Suggestions for an over night scenario

[busboy1]

Everyone knows that all the gear in the world does no good if you are not traind in its use and confident in your ability to use it . For along time my close friends and I have threatened to camp with are basic load out hunting gear , strictly what you carry every time you hit the dirt. Well to make a long story short we are doing it the 19-20th of this month.
Ive been thrown into leading this troop of 5 campers. Any one have any suggestions as to how to get the most out of an overnight survival campout ?
The only ground rules weve set is 1 your responsible for yourself 2 your only cheating yourself if you pack more than you would during hunting season.
Ive thought about trying to figure out some sort of twist becouse after all some sort of twist is how youll end up in the woods unexpected like.
sorry for the lengthy post and the rambling, and thanks in advance

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[mattg521]

Absolutely great idea.
Can't wait to see the results.
Tons of suggestions flood to mind but they all seem like little cheats to me.

 

[nubus]

This exercise will change what you carry in your hunting pack!
My first suggestion is go somewhere fires are legal.
You bet your arse I'll be lighting a fire if I'm stuck out in inclement weather.
Second, actually practice lighting a fire with what you carry in your pack.
I did this for fun on a recent camping trip with flint and magnesium.
It took a lot longer than I thought it would, and in perfect conditions.
BTW I don't think tinder is cheating, you should carry some anyway.

Please let us all know how it goes, actual hands on training is the best kind.

 

[odiesplace97301]

They know its coming, so they will plan for it. Sometime before you should all good look for the area your going to use,and turn it into a survival test.
As kids my dad would take out for a day of scouting or just to explore. From time to time he would stop the car and say things like. I just had a heart attack, cars at the bottom of the canyon, you all made it out. Sometimes we got our packs, sometimes we had to make it with what we had on us. It was a real shock the first time we had to spend a night in the woods, but we learned a lot.
On your scouting trip, try something like that, you could just do it for the day, and you'll have a better idea what you all will need for your weekend

 

[SheepDog223]

Take along one of those blue leg splint wraps. Once you've gotten into your "hunting spot" assign it to someone by drawing straws or something. Guy with the splint has a broken leg and doesn't get to help. The rest of you take care of him and get him out of the woods in the morning.

 

[busboy1]

I like that sheep dog ill probly do that one for sure . Im also thinking about implamenting some sort of massive gear failure, Ie take everyones lighter and make them use there magnese and flint kits or somthing. Ots just 1 day and an over night but i do agree that all of our hunting packs will probably not be the same after wards Ill post up a link to my face book page for a pictorial review. and a quick summery afterwards

 

[odiesplace97301]

+1 for the splint idea, if you want to just practice with what you have. Just make the splint out of what you have around you, branches, cardboard, and para cord. Wilderness first aid is as important as the rest of the survival skills. A tube of superglue make a very good insta-stich kit.
Cottonballs dipped in wax or vasoline go a long ways when making a fire

 

[powersbj]

What is your basic load out? Do any of you have experiance backpacking?

 

[busboy1]

thanks ! "take a break" the spot we picked is about a 4 mile hike from my brother inlaws parents ranch. but still stashing some comms and or some real reserve gear is a good idea I may head there tomarro.
As far as folks "cheating" I explained it to them like this "this will probably not be a comfortable night in the woods ya want to cheat stay home its more comfortable there. If you bring stuff you dont always carry every time you hit the dirt the whole night will be a waist of your time"
thanks for the tips guys ill keep you all posted and ill work on a list of my pack when i get some time to rip it open

 

[Silver Fox]

This is a great idea and a great time of the year.

Aside from HIV+, crack addicted zombies chasing you my offerings of a 'turn of events' falls in line everyone else.

For tinder, pocket lint is awesome stuff. Clean out the dryer lint trap and stuff into a plastic baggy. No weight and burns great.

SF-

 

[sailorman2010]

I've done what you’re going to do, a few times when I was in Search and Rescue as training exercises. We had to use what we just carried in our 24/48hour packs. It was a real eye opener to see what was useful and what you could go without. Here’s stuff I found handy, but everyone packs different.
1.) Pack a tarp-a vinyl waterproof one. They are light and can fold up pretty small; a 5'x7' will do nicely. Get a 100' of Para-Cord to help put up the tarp. Also, buy a good reusable space blanket to wrap up in, I bought one for $25 that I've had for 5years and still works great and is not ripped.
2.) Take a MRE or two, plus a few candy bars, Snickers work best; eat one right before bed and it will warm you up because your body is working to digest it.
3.) Take several different kinds of ways to start fires (matches, lighter, flint, etc.), flares work awesome!
4.) Have at least a gallon of water on hand (Water bottles/jugs & Camel-Backs), a cheap collapsible bladder (2.5gal) to put more in at camp and a way to purify it all-filter or tablets. I carried two one liter Nalgene bottle and had a 100oz camel-bak.
5.) Extra socks, they will get wet! Wool sock-but, everything you wear into the woods should be wool or fleece/synthetic fabric. Remember, COTTON KILLS when wet!
6.) A good knife, a folding hand saw and a small axe if you can fit it. I never carried an axe, but had one at my truck just in case.
I hope that works for you, I know you’re only packing what you carry during hunting season. But be smart, don’t go way out in the woods where you could possibly run into trouble, even though this was just a practice run. Take care and have fun!

 

[fat450rider]

Well there are several answers to your question. Yes, I have done some backpacking, I did the Appalachian trail in 2000 (thats where I got the Name Take-A-Break) it was because they said I was taking a break from the real world.
Pack Load varies on weather and climate. Winter in the southern Appalachians my pack weighted up to 40 lbs with a 5 days food and 2 liters of water. Take note I bought a lot of light weight gear and wore layers.
Summer pack weight was about 28 lbs with 5 days food and 2 liters of water.
I use a Marmot pinnacle bag rated at +15 but was plenty warm at +5. I put in trash compactor bag to keep it dry and used a bivy with a light weight tarp to cover the the bivy so I could in and out with out getting the bag wet, tyvek house wrap for under the bivy to protect it from sharp sticks.
Primus iso/butane stove, rei titanium cook pot doubled as dish. I can give yo a complete list if you want by email.

I would like a list of contents for my pack, just to get some ideas, as my boys and I are starting to get into the survival game! thank you!

 

[Scott]

This is a great idea and a great time of the year.

Aside from HIV+, crack addicted zombies chasing you my offerings of a 'turn of events' falls in line everyone else.

For tinder, pocket lint is awesome stuff. Clean out the dryer lint trap and stuff into a plastic baggy. No weight and burns great.

SF-

I carry a jar of vasoline and cotton balls and fires start super quick and very light to carry. Always with me.

 

[Sun195]

Various ideas:

1) Let them pack anything they want for the trip, but tell them that when they get there, you're going to limit them to X number of items or X number of pounds (your choice - they won't know until then) so they'll have to choose what they really want to take with them.
2) Draw straws - two of them fell into the river and lost everything; one of them is injured. (take all of their stuff) What does the group do together to overcome this? Maybe they have to reach a certain point on the map to extract the wounded.
3) Set up a list of tasks they have to accomplish during their trip - make a shelter, build a fire, cook a dinner, navigate to a certain point, etc. Really depends on the skill level of these folks.
4) Maybe draw up a list of edible plants in the area - have them study the list before the trip. They then have to collect those before the end. (I wouldn't have them eat any because of risk of poison if they get it wrong)
5) Take their packs & make them survive on whatever is in their pockets at the time. What's reasonable for them to accomplish with what they have? What can't they accomplish? It's only for one night, so it's not that big of a risk.

 

[busboy1]

sun I like the way you think I think, for this trip Im not going to do all that just a simple camp by yourself, a few suggestions of what they could / should try while they are out. I also am going to stress how much wood it takes to keep a fire going all night and suggest that they work on shelter and at least come up with a plan of how they would go about getting more food than what they have on them IE hunt and gather. The group of guys I hunt with carry very little gear and are not preppers. They are typically road hunters and just getting them out for one night I think is a start. We are already kind of planning a longer and fallow up trip mostly my bowhunting partners are ready for a multiple night adventure.
I may run by the crew if they want to do some scenarios or just do the one night thing and go from there ?

 

[UrbanMan]

My suggestion would be to assign a class or two in survival tasks to each of your patrol members to present when you are at your campsite or even along the way. So each has to plan the class(es), get training aids and rehearse. Maybe one guy presents a class in edible plants and preparing them to eat, and, traps/snares; maybe someone else teaches a class in field expedient water purification base camp sanitation. The list could be endless. Having a terrain walk where terrain features on the ground are pointed out on the map so your patrol members can collate that in their heads,....maybe a class in basic compass use - dead reckoning and shooting azimuths off stars at night when terrain features can't be used.

At night around your campfire, unless you are training in establishing a base camp in a denied area, have an informal after action review where everyone gets a chance to talk about how the trip and training could have been made better next time you do it.

Maybe where you are hiking and camping is close to one of your Bug Out routes, then consider emplacing caches and/or finding defensible but easy to locate rally points to support your Bug Out.

UrbanMan
Urban Survival Skills, Survival Equipment, Survival Planning and Preparation

 

[Cougfan2]

SF, what a great idea about dryer lint for tinder. I NEVER would have thought of that, but come to think about it that's how most driers catch on fire!

 

[justsaymo]

We used to do survival campouts in the Boy Scouts when I was a grub. There would usually be limitations like - two matches, one egg, no cooking gear except a cup or dunk all of our packs in the water before we took off hiking (from then on most everyone's pack would float). Good fun. Always learned a lot and went hungry.

 

[cybergrunt69]

Why make a point of "no cheating" regarding what is packed? If you pack extra 'goodies' for the trip, then maybe those are things that should actually be packed for real.
Yes, this will be an experience of what really comes in handy and what is just fluff, so the extras you may pack can also tell you what is worthwhile and what isn't.

Awesome plan, please do let everyone know how it goes.

 

[busboy1]

Well we did it two of my definant "in" friends that "really wanted to do this" wussed out One had a real emergency pop up and then there was "5" our main area ended up getting logged we knew about that but thought (wrongly) that the roads would be open on the weekend. So we went to out 2nd choice not as " hardcore " but it worked out
My best piece of advice for now as of right now (im tired ill summerize later) "survival" emergency blankets suck and will not keep you warm in weather like we just had last night and 2 you do not need a fire during the day save the wood for the night.
heres a link to the facebook album im still working on

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