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Category: Methods

The Complete Walker by Colin Fletcher “The art of using gadgets”

The Complete Walker by Colin Fletcher “The art of using gadgets”

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TweetTrailblazing backpacker Colin Fletcher (1922 – 2007) carried his home on his back through decades of wildlands journeys and throughout the ascendancy of modern technological solutions for living on the trail. He bushwhacked new territory and left ample sign for others to follow, all detailed in The Complete Walker IV (Alfred A. Knopf 2002). Fletcher tested myriad methods and outdoor gear solutions throughout the second half of the 20th Century, detailing their utility first in 1968, and then again and…

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Glow cord, visual signaling day and night

Glow cord, visual signaling day and night

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TweetHave you ever lost camp tools in the bottomless night of a moonless, moist Midwestern woodland?–find them with glow cord lanyards. Tools dropped into deep taiga snow pack?–spot them easily using glow cord snow flags. Tripping over your own tent guy lines at night in your local state park?–see your glow cord guy lines every time. Trouble returning to your wilderness stealth campsite after dark?–find it quickly by stringing a glow cord streamer high over a branch limb, and leave…

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Weathering pits, backcountry water holes, tiny ecosystems

Weathering pits, backcountry water holes, tiny ecosystems

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TweetFinding backcountry water is essential. Recognizing potential wild sources, terrains of opportunity, can be an exercise in counter-intuitive searching. Common advice suggests searching the local low spots, ravines, arroyo’s, washes, and so on for low seeps, springs, and shallow groundwater exposed in hand dug wells in stream meander sand bars. These are usually higher probability locales than local high spots nearby. Weathering pits are one important exception. Weathering pit water holes have saved lives! Weathering pits are unique terrain features…

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Paraffin-dipped wood matches

Paraffin-dipped wood matches

TweetMaking paraffin-dipped wood matches, their utility. This is an old standard. I first made wax-dipped matches while a young boy scout long ago. Wax-dipped wood matches and wax-dipped egg carton section fire-starters were standard equipment for scouts, then. Today, I used a “household paraffin wax for canning, candlemaking and many other uses” to prepare kitchen matches for outdoor use. I purchased the one-pound box inexpensively at my local grocery store, just $4.29. The matches I used, “large kitchen matches”, “extra…

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Shade tree chef: Dutch ovens

Shade tree chef: Dutch ovens

Tweet Do’s & Don’ts for Dutch ovens and camp ironware… Do get started today! The heft and clangor of cast iron cookware takes us back to great grandma’s hearth. Rattling iron echoes our ancestors’ busy hands around stone fireplaces. Dutch oven lids clanging to closure, the ring of heavy utensils, and the aromas of hardwood coals and bubbling cobbler are simple pleasures, and much more. Camp cooking with cast iron is enjoyable and convenient, all you need to get started…

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Quinzee fun, basic snow shelter

Quinzee fun, basic snow shelter

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TweetBuilding a quinzee… Wilderness survival manuals illustrate several types of snow shelters suggested for emergency use. Oddly, the simplest shelter with the broadest application is rarely suggested, it’s a snow-mound shelter called a quinzee. Building a quinzee requires little more than snow, a shovel or two and a few hours work. Quinzee’s are simple to construct compared with other wilderness shelters. A quinzee is a great choice for your first snow shelter construction and a great choice for an emergency…

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Weather: know before you go …

Weather: know before you go …

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TweetToday, your weather information options are nearly endless. In addition to your weather radio, a must have device, your smart phone offers access to a multitude of App’s supporting real time weather information and programmable warning systems wherever you get a signal–don’t leave home without your radio (very broad reception) and your phone App’s! When you listen to and respond to weather information, that’s weather readiness. More weather access: Weather Underground offers global forecast coverage and everything weather-related. Accuweather.com offers…

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Cool weather readiness

Cool weather readiness

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TweetAre you ready? Prolonged exposure to cool season weather demands adaptive behaviors and adaptive clothing systems for staying warm in the cold, wind, snow and rain, especially while working hard or playing hard in remote areas away from cabin warmth. When you won’t have warm buildings or big fires to dry you out and return the feeling to your numb fingers and toes, warmth management (thermoregulation readiness) enables you to survive and thrive in the great outdoors. Warmth management tips:…

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Leave No Trace Outdoor Ethics

Leave No Trace Outdoor Ethics

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TweetGoing Easy in Our Great Outdoors Human impacts are part of the ecology of wild places and local green spaces. These impacts are indirect and direct. Addressing the indirect impacts is a large topic involving global sustainability choices. Our direct impacts are our footprints on and off trail and much more. Ecological readiness includes more than the names of plants and animals, awareness of your own impacts is essential. The sum of our direct impacts; our migrating fire ring scars,…

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