Essentials Skills Planning Research Equipment Clothing
The Boy Scouts’ motto is the right one. Anyone setting out on a journey or planning an expedition should follow it by discovering as much as possible about the situations likely to be faced and the skills and equipment called for. It is the most basic common sense to prepare yourself, to take appropriate gear and to plan as carefully as possible. Your kit could make the difference between failure and success, but, especially when back-packing, many people initially take too much and have to learn from bitter experience what they really need and what they could have done without. There is no...
Read MorePolar Regions
Antarctica is covered with a sheet of ice. In the Arctic, the Pole is capped by deep ice floating on the sea and all the land north of the timber line is frozen. There are only two seasons – a long winter and a short summer – the day varying from complete darkness in midwinter to 24 hours daylight at midsummer. Arctic summer temperatures can rise to 18°C (65°F), except on glaciers and frozen seas, but fall in winter to as low as –56°C (–69°F) and are never above freezing point. In the northern forests summer temperatures can reach 37°C (100°F), but altitude pushes winter...
Read MoreWild Food
You need some understanding of your body’s nutritional needs and how to meet them. In most circumstances plants will be the most readily available – but you need to know which plants to avoid. Colour illustrations and photographs provide a miniature field guide to some of the most useful plants, so that your foraging will be fruitful (literally!)FOOD AND FOOD VALUES The body needs food to supply heat and energy and to provide the materials with which it can build new tissues, whether for growth, repair or reproduction. A healthy body can survive for a time on reserves stored in its...
Read MoreShelter And Making Camp
Shelter is necessary to give shade, to repel wind and rain and to keep in warmth. Sleep and adequate rest are essential and the time and effort you put into making your shelter comfortable will make them easier to get. If you are the victim of a plane crash or a vehicle that has let you down, it may provide a shelter or materials from which one can be built – but if there is fire or the threat of fuel tanks exploding, wait until it has burned out before attempting salvage.If you are the unequipped victim of an accident, are trapped by unexpected mist or caught by nightfall in terrain...
Read MoreMountains
Mountain peaks are exposed to high winds and often covered in snow. They provide neither food nor shelter. Climbing rock and negotiating ice and snowfields calls for special skills, which are best learned first-hand in mountaineering schools and practised under supervision. No inexperienced person should think of trying to tackle real mountaineering territory, except as a learner with a properly organized party. But disaster may leave you on a mountainside or force you to cross a mountain range to get to safety. If no rescue is likely, the first aim in daylight should be to get down into the...
Read MoreCamp Hygiene
Keeping healthy is an important factor for survival, so strict hygiene should be practised, not only personally but in the planning and running of a camp. Rubbish and latrines must be kept away from the camp to reduce the threat from flies and, since most of the common diseases in a survival situation are water-borne, pollution of drinking water must be rigorously avoided. Food scraps and other rubbish should be burned in the fire if possible.CAMP LAYOUT Select sites for all camp activities so that they do not interfere with each other or pollute the living and cooking areas. If you are...
Read More