Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Alone. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Alone. Sort by date Show all posts

Monday, February 24, 2020

Alone: The Beast S1 E1


Three contestants must survive with no tools; just the clothes on their backs, in a harsh environment for 30 days with one animal.  This will test their primitive skills and ability to use Stone Tools.



S1 E1
Our first episode opens with Zane Kraetsch, Lindsay Persico and Joe Schilling begin locating their beast which turns out to be a moose.  They begin to fabricate stone tools to process the moose meat, but their available stone seems limited.  Doing the best they can with stone tools, they begin skinning and gutting the moose.  Lindsay takes the lead gutting the beast to allow it to cool, as Joe heads off to make a small shelter of evergreen boughs.    
Day 2 has Joe coughing and Lindsay trying to quarter the moose as Zane begins to build a smoking rack.  Joe’s coughing intensifies and he is soon no help to the team.   
The next day (3), Zane begins to build fire using moose hide as cordage.   After 7 hours, he uses Witches Hair, growing on trees as a powder under the spindle and quickly gets fire, demonstrating the importance of using the right materials.
They use the moose stomach as a water carrier and  pot for hot rocks to disinfect the water.   Lindsay and Zack are working well together now but Joe is only resting and actually being more of a burden than help.  When he taps out on Day 3, actually looking strong, the team is actually better off.
Day four finds them using the moose hide as a cover, the remaining team of two begins to smoke the meat as the temperature gets down to 28F during the night with a light snow.  The next day, they continue drying meat but also reinforce their shelter.  During the night, they awaken to a bear growling outside their shelter and Zane is missing his kiddos. 
Day 10 opens with a light snow covering.  The team has abundant meat when Zane quits for no apparent reason, except perhaps a lack of mental toughness.  Leaving a woman out their alone was clearly unexpected to her.
Avoiding the bear, a tough Lindsay drags the moose remains further away. At this point, she has lost 10 pounds as the nights are getting down to 28F. With the bear still coming close to her shelter, she decides to relocate her camp, leaving her shelter behind on day 17.  She uses a Birch log and a Chaga fungus that grows on hard wood trees to carry her fire.   Leaving her shelter is risky, but staying might also be even higher risk.  One potential mistake, is she should have put a large log on her old fire as a back up to carrying her fire with her.  But it was not an issue for her as she was able to rekindle her fire.
Day 18 begins with building a new shelter in 32 degree temperatures.   Run down and light headed on Day 23, finds her struggling to eat the low fat dried meat so she decides to go hunting using the moose shoulder scapula as a throwing weapon and killing a grouse, carrying her to extraction day. 

Summary:
Lindsey Persico, is the lone survivor in this episode, proves to be tough, smart and a hard working, who was able to process large quantities of meat and harvest a grouse.

Friday, June 7, 2019

Wilderness Survival TEST

Wilderness Survival Skills are FREE to learn, and by definition, require minimal purchases since we are supposed to survive off of what we can come up with in the woods.

How do your Wilderness Skills really stack up?  There is a TEST that follows.



There are several levels of Wilderness Survival, that are broadly classified by:
    1) the length of time you must survive and
    2) the degree of preparation and supplies you have available and
    3) the number of survivalist present, their skill level & physical condition

Most survival scenarios are solo or small groups, short term, with only what you carry with you, also know as your EDC or Every Day Carry items but often includes what you have in your car.

A popular example, the Naked & Afraid show requires medium term survival at 14 to 40 days (most often 21) with very limited preparations.  Typically only one item each, with usually only 2 people with limited to above average survival skills.  It is an unrealistic scenario, for several reasons. The wilderness regions selected are worse than average and because you have no clothes making your Naked & Afraid Survival Plan notably different from any others.

But other scenarios could be long extended periods like on the highly popular Alone Survival Show, which is a single survivalist (except once season), with a Survival Pack of 10 items.  On Alone, the last person standing out of 10 contestants, wins $500,000 and typically the winners must stay somewhere between 50 to 90 days.  On Alone, the 10 items you select are critical and region specific.  At the bottom of this post are links to items selected in past seasons of Alone, and an Alone Survival Plan.

 Types of Survival include:
  1. Primitive Survival which requires stone tools, wood spears, friction fire, etc.  The TV Show The Great Human Race is the closest example of what this would be like.
  2. Everyday Carry Survival (EDC) varies, but may have a knife, fire starter or a vehicle for shelter.  Hiking or walking the woods and getting lost is a common example of this. The TV Show Naked & Afraid might be an example of this, with insufficient clothes.  Man, Woman Wild is another good example along with Dual Survival which portrays actual scenarios.  Survivor Man was a good one.
  3. Planned Camping / survival - where you carry a back pack of useful tools to stay for an extended period.  For beginners and children, this is the best way to start learning.  The TV Show Alone is an excellent example of this.
  4. Sustainable Living is surviving for years which includes raising livestock and gardeningSecurity becomes a big factor in this scenario.
There are others and varying degrees of the above classifications.

Primitive Survival would historically consist of a small but skilled agile group who inherited a few basic survival tools, region appropriate clothing and a pocket full of food.  Some type of Primitive Fishing tools would also be available. This would be long term survival under Nomadic conditions to avoid exhausting regional resources and would almost always be near a source of fresh water.  This also requires several hundred acres of land per group member.

This is only for the most advanced experts who excel at these primitive skills:
  1. Hunting
  2. Trapping
  3. Fishing
  4. Identifying wild plants
  5. Starting friction fires
  6. Making stone tools
  7. Building shelter
EDC Survival, is definitely the most common.  Even when camping with a comfortable pack of supplies, people will wander off without it and get lost.  So the question at this point, is what tools do you consistently carry with you?  For me, it is a Leatherman Wave, a ferrous rod for starting fire, an un-lubricated condom as a water carrier, comfortable shoes and a strong leather belt as well as a pistol and several rounds of ammo.  If in my car, I have much more, including a case of bottled water, a Wilderness Survival Pack (<- see link for list), several prepper fire arms, several hundreds of rounds of ammo, a coat, a machete, a plastic coated map, a GPS, plus my smart phone.

This is usually for 24 to 72 hours, and you have regionally suitable clothes for the current time of day.

Planned Camping can be the most luxurious survival and usually the best place to start.  In addition, there are multiple levels of supplies, periods of time and difficulty.  Its best to start out, especially with children, with ample gear and supplies.

Other levels are to go camping with only the supplies you can carry in your pack.  Additional variations are to only carry 45 pounds in your pack, or 35 pounds (if cross country hiking), or with only 10 to 15 items in your pack.  Each level is progressively more difficult, especially as you increase the time interval. With experience, you can challenge yourself by carrying fewer items and staying for longer periods of time.

Sustainable Living is perhaps the most unique, especially in the time period, as it basically for ever, with a wide range of pioneer type tools that you can build or maintain with group members skills.  This type of survival requires domesticated livestock, gardening skills and tools plus about 7 acres of land per group member. Sustainable living also requires a higher degree of security as the events that would necessitate this are severe.

OK, here is your TEST (Its not as easy as you think)

Based on your Survival Skills, pick one of the different types of Survival above and go out in the woods for a 3 day weekend and TEST your survival skills.  You set the parameters and what you bring.  As you become proficient at your first level, advance to your next level.


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Monday, February 24, 2020

Alone: The Beast S1 E2


Three contestants must survive with no tools; just the clothes on their backs, in a harsh environment for 30 days with one animal.  This will test their primitive skills and ability to use Stone Tools.





S1 E2

Finding a huge Musk Ox, Ben Jonas, Nate Weber & Robert Edwards must use primitive stone tools to process it.  They begin a gutless quarter, which is a great idea to save time, since they will have plenty of meat.  Three participants eating a pound of meat per meal is 3 pounds X 3 or 9 pounds per day, and 270 pounds over a 30-day period.  

Upon removing the first quarter, they put it in the lake water to preserve it.  This with extend the shelf life of their meat, but risks contaminating their water.    

Faced with a black bear stealing their meat, they throw rocks and charge him to run him off, then begin to make fire, using cordage made from spruce root which breaks too easy, so they weave cordage from the Musk Ox hair, which works.  

They build a good debris shelter against a earth berm and begin to tan the hide.  Their first attempt at building pottery exploded, but crushing some Musk Ox bone into the clay did the trick.

 Finding a nice-looking stone, they begin to sharpen it and burn a slot in a handle to make a stone Axe.

It’s obvious this newly formed team has good primitive skills, determination and a good work ethic, but the meat is tough and doesn’t have enough fat, so they make fish hooks from Musk Ox bone and fishing line from the sinew.  

This fish are not biting, but a squirrel, killed by throwing a rock, provides a welcome change in diet.  They then use some of the red squirrel meat for fishing bait, finally landing a large lake trout, probably weighing ten pounds, and containing a good amount of fat that gives them a big boost of energy. 


Summary:
Ben Jonas, Nate Weber & Robert Edwards, were a skilled team, that worked together well.  They smartly processed their beast, and were able to harvest a squirrel and a 10 pound lake trout, as well as protect their food from a bear and win this competition.

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