Phat

lets face, most people think its the real McCoy.
This is the reason we get such strange posts from Newbs.
There IS a new "wilderness creedo" which is a combination of fantasy about man-eating wild animals that you protect yourself from with a Bowie knife, and people toting guns to protect themselves from other campers. The concept that a smaller pack is inherantly better, that being unprepaired is being more prepaired, that disposable camping gear is cool. These campers are not going off trail on solo adventures in rugged country - they are a sort of gentrified modern camper, unlike the hairy chested no fear millions of hippy backpackers who didn't carry cell phones or personal locaters. The new camper worries about his or her safety and about whether the other campers will be impressed by their tiny pack. The new disposable camping mode is a lot like homeless camping.

These guys are quite a separate strain from the real trail runners. They think anybody can do this because it looks so easy. Do you think anybody would turn on a real survival training film that didn't include the occasional grizzly walking into camp?

Of course you have to lower yourself into a crevace with no ropes or other gear to escape a glacier, only an idiot would just walk off it. You think the guy in the lake naked with a stick trying to club a fish is ridiculous because you know how fish react when large animals splash in the water say 20 feet away. You aren't gonna get close to a fish using that technique - you know and I know it, but some person who has not had the oppportunity to learn for himself is gonna get severly hypothermic trying this - why? Because the film crew isn't there with a warm trailer to jump in, nor to provide you with a dead fish to hit.

No the scary part is that people accept this as "all the survival traiining they've had" and would revert to it in a bad situation if they remembered. "Lets see how did he get down into the crevace - woops.

Not to pick on anybody, but for instance we've had people trying to buy the ultimate sleeping bag who actually do not have idea how to use one. You can't have the same knowledge with no experience as you do after say 50 or 100 trips, obviously and I don't want to put anyone down just becasue they are a newb, not at all. But it does amaze me just how little knowledge our newbs have. I mean I was a cub scout and a boy scout then became a climber and a solo wolderness camper, but it was a continuum. I didn't start at the ropes, I started learning to hike, then to camp, how to build a fire, and we practiced this stuff. I take so much for granted. Anyway I think we don't help our newbs nearly as much as we should because we concentrate way too much on gear and not on Technique. I wrote a post last year on how to melt snow. Maybe its in a FAQ somewhere, otherwise how do newbs learn how to melt snow? Anybody that doesn't think melting snow is an art should take a dry pan and some snow and a stove and try it.
Jim