Share your outdoor survival story

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led4them

Joined
Jul 11, 2007
Messages
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Hi all, I am new here, found this site searching for knife laws, and think it is a great site, lots of good 1st hand info, many like minded souls, have learned quite a bit looking around here.

Anyway, I am sure many here have some good stories to tell, mine was not bad but sure could have been.

I was on a Memorial Day float/camp with a buddy 20 yrs ago, it was an off and on rainy weekend on an good sized Ozark stream. We found a good gravel bar and unloaded the gear, upstream was a shoal with a fast moving chute that I caught a shad on a roostertail so I went back up to try and get some more for trotline bait.

As I came down the chute, I tried to grab a bobber in a limb and the empty canoe flipped. Lost all my fishing gear and the plastic coleman canoe folded over a submerged tree about chest deep. I was standing on it jumping up and down but it would not dislodge so I swam over to the shallow water and walked downstream got the buddy, and we still could not get it off the tree. 3 guys in a johnboat came by and pulling on a rope from the shallow water and us jumping up and down on the canoe it came loose. The aluminum gunwhale was bent but otherwise in good shape.
I lost one of my shoes, so the rest of the weekend I only had one shoe. That was surely a "one is none" scenario. Luckily the gear was offloaded so not much was lost and it was a learning expierience.
So, anyone else got a story?
Bryan
 
Not really. My buddy and I got lost on a Boy Scout hiking trip once, taking a "short cut". :) There was no survival risk, but at least I had the sense to find a stream and follow it down to the lake that I knew the trails went around. We found our way out in a few hours.

The thing I always remembered about that was the different way we reacted, and our interaction with each other. The other guy wasn't a dope or anything, but he got seriously worried, almost panicky. Seeing his reaction made me take more of a "leadership" role than I otherwise would have, and gave me some confidence to be thoughtful and decisive, for his sake if not for my own. And having someone there to take that role calmed him down and kept him from doing something impetuous and dangerous, which might have gotten him hurt in an otherwise unthreatening situation. I think those dynamics apply to situations with real danger, and it was a useful lesson to learn early in life.

If I'd had to make a fire with a bow drill, though, we woulda been screwed. :D
 
Eh. The closest I've ever come was encountering a wild critters in the woods. I was glad I knew all the trails when I had to avoid a bear. Lol.
 
I was in highschool about 18 years ago and went duck hunting in northern Ontario in late fall with a couple of buddies. We were transporting ourselves and gear via canoe to a small blind we prepared the previous weekend out on a small island. I remember it being one of those quite cold mornings at 5:30 am with frost on the ground and the sun not yet making its appearance, but enough light to see by.

We were loading the canoe from a culvert over by the road. I got in first and was loading everything in along the sides and against the centre cross bar of the back. We had one other guy enter in the middle who sat down near the cross bar towards the front of the canoe. Then the last person to get in tipped us over. He wasn't familiar with boats or canoes and couldn't swim. Yet he was the smartest one of us because he had a life jacket on.

I recall plunging into the water and when the water filled my boots and saturated my cloths, I sank faster than a rock. Fortunately the bottom was shallow and the two of us who went into the drink were able to lift our noses out of the water by standing on our tippy toes. The guy who tipped us was hanging onto the culvert by his hands and one foot clinging to the bank with his butt in the water screaming his head off 'help, help I can't swim'. Despite the freezing cold, the two of us in the water had a case of uncontrolled giggles as we tried to pop up and down out of the water and tell him 'Hey Paul - just stand up man'.

The worst part was having to dive down and feel around for our guns and gear. Fortunately we did retrieve everything but had to kill the hunting trip, load everything including the canoe back into the car and then make our way back to our cabin. I remember that I couldn't drive because I had the shakes so bad from hypothermia. The two of us who dumped built a fire outside the cabin and stayed by it the full day and it wasn't until the evening that we were able to loose the shivers and start to warm up.

The things I recall most vividly was how fast I sank with those boots, army jacket and insulated pants. I remember even after my feet hit the bottom that it was a good struggle to get out of my clothes. The second thing I still remember is how cold I was and how I had the shakes so bad that I lost all fine motor control. I now wear an inflatable PDF and put it on before I get into any boat.
 
One time I went cross-country jogging with a female friend. We jogged approximately 25 miles into the woods and then dug for water. (With our hands, we had no knives!) I was lucky enough to befriend a local fox, and that fox brought me some dead meat while the female in the group ate some salad. We hung out there for 3 days waiting for someone to rescue us, since she didn't want to jog (or walk) back. We made a little fire with the lighter that I happened to have, and eventually a helicopter spotted us and an off-road car showed up and rescued us.
 
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aersixb9 said:
One time I went cross-country jogging with a female friend. We jogged approximately 25 miles into the woods and then dug for water. (With our hands, we had no knives!) I was lucky enough to befriend a local fox, and that fox brought me some dead meat while the female in the group ate some salad. We hung out there for 3 days waiting for someone to rescue us, since she didn't want to jog (or walk) back. We made a little fire with the lighter that I happened to have, and eventually a helicopter spotted us and an off-road car showed up and rescued us.
Click to expand...

What the hell are you talking about?

Drugs are BAD m'kay?
 
:thumbup: Reads like a good Indian story to me. Get woman, get lost, get fed and get a ride home.......:D
 
I would have thought more than 2 guys have a story to tell, boing, kgd, they are good stories, a learning expierience for sure
 
I think most people posting in this sub-forum have enough bush sense and basic situational awareness to keep from getting themselves into sticky situations in the first place. That'll cut down on the number of stories, I imagine.
 
That may be true at this point but bushcraft is a learned skill, everyone starts somewhere. Anyone that has spent any amount of time in the wild has a story to tell, freak storms, vehicle failures, etc.
 
Oh, OK, I'll play.

Many years ago, in the prehistoric dark ages before time began, I was a young man recently graduated from college. As luck (or, um bad luck, depending on how you look at it) would have it, my first job out of college was with a large manufacturer of mainframe computers in the Minneapolis area. This particular company was doing a swell job of running itself out of business, and in fact managed to lose $500 million the first year I worked for them. (Not my fault!)

Anyway, the company decided that in order to survive they should cut every employee's salary by 10%. "Not so fast!" us employees wisely cried. "If yer gonna cut our salaries by 10%, then we're gonna work 10% less."

And so it was that I had months and months of 3 and 4 day weekends, or entire weeks off if I wanted, as I was allowed to take my 10% of the year off any old time that I pleased.

Somewhere in there I decided to take a good vacation (which I needed, having been working slavishly hard for, heck, weeks. :D ) So I decided to take myself on a backpacking trip up into Northern Minnesota, along the North Shore of Lake Superior and behind the Saw Tooth Mountains.

I'm sure you'll be shocked to learn that none of my friends or family were free to just drop everything and go backpacking with me (they all had this odd complaint, something about needing to work :rolleyes: ).

So I went solo. Which was wise, because I got to go hang out in the woods. But it was also unwise because, not surprisingly, shit can happen.

The month was April, IIRC, and spring had already settled into the Minneapolis area. It was warm out, not much rain that spring, but the snow was gone and people were running around in t-shirts and shorts already. So up north I went, confident that I would have a fine stroll in the woods.

I even asked the local rangers if the trail I wanted to take was passable. "No problem," they told me. "You'll be fine." I could even look around me and see no snow on the ground. I figured I was good to go.

So up the trail I went, even following some mountain bike tracks for a little ways, which only served to convince me that the tail was clear.

But funny thing of it was, the more I progressed behind the Saw Tooths, the more snow I found. Eventually I was crawling through snow that was crotch deep and cursing the rangers who hadn't warned me that I might need snowshoes.

Finally I made it out from behind those mountains (hills, really, but who's going to quibble?) and made my way to a logging road that was part of my route. Great. No snow here. So up the road I went, happy as a clam.

In due course I became aware that I was no longer walking on mud and dirt, but was instead walking on split birch. WTF?? I took a closer look and realized that someone had in years past split birch logs in half and laid them over the road, probably to keep it from washing out.

But it seemed solid enough, and it WAS after all a road. What could possibly go wrong?

A half mile later I found out, as my foot broke through the birch logs and I fell about shin deep into the icy water underneath. Which wouldn't have been a problem except that I was carrying a 50lb pack and I landed on my foot wrong, twisting my ankle a bad, bad way.

And there I was, all alone, far away from everyone, with a gimpy ankle, and a 50lb pack, crotch deep snow behind me, and god only knew what in front of me. And no one expecting me back in town, or to even hear from me, for at least 7 days.

I'll admit, that was something of a low point in my outdoors adventuring career.

To make an already long story a little shorter, I managed to make my way to a passable camp site about a mile up the road, limping badly the entire way. I set up my tent there and then spent the next three days icing my ankle. (Lots of snow around to do that, and at least I had plenty of food.) After the third day, I made my way to another logging road (good thing I had a good map) that took me down to the highway, where I was able to hitch hike back to a state park. Then I called my girlfriend who picked me up 2 days later.

Not a great trip, in the end it was kind of boring, but I survived. The only lasting fallout from it was that to this day my ankle still bothers me and has never been as strong as it used to be. Which is why I'm the one hiking with big honking boots (for the ankle support) when everyone else gets to wear ultra light hiking boots. :mad: Oh well!

Sorry if I rambled on too long....
 
Quite a few years ago, my wife and I were backpacking the Sierra north of Yosemite, not too far away from Twin Lakes. If some of you are familiar with that area, you will now its kind of remote, but its near the John Muir Trial, so you frequently encounter long distance backpackers. My gf (wife now) and I had set up camp after veering off to a remote trail, and we were taking an off day to relax, swim and explore. We had not seen anyone for a couple of days, and we were far removed from human habitation, according to my topo. But we were surprised to see a woman and a baby who must have been about 5-6 months old sitting by a stream. We approached, smiling, to say hi. She got up, picked up the baby, and walked fast away. We saw that she and the kid were filthy. We shrugged, and just went along our way. We spotted them again, the next day as we were packing out, this time they were off trail, from a distance while we were hiking a ridge. We reported it when to a ranger when we got back, but we found no news about this or anyone missing.
 
boing said:
I think most people posting in this sub-forum have enough bush sense and basic situational awareness to keep from getting themselves into sticky situations in the first place. That'll cut down on the number of stories, I imagine.
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As a SAR team leader that does 24 missions a year on average I can say with confidence that 1/3 of people I look for know what they are doing.

Mr Murphy don't care about bush sense.

Skam
 
skammer said:
As a SAR team leader that does 24 missions a year on average I can say with confidence that 1/3 of people I look for know what they are doing.

Mr Murphy don't care about bush sense.

Skam
Click to expand...

True enough!

There have been a few times when I had to find shelter in the Sierra's because of not so sudden severe thunderstorms, which bring with them quarter sized hail and downpours, along with sustained high winds, but they weren't really a survival situation, because I knew where to go for the shelter, or had it with me and got it put up before the storm hit. More or less just weathering the storm and then getting on with my hunt.

Then there was the time in Idaho when I was chasing Elk on a ridge a few miles from where I was staying. It looked like snow when I got there and sure enough it started to snow, so I started back, but before I made it very far, it went from a steady snow, to wind and near whiteout conditions. I set up a small shelter, using slash from a site that had been logged a year or so before. Blocked the wind, stayed dry and had a small fire going to help keep the chill off. Used paracord, USGI poncho and small stand of trees for the shelter, as well as green bows that I cut from the firs around me. I sat on my pack, heated a cup and watched the snow come down. When it let up, I trudged through the snow the couple of miles and upon arrival, put my feet up and enjoyed a hot tea in front of their woodstove. Not so much survival as just staying within the reality of what was taking place. I suppose that if it had gone on into the night, my friends would have called someone, but it didn't get that far.

Oh, then there was the two times, in two months that our home got flooded.......:O( Still not a survival situation, but it was no fun.
 
Here is my story. Not super dramatic or really life threatening, but hopefully a lesson or two can be learned:

Several years ago, my girlfriend and I took our first backpacking trip together. I have a good bit of experience in the woods from years spent camping in the Appalachians and in Scouting, and she has a decent amount. We were prepared for the trip, and we had plenty of decent gear. Some of it was a little heavy, but it was all quality stuff that would hold up fine under normal conditions. My backpack was rented from REI since I didn't have a nice one at the time, and hers was a small daypack that held our food and a few other items.

They trip was up to Jack's River in North GA. It is a pretty well-traveled area, so we were by no means the only people in the area. Our problem came in with the trail we chose. There are two trails in. One is about 5 miles, relatively flat, and one minor river crossing. The other is 12 miles, also flat, but with 22 river crossings (yes, 22 each way). I was stupid and didn't spend enough time looking at the topo map, so we of course took the 12 mile one, not realizing quite how many crossings there were. The trail was awfully close to the river the entire route, so I didn't notice that it kept snaking around the water.

I was wearing boots and took them off at the first four or five crossings. Since the crossings were every 5 minutes or so, I started just leaving my boots on. Big mistake. We had a lot of rain recently, so the water was up to my thighs in parts. Not especially fast moving, so we would not be swept away by the current, but it was still enough to get you wet. Every now and then, I would have to pick my girl out of the water because she would slip and fall. I had rope, so I used that in a couple of spots to tie on each side to make her trip a little easier.

By the time we made it to the camp area, we were pretty tired and wet. There were a few other groups set up by the falls. We set up across the river from them so we would have a little privacy. That didn't last long, since a couple of black bears decided to see what we were up to. They are very used to humans in that area, so they would basically walk right up to your tent. We moved our stuff closer to the other groups since the bears seemed to avoid them a little better. After we ate, I tied the bag with our food about 30' off the ground on a sturdy branch with paracord and tied the end to a tree. I put it a little ways away from our site in case the bears got interested again.

We wake up in the morning, and I wander over to get our food down for breakfast. The bear had untied the knotted rope (yes, untied...it was a tight knot wrapped several times around the tree and not frayed or cut when I got there) and gotten my bag down. I thought a fellow camper had done it at first, but there were clear bear tracks all over, and bear slobber on everything. There were a few claw marks on the bag, but little damage other than that and a bunch of bear slobber. The crazy part was that he had opened up every single zipper on the bag (8 or so) to see what was in the pockets. He ate all the food except a single can of vienna sausages, punctured the Gatorade that was in there and drank it, and left the trash in a little pile by the bag on the ground (yes, I carried the trash out).

So, we had 12 miles and another 22 crossings, and no food. Not life or death, but still sucked. Luckily, I had a water filter, so we were OK on water. One of the other campers gave us a couple of granola bars, so we had a few calories to get back on.

By the time we got back, I literally had holes worn in my feet from the friction of the wet socks on my feet. We were tired and hungry, but in good spirits because we both love the outdoors and still had fun.

So, I have been back to the area several times since then, and always do a few things differently than the first time:

-Wear water shoes if I am doing river crossings. Keen Newports and nice socks are a foot-saver.
-If I am backpacking, I come in from the other side. Wet boots suck.
-Bear canisters are a must. I take mine and just leave in on the ground with a few rocks piled up against it. A bear has swiped at it a couple of times, but my food is always still there. They are too smart to tie anything in a tree.
 
These are good stories, anyone of them could have turned out bad but for the decisions you made. Maybe we all could learn from them.
Storl,
I like the way you listed the changes that were made as the result of your expierience, btw, what are bear containers? we are getting a few around here now.
 
led4them said:
These are good stories, anyone of them could have turned out bad but for the decisions you made. Maybe we all could learn from them.
Storl,
I like the way you listed the changes that were made as the result of your expierience, btw, what are bear containers? we are getting a few around here now.
Click to expand...

Here is the one I have:

Bear Container

They are basically hard plastic containers that bears cannot break or get into becuase of the opening mechanism.
 
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