Posted by: Jimshaw
Survival - tools - part 2 - 11/27/09 07:24 PM
Wow - I thought part two would be a very short and succinct, but NNNooooooo 
This has become totally insane IMOHO. 
Sure this a light weight group, BUT I did say this was to be relative to actual probable North American survival incidents involving hunters, hikers, and snowmobilers in forested country, and draw from published works, NOT my own mountain experience. Personally I think some of these guys are crackpots, but I won't malign them.
As Bigfoot pointed out - probably the most important piece of survival gear is located right behind your eyes
. I nominate the eyes as number two, hands as three and feet as four. So since I'm writing this, I start out my way and then add the rest. 
This was to be about non-voluntary exercises in survival, not extremely prepared ones and I assume that people with a 20 pound "kit" are not the ones who may benefit the most. 
There are two options to start with, those who are lost while camping, hunting etc, and have their pack and some of the ten essentials including a cutting tool of some kind, fire staring tools, clothes and maybe though probably not sleeping gear, and the others have become separated from their gear except perhaps for the contents of their pockets. In such a case I would really hope that I had a BIC and a pocket knife.
Larry Dean Olsen is of course from the primitive only school, in which you make everything yourself and sort of bootstrap yourself into a better position through collecting naturally available materials. A sharp cutting tool isn't hard to make from stone, a primitive bow drill can be fashioned and then a fire board, fire tongs etc can be built. He says, "A person thrown into a primitive survival situation would quickly find his position greatly impaired without the aid of so simple a tool as a pocket knife. <gap> "The construction of almost everything requires the direct or indirect use of a cutting or chopping edge which is itself fashioned with other tools made with cutting and chopping tools" Huh?
well maybe Larry went to a reservation school...? , but he does point out the importance of cutting and chopping tools, at least in south west desert. Since Larry can pick up a pounding tool off the ground and in about ten seconds have an edged chopping tool AND a few spare blades, he and his students do not carry either pocket knives nor axes. 
To Larry the important items are then fashioned using stone tools - like fire tongs, spears, arrows, digging sticks, awls and needles etc, as required.
THE SACRED ORDER - I promised this was coming next. Larry's mentor Tom Brown drills the sacred order into students, SHELTER, WATER, FIRE, FOOD. He doesn't mention duct tape, eye glasses screw drivers, or GPS, I wonder why?
Anyway if you have to make a realistic shelter with only primitive or minimal tools, you had better get right too it. I hope you have you cutting chopping tool or are in good are in a good area for breaking limbs off trees, collecting reeds or what have you. So you have to watch the sun and spread out your time and energy collecting things to keep you warm, watered and maybe even fed. While collecting thing to make a shelter you will also collect things to make a fire and look for sources of water. A METAL COOKING VESSIL IS PERHAPS THE NUMBER ONE ITEM. If you have a pan great. Most places you will find an abandoned beer can or other manmade objects. You can melt snow or transport or boil questionable water in it.
I hope you have BIC or have the skill to start a fire. There is so much written material on this subject that I will skip it. If you do light a fire, do it a few feet from from a reflector like a large rock or tree, and position yourself and your shelter between the fire and the tree. No that you are warming up and have fire, use it to get water and perhaps if your lucky, to cook on and to signal your presence to a search plane.
Cliff Jacobson, the Boundary Waters guide suggestd "A swiss army knife and duct tape are probably enough. Add a sturdy pliers with a cutting edge and pounding tool (hand axe?)of some sort, and you'll be well prepared for most emergencies. (I wonder if read his own book?) "For an ultracompapct kit, I recommend the versatile Leatherman tool. <gap> So good is the leatherman tool, that on go light trips in Minnesota, it is the only tool that most snowmobilers carry. (Note: being with your vehicle that can carry lots of stuff, I hope you have the tools along to fix it and at least a BIC.) 
Cliff then goes on to suggest: crescent wrench, long nosed pliers, screwdriver, steel nuts and bolts, wood screws, self tapping metal screws (ever try to put in a self tapper without a drill driver?)a C clamp, rivets, duct tape, snaps and snap setter, spare washers and fuel cap for your stove, super glue, five minute epoxy, shoe goop, a curved fine pointed dental tool and a gimlet (hand operated twist drill, needles and thread, drift punch, a foot of three quarter inch wide sticky back velcro, and a metal zipper slide." Phew
Deb Erdman, winter program director for Camp Voyageur of Ely Minnesota says, "Warm Boots are the the single most important piece of equipment you need to make a safe enjoyable winter camping trip." (remember I put feet as tool number three after brain, eyes and hands)
Bill Forgey - wilderness MD writes and sells books for a living (and first aid kits)and is therefore rather wordy, says,"I am a strong supporter of a vapor barrier liner in my boots and sleeping bag at temperatures below zero degrees fahrenheit." Dr Bill also suggests a fur ruff on your parka, to make a snorkel for rebreathing, and so ice can easily be knocked off."
From my own experience I can attest to the warmth and protection offered by a pair of plastic grocery store bags IN MY BOOTS AND OVER MY SOCKS. Since we all have them, I really strongly suggest carrying a few winter while camping, even if you don't have a dog to clean up after.
Sandy Bridges, the director of Sommers Canoe Base says, "The key to staying warm is the word C_O_L_D. Keep yourself, clothing and equipment Clean, avoid Over heating, Loose lightweight long and in layers, keep Dry at all costs.
Bradford Angier the military guy says, "first come matches, compass, adhesive bandages, eye glasses, watch, map, mirror, magnifying glass, knife, axe, saw, sharpening stone, gun and ammunition, sleeping provisions, tent or tarp, flashlight, whistle, binoculars or telescope, insect repellent, fishing gear, writing materials, water purifier, cooking outfit, survival rations, rope or cord, toilet kit, repair kit, medicine kit, extra clothes... ready for his repair kit?
small scissors, two rolls of narrow adhesive tape, pointed tweezers, cutting pliers, nylon fish line, snare wire, rawhide lace, tube of all purpose glue, rubber patches and rubber cement, safety pins, copper rivets, a small file, an empty tooth paste tube to be used with pine pitch for soldering ( sounds like the professor on Gilligans Island), sewing kit with needles thread buttons darning wool, gun oil, and finally a spare kit with matches, and a reserve compass".
Personally I stopped carrying the sewing kit, duct tape, emergency fishing kit, whistle, and sierra cup a LONG time ago. Now I carry a small SOG "multitool" that is mostly a pair of strong scissors, a gerber knife with a 2 inch blade, a nail file and maybe clippers, lots of batteries for my GPS/compass, and 3-4 BIC lighters, very tiny glasses screwdriver, tiny phillips screwdriver, and as I mentioned - a couple plastic shopping bags.
This concludes "survival tools part 2". Maybe the broad spectrum of ideas here will make you wonder if these guys are from the same planet, but most people go prepared for the last thing that happened to them, not the next. Your Mileage May Vary.
Go prepared, what ever that means to you, but I always say "if you have everything you MIGHT need, you won't be able to pick it up.
Jim
This has become totally insane IMOHO. Sure this a light weight group, BUT I did say this was to be relative to actual probable North American survival incidents involving hunters, hikers, and snowmobilers in forested country, and draw from published works, NOT my own mountain experience. Personally I think some of these guys are crackpots, but I won't malign them. As Bigfoot pointed out - probably the most important piece of survival gear is located right behind your eyes
. I nominate the eyes as number two, hands as three and feet as four. So since I'm writing this, I start out my way and then add the rest. This was to be about non-voluntary exercises in survival, not extremely prepared ones and I assume that people with a 20 pound "kit" are not the ones who may benefit the most. There are two options to start with, those who are lost while camping, hunting etc, and have their pack and some of the ten essentials including a cutting tool of some kind, fire staring tools, clothes and maybe though probably not sleeping gear, and the others have become separated from their gear except perhaps for the contents of their pockets. In such a case I would really hope that I had a BIC and a pocket knife.
Larry Dean Olsen is of course from the primitive only school, in which you make everything yourself and sort of bootstrap yourself into a better position through collecting naturally available materials. A sharp cutting tool isn't hard to make from stone, a primitive bow drill can be fashioned and then a fire board, fire tongs etc can be built. He says, "A person thrown into a primitive survival situation would quickly find his position greatly impaired without the aid of so simple a tool as a pocket knife. <gap> "The construction of almost everything requires the direct or indirect use of a cutting or chopping edge which is itself fashioned with other tools made with cutting and chopping tools" Huh?
well maybe Larry went to a reservation school...? , but he does point out the importance of cutting and chopping tools, at least in south west desert. Since Larry can pick up a pounding tool off the ground and in about ten seconds have an edged chopping tool AND a few spare blades, he and his students do not carry either pocket knives nor axes. To Larry the important items are then fashioned using stone tools - like fire tongs, spears, arrows, digging sticks, awls and needles etc, as required.THE SACRED ORDER - I promised this was coming next. Larry's mentor Tom Brown drills the sacred order into students, SHELTER, WATER, FIRE, FOOD. He doesn't mention duct tape, eye glasses screw drivers, or GPS, I wonder why?
Anyway if you have to make a realistic shelter with only primitive or minimal tools, you had better get right too it. I hope you have you cutting chopping tool or are in good are in a good area for breaking limbs off trees, collecting reeds or what have you. So you have to watch the sun and spread out your time and energy collecting things to keep you warm, watered and maybe even fed. While collecting thing to make a shelter you will also collect things to make a fire and look for sources of water. A METAL COOKING VESSIL IS PERHAPS THE NUMBER ONE ITEM. If you have a pan great. Most places you will find an abandoned beer can or other manmade objects. You can melt snow or transport or boil questionable water in it.
I hope you have BIC or have the skill to start a fire. There is so much written material on this subject that I will skip it. If you do light a fire, do it a few feet from from a reflector like a large rock or tree, and position yourself and your shelter between the fire and the tree. No that you are warming up and have fire, use it to get water and perhaps if your lucky, to cook on and to signal your presence to a search plane.
Cliff Jacobson, the Boundary Waters guide suggestd "A swiss army knife and duct tape are probably enough.
Add a sturdy pliers with a cutting edge and pounding tool (hand axe?)of some sort, and you'll be well prepared for most emergencies. (I wonder if read his own book?) "For an ultracompapct kit, I recommend the versatile Leatherman tool. <gap> So good is the leatherman tool, that on go light trips in Minnesota, it is the only tool that most snowmobilers carry. (Note: being with your vehicle that can carry lots of stuff, I hope you have the tools along to fix it and at least a BIC.) Cliff then goes on to suggest: crescent wrench, long nosed pliers, screwdriver, steel nuts and bolts, wood screws, self tapping metal screws (ever try to put in a self tapper without a drill driver?)a C clamp, rivets, duct tape, snaps and snap setter, spare washers and fuel cap for your stove, super glue, five minute epoxy, shoe goop, a curved fine pointed dental tool and a gimlet (hand operated twist drill, needles and thread, drift punch, a foot of three quarter inch wide sticky back velcro, and a metal zipper slide." Phew
Deb Erdman, winter program director for Camp Voyageur of Ely Minnesota says, "Warm Boots are the the single most important piece of equipment you need to make a safe enjoyable winter camping trip." (remember I put feet as tool number three after brain, eyes and hands)
Bill Forgey - wilderness MD writes and sells books for a living (and first aid kits)and is therefore rather wordy, says,"I am a strong supporter of a vapor barrier liner in my boots and sleeping bag at temperatures below zero degrees fahrenheit." Dr Bill also suggests a fur ruff on your parka, to make a snorkel for rebreathing, and so ice can easily be knocked off."
From my own experience I can attest to the warmth and protection offered by a pair of plastic grocery store bags IN MY BOOTS AND OVER MY SOCKS. Since we all have them, I really strongly suggest carrying a few winter while camping, even if you don't have a dog to clean up after.
Sandy Bridges, the director of Sommers Canoe Base says, "The key to staying warm is the word C_O_L_D. Keep yourself, clothing and equipment Clean, avoid Over heating, Loose lightweight long and in layers, keep Dry at all costs.
Bradford Angier the military guy says, "first come matches, compass, adhesive bandages, eye glasses, watch, map, mirror, magnifying glass, knife, axe, saw, sharpening stone, gun and ammunition, sleeping provisions, tent or tarp, flashlight, whistle, binoculars or telescope, insect repellent, fishing gear, writing materials, water purifier, cooking outfit, survival rations, rope or cord, toilet kit, repair kit, medicine kit, extra clothes... ready for his repair kit?
small scissors, two rolls of narrow adhesive tape, pointed tweezers, cutting pliers, nylon fish line, snare wire, rawhide lace, tube of all purpose glue, rubber patches and rubber cement, safety pins, copper rivets, a small file, an empty tooth paste tube to be used with pine pitch for soldering ( sounds like the professor on Gilligans Island), sewing kit with needles thread buttons darning wool, gun oil, and finally a spare kit with matches, and a reserve compass".
Personally I stopped carrying the sewing kit, duct tape, emergency fishing kit, whistle, and sierra cup a LONG time ago. Now I carry a small SOG "multitool" that is mostly a pair of strong scissors, a gerber knife with a 2 inch blade, a nail file and maybe clippers, lots of batteries for my GPS/compass, and 3-4 BIC lighters, very tiny glasses screwdriver, tiny phillips screwdriver, and as I mentioned - a couple plastic shopping bags.
This concludes "survival tools part 2". Maybe the broad spectrum of ideas here will make you wonder if these guys are from the same planet, but most people go prepared for the last thing that happened to them, not the next. Your Mileage May Vary.
Go prepared, what ever that means to you, but I always say "if you have everything you MIGHT need, you won't be able to pick it up.
Jim
