Foot Survival

What you wear on your feet can either make or break you when a crisis happens. It doesn't matter whether you're at home, at the grocery store, at the office, or somewhere in between, when disaster strikes you need to be able to walk your way out of it. And if you are wearing unsuitable shoes, you're in trouble.

You know what unsuitable shoes are. In the business world, both men and women are, unfortunately, stuck with bad footwear for survival. They might look great with your business clothes, but they're horrible if you have to walk any distance.

I remember a few years ago when there was a massive power outage in the Northeast. An editor I work with was stuck in New York City as night fell and traffic lights failed, bringing traffic to a standstill, and subways stopped running. When the building security people where he worked cleared the building, sending people out into the dark and dangerous city, he ended up having to walk a long distance to get to an overnight shelter.

You never know when something is going to happen. It might be a flat tire, or you run out of gas, or something else about the vehicle breaks. If you're within reasonable distance to civilization, you might end up on foot going for help. You might be somewhere on vacation when a flood, earthquake, mudslide, tornado, or hurricane happens and you end up having to evacuate on foot.

Even if you're at home, a fire might cause you to have to flee immediately, an earthquake might shatter windows and mirrors and toss stuff off shelves onto the floor, creating a minefield to walk through.

No matter what the circumstances are, if you damage your feet, you cut your chances of survival by a huge margin. So the rule is, whenever you leave your home or your office, always wear good walking shoes. I'm talking about shoes you could easily walk 5 miles in without discomfort or blisters. If the constraints of your business wardrobe don't allow you to wear walking shoes, at least have a pair tucked under your desk. If it were me, I'd leave the dress shoes under the desk every night, and wear the walking shoes to and from the office. And around the house, be able to immediately put on protective footwear in an emergency.

Rescue Tool

On November 4th, I posted information about how to survive a submerged vehicle incident. Today I found a new product that is ideal for helping to survive that kind of situation. It's the SL6 Rescue, made by Tool Logic (www.toollogic.com).

The SL6 Rescue is a multi-function folding knife with a razor sharp 3-inch 50/50 blade (half serrated and half regular) with a seatbelt cutting hook, all of which can be opened and operated single-handedly with either hand. So if the seatbelt won't release, due to the accident, this will swiftly cut the webbing and free the victim. The unit also features a waterproof LED flashlight designed to shine directly on whatever is being cut by the knife. Also part of the system is an emergency window punch that will break the glass so you can escape from the submerged vehicle. Integral to the knife handle is a loud signal whistle. A stainless steel belt clip and a lanyard hole are built into the knife handle. All this comes in a package that weighs only 3 ounces and retails for $39.95 making this a very affordable and functional survival tool that is ideal for carrying in your vehicle.

The Perfect Campfire

When the gloom of night begins to close in around you, swallowing the world in blackness, there is nothing nicer than the warmth and glow of a campfire. But the fire itself is a multi-faceted servant that, if put together right, can perform many more tasks than just being the cheerful centerpiece of camp. The ideal campfire should be able to keep us warm, illuminate the immediate area, dry our clothes, cook our meals, purify the drinking water, and signal for help. But each of these chores requires a unique arrangement, and it is necessary to configure the campfire in different ways to suit each of those jobs.

The Pit

You might conclude that you need more than one fire in camp, in order to enjoy all the benefits of every different type of fire. However, one firepit can serve many functions, if it is laid out in the shape of a large keyhole — with a big, round section to hold the primary fire and a narrow, elongated arm where the cooking will be done on hot coals that are raked into the area from the main fire. This arrangement is what I consider to be the perfect campfire.

Surrounding the fire area with stones is not just for aesthetics and safety — it’s also to help concentrate the heat and keep ground-level breezes from blowing the heat away. This is especially important in the cooking wing of the firepit. A few small stones can be placed among the coals to serve as a trivet to stabilize a pot while cooking. And you can also cover the floor of the firepit with stones, if the ground is wet. 

Arranging The Fire

A warming fire is most efficient if it employs some type of vertical surface that can reflect the heat toward the campers. A wall of green logs, a large boulder, the face of a cliff — all of these can serve as reflectors to bounce the heat. If the fire is built several feet from the reflector, the campers can position themselves between the blaze and the reflector so they can get toasted on both sides at once. Naturally, the gap between the fire and the reflector must be suitable to the size of the blaze, so the reflector will be effective but the space doesn’t get too hot.

For illumination, larger blazes and those with the most active flame will throw the most light. At night, lots of illumination is just what you need, if you are using the fire as a signaling method. In fact, it will be even more effective if you spread the fire out into three separate blazes, arranged in a triangle formation. This not only creates a broader area of light, but three fires are recognized as a distress signal. At the same time, you can position yourself inside the triangle and take advantage of heat from all sides.

Signaling during daylight hours requires something other than flaming illumination to get the job done. Smoke by day, flames by night — that is the rule. To create white smoke, make sure your fire is strong enough to survive the addition of some moist or green vegetation, then feed those items slowly into the blaze. Black smoke can be generated by burning rubber or oil. In either case, a strong, hot fire is necessary.

Cooking, on the other hand, requires a much smaller fire, and very little flame. Think of a cooking fire in the same manner as a barbecue — hot coals, not a towering inferno. The same goes for boiling water for purification; coals will do a better job than the lick of flames. One of the reasons for this is because, when you’re cooking, you’re working very close to the fire, reaching in to handle the food or the cooking utensils. You can’t do that if the fire is too vigorous.

The fuel

Birdnest-fine and dry as dust, it’s the tinder that will catch the flame instantly and help it grow to ignite the kindling. Tinder can be made of shredded bark of some trees and bushes, or from dry grasses that are twisted and wound together into a tight bundle. If you’re lucky enough to find an abandoned birdnest or packrat nest, you’re in business.

Kindling consists of long, thin splits of wood that range in size from the thickness of a wooden match to that of your little finger. The more dry, shattered and split the kindling, the more readily it will catch fire. Use a hatchet or a hefty survival knife to split larger wood into kindling. If those tools are not available, lay the wood on a boulder and smash it with a heavy rock until it shatters.

Pitchy wood (wood with lots of sap) gives you an advantage for starting the fire, but not for cooking. If you’re cooking over the open flames of sappy wood, the food might absorb a bitter flavor. It’s best to cook on hot coals of hardwood, if it’s available. Collect your fuel wood from somewhere above the ground, if possible. Wood that has been in contact with the ground is more likely to have absorbed moisture that will hamper its suitability a firewood.

If possible, stack a full night’s supply of firewood close enough to the firepit that it will dry out, but not so close that it will spontaneously ignite. If you have a tarp, cover the wood and an extra supply of tinder and kindling to protect it from wet weather; otherwise position the wood supply beneath overhanging branches of a tree. And if you’re in rain country, consider ways to erect some kind of protective shelter over the fire itself, but make sure the covering is high enough that it won’t ignite from the heat or sparks.

Survival Conditioning

In any kind of survival situation, whether it is urban survival or wilderness survival, life is vastly altered from "normal" times.  Additional stresses are imposed on the body that can result in serious medical issues if you are not conditioned to endure.

So, what can you do to be more physically fit to survive a crisis situation?

• First of all, get a medical checkup to discover whether or not you have any life-threatening conditions that would preclude you from doing exercise. Your doctor might suggest that you begin slowly and gently, building to more vigorous and lengthy exercise routines as your body become accustomed to the extra work load. 
• Assuming that you get the "all clear" from your doctor, begin an exercise routine that engages you every day except one per week. For me, I take the Sabbath as a day of rest from exercise. That's a matter of spiritual fitness, but also benefits the body by giving it a break from the workouts. You need the breaks so your body can rebuild; and in the rebuilding process you become stronger than you were before. 
• Start slow. Even though you feel great on the first day of exercise, the next day might be a painful surprise. So don't overdo it in the beginning or you will end up having to discontinue while you recover, and that is just a big setback. This goes of all aspects of conditioning — whether it is aerobic or strength training. 
• Condition your heart and lungs by engaging in aerobic exercise that lasts from twenty to forty minutes per session. As your conditioning improves, you might decide to do two short sessions per day, rather than one long one. This exercise can be any combination of vigorous walking, jogging, cycling, working on a treadmill, Nordic Trak, elliptical trainer, stair climber, or some such apparatus. 

• Strength training is important to condition your individual muscles to be strong enough to perform survival tasks. You don't need to become a body builder or look like and American Gladiator. Begin by just toning up the muscles you already have, and later on you can start adding muscle mass and greater strength. I work on a Total Gym (that's the machine Christy Brinkley and Chuck Norris advertise on TV) because in 20 minutes I can work all the muscle groups efficiently. I've had the machine for three years and it has held up well and I still love working out on it. 

• Flexibility training is important to condition your muscles and ligaments so they don't suffer pulls and tears when they are pushed beyond their normal work load. Stretching should be done gently and in a static manner, not bouncing to force a larger range of stretch. Warm up before stretching. Contrary to popular belief, stretching is not a warm up exercise — it is an exercise method unto itself, and warming up must be done ahead of time to prevent injury. 

• Vary the workouts. One of the reasons I love triathlon is because it involves three totally different types of activity — swimming, cycling and running. By doing different types of exercise, you not only avoid boredom, but you also avoid sport-specific injuries. Do a different type of exercise from one day to the next, to give your body and mind a break from the same-old same-old. 

When the time comes to work through a survival situation in real life, if you are physically conditioned you will have a much better chance of coming out alive. Not only that, but you will also be capable of reaching out and helping those around you who are in trouble. You can be part of the solution, rather than part of the problem.

Laundry in Survival Conditions

I recently saw a commercial by Tide, the laundry soap people. Apparently, the company operates an 18-wheeler that goes around the country to disaster sites. The trailer is loaded with clothes washers and driers, offering free laundry service to survivors. A nice thing to do, to restore a bit of decent living conditions when the world has been turned upside-down. People like to be clean, and this certainly helps.

There is another option, in case you happen to be an a region where the Tide truck doesn't show up, or you don't want to sit around waiting and hoping it will come. The option is to have your own emergency laundry system.

Wonder Wash ($42.95 from www.laundry-alternative.com) is a compact, lightweight, portable laundry unit that requires no electricity and is capable of washing 5 pounds of laundry with very little manual labor. The process is easy. 

• Depending on the size of the load, you need from 1.5 to 6 quarts of hot (not boiling) water and from 1 to 4 tablespoons of laundry detergent. 
• Put the water and detergent into the drum first and then add clothing. 
• Total wash time ranges from 1 minute to 2 minutes, during which you rotate a handle at a rate of 1 revolution per second to turn the washer drum. 
• After the wash cycle, drain the wash water. 
• Pour in cold rinse water and rotate the handle again for about 30 seconds. 
• Drain the water.
• Wring out the clothes and hang them to dry.

In theory the Wonder Wash operates a little bit like a pressure cooker. After putting the water, detergent and clothes inside, you screw on a pressure-sealing lid. As the hot water expands the air inside the drum, the pressure forces the water and detergent into and through the fabric. After the wash cycle, let the machine to cool down before removing the pressure lid, to allow the pressure to equalize, just like with a pressure cooker.

I tested the Wonder Wash by laundering a load consisting of a pair of pants, several pairs of socks and a shirt. Calculating it to be a full load, I poured in 6 quarts of hot water and 4 tablespoons of low-suds liquid laundry detergent. Then I went to cranking. Rotating the drum was easy, even with a full load of clothes and water inside. Two minutes later, I attached the drain tube at the bottom of the drum and released the wash water. Then I removed the tube and added the cold rinse water. I cranked for 30 seconds, then reattached the tube and drained the drum.

The results? Clean clothes. Was I impressed? Actually, I was more than impressed — I was surprised. The clothes smelled clean, they looked clean, and I had spent only a couple minutes doing the load. Naturally, there was a learning curve. For my first load, I used water that was too hot, and it over-pressurized the system and a little water spewed out around the lid seal as I turned the drum. I also concluded that it’s better to rinse twice, to eliminate all the soap.

But I had no washboard knuckles from scrubbing by hand. Yes, I did have to wring the sodden clothes by hand, but in general washing the clothes was cheap and easy. In a disaster situation, this unit is a viable option so you don't have to live in dirty clothes. 

Tools For The 72-Hour Kit

Aside from food, water, clothing, and other personal stuff to make life bearable in an emergency situation, there are some tools that should be included in your Grab-n-Go kit. Here's my list of favorites

• Two knives: A strong folding knife for your pocket, and a stout sheath knife for your belt. You'll probably use the folder for most tasks, but the hefty blade of the sheath knife is irreplaceable when it comes to splitting wood and taking care of serious cutting duties. Make sure the sheath knife has a heavy spine, so you can safely whack it with a chunk of wood when splitting kindling. 

• Multitool: I carry a Leatherman Surge that I've had for several years. Yes, it's heavier than some of the others, but that's one of the reasons I chose it. Other great choices are the Gerber Diesel, the SOG Powerlock, and my wife prefers the Victorinox Swiss Tool Spirit for its superior finish and lighter weight. These tools are so handy, I hate to be without one. Before buying, study all the tool functions. Some multitools are more suited to a jobsite than a survival situation. 

• Flashlight: A headlamp style is especially useful, as it allows you to free up your hands for tasks other than carrying the light. In addition to a headlamp, I always carry my SureFire Outdoorsman and spare batteries for both. 
• Fire starters: Never leave home without at least two or three. But the real key to success at getting a fire lies in the preparation of the tinder and kindling. Practice, practice, practice. I carry a Swedish FireSteel striker, a Brunton Stormproof lighter, and a cheap Bic. 

• Heavy leather gloves: Absolutely required if you want to prevent injury to your hands when fighting your way through a survival situation. Something as seemingly minor as a splinter or a cut can become infected and lead to serious illness and death when medical care is not available. 
• Can opener: This might be part of the multitool, but I always carry a military P38-type can opener that folds down to nearly nothing but opens a can like a wizard. I never want to have to play machoman and drive the blade of my knife through a can to open it. Too much chance of either slipping and hurting myself or damaging the blade. 

Reflections on Cave Dwelling

The following is an excerpt from my journal when our family was living in a cave in southern Utah. The photo is of this exact cave (we stayed in more than one), and shows my son Eric on a return visit many years later. When this journal entry was made, Eric was only one year old. Our daughter Sharlene was three years old at the time of this journal entry. We had no sleeping bags, tents, stoves, lanterns or any other camping gear. Only a wool blanket each, and the clothes we were wearing (nothing special). However, Becky and I each had a knife. 

Our cave was a small rock overhang about 150 feet above stream level. The shelter provided no more than 90 square feet of space and was low; no more than 4 feet high in any one place.

Some of the problems with this cave were:

• The steep climb from stream level to cave level was through loose sand, and not many trips were required to wear you out.
• The shelter was northwest-facing and received no sunlight until just prior to sundown. Therefore, although it was fairly warm and protective, a south-facing cave would have proven much more suitable.
• The cave floor and outside area consisted of loose sand that blew around unceasingly. We partially rectified this problem by building up rock walls and placing slabs of flat stone on the entrance floor of the cave.
• The ventilation of the shelter was not proper to induce the smoke from our fire to exit all the time. Therefore, we suffered the malady of campfire people … smoke.

Despite these problems, we managed to convert this tiny cave into a nice place to live. After determining the direction of the prevailing night wind, we erected windbreaks and rock walls to keep the majority of the wind out. We were able to close off approximately 60% of the opening. We then constructed a good reflector fire pit that proved to be successful beyond our expectations. So despite the occasional smoke, we managed to stay warm.

We spread our wool  Army blankets carefully to cover the sandy floor and made comfortable beds for the four of us.

We built up an outside fire pit for cooking during fair weather. This fire pit was built against a large rock which acted as a reflector. The only problem we had with this fire pit was that the wind kept blowing away the ashes and we could never build up a suitable amount of ashes to make ash cakes.

During our stay in this cave the only bad weather was cloudiness and a high wind, both of which were continual. Even with its deficiencies, the cave was an exceptional shelter and I am certain that under truly adverse weather conditions it would perform well as a long-term shelter.