The return of the monthly challenges, with a twist.

DerekH

DerekH

Handsome According to my Mother
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Everyone that's been here for awhile I'm sure fondly remembers the challenge threads we used to have on a monthly basis. The topics were as varied as the people that frequent our wonderful subforum, and they were always something a lot of people could get involved in. So, after talking to Ethan this afternoon, we're going to bring them back, or bring back something along those lines. We are going to be blending this with another idea.

A couple of months ago Dresnor came to me with a great idea on starting a monthly thread dedicated to a particular skill, and getting everyone involved. Then, the following month, have the challenge be based off of the previous month's compendium of knowledge. After talking it over with the boss, he is in. So, to get the ball rolling, we are going to start this month with everyone's favorite skill: fire. Look for a new thread shortly that will be stickied at the top for it. Put your best tips, tricks, and pics in there, and we will see just how much knowledge we can fit into a post. Hope everyone enjoys this idea as much as I do, and if we do this right we could have ourselves quite the collection of skills and information.
 
Reserved to make fun of Derek.

Moose
 
Reserved to sob and cry about it.
 
Reserved because of my reservations (not about the challenge... about Derek's sobbing).
 
ALright, going to open this up for discussion to see if we can make some things happen here.
 
Alright, how I had hoped we might be able to make this work would be to have the initial post on one of these threads be a huge how-to with tons of pics, and then add to them from there. At the same time, I don't want it to be something that is always done by the same person. So, and this is just what I was thinking, (chime in if you guys want it to go differently), we post up a list of what the topics are going to be each month. Then, we have a person or two volunteer to do the initial information post. So say shelter is the topic for November, as soon as November 1 rolls around, Joe Beckerhead has his post ready to go, starts a new thread, and then once it is up we sticky it up top for everyone to add their own take, tips, etc... to. When it comes time for December to roll around, the November thread is unstickied, and the December thread gets stickied up top. We also start off the Decemeber challenge, using the skills learned from the November thread as the basis for that challenge. Does this sound like it would work for everyone?

My thinking was that we decide on the skills we want, post up a list, then get people to volunteer to do the initial post for that particular subject. You have until that month rolls around to get your post done, and we need to make sure people are actually doing the post so that we can be sure to have a really good initial post happening. Maybe even have a few backups for each, because even if they are not the initial post, they can still post all that stuff to the thread to add to it. Repetition of material is fine, and probably going to vary from person to person too.

Also, I was thinking of trying to see if we can get the most experienced to do that initial post. So for instance if we did a medical post or first aid, see if we can get AverageIowaGuy to do the initial one since he is a surgeon, or if we do Urban Survival have Ethan's buddy Chance do the initial one since that is an area where he excels. What do you guys think about that? Some stuff is pretty basic, but some things we have people who are incredibly familiar with as well as skilled, so see if we can get them involved on the initial post to get it off to a good start.
 
Just wanted to say thanks for doing this Derek. I'm looking forward to it. I liked to read up on the old challenges. Similar situations, yet combined with additional knowledge and using that knowledge... I like it. Definitely going to participate if I find the time and the materials, depending on the topic of that month. Seems like an interesting experience.

I reckon these skills may vary a lot? From firemaking, to toolmaking, whittling, bushcrafting, camp making, to I dunno? But everything related to building a certain skill set? Or is there also some room for goofing around here and there...?
And just to make it clear: the information/challenge thread of the next month is -or is not?- linked to what we've learned in the previous month? For example, month 1 is something with fire, is fire then a necessary part of month 2 -being shelter building-?

edit: just saw your more comprehensive post, missed that before I posted. Sounds good and interesting. I'd be in for sure. Great reading material and information-rich challenges. I'm down.
 
Well, I think the whole community here should weigh in on what we cover, but I don't see any reason we wouldn't have a couple of silly ones or anything. Especially when it is snowy outside, we don't want to have every challenge be about hardcore outdoors skills or survival based knowledge. So I'm sure we could fit in a few, and probably would need to just so we could mix it up and pad the list a little bit. We don't have a time limit here, so the more ideas we can cover, the longer we can keep this idea alive.
 
You know, we see tons of how-to material on fire, water, shelter, gear and such, but we never see any threads or material on navigation/orientateering. I know some of you guys have experience, and to be honest, its my one big weakness in my tool bag of bushcraft/survival. Its just a suggestion.
 
I like it, that definitely needs to be on the list! Good suggestion!
 
Its kind of a suggestion made from greed and personal gain lol, but im sure others could benefit from it also.
 
bsmith_shoot said:
Its kind of a suggestion made from greed and personal gain lol, but im sure others could benefit from it also.
Click to expand...

No that's great, that is exactly what we need here. That kind of knowledge is something that I guarantee at least a few others need to learn and several more probably need a refresher on. It isn't usually covered and yet can be the thing that saves your life even more quickly than fire or any of the other things, or completely remove the need for any type of survival actions. I'm working on getting a tentative list of stuff to cover together right now, and that definitely needs to be on there.
 
Another thing that I might find interesting is something related to tracking wildlife. I am able to recognize some tracks, but definitely not everything and I'd like to learn. I'm not a hunter, just a wildlife enthousiast so there's A LOT of room for learning.
Similar experience with wild edibles. I know of some, but not all. It might be difficult to build a knife-related challenge around these topics, but they definitely interest me.
 
Here's the initial list of stuff I had (with the new suggestions added in):

knife choice and usage
fire starting
cordage and knots
shelter building
water purification
navigation/orienteering
fishing/trapping
tracking and hunting
wild edibles
outdoor cooking
urban survival
cold weather survival
hot weather survival

I added tracking to the hunting one cause those two go together I think and I know we got a ton of hunters on here. Cordage/knots would be everything cordage I think, from making it to usage and the like. For outdoor cooking I was hoping to have two different people tackle that one, have one cover say modern super lightweight styles and devices, especially if they had a lot of them, like stoves and whatnot (*cough*Guyon*cough*), and then maybe someone from the other end of the spectrum who is pretty good with dutch ovens and other cast iron culinary tools. Moose had a great demonstration for knife usage at one of the gatherings but it got cut short and never really revisited, which is a shame because it was an excellent demo of different types of cuts and how to really use your knife to it's fullest, as well as how to build tools with it.
 
Everyone likes fire plus it is a necessity in a survival situation. Helps you cook and stay warm along with signaling.
 
Great list! What I've found interesting as well is human ingenuity. Or: how to build useful stuff out of rubble. Broken bottles, plastic bottles, cans, coarks, bottle caps, pieces of plastic... They can all be useful, if you're able to see the potential of the materials at hand. (F.e. flutes from PVC tubing, stoves from cans,...)
 
I'd like to see something on camping/hiking/surviving at altitude. I live at about 1000' above sea level, but most the camping we do happens between 5K and 9K. It's a whole different story up there. Cooking can be very different, not just in how long it takes. Even being used to how arid it is out here, at 8K' the air sucks the moisture right out of your body.

I'd also like to see something on southwestern foliage. Most outdoor books cover northern and eastern forests, few explain how to gather shelter and fire materials in the high and low deserts.
 
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