Occasionally you cannot avoid an aggressive encounter with an animal in the wild (or in the neighborhood or backyard), so here’s what you need to do if you are faced with these situations. Bears Staying still, appearing large, and making noise are good deterrents for most bear encounters, but they are not foolproof. Some area rangers suggest saying “Hey bear!” is enough to get a bear to leave an area, but really, prevention is again the best course of action. Don’t have loose, unprotected food, smell like food or blood around a bear area, and
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It has been said that knowledge is power, and that applies to any area in life. Of course, it is important to arm and prepare, but it is even more important to constantly learn new aspects of survival. Some of these arts and sciences have been lost in the last century, as modern life has caused humanity to know more how to use a smartphone rather than how to build a fire. It is easy to gloss over these skills like an old memory, when you can simply pop at TV dinner in the microwave
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Separating fact from fiction in order to make an appropriate choice during a stressful situation is incredibly important.  Situational awareness can be the key component in the decision-making process, and makes it (the stressful situation) infinitely easier to deal with. Every demographic, area, and community on the planet has a different litmus test for what constitutes a catalyst for action. The specific risks for your area, combined with a number of other factors (including politics, resources, community, personal preparation, and others) are the only tests able to provide the results necessary to make the right
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Mountaineering in the remote wilderness requires almost complete self-reliance. There is no backup plan. Everything a mountaineer does will have a direct and dramatic impact on comfort, success, and the end result: whether they get home safely or not. Subjecting oneself to the harshest environments, for whatever the reason, breeds the same types of techniques and strategies. Mountaineering has long been considered one of the toughest and most demanding outdoor “sports;” because of that, much can be learned from the basic techniques, which can be used in normal outdoor survival situations. Much of the “coursework”
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Sometimes a wilderness scenario it isn’t always about “survival” but rather about testing your survivability, or training your skills. This article is more about not being ridiculous.  Sure, test yourself, build your skills and use them to their maximum levels if you are ever in a real survival situation, but forget the idea that you can reverse the effects of an allergic reaction or survive on mushrooms in the wild when you don’t really know what the differences are. Firstly, an allergic reaction is a real life situation that does not take into account that
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In an extended survival scenario, food will become a primary concern; however, plants can be used more than just food. This article talks about a potentially more pressing concern in a survival situation: medicine.  Medicinally, wild plants can be helpful during extreme situations and even prove to be life saving. Remedies for common concerns: Jewelweed: Poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac can all be eased with jewelweed, a plant that grows in many locations. Unfortunately, there are so many varieties that it is difficult to describe a variety that might be near you. Look
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Please read this series of articles together to make sense of the logic and information contained within it.  The premise article (Part 1) is an important introduction which explains the reasoning for the inclusion of food sources in an extreme survival section.  Ordinarily the most important parts to a survival plan are derived from the
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Please read this series of articles together to make sense of the logic and information contained within it.  The premise article (Part 1) is an important introduction that explains the reasoning for the inclusion of food sources in an extreme survival section.  Ordinarily, the most important parts to a survival plan are derived from the basic rule of 3’s formula: One can survive 3 minutes without air One can survive 3 hours without protection from exposure One can survive 3 days without water One can survive 3 weeks without food Use these guidelines to understand
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In the wild, the ability to trap, hunt, or fish with the items you have with you is an excellent tool to have in your belt, but in the most extreme situations, by chance or by (inadvertent) choice, you may not have the necessary items with you to make this happen (namely a knife, cord, hooks, fishing line, etc.).   Personally, your choice should never be to be found without a significant amount of survival equipment and knowledge, but it can happen, especially when you are impacted by others in a survival situation. Edible plants exist
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You could argue till you’re blue in the face about who makes the best survival knife, but as cliché as it sounds, the best survival knife is the one you’ve got with you when “normal” all of a sudden becomes survival. This will be an article about some of the best survival knives on the planet, from $15 to well over $500— you decide where you fit in. Excellent Choices from $15-$50 MoraKniv $15-40 (depending on type) Talk to anybody on a budget or that likes to do intricate work, and this is in their
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