brownknees
October 02, 2008, 19:05
I’m just the guy writing this post, there were several others without whom there would be no post, or thread even. I want to make sure that each one of the “Gunner Pool Irregulars” is given full credit for the vital input to the things written below. Everyone helped this to happen, and the notes are a compilation of all the group’s knowledge, experience, & effort.
I welcome any comments or additions & corrections from all of them, as I’m sure I missed something here despite making notes as the camp out went on.
There is a lot to cover here, so I split it into sections to make it easier going.
This is the third one of these & this year’s comments build on things found wanting anew. The last two years were a big help in figuring out how much & of what to pack & take. It seems that for me at least I’ve pretty much got the food, clothing & equipment down to a good working balance.
This year brought a new member to the group, & he had different insights &techniques to share, along with some expansions to existing things like radio communications.
We all learned lessons from the last two camps, and this year was no exception. This in itself was interesting, proving that any plan can be improved with experience, and even planning sometimes needs adjustments to make it as functional as possible.
Planning & BOB lists.
Despite having planned & done this several times we learnt one thing over, and added a couple of things to the planning stages.
Each of us thought we were prepped, and each one of us forgot something, mainly because we thought we were prepped. Fortunately it wasn’t anything vital, and we had enough resources as a group to make up any shortfalls.
I’m adding a couple of things to my paperwork, such as if there are multiple possible locations check which maps are packed & change them as needed for different destinations.
We also found out that we all forgot new items, this seems to be because we all “knew” we were packed in advance, at least in my case.
Fire starting.
This turned out to be a hot topic this year.
We tried out several new (to me) items, including C-Ya’s blast match, and a steel match set that FIRESTARTER picked up for us to play with. I’ve been looking at other, compact fire starting tools to back up the Zippo I always carry, & a magnifying lens tucked away in the BOB.
Having had the opportunity to use both the steel match & the blast match I discovered that they are variations on the same tool. The blast match is very easy to use, but has to be in contact with a hard surface to work. The steel match is not dependant on this to use, for me a slight advantage. Both worked really well & allowed several tinder types, both store-bought & homemade to be lit easily.
The nicest surprise is that they are both capable of starting an alcohol stove with no intermediate step; you just strike the sparks into the central pool.
We both tried the magnesium block types & neither of us is really impressed with them. They were harder to use & burned less well than any other type we tried.
The local store had a supply of the now hard to find strike anywhere matches as well. We grabbed them while the going was good & all now have a supply as they came in the big kitchen match sized boxes. I’ll be breaking them down into smaller packs using the old GI match tubes, but with the striking sandpaper removed. The remainder will stay at home as a reserve supply. Again the local store can have some items that make it well worth a visit wherever you are locating to.
I don’t want to steal anyone’s thunder, so I’ll mention that most of the tinder experiments were FIRESTARTER’s, he really lived up to his name this year.
He brought several types & we tested them all, both individually & together.
First the old standby of degreased 40 steel wool. This was ignitable with the tinder strikers, but needed a bit of nursing at first to catch well. It burns short, hot & fast so it needs to be immediately placed under prepared kindling to work to best advantage. It does not work well when wet. We did discover that in addition to the old standby of a 9v radio battery it could be started with a mini (double AA) MagLite that was a bit surprising.
He brought some regular 100% cotton balls filled with Vaseline. These were the hands-down winner! A surprising quantity can be squashed into a 35mm film can, or similar container & they weigh almost nothing.
To use them all you need to do is fluff up a small patch, hit it with a spark source & it lights quickly & easily. The single cotton ball will burn for several minutes & can’t get wet due to the waterproofing effects of the Vaseline.
He also dug out the center part of a commercial fire-starting log. The putty-like substance is a little harder to ignite than the cotton balls, but not much. This also burns for quite a while and was the second favorite.
Each of these could be used either individually, or in combination for the best results. The #1 combo was a part of a cotton ball (easy ignition) & the fire-log compound together.
Our plans for next year will expand on this year’s successes. I’m thinking of card egg carton, cut in sections & filled with candle wax & lint, & FIRESTARTER is bringing a new gadget called a “fire piston”. This uses pre-charred cloth & is quick & efficient, but needs a little practice to get just right. He has high hopes for it.
Again, these are FIRESTARTERS ideas I just helped with & learned from the experiments.
Camouflage & awareness
This was a surprising revelation!
We went squirrel hunting one day. I was sitting with my backside actually on a foot trail back in the woods, and he was about 25 feet to my right. He was sitting with his feet nearly touching the trail, propped up against a tree. A hiker came along the trail & got to within 15 feet of us before he realized I was there. My camouflage was very basic, woodland BDU’s & a woodland boonie hat. I had no other camouflage, including my hands or face, which were uncovered. FIRESTARTER had a homemade smock, in green, grey & brown in a very soft-edged pattern. He did have a bug net, but was not heavily camouflaged. Even after seeing me the hiker was completely unaware of the presence of another hunter, even when he was told that he was only 25 feet to my left!
This was an exercise (unintended) in how observant many are, & makes me wonder if a lot of heavy camouflage is needed, or if the basics will do well in a situation when you are not being actively searched for by experienced hunters. This is definitely food for thought.
I picked up a couple of segments of the leafy netted camouflage nets from the local store, and am thinking of a way to make the bright yellow & blue tent less conspicuous, this is a work in progress, but I have good hopes of it’s being useful, and quickly removable in the event you want to be seen, such as helicopter search & rescue after a disaster event. This kind of builds on the idea of camouflage BDU’s with the orange safety vest that I use when wandering around away from camp.
Food.
We ate very well! We can justify bringing meat, as in an emergency situation we’d not be as concerned with game regulations. But wit this not being such a situation we did not trap or do anything to procure game, other than the licensed squirrel hunt. One thing we re-learned was that trapping is more productive than hunting. Basically a trap line will work for you while you are doing other things, but once hunting, you’re occupied with that to the exclusion of other things.
Bearing that in mind we built on last year’s experience with triggers for traps by getting a hands on exercise in snare making, and use. Again, we did not snare anything, but in an emergency we all now could add this to our skill set.
I added some new dehydrated foods to my usual Zatarans rice meals. The Knorr sides plus packs were a good idea & one pack will feed 2 comfortably. By adding meat this would be even better. As with all dehydrated foods the weight saving is offset a little by the need to find water to prepare them, but I’m going to do a mix of both types from now on due to the much longer shelf life of the dehydrated packs.
One night we made 2 packs of this & were able to comfortably feed 4 people. With additional meat brought in by C-Ya. Venison-o-rama with sides, how bad can that be? We had left over rice & veggies so this was packed in a clean Ziploc & used as a boil-in-bag side dish for the next night.
Hardware
C-Ya brought some solid-fuel stoves, and fuel tabs. We also found a local source (unexpectedly) for Swedish alcohol stoves/cook sets at a very good price. This alone is a lesson. Check local sources for equipment & supplies; you never know what’s just sitting on the shelf at local stores.
We ended up with a set each & as I’ve been a big fan of alcohol stoves for years I became the “expert”, even then I was able to learn something new from FIRESTARTER about starting them.
Filling the fuel stove with Heet yellow we were able to get almost a 45-minute burn time from one fill. This was enough to heat & boil about 1-½ quarts of water for 25 minutes after bringing to the boil from stone cold. The container that holds the stove, fuel bottle, and 2 included cooking pots can also be used to make a very presentable “Hobo stove” as well. Additionally the hooked handle can be used to suspend the cooking pot over a fire, assuming you have a decent pair of gloves to remove it with. All in all a very versatile & durable kit that is well worth the volume it takes up in a pack. The only negative thing we found was that the kit will not latch together! You’ll need some kind of strap to keep all the components packed. I’d personally make some kind of simmer cap; this was one weakness of the kit as it only runs at full tilt. This should be very easy to do, as the cap does not need to be a tight fit over the burner. Any all-metal cap could be cut to make one with minimum effort.
The triox solid fuel stoves are so compact, light, small & simple that I’m going to add one to the butt-pack of the ALICE rig, together with a couple of spare tabs. That way I can make a hot cup of something when traveling light minus the ALICE pack. This is a very handy thing to be able to do on long cold wet days.
Rappelling.
We got to do the practice pitch this year again, as we had an intro for C-Ya. We also found a couple of longer pitches we’ll visit next year. Knots & belay techniques were refreshed, as were emergency techniques & we tried out several different methods of use. Next year we’ll add ascending ropes to the list of things to do. We checked out several types of descendeur with differing ropes. The Petzel types were not really suitable with the thick rope I prefer for use with a “clog” figure 8, but they could be used in a pinch. The slightly thinner ropes were perfect with the Petzel, but ran really fast in the figure-8. Again experience gave us more knowledge of what works & what works well.
Misc.
The more sophisticated stove I added was not a great success! I added a Coleman multi-fuel stove, in addition to the usual alcohol stove and it was less than spectacular. The only non-user serviceable part in the unit quit working on day 2 & although Coleman is going to replace it that won’t help if there is a real emergency. I can’t encourage anyone to take a stove that needs factory service on an emergency camp out where the factory isn’t right there at the campsite! There is a review thread in detail on the stove running right now at the following link.
http://www.falfiles.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=238148
A couple of the members of the group have doe this far, far more than we have. They provide a needed reality check to a lot of things we do. Listen to the members with experience, even when they are saying something that checks whatever you’re trying to do, even when they are being the quiet voice of reason. Mot all good advice is loud. After all they have already made all the mistakes you’re about to make & it’s so much easier to listen to the advice of an expert, than to make the mistake all over again!
Conclusions.
Getting together regularly with the group is the absolute best thing you can do! Do it as frequently as possible. We meet only once a year, but the fellowship extends way beyond that. We e-mail, post here on the ‘Files call, & just keep in touch even though we’re scattered all across the country. It’s great to meet up & renew acquaintances.
Your plan is not perfect, no matter how much you’ve adjusted it. Be prepared to revise it again & again. Eventually you’ll get so close that any error will be an inconvenience instead of a problem.
If you have multiple bug-out locations add an item to check maps for each one to the bail out checklist.
Don’t assume you are completely packed, especially with pre-packaged items (like tents). Check that you really, really do have all of the tent components in the bag before departing.
When adding, changing, or removing different items double check that the new items are actually packed.
Don’t be afraid to check out local resources in the area you’re going to. They may have odd the shelf things that are hard to come by at your starting point.
Build a relationship with the local store; you’ll be surprised how helpful they can be even if you’re not a regular customer.
If adding a new item (like a multi-fuel stove) check it out not just once, but several times before taking it with you. If you don’t have time to do this bring the old tried & tested item as well to provide back up.
Probably the most important of all! Build a relationship with others, especially those you’ll be going with. Know the strengths & what you can learn from them as well as what you can contribute to the group knowledge & experience pool. One of our group likes to stay close to camp, even if the rest of us goes off on a trail. This is not a negative thing as he becomes the camp watchdog, and this alone is worth it’s weight as we don’t need to worry about camp being unattended while we’re away.
Making the differences in individuals work together is mostly a question of putting those personal preferences to work for the common good, without making any one member feel “tasked” with something they’d prefer not to do.
Share with the group & learn to work together constructively.
Welcome new members to the group & you will build additional skills as long as the new member isn’t treated like someone ignorant. He may not be aware of hoe YOU do things, but he frequently has fresh perspectives & new skills that the group can benefit from due to a wider knowledge base. We had a new member join us this year & he was a little concerned that he’d be the FNG. He wasn’t, he brought equipment & knowledge that the rest of us gained from & he got back our experience in return. We all benefited from the fresh input.
Each of us missed some detail or other, we were able to pool equipment & resources to mitigate the shortfalls. Without that team effort we’d have all have had a much less rewarding experience.
I welcome any comments or additions & corrections from all of them, as I’m sure I missed something here despite making notes as the camp out went on.
There is a lot to cover here, so I split it into sections to make it easier going.
This is the third one of these & this year’s comments build on things found wanting anew. The last two years were a big help in figuring out how much & of what to pack & take. It seems that for me at least I’ve pretty much got the food, clothing & equipment down to a good working balance.
This year brought a new member to the group, & he had different insights &techniques to share, along with some expansions to existing things like radio communications.
We all learned lessons from the last two camps, and this year was no exception. This in itself was interesting, proving that any plan can be improved with experience, and even planning sometimes needs adjustments to make it as functional as possible.
Planning & BOB lists.
Despite having planned & done this several times we learnt one thing over, and added a couple of things to the planning stages.
Each of us thought we were prepped, and each one of us forgot something, mainly because we thought we were prepped. Fortunately it wasn’t anything vital, and we had enough resources as a group to make up any shortfalls.
I’m adding a couple of things to my paperwork, such as if there are multiple possible locations check which maps are packed & change them as needed for different destinations.
We also found out that we all forgot new items, this seems to be because we all “knew” we were packed in advance, at least in my case.
Fire starting.
This turned out to be a hot topic this year.
We tried out several new (to me) items, including C-Ya’s blast match, and a steel match set that FIRESTARTER picked up for us to play with. I’ve been looking at other, compact fire starting tools to back up the Zippo I always carry, & a magnifying lens tucked away in the BOB.
Having had the opportunity to use both the steel match & the blast match I discovered that they are variations on the same tool. The blast match is very easy to use, but has to be in contact with a hard surface to work. The steel match is not dependant on this to use, for me a slight advantage. Both worked really well & allowed several tinder types, both store-bought & homemade to be lit easily.
The nicest surprise is that they are both capable of starting an alcohol stove with no intermediate step; you just strike the sparks into the central pool.
We both tried the magnesium block types & neither of us is really impressed with them. They were harder to use & burned less well than any other type we tried.
The local store had a supply of the now hard to find strike anywhere matches as well. We grabbed them while the going was good & all now have a supply as they came in the big kitchen match sized boxes. I’ll be breaking them down into smaller packs using the old GI match tubes, but with the striking sandpaper removed. The remainder will stay at home as a reserve supply. Again the local store can have some items that make it well worth a visit wherever you are locating to.
I don’t want to steal anyone’s thunder, so I’ll mention that most of the tinder experiments were FIRESTARTER’s, he really lived up to his name this year.
He brought several types & we tested them all, both individually & together.
First the old standby of degreased 40 steel wool. This was ignitable with the tinder strikers, but needed a bit of nursing at first to catch well. It burns short, hot & fast so it needs to be immediately placed under prepared kindling to work to best advantage. It does not work well when wet. We did discover that in addition to the old standby of a 9v radio battery it could be started with a mini (double AA) MagLite that was a bit surprising.
He brought some regular 100% cotton balls filled with Vaseline. These were the hands-down winner! A surprising quantity can be squashed into a 35mm film can, or similar container & they weigh almost nothing.
To use them all you need to do is fluff up a small patch, hit it with a spark source & it lights quickly & easily. The single cotton ball will burn for several minutes & can’t get wet due to the waterproofing effects of the Vaseline.
He also dug out the center part of a commercial fire-starting log. The putty-like substance is a little harder to ignite than the cotton balls, but not much. This also burns for quite a while and was the second favorite.
Each of these could be used either individually, or in combination for the best results. The #1 combo was a part of a cotton ball (easy ignition) & the fire-log compound together.
Our plans for next year will expand on this year’s successes. I’m thinking of card egg carton, cut in sections & filled with candle wax & lint, & FIRESTARTER is bringing a new gadget called a “fire piston”. This uses pre-charred cloth & is quick & efficient, but needs a little practice to get just right. He has high hopes for it.
Again, these are FIRESTARTERS ideas I just helped with & learned from the experiments.
Camouflage & awareness
This was a surprising revelation!
We went squirrel hunting one day. I was sitting with my backside actually on a foot trail back in the woods, and he was about 25 feet to my right. He was sitting with his feet nearly touching the trail, propped up against a tree. A hiker came along the trail & got to within 15 feet of us before he realized I was there. My camouflage was very basic, woodland BDU’s & a woodland boonie hat. I had no other camouflage, including my hands or face, which were uncovered. FIRESTARTER had a homemade smock, in green, grey & brown in a very soft-edged pattern. He did have a bug net, but was not heavily camouflaged. Even after seeing me the hiker was completely unaware of the presence of another hunter, even when he was told that he was only 25 feet to my left!
This was an exercise (unintended) in how observant many are, & makes me wonder if a lot of heavy camouflage is needed, or if the basics will do well in a situation when you are not being actively searched for by experienced hunters. This is definitely food for thought.
I picked up a couple of segments of the leafy netted camouflage nets from the local store, and am thinking of a way to make the bright yellow & blue tent less conspicuous, this is a work in progress, but I have good hopes of it’s being useful, and quickly removable in the event you want to be seen, such as helicopter search & rescue after a disaster event. This kind of builds on the idea of camouflage BDU’s with the orange safety vest that I use when wandering around away from camp.
Food.
We ate very well! We can justify bringing meat, as in an emergency situation we’d not be as concerned with game regulations. But wit this not being such a situation we did not trap or do anything to procure game, other than the licensed squirrel hunt. One thing we re-learned was that trapping is more productive than hunting. Basically a trap line will work for you while you are doing other things, but once hunting, you’re occupied with that to the exclusion of other things.
Bearing that in mind we built on last year’s experience with triggers for traps by getting a hands on exercise in snare making, and use. Again, we did not snare anything, but in an emergency we all now could add this to our skill set.
I added some new dehydrated foods to my usual Zatarans rice meals. The Knorr sides plus packs were a good idea & one pack will feed 2 comfortably. By adding meat this would be even better. As with all dehydrated foods the weight saving is offset a little by the need to find water to prepare them, but I’m going to do a mix of both types from now on due to the much longer shelf life of the dehydrated packs.
One night we made 2 packs of this & were able to comfortably feed 4 people. With additional meat brought in by C-Ya. Venison-o-rama with sides, how bad can that be? We had left over rice & veggies so this was packed in a clean Ziploc & used as a boil-in-bag side dish for the next night.
Hardware
C-Ya brought some solid-fuel stoves, and fuel tabs. We also found a local source (unexpectedly) for Swedish alcohol stoves/cook sets at a very good price. This alone is a lesson. Check local sources for equipment & supplies; you never know what’s just sitting on the shelf at local stores.
We ended up with a set each & as I’ve been a big fan of alcohol stoves for years I became the “expert”, even then I was able to learn something new from FIRESTARTER about starting them.
Filling the fuel stove with Heet yellow we were able to get almost a 45-minute burn time from one fill. This was enough to heat & boil about 1-½ quarts of water for 25 minutes after bringing to the boil from stone cold. The container that holds the stove, fuel bottle, and 2 included cooking pots can also be used to make a very presentable “Hobo stove” as well. Additionally the hooked handle can be used to suspend the cooking pot over a fire, assuming you have a decent pair of gloves to remove it with. All in all a very versatile & durable kit that is well worth the volume it takes up in a pack. The only negative thing we found was that the kit will not latch together! You’ll need some kind of strap to keep all the components packed. I’d personally make some kind of simmer cap; this was one weakness of the kit as it only runs at full tilt. This should be very easy to do, as the cap does not need to be a tight fit over the burner. Any all-metal cap could be cut to make one with minimum effort.
The triox solid fuel stoves are so compact, light, small & simple that I’m going to add one to the butt-pack of the ALICE rig, together with a couple of spare tabs. That way I can make a hot cup of something when traveling light minus the ALICE pack. This is a very handy thing to be able to do on long cold wet days.
Rappelling.
We got to do the practice pitch this year again, as we had an intro for C-Ya. We also found a couple of longer pitches we’ll visit next year. Knots & belay techniques were refreshed, as were emergency techniques & we tried out several different methods of use. Next year we’ll add ascending ropes to the list of things to do. We checked out several types of descendeur with differing ropes. The Petzel types were not really suitable with the thick rope I prefer for use with a “clog” figure 8, but they could be used in a pinch. The slightly thinner ropes were perfect with the Petzel, but ran really fast in the figure-8. Again experience gave us more knowledge of what works & what works well.
Misc.
The more sophisticated stove I added was not a great success! I added a Coleman multi-fuel stove, in addition to the usual alcohol stove and it was less than spectacular. The only non-user serviceable part in the unit quit working on day 2 & although Coleman is going to replace it that won’t help if there is a real emergency. I can’t encourage anyone to take a stove that needs factory service on an emergency camp out where the factory isn’t right there at the campsite! There is a review thread in detail on the stove running right now at the following link.
http://www.falfiles.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=238148
A couple of the members of the group have doe this far, far more than we have. They provide a needed reality check to a lot of things we do. Listen to the members with experience, even when they are saying something that checks whatever you’re trying to do, even when they are being the quiet voice of reason. Mot all good advice is loud. After all they have already made all the mistakes you’re about to make & it’s so much easier to listen to the advice of an expert, than to make the mistake all over again!
Conclusions.
Getting together regularly with the group is the absolute best thing you can do! Do it as frequently as possible. We meet only once a year, but the fellowship extends way beyond that. We e-mail, post here on the ‘Files call, & just keep in touch even though we’re scattered all across the country. It’s great to meet up & renew acquaintances.
Your plan is not perfect, no matter how much you’ve adjusted it. Be prepared to revise it again & again. Eventually you’ll get so close that any error will be an inconvenience instead of a problem.
If you have multiple bug-out locations add an item to check maps for each one to the bail out checklist.
Don’t assume you are completely packed, especially with pre-packaged items (like tents). Check that you really, really do have all of the tent components in the bag before departing.
When adding, changing, or removing different items double check that the new items are actually packed.
Don’t be afraid to check out local resources in the area you’re going to. They may have odd the shelf things that are hard to come by at your starting point.
Build a relationship with the local store; you’ll be surprised how helpful they can be even if you’re not a regular customer.
If adding a new item (like a multi-fuel stove) check it out not just once, but several times before taking it with you. If you don’t have time to do this bring the old tried & tested item as well to provide back up.
Probably the most important of all! Build a relationship with others, especially those you’ll be going with. Know the strengths & what you can learn from them as well as what you can contribute to the group knowledge & experience pool. One of our group likes to stay close to camp, even if the rest of us goes off on a trail. This is not a negative thing as he becomes the camp watchdog, and this alone is worth it’s weight as we don’t need to worry about camp being unattended while we’re away.
Making the differences in individuals work together is mostly a question of putting those personal preferences to work for the common good, without making any one member feel “tasked” with something they’d prefer not to do.
Share with the group & learn to work together constructively.
Welcome new members to the group & you will build additional skills as long as the new member isn’t treated like someone ignorant. He may not be aware of hoe YOU do things, but he frequently has fresh perspectives & new skills that the group can benefit from due to a wider knowledge base. We had a new member join us this year & he was a little concerned that he’d be the FNG. He wasn’t, he brought equipment & knowledge that the rest of us gained from & he got back our experience in return. We all benefited from the fresh input.
Each of us missed some detail or other, we were able to pool equipment & resources to mitigate the shortfalls. Without that team effort we’d have all have had a much less rewarding experience.