Weekend 1

3/6/10 - Survival Skills at Cabezon & Car Camping

Driving out to Cabezon we stopped at Home Depot on the way up and picked up some survival experts, Eric & Brian. Then our 7 car caravan continued on into the wilderness. Watching Lambo navigate the large 15 passenger van over the bumpy terrain was slightly frightening. But everyone arrived at stop #1 safe & sound.

At the first stop we all clambered out of the vehicles ready for some fresh air. Eric told us to make a knee high fire using whatever tools we had on us, no going back to the car. Needless to say, few of us were successful. I don't think I even got anything to smoke. Tried rubbing some sticks together and hitting some rocks against each other like in the movies but nada. Next, Eric told us the golden rules of survival. Basically you should always carry something cable of starting a fire (aka flint or power match), signal mirror/whistle and a knife. Other golden rule as that you need a will to live. Next, Eric & Brian went over ways to start a fire. You need tender (finely ground stuff that lights easily, like crumbled bark or a cotton ball) and kenneling. You should always gather 3x as much stuff as you think you'll need. You should be able to start a fire within 10 mins because after 10 mins then you're hands lose dexterity due to cold. Some smart things to carry that work well for tender are steel wool, cotton balls soaked in Vaseline or turpentine wood. Next stack the kenneling in a tee-pee type configuration with a little opening. Light the tender down wind and then stick the tender under the kenneling - voila, fire. Eric & Brian handed out flints and multi-tools. Challenge #2 - get a knee high fire going in 10 mins. I gathered my tender. Finely ground it. Gathered some kenneling and went to work trying to light it. Alas, failure. Even with all the tools, I still died. Grrrr...this is harder than it looks on Survivor. But a few peeps got some roaring fires. We almost needed an extinguisher for Cory's rager. Afterward, we hopped back in the cars and continued onto the slumber sight.

Tents up. Everyone got busy putting up their sleeping quarters. Some were more challenging than others, especially since some of us had never assembled our own tents. Good thing we had some boy scouts in the group to save the day. Next we discussed water collection. We set-up 2 experiments. #1 Solar still - dug a whole in the ground about 3 ft deep. Placed a big can in the center and covered the whole with a clear tarp with just a little puckering over the can. #2 Transpiration bags - placed one black trash bag, one clear and one white bag over juniper branches. Guess which color bag worked best? Then we left to discuss catching food.

Making traps out of logs, rocks and wire is not as easy as it looks on t.v. Supposedly for every 20-30 traps, you yield one dead animal. The squirrel pole looked simplest so I tried that one. Basically, you set a branch against a tree where you think some squirrels might live then you make some wire loops and hope to snag a squirrel. No one caught anything so I'm skeptical of the efficacy. Lambo & Tripod even left their traps up over night but netted nothin. So then he passed around some meal worms. I swallowed 2 like a champ. Think I'll stick with bugs if I'm ever stranded in the wild. Seems much simpler than catching and preparing something. Right now, I need to concentrate on fire as I have enough padding to last a few weeks in the wild.

After trap setting, we checked on our bags. The solar still was a failure. I think we maybe had one drop of water. The transpiration bags worked great. The clear bag was the overall winner. There was about a cup of water while the black bag had almost none. Rules for transpiration bags - avoid poisonous plants. Otherwise, its an easy set up with a good gain.

Grub time. My superior food group (Gabe, Keri, Cory, Clay & me) made a baller meal of chicken curry with potatoes and naan. Then we shared some smores over the fire before hitting the hey.

The morning was time for orienteering. Before we again made outstanding breakfast burritos and packed the cars. Unfortunately, large rain drops interrupted my orienteering lessons. We had to make a dash for paved road so as not to get stuck out in the middle of nowhere - kinda ironic as that's the name of the game. Orienteering has been rescheduled until 3/17 but I won't be here. I'm doomed to being lost in the woods and freezing to death.