OK, so you have your ultralight knife (eg the Kabar Johnson Adventure Piggyback I have recommended so often (Carry a Knife) which you have used so many times for cutting up your lunch on the trail (Lunch on the Trail) or splitting twigs to make a fire in the wet (How to Light a Fire […]
Getting dry, staying dry, that’s what survival comes down to. Alan Remnant founding pilot/owner of Wings on Water, Te Anau, Fiordland who has flown me in to Supper Cove so many times (one of the world’s greatest trips) tells me he has often had to ferry deceased hikers out of there too, folks who could
This is the Alpacka Scout which I bought for my wife Della (or was it for myself?) for a Xmas present – here modeled by my daughter and grandson in the farm dam. Pack Raft Australia are the Australian agents. Their prices are as low as you could possible get it from the US anyway
I already mentioned cooking falafel in the leftover fat from Chinese Sausages in Hiking Food: Protein (the first for dinner, the second for breakfast), but you can carry a pack of falafel mix and approx 60 ml of eg olive oil in a small plastic bottle (but this is better Out of the Frying Pan.
As I have mentioned before over at my older website Ultralight Hiking I have many other smaller posts too which might interest you. Here are December’s offering. Merry Xmas: 23/12/2021: 23/12/2021: Mowgli’s friends attack: https://donsurber.blogspot.com/2021/12/monkeys-kill-puppies-libs-side-with.html 22/12/2021: Time for a good news story about a magpie and a dog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BI_ivMZUEQ&t=66s 22/12/2021: 7500 miles across America by canoe:
I faced a week of enforced bachelorhood anyway (as Della is craftily away) so I decided to take the pups for a week’s walk…Four hour’s driving later including a couple on bumpy 4WD tracks we gazed up a river somewhere, wondering… Who knows what wonders lie around the river’s bend? Delightfully there are a number of
It is incredibly difficult country. Some ‘easier’ areas (eg along the South Coast Track) are flatter and safer. There are both pigs and deer there. In NZ they have these excellent DOC (‘Dept of Conservation’) huts all over the place (roughly a solid day’s walk apart with a pack; all have a helipad) which make
This stuff is wonderful. First, there is its obvious utility in joining/repairing cuben fibre. There is a single-sided and a double sided version – and it comes in various widths). You normally use it to make joins to create a wider tarp, or to make ‘no-sew’ cuben fibre stuff sacks. Where it really comes into
Does your dog rip holes in your sleeping mat (see photo), your pack raft or canoeing dry bag with their sharp claws even if you keep them trimmed? Instead of leaving Spot (or Honey) at home you could get yourself some dog booties to prevent such disasters. This is the hole Honey managed to rip
It is highly desirable to carry a fixed blade knife mainly for those rare occasions when it is necessary to split branches to produce dry kindling and shave them to produce ‘excelsior’ (wood shavings) which are the best fire starter. Lighting a fire when it is very wet and cold is the most important time
