With the love of the outdoors and getting off the beaten track, there comes the very real possibility of getting lost on a hike or maybe worse…injured and unable to reach ‘safety’ before it gets dark.
Setting oneself up for success is the best course of action and for us, that means being as prepared as possible by taking a Wilderness Survival course.
There are things that go bump in the night, creatures big and small, the cold, the wind, the rain, the snow, where to take refuge, and how to stay warm – we need shelter, we need fire, we might need to be rescued.
Of course, in true survival fashion, we had it all - rain, an impromptu snowfall, winds, and below-freezing temperatures. There would be no sleeping bags or tents for this overnight in the woods. We had our survival kits and the clothes on our backs – everything we needed to hone our skills of surviving in the woods.
After the in-class learning and a some hands-on sessions outdoors, we now had to put what we learned into practice.
The goal was to start a fire in the afternoon and keep it going throughout the night to the following morning – about 18 or 19 hours. In addition, we had to find enough boughs and branches to build our shelter plus a signal tower, collect enough firewood so that we didn’t have to go searching for wood in the darkness, and do what we could to stay warm.
We were surprised that sleep was almost impossible. Even with two of us. We would try to nap, but those lasted for no more than 15 minutes at a time. We would wake up to cold toes or a body that was shivering and the only relief was to get within inches of the fire once again to regain warmth. Of course, one of us was always watching the fire to make sure it continued to provide much-needed heat, all the while listening to the heightened sounds of a living forest that surrounded us.
In warm summer temperatures, the experience might be a bit different, but having the colder temperatures gave us a greater appreciation of what ‘could be’…and…
…WE SURVIVED!
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