Wilderness survival skills aren’t just for those who like to spend a lot of time in the great outdoors. Anyone can find themselves thrust into a wilderness survival situation. You could be traveling and have your car break down; end up in a blizzard; be in an airplane crash or have to run into an uninhabited area in order to avoid some danger. Any of these could instantly turn your life into a struggle with survival.
Proper preparation is key to surviving such a situation. To most people, that means having a survival kit with them. But while a survival kit is a great help to making it through those times, it is your knowledge that will see you through, more than anything. No survival kit in the world will overcome a lack of knowledge, but the right knowledge can help you overcome the lack of a survival kit.
Here are eight key things that you need to know, if you’re going to survive that encounter:
1. Hypothermia is Your Biggest Enemy
The biggest killer in the wild isn’t lions or bears, it’s the cold. Countless people die every year of hypothermia, sometimes called by the more generic term “exposure.” Hypothermia is simply a loss of your body’s core temperature. Being out in the cold or even cool weather, without the right clothing, shelter and fire can cause you to lose body heat faster than you can generate it.
The biggest cause of people dying of hypothermia is getting wet, usually right before sundown. Unless your clothing is made of wool, wet clothing will cause you to lose body heat much faster than being naked. In fact, a down jacket, which is by far the worst article of clothing to have wet, will cause you to lose body heat 300 times faster than being naked!
Remember, your body temperature is 98.6°F. That means that any ambient temperature lower than that causes you to radiate heat. So unless it’s really hot out, avoid getting wet, especially right before sundown. If you have to cross a river, wait until morning, so your clothes have all day to dry out.
2. Carrying Along a Survival Kit is Worth the Hassle
Many people complain about the necessity of carrying along a survival kit, citing the vast number of times that it doesn’t get used. The counter to that argument is that one time that you need it. Because with a survival kit, like with a gun, when you need it, you really need it.
I personally carry a fairly large survival kit in a cross-body bag when I go out in the wilderness. But even a small survival kit will make a huge difference, providing you with a means to start a fire, purify and carry water, and even signal for help. So putting up with that hassle could save your life.
3. Don’t Let the Sun Go Down Without Fire and Shelter
As a general rule of thumb, you should stop at least two hours before sundown to establish camp. Since finding a good campsite can take some time, you should start looking at least an hour before that. You will need time to build a shelter, gather fuel, and start a fire, before the sun goes down.
Temperatures can drop significantly after nightfall and not always predictably. So don’t use daytime temperatures to determine whether you need a shelter and fire. Assume you do and remember, it’s your life you’re betting on.
4. Know How to Find Natural Shelter
Building a shelter in the wild is a time-consuming task. You’ve got to gather materials, shape them and then connect them together, forming them into a shelter. But there are lots of things which already exist in nature, which can be used as a shelter, either as they are, or with only a little modification.
Any shelter needs to do two things; protect you from the wind and protect you from the rain. While it would be nice if it was insulated to keep out the cold, that’s not likely to happen. You would need to build a hut or cabin in order to have that insulation.
Nevertheless, blocking out the wind and rain will go a long way towards keeping you warm enough and comfortable enough to survive, even in the worst of weather. One excellent shelter, which few people stop to notice, is the space under a pine tree’s bottom branches.
Pine trees are unique in a number of ways, not just that they are green all year long. Of all the species of trees, they are the only ones which have their branches growing out at a right angle to the trunk. That means that as the tree gets older and larger, the branches dip towards the ground. So the branches which are touching the ground probably meet the trunk three or four feet above the ground. Any branches lower than that are dead and can be broken off to clear an area for shelter.
5. You’ve Got to Have Fire
Fire is useful for a number of things in any survival situation. So if there is one thing you want to carry, besides a good knife, it’s a good fire starter. That should be part of your EDC (everyday carry) even when you’re not carrying a survival kit with you.
By good, I mean something that is both reliable and easy to use. Many of the fire starters touted today are reliable, but difficult to use. If your fingers are already stiff from the cold, you probably won’t be able to start a fire with them. That’s why I prefer carrying a piezo-electric windproof lighter. Unlike a disposable lighter, the wind can’t blow one of these out, because their igniter is constantly going. So, you can start a fire in even the worst of weather.
Make sure you know how to start a fire too. Proper use of tinder and kindling, before you get to the fuel for your fire, will make getting your fire going a whole lot easier.
6. Where Can You Find Water?
Our bodies are mostly made of water. So you can’t live for more than about three days without water to drink. You’ve got to know where to find water in the wilderness, as you’ll find that you’re going to be constantly looking for it.
Nature can help you quite a bit here. To start with, water always flows downhill. So if you’re looking for water, you need to go downhill too. Head for canyons and valleys, looking in the lowest points you can find.
Keep an eye on the vegetation around you. Plants require copious amounts of water, especially trees. This is especially useful in arid country. If you see only one stand of trees, chances are, there’s water there. But even in lush terrain, the areas around water will have the heaviest growth of plant life.
Animals can lead you to water as well. If you find a game trail, follow it downstream. Animals water early in the morning and late in the evening. So any game trail that goes downhill, probably leads to water.
7. You Can Survive Without Food
For a short-term survival situation, you can get by without eating. Figures vary, depending on who you talk to and what study they are citing, but the average American can live anywhere from 30 to 100 days without food. Of course, that varies from person to person, depending on how much extra weight they’re carrying around.
8. Inform Others of Your Plans
While you should do everything within your power to get yourself out of trouble, you shouldn’t only depend on yourself. There are many cases where the person can’t rescue themselves, but needs someone else to rescue them. A prime example of this is when someone gets injured out in the wild.
Always let someone else know of your travel plans, even if it’s just a few hours down the road. They should know when you are leaving, the route that you are taking and what time you expect to arrive. That way, they can raise the alarm, if you don’t make it, sending rescuers to look for you. Of course, you need to let them know when you arrive, so that they don’t raise the alarm unnecessarily.
– The Horn editorial team