Be Careful Who You Listen To

A couple days ago, I was listening to a nationally syndicated radio talk show that was hosted by a fellow who gives investment advice to callers. One listener called in with a question about investing in gold, and that set off the host. His opinion was that gold, as he put it, "sucks" as an investment, and he went on to explain his way of thinking. He wrapped it all up by saying that people who invest in gold are the same ones who went nuts about Y2K and filled their basements with food storage, water, and a generator. And then, as if to strut in the pride of his wisdom, he proclaimed that he didn't own a generator and never would. It was a public slap in the face to all those who take steps toward personal emergency preparedness. And it was such a foolish statement to make, because I can almost guarantee that the radio station he works for has a backup generator so they can stay on the air when there is a power outage.

Now, I am not an investment advisor, so I can't, with any authority, tell people whether or not gold is the right investment vehicle for them. But I am a survival advisor with a lifetime of experience and training, and I am fully capable of helping people understand how to survive in urban or wilderness crisis. And I'm here to tell you that you need to be careful who you listen to about these matter. That guy on the radio was, to put it mildly, ignorant of the facts when it comes to matters of survival.

Maybe he has never experienced an ice storm that rips down the power lines and leaves entire regions without electricity for a week or more. Maybe he has never suffered a flood that contaminates the water supply; or an earthquake that destroys roads and buildings, eliminating any chance of going to a store for food. Maybe he's never passed through a personal economic crisis that left him eating from his supply of stored food until he could get back on his feet.

Bully for him, if he's never needed to use a personal emergency preparedness plan to help him through struggles in his own life. But it's both foolish and dangerous to promote the idea that those of us who take steps to mitigate a crisis in the future are "nut jobs." That is, in essence, what he was saying.

By taking personal responsibility for your own emergency preparedness, you take the pressure off of federal, state and local relief organizations that will come along later (who knows how much later) to help victims. If you can take care of yourself, and perhaps a few others in the neighborhood, you are part of the solution, not part of the problem.

The most patriotic and compassionate thing we can all do is become more self-reliant, but not just to benefit ourselves. We need to do this with an attitude that we will reach out and use what we have to help others in need.

Someday, that radio host might find himself in a position to need someone to help him. When that time comes, I hope someone does, and maybe that will open his eyes and help shift his attitude.

Fixed-Blade Knife/Saw

Not every knife manufacturer gets it the way SOG does. I mean, there are so many knives on the market that look fantastic, but in a survival situation the last thing you need is an empty promise delivered by a pretty face that just can't do the job. We get enough of that in politics.

SOG gets the job done. The company started building knives in the spirit of the Special Forces of the VietNam era — hence the name SOG (go ahead, look it up, the history lesson will be fun). From the beginning, quality and function took precedence over looking pretty. But to a true outdoor enthusiast, there is nothing prettier than superior function.

One of SOGs recent innovations is the Fusion Revolver - SEAL, and I have to admit that this puppy has won my heart. What I want in a survival knife is something hefty enough to do the dirty jobs without whimpering. That means a blade with plain and serrated edges for cutting and slicing, and a spine that is hefty enough to allow me to beat on it when splitting kindling. But the Fusion Revolver takes it one step farther with the addition of a powerful double-tooth saw that allows clean and effortless cutting of branches as thick as my forearm for building shelters or other camp projects.

This is not a folding knife in the traditional sense, but at the same time it is a totally folding knife. The survival saw and knife blade are on opposite ends of a single length of 440A stainless steel that pivots to allow the blades to revolve through the handle to deliver whichever one you need. A positive lock in the hand grip prevents the blade from moving until you are ready to change to the other blade. Then it takes just a couple of seconds to swap from knife to saw and back again. Nothing could be easier.

Overall length is 10 inches, with each blade measuring 4.75 inches. Total weight is 6 ounces. Retail price is $40. Check it out at www.sogknives.com.

Trapped Hunters

More than two dozen hunters are, right at this moment, trapped by 2 to 3 feet of freshly fallen snow in the mountains of Arizona, according to reports from the Coconino County sheriff's office. The huge storm dumped that much snow in one day, trapping 25 to 30 elk hunters in the high country near Flagstaff.

Searchers on snowmobiles, cross-country skis, and snowshoes are in the process of checking popular camps, trying to find the survivors and get them out before they run completely out of food, water and fuel for heating. With those supplies dwindling, rescuers are trying to get to those in greatest need first.

Some of the trapped hunters were able to use their cell phones to call for help, triggering the rescue attempts. Not all of the folks who are trapped are rugged hunters — some are children and elderly folks, according to reports.

How can you prevent such an event from happening to you?

• Always at the top of the list is the process called Situational Awareness. Be aware of what the weather patterns are doing and what the near-term and long-term forecast is. Before and during the trip, check weather forecasts by radio, TV, newspaper, and the Internet. Carry a battery-powered NOAA weather radio with you, so you can keep up to date and listen for weather warnings.
• But don't let it end there — keep your eyes on the sky, watching cloud formation and movement. Forecasters will not be aware of weather activities in your locale until someone calls them to report it. Your eyes and your understanding of how to read the weather are the most important forecasting tools right where you are. 
• If there is a change in temperature, barometric pressure, cloud formation and direction of cloud movement, take the initiative to cancel your plans and get out of danger. Don't wait around until it's too late. 
• Be prepared with at least twice as much supplies as you think you'll need, because you never know when something will happen that will strand you for longer than you expected to be there. 
• Leave detailed instruction with friends and family members back home, letting them know exactly where you will be and how long you will be there. Then, do not change your plans without notifying those folks about the changes. 
• Always have winter-grade clothing and sleeping bags in your vehicle at this time of year. 
• Carry signaling devices — mirror, whistle, colorful fabric panels, personal locator beacon or SPOT, radio, 
• Carry a GPS, not only to keep yourself from getting lost, but also so you can tell rescuers exactly where you are, if you are able to contact them by phone or radio.
• And, of course, carry redundant methods of starting a fire. 

Fire Starters

Starting a fire is not always easy. When you're down to your final match, or trying to conserve the juice left in your Bic lighter, you can't afford failure. This is when you need to use an accelerant, to make sure the tinder ignites and burns long enough and hot enough to ignite the kindling.

There are accelerants in nature, such as pitchwood or fresh evergreen sap. But depending on your situation, those might not be available. In urban survival situations, you probably have several accelerants to choose from in your medicine cabinet, pantry, or first aid kit.

Here is an alphabetical list of excellent accelerants that I have personally tested. These items are normally disguised as common household products, but if you apply a small amount to a cotton ball or to a bit of wadded toilet paper or paper towel, you’ll have a powerful fire booster.

• Alcohol swab — Quickly takes a spark and turns it into an inferno. Only the alcohol burns, leaving the swab material untouched. This can be ignited from a spark without using any paper as a base. 
• Carmex — A small amount smeared on paper ignites easily and turns the paper into a long-burning candle. 
• Chapstick — This product, when applied to a piece of paper, extends the combustion time of the paper by a factor of about five. This is important because it multiplies the power of the flame to ignite tinder, kindling, and fuel wood. 
• Deodorant — Smear deodorant on a patch of paper, and it will burn much longer than the untreated paper alone would. 
• Hair oil — A few drops of hair oil on paper will burn like a wick dipped in lamp oil, consuming the oil rather than the wick, keeping the fire alive for an extended period of time. 
• Hand sanitizer — If you have hand sanitizer that contains alcohol, it's almost as good as napalm. This stuff will burst into flame directly from a spark, and doesn’t even need a paper base for it to start burning. 
• Insect repellant — A bit of liquid insect repellant on paper makes a very volatile accelerant that bursts into flame quickly after striking a spark on the paper base. 
• Neosporin — Not all accelerants burst into flame quickly. Some act as a combustion extender. Neosporin is one of these. It takes a bit of effort to ignite, but when it does it burns steadily to sustain the flame for a long time. 
• Petroleum jelly (Vaseline) – This is one of my favorites. It is cheap, easy to obtain, and is an excellent accelerant that burns long and hot. 
• Snack chips — Here's a surprise for some people, and it might make you think twice about eating these things. I’ve used potato chips, Fritos, Doritos, Cheetos, and white-label varieties of all of these. They all burn like an oil field on fire. The trick is to prop them up vertically over the toilet paper, strike your spark into the paper, and as the flame rises the chips will turn into a torch. 
• Zinc oxide (the white stuff surfers put on their nose to prevent sunburn). This material burns slowly and steadily, extending the combustion period of the paper it is smeared on.

My Favorite Folding Knife

Multi-tasking is a good thing, at least when it comes to survival tools. I like tools that can do more than one thing, as long as each task is performed well. But that can only happen when the tool is not compromised by poor design, shoddy workmanship and low-quality materials.

Keeping all that in mind, I was happy to find a multi-tasking folding knife that lives up to high standards. It's the SL Pro 2 made by Toollogic (www.toollogic.com). In one compact package that weighs just 4.2 ounces, I now have a sturdily-built, razor-sharp, 3-inch 50/50 serrated/plain blade that is protected from accidental folding by a very positive locking mechanism. But that's just the beginning. Three other functions include a bright LED flashlight that conveniently shines directly on the spot where the knife is working (or it can be removed and used independently), a magnesium alloy fire starter that works in conjunction with a striking surface on the knife blade, and a loud signal whistle built into the knife handle.  Additional features include a stainless steel pocket clip and a lanyard hole.

The blade is designed for easy one-handed opening and closing, using either hand (a boon for those who are ambidextrous). The bright LED turns on with the twist of the light barrel, and a tug on the light dislodges the unit from the knife handle and reveals the fire striker on the opposite end. My test of the fire striker satisfied me that, by using proper technique and good tinder, it is a simple matter to start a fire with just one attempt. The signal whistle is shrill and loud with just a puff of breath on the aft end of the knife handle.

The SL Pro 2 answers a multitude of needs, is easy to use, and the materials and workmanship are first rate.  For a suggested retail price of $52.50 this is an affordable way to equip yourself to meet a variety of situations. This has become my favorite folding knife for obvious reasons.

Passive Self Defense

The worst predators are in civilization. Two-legged predators aren't just looking for their next meal, the way a bear or cougar is … they're looking for a victim. Might be a robbery, a rape, or a murder. This is what makes civilization (and I use that term guardedly) so much more dangerous than the wilderness.

Surviving civilization requires constant situational awareness. All that term means is that you are aware of the situation — what's going on around you — and you make decisions according to what is happening. This is the best form of passive self-defense. It's taking stock of the situation, and then taking steps to avoid trouble.

Let's say, for example, that you're a woman coming out of a grocery store and walking alone to your vehicle in the parking lot. So let's analyze the situation:

• Are there lots of other people around, or is the parking lot pretty deserted?
• Study the scene. Who is lurking between where you are and where your vehicle is located?
• Is anyone parked adjacent to your vehicle?
• Is it a van, and is it parked on the left side of your vehicle?
• Is it possible there are people in or near the van?

The reason I bring this scenario up is because one of the favorite methods used by kidnappers and rapists is to park a van adjacent to the driver's side of a woman's vehicle, knowing that when she comes out of the store she will automatically try to enter her vehicle on that side. Suddenly, the van side door slides open, the woman is grabbed and pulled into the van, and it disappears into the flow of traffic. The abduction takes mere seconds, and because the vehicles create a visual blockade, chances are nobody else will even notice what happened.

These low-lifes want to work quickly and quietly. They don't want someone screaming for help or putting up a struggle. They want to grab and run, so they set up the ambush to enable just that. If you keep your eyes open and be ready to scream and run and make a big fuss, you'll be a less desirable target. And they'll be watching to see if you're paying attention to the surroundings. Making eye contact and looking strong and determined will sometimes deter an attack.

How does the kidnapper know the car belongs to a woman alone? These vermin are patient. They stalk their prey. They lay low in the parking lot watching people come and go. When they see a woman drive in, park her car and go into the store, they pull up next to the driver's side and wait.

More than once, my wife has faced this scenario — she exited the store, saw a van parked next to her car with the sliding cargo door facing her driver's side door, and had a bad feeling about it. So, what did she do?

• Instead of approaching her car on the driver's side, she kept her eyes open
• she analyzed every movement of people
• she approached her car and walked around to the passenger side
• got in
• locked the doors
• then crawled across to the driver's position and drove away 

Another option is to go back inside the store and request that someone escort you to your car. This is especially important at night, if you're alone. Do not be overcome by embarrassment. Be bold enough to ask for help. It is a life-saving strategy.

Another True Story

'Tis the season. And every year about this time, true stories of survival situations crop up. This one is about the Keith and Jennifer Lee family on a Christmas tree hunt in the high elevations of the Oregon mountains. With their Forest Service tree permit in hand, they drove an all-wheel-drive Subaru to the Siskiyou Mountains in search of the perfect silver tip fir. After cutting the tree and lashing it to the top of the car, they headed home. Unfortunately, they didn't make it.

Rounding a corner on the lonely mountain road, they suddenly plunged into deep snow and the car sank "like it was in quicksand," according to Jennifer. For the next three days and two nights, the couple worked to free the car, by placing rocks beneath the tires and then trying to rock the car out of the snow in reverse. That didn't work as intended, but rather it moved the car closer to the edge of the cliff.

As Keith worked on a fresh solution, Jennifer prayed and thought about how it would impact their children and other family members if they never made it home alive. During the day, it was warm enough. At night the couple huddled under blankets and ran the car engine for 15 minutes each hour to use the heater. They had plenty of drinking water and blankets, but no food. There was no cell coverage where they were, so their cell phone was useless. And even though they knew they were going high in the mountains where the snow can get deep, Keith had failed to bring tire chains.

Back home, a close friend named Sophie Smith was watching the Lee children and the dog. When the Lees failed to return home to pick up the children by the next morning, she called the police. Unfortunately, nobody knew exactly where Keith and Jennifer had gone to hunt for their Christmas tree. The only clue the searchers had was the fact that the year before, the Lees had gone up into the Siskiyous to get their tree. That's about like saying someone went to Los Angeles to buy food. It's not much of a clue. The Siskiyous are huge and empty and rugged. Needle in a haystack.

Nevertheless, a search was begun using a helicopter, snowmobiles, and ATVs. But the search turned up no sign of the stranded couple.

Finally, on the third day, Keith shifted his strategy by placing the rocks differently under the tires. Luckily, the car moved far enough that they were able to drive out of the snow. As they were traveling home, they heard on the radio that a search was underway for them. They called 911 to report that they were safe, then phoned Sophie Smith to let the kids know.

A happy ending, but it could easily have been so terribly different. As we analyze this case, it's easy to see what was done right and what was not. Topping the NOT list is the fact that the Lees failed to let anyone at home (or at the forest service office, or the sheriff office) know exactly where they were going. That alone could have resulted in an early rescue when they didn't come home as expected.

Another item on the NOT list is failure to take self-rescue equipment like tire chains, when the expectation is that there is likely to be snow up at the elevation where they were going. Or how about a shovel, or a winch?

Another NOT is failure to have sufficient survival supplies in the car. A tent and cold-weather sleeping bags would have been so much better than huddling under a blanket inside the car and wasting fuel to run the engine for heat.

How about the failure to take effective signaling devices such as a PLB (personal locator beacon) or SPOT Satellite Messenger that can call in the rescuers immediately to their exact GPS coordinates? Or what about building a signal fire with a dense smoke column to attract attention from miles away?

So what did they do right? For one, they didn't give up and quit trying. Keith was willing to keep working on a solution and trying different approaches. I've got to hand it to him for that. And Jennifer kept praying. I'm a believer that God helps those who ask, so bless her for her faith.

As a side note, a year ago, the Lees got lost in the mountains while hunting for a Christmas tree. So we're starting to see a pattern here that is not very good. My suggestion is that Keith and Jennifer get a PLB or a SPOT for Christmas, and start leaving a flight plan with friends and family before venturing into the mountains again. Oh yeah, and stock up the car with appropriate supplies and equipment.

Merry Christmas to the Lee family. You already got your present.