Have watched enough Bear Grylls and Les Stroud to be familiar with sheltering under fir boughs and wringing water from elephant dung and using a camel carcass for a tent, but confess a certain lack of kinesthetic knowledge and practice. But my hiking buddy's son knows how to use a fire drill, so we take him along quite regularly now.

Now that I carry InReach I have an SOS signal should I ever really get in the soup. And in the meantime I can certainly practice my shelter-fashioning/fire-building/water retrieving skills. I think the larger issue is dealing with the wholly unexpected, which in the US West seems mostly to revolve around people motoring to places they can't escape. The stories are endless and to be honest, I take my InReach driving now, as well as my rescue tool when I'm traveling the Delta (in case I end up in the drink).

Cheers,