfortunately I didn't get my camera out on the second day; I know Jeff was taking some photos, so hopefully he can post some here.
We spent the day working on jungle navigation (pace and compass) and signalling (lots of fire building). We also learned how to improvise a balsa wood raft that could be used to float down river to safety.
In all a great experience and one I would highly recommend to anyone planning to spend some time in and around the jungle. I want to thank Jeff for everything and I hope one of these days I'll get the opportunity to participate in one of the longer trips.
One final photo of our group dinner at the local Chinese restaurant in Iquitos:
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