Survival Trip terrible time

Z

zach225a

Joined
Oct 29, 2005
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112
Hey ya for all who are interested my tip went down two weeks ago and it went terrible. the first thing was that the way i heated my shelter i used a lean two and a fire with reflector. but the wood was way to wet to burn and nothing big just little stuff about the size of your thumb. next was the water the water after being boiled was terrible i mean gross so i spit it out and used tablets and still gross tasted like bad eggs. so what am i going to do i am going to do it again in a different area in two or three weeks just though i let you all know
 
hey Zack, bummer to hear about the miserable time...

something that i found worked well when i went out some days ago was to use rocks heated in the fire inside my blanket (with my feet and held against my chest) to keep my warm down into the single digits. i had to wrap the one i held in a cloth to keep it from burning me, so that might be tricky with a minimum of gear.

for the water, try prefiltering it with a bandana or other cloth to get the big nasties out, then boil it. might help.

read this post, you might pick up a couple of tips:
winter camping trip
failed survival trip
 
When I was younger they talked about "Bad Trips" Sounds like you had one for real. Unfortunately any trip in ND this time of year is a Bad Trip too. I have to go 100 Miles to the VA and if the wind comes up, you are not going to get there or not get home. Wide open country with 40 inches of snow in December.:thumbdn:
 
Dang bro, use some punctuation!! I about had a seizure trying to read that!!;)


Sorry about your trip, its all practice man. The more times you get out, the better you will get.

However, sometimes you eat the bar, sometimes the bar eats you.:thumbup:
 
You might try shaking the boiled water some to aerate it. It tastes bad because it is flat, kinda like a flat coke. You might also try to finely dice some pine needles and make a pine needle tea. You will get lots of vitamins and some flavor. You might also try to find dried raspberry leaves or mint.

For your bed you might try building up a bed under your lean to. Cold air sinks and a foot near a fire might make a big difference. Also, with a raised bed you could place large heated rocks from a fire under you to radiate warmth. You could rotate these in the night too. This would be best accomplished with a hatchet or axe.

Better to try things out now than to find out when it is not a planned trip and for a longer duration.
 
It didn't kill ya, so it made you stronger.

So......What will you do different next time?
I would say you need to collect more mid size kindling, birch bark etc if you can find it to get that fire hot enough to push that water out of the bigger stuff. And collect plenty of firewood.

Sounds like you need to bring along a bandana to strain the water through to remove some of the crap. Remember, the water does not have to taste good, it just needs to be safe. Suck it up and move on.

Hot rocks are good, just make sure there is not too much water inside, don't get them from the creek bed or the steam will make them fly apart/explode.

You can also set down a coal bed and cover it with dirt Jeramiah Johnson style, but that is a bit more work.

Good luck on your next attempt.
 
zach225a said:
... my tip went down two weeks ago and it went terrible.
Click to expand...

Zach,

Good on you. Many talk about these skills, you went out and did it :thumbup: !

Analyze the 'failures' (also know as learning!), and continue the journey...

Please keep us posted so we may all learn!!

Regards,
8
 
Zach,

I went out last Mothers day with no food, 1 liter of water and nothing but a knife, flint, sleeping bag and steel cup. It kinda sucked, I got no sleep because coyotes were howling all night and it rained a bit, but I am going out again this mothers day.

Buy FM-21-76 or a few other survival books and figure out what works for you.

If I can manage at 47 years old, you can figure it out.

Keep at it man.
 
try covering it when boiling it, as this will boil it faster and prevent it from having a smoky taste. Other than that I agree just try prefiltering then boil.

Using an actual water filter will probably yield you the best tasting results, but they are expensive.
 
zach225a said:
Hey ya for all who are interested my tip went down two weeks ago and it went terrible. the first thing was that the way i heated my shelter i used a lean two and a fire with reflector. but the wood was way to wet to burn and nothing big just little stuff about the size of your thumb. next was the water the water after being boiled was terrible i mean gross so i spit it out and used tablets and still gross tasted like bad eggs. so what am i going to do i am going to do it again in a different area in two or three weeks just though i let you all know
Click to expand...

Zach,
First of all let me stress how cool it was of you to come back here and tell that it went badly. Big balls. And thanks.

Second, you aren't alone. Simon/Siguy kind of had his butt handed to him, which is great, because he was the second post in this thread. Very decent guy. A couple other guys have had trouble too. Pitdog got himself into and out of some pretty serious trouble. It could have turned out a lot worse than it did because he kept his head screwed on pretty well. Big balls on him too, because we all learned a heap from his write up too. They downplay it, but it's a lot more courageous stuff than most folks get up to.

Bottom line, it was a survival trip, and you survived. :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: You can't overemphasize that point. And it takes a lot out of the survivor. That's why Les Stroud is quitting and nobody here, afaik, has anything but praise for the man for hanging in as long as he did.

When you're ready, I'd personally appreciate it if you could refresh my memory about your final load. What did you take re food/gear/etc.? What was your thinking right before you left? What happened? Any regrets? All that jazz. When you catch your breath, come on back and spill your guts.:)
 
Hey Zach sorry to hear you had a bad time of it buddy, look on the positive side...things can only get better next time eh !!

Maybe you could take some Gatorade powder to mix in with your water to help disguise the taste or if ya making a hot drink you could throw in some Licorice fern root and pine needles which actually tastes a lot better than it sounds and also adds some Vit C !!!
Why was there no big wood ? Did ya know that if there is a semi rotted stump you can set them alight and they should burn all night, just find one and set up camp at the side of it !!!
 
Hey Zach sorry about the bad time. It sounds like you were in an area that has sulfur in the water. That is some nasty stuff to try to drink. The gatorade that pittdog recommended might be just the ticket.
Keep your head up and use this as a learning experience. Going out and doing is the only way to learn. Keep up the good work.:thumbup:
 
The big take-away message is that survival is not as comfortable as many people think. You actually tried it and learned from it. Many people have a romantic view of survival situations and should take a trip like yours for a reality check.
 
siguy said:
something that i found worked well when i went out some days ago was to use rocks heated in the fire inside my blanket (with my feet and held against my chest)
Click to expand...

When I first read that, I thought you said, "With my feet held against my chest."

I wanted to see a picture of that !!! :D :D :D

.
 
Spelingmastir is right.

If you want comfort, stay home.

Survival sucks, but it is better than the alternative.
 
City folk! :rolleyes:

In this area, the typical well water, without complicated treatment, tastes exactly as you describe - rotten eggs. That's the sulfur dissolved out of natural strata by the water. No filtration with a bandanna or pouring ti back and forth will change a think. On the other hand, it won't kill you -- just tastes bad - real bad -- and keeps most folks "regular." You could collect rain water with a tarp or tarp substitute or try pitdog's suggestion and cover up the bad taste. Different people favor different flavorings for the covering up.

And most rotten stumps around here (Ohio, PA, Michigan) are just rotten wood. They don't burn except with napalm. You need to split open larger pieces of sound wood with an axe (or :eek: by batoning) or enough fire with small stuff to dry off the outside of larger stuff to the point that it catches too.

Practice is good. It teaches what you need to change.
 
So has there been another attempt at this yet? I missed this thread somehow. Just got caught up.
 
You've got to build a hot fire to burn wet wood. This isn't impossible at all really. You've got to split wood, the inside is dry. You've got to start small. You'll have to blow the damn thing till you're dizzy. But it is possible.

Water. Pine needle tea is a great way to flavor terrible tasting water once its boiled and or purified. Another is to filter it. To do this though, you'll need charcoal and some creativity. But again. Very much possible.

My advice, since you already have a shelter built in that spot is to try again.

If survival was easy, fancy fun, nobody would take their tents into the woods when they drag their woman along.

How about trying an easier camping trip to practice on. A person can practice a lot of wood skills on a car camping trip, and still have some comfort. (And maybe even a lady friend along also.)
 
zach225a said:
Hey ya for all who are interested my tip went down two weeks ago and it went terrible. the first thing was that the way i heated my shelter i used a lean two and a fire with reflector.
Click to expand...

Try an a-frame next time that's just big enough for you to get into with ~1 foot thick of pine boughs on the floor, they're quite comfortable (I preach this one left and right, it's one of absolute favorites). They get real warm (keep in mind I'm talking as compared to freezing to death), snug & dry when you block off the opening. You don't even need a fire at that point, your body heats it up by reflection and insulation.

The classic lean-to isn't good for much except a rain braker and shade. The three open sides let wind in every which way. Even if you close two of the sides off, you still have that big, open front. With no fire you'll still chill and maybe even freeze. (I stopped using regular lean-to's after my first time out. By the second day I was saying to myself: "F--k this, there's gotta be a better shelter type")

I still use a lean-to, but it's usually only in the warm summer months when I know the nights won't freeze my ass off. Even then I still have a fire going and a pine bough bed about 6 inches thick.

but the wood was way to wet to burn and nothing big just little stuff about the size of your thumb.
Click to expand...

Fiddley had an excellent point about this. Standing wood is your best chance for dry wood, even then you may have to split it. Anything on the ground is bound to be soaked.
Once you get a good fire going, if you have any damp wood, split it and lay it near the fire to dry out.

next was the water the water after being boiled was terrible i mean gross so i spit it out and used tablets and still gross tasted like bad eggs.
Click to expand...

Sounds like it was full of Sulfur. Did it smell that way BEFORE you boiled it (like it was full of rotten eggs)? Filtering through a bandana would only remove large particles and sediment. Charcoal from a fresh fire would more than likely have worked in a three tier system, but you said you barely could get a fire started. Your best bet would have been rain collection or to find a puddle somewhere and get what you could from that, then kill it.

so what am i going to do i am going to do it again in a different area in two or three weeks just though i let you all know
Click to expand...

Sounds like you had a fine area right there, just wet and crappy water. I'd use the same one and just find a different way of getting H20 (taking some with me for back-up of course).
You gave it a try and didn't get discouraged, that's the important thing. That shows you have enough guts to push on in a real situation. :thumbup:

The important question is: Did you LEARN anything?
 
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