Backcountry Beacon

You’ve probably thumbed through your fair share of survival books at the bookstore. When it comes to remembering any specifics, though, the most you might recall is something about punching a shark on its nose and a foggy idea of how to float in quicksand. That’s helpful if you encounter a great white while you’re navigating a vat of quicksand, but not too helpful in the backcountry. The following are some easily remembered ways you can use the gear you have (hiking backpack, camping equipment) to collect water, purify water, make a fire, and do other important survival-type stuff.

Collecting Water (you can live for a while without food, but not without water)

• Tent Fly: stretch out the tent fly and tie it to trees or branches to collect and store rainwater.
• Tent Footprint and Water Bottle: dig a hole a foot deep, place your water bottle at the center, and cover the hole with your tarp. Put sticks or stones around the edges of the tarp so it’s flush with the ground, poke a small hole in the middle of the tarp, and put a stone next to the hole to weigh the tarp down (evaporation will condense on the plastic and drip into your bottle).
• Sleeping Bag (or Clothing, or Socks): in the desert during the day, dig down until the sand is cool (the deepest part of a dry riverbed would be an ideal place to dig). Place your sleeping bag in the hole, and cover it back up. At night, you can dig it back up, and wring it out (your bag will absorb water from the ground). Use your clothing or socks if having a wet sleeping bag at night is going to be a real killjoy.

Purifying (or partly purifying) Water

• Sock: when you can’t boil your water, fill your sock with alternating layers of sand, pebbles, and squished leaves, and pour the water through your sock a few times. This definitely won’t kill bacteria or icky micro-organisms, but it’ll filter out questionable floaties and improve taste. If it’s sunny out, leave the water in the sun for an hour before filtering (exposure to UV radiation will kill some bacteria).
• Two Shirts (or Underwear … preferably clean, and not thongs), a Shoelace, and a Tent Pole (or three Sticks): tie the sections of your tent pole (see image below) or three sticks together at the top to make a pyramid. Then tie your skivvies or shirts to the poles. Fill the top layer with grass, squished leaves, or moss, and the bottom with sand (ash would be best on the bottom, but if you’re filtering in this manner, you probably don’t have a fire). Stick a pan, cup, or bottle underneath and pour water from the top through the layers.

• Stainless Steel Bottle (with no lining) and a Fire: place the bottle on the fire and boil the water for at least five minutes. This is the most preferable and effective option when you don’t have a purifier.

Starting a Fire

• Knife (or very sharp Rock) and a Stick: get a stick and sharpen one end to a point (from here on we’ll call this sharpened stick Woody). Find a piece of bark and some tinder (above-ground quick-burn stuff like dry leaves). Put the bark on top of the tinder to allow for oxygenation, hold Woody on the bark with the pointy side down, and rub Woody back and forth between your hands to create friction and spark.
• Shoelace, two Sticks, Bark, and a Rock: this way takes more prep and practice, but you’ll get a spark faster. Find a branch (preferably a green one – otherwise it’ll just break) and a hand-sized rock. Take the green branch and cut a notch at one end, and make a split at the other end.

Tie the shoelace (or a round piece of cord from your tent, or the drawstring from your sleeping bag) on the notched end, then pull the string tight through the split.

Wrap the string around Woody. Do the bark and tinder part, put the rock on top of the blunt end of Woody, and pull the bow back and forth to create friction.

• Plastic Water Bottle: use as a magnifying glass to start a fire. Hold the bottle so the sun goes down the full length of the bottle, and angle the bottle so the sun comes to a concentrated point. Then hold it over dry tinder until it starts smoking and glowing.

Help for your Fire

• Sleeping Pad: cut small pieces of your insulated pad and use the pieces for tinder when you can’t find any or if everything you find is wet.

• Lip Balm: rub it over your improvised pieces of tinder (sleeping-pad foam, small pieces of cotton). The balm acts like the wick on a candle and will help keep your flame burning evenly.
• Tent Stakes: use the sharp sides or point to shave fire-kindling off of branches or to carve a branch to a point for fire-making.

Fishing

• Tent Door (or Shirt) and Shoestring: cut out your tent’s mesh-screen door, or if you don’ t want to mangle your tent, grab a shirt. Use string to tie twigs or green branches together in a ring, spread the mesh/shirt out on top, secure the mesh to the branches with string, and use the contraption as a fishing net.

Help For Fishing

• Vestibule Pole or Long Stick: poke the end of the pole through your self-made net for a more stealthy approach to the fish.
• Lip Balm: use clumps of lip balm as bait in your net. Yum.

Protection From the Elements

• Mesh Tent Door or Mesh From a Backpack’s Back Panel: cut the mesh out and use it as a mosquito-protector for your head. Put a piece of bark or something flat on top of your head but under the mesh so the material isn’t sticking to your skin. Then thread the bottom of the piece together to keep pests out.
• Mesh: use the mesh to protect your eyes if you don’t have sunglasses. Loosely wrap a segment of the mesh around your head and in front of your eyes. Or cut out a section and use a shoelace to tie it around your head.
• Tent Fly and Sticks: if you’re in a skin-sizzlingly hot environment and you need to move during the day, use sticks and the ties at the ends of the fly to fashion a transportable (think umbrella) shelter.
• Sleeping Pad: cut into pieces and stick under your clothes for warmth.
• Sunscreen: if you’re in a wet climate, use the sunscreen to coat material that should resist water (clothes, jacket, shoes, old tent).

River Travel

• Ground Cloth and Shoelace: if you’re near a river and self-rescue involves traveling down it, lay the ground-cloth out and form a platform on one half of the cloth by tying thick branches together. Then fold the tarp over the branches, tuck in the sides, and use the shoelace to tie the tarp ends and grommets together to make a raft.

Finding Your Way

• Analog Wrist Watch: in the northern hemisphere, hold the watch with the hour-hand pointing to the sun. Then imagine a line running midway between the hour-hand and 12—this is the north-south line. The sun will be toward the south. In the southern hemisphere, the sun will be toward the north.

Signaling For Help

• Headlamp: if you hear a plane at night, use your headlamp to signal six short flashes of light every minute. Or whatever kind of light pattern you can think of at that point.

Modest Bathing

• Performance Undies: you’re hot as hell, and you come across a deliciously cold watering hole. If you don’t want to skinny-dip because you’re still holding on to your last shred of modesty (or perhaps you’re afraid this might all be part of a hidden-camera survival show), strip down to your fashionable skivvies and take a dip.

Attitude

• Unrelated to gear, but definitely one of your most important assets, is your attitude. Stay positive. A good attitude is an immeasurable tool.

If you’re not ready to tear up your $400 expedition tent, check out our extensive selection of emergency kits, first aid kits, and other survival gear.

For ideas and no-bs verification, the author would like to thank her boyfriend, Craig T. Morris (Moss), who spent years in Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance and during that time, completed (and put to use) extensive wilderness and combat survival courses.

Wanna share your gear-survival technique? Comment below, and share your wisdom.

Related Posts:

• Camp Chef Recipe #4: Hobo Potatoes
• Pack Your Tent: Stuff, Fold, or Roll?
• Sleeping Bag Technology for 2010

Tags: backpacking, camping, DIY, wilderness survival