Table of Contents
Survive in the Wilderness like a Seasoned Woodsman
Having to survive in the wilderness can be a daunting experience, especially if you’re unfamiliar with the environment.
As thrilling as outdoor adventures may be, you must prepare yourself with the essential skills and supplies required to withstand the elements, emergency situations and the need to sustain yourself until you can escape or help arrives.
It’s crucial to keep in mind that survival in the wilderness requires preparation, patience, and persistence.
Luck is a very thin wire between survival and disaster, and not many people can keep their balance on it.
1. Understanding the Importance of Proper Packing.
In the midst of an emergency situation, it’s important to be prepared with the right equipment and supplies.
Ensuring that you have the necessities readily available can make all the difference in survival. With an overwhelming amount of items to choose from, it’s important to focus on the most necessary things that are critical for your immediate situation.
Certain items in your survival kit have a greater priority than others, for example emergency first aid medical equipment is vastly more important to pack than paracord for example.
It’s crucial to strike a balance between having enough supplies and not packing too much, as over-packing can weigh and slow you down when you need to move quickly over rough terrain.
This is why lightweight supplies are key to perfecting your survival kit. Not only do they reduce the overall weight of your pack, but they also enable agility and fast movement.
2. Communication and Calling for Help
Before heading out into the wilderness, try to minimize the risk of being stranded by doing some prior prepping.
Always tell someone where you’re going, especially if it’s a very remote and extremely dangerous area.
If you think you might need to use survival skills, always bring a way to call for help.
Phones and Satellite Phones
Your regular smartphone likely isn’t going to cut it in a wilderness survival situation, of course this depends on how deep into the wilderness and how far away from society you are, so we highly recommend investing in a satellite phone.
They provide coverage even in isolated areas, ensuring connectivity with emergency services. Whether venturing into remote areas or preparing for unexpected events, satellite phones are a necessity.
With one of these devices, you’ll always have a lifeline to the outside world, no matter how far off the beaten path you may find yourself.
Signal Flares
Signal flares are a vital tool for emergency situations especially when you’re alone trying to survive in the wilderness.
They provide a bright and long-lasting light, visible from afar. They can be used to signal distress, navigation and for communication.
Flares contain chemical compounds like strontium nitrate and magnesium, and colorants add vibrant hues to differentiate between signals.
Knowing how to use them is crucial for anyone venturing outdoors.
Rescue Mirrors
These mirrors can be used for signal distress and to attract the attention of emergency responders, such as pilots patrolling the area.
What’s more intriguing is that the reflected glimmer can travel up to seven miles under favorable weather conditions, making it an invaluable tool for survival in precarious situations.
Whistles
A loud whistle can be extremely useful for trying to survive in the wilderness as it serves as an essential signaling tool.
With a minimum of 100 decibels, it can be heard from a great distance and in areas with little human activity and abundant wildlife.
It’s also a great way to signal your location to another member of your group in case you get separated. Always keep it attached to your person, in case of separation from your gear.
3. First Aid
When you need to survive in the wilderness, the most important thing you cannot underestimate is the potential for injuries.
Whether it’s a small scrape, a deep gouge or a severe laceration, any injury has the potential to turn into a life-threatening situation.
That’s why it’s of utmost importance to always have a well-stocked first-aid kit readily available in any wilderness or emergency situation.
With the right tools and supplies on hand, you can ensure that any injuries are properly tended to and minimize the risk of complications or infections.
A comprehensive first-aid kit should contain all the essentials needed to stop bleeding, dress wounds, and treat minor ailments.
Bandages and gauze are some of the most important items that you should have in your kit, as they can be used to stop bleeding and wrap around any injured areas to promote healing and prevent infections.
It can also be important to have paracord or another material such as a rope to craft a splint should you need too.
4. Navigation and Escape
It can be true that walking long enough in a certain direction may lead you out of the wilderness, but is NOT something you should rely on whatsoever.
Land Navigation and Maps
Instead practice the S.T.O.P. Method (Stop, Think, Observe and Plan) before making any decisions. Remember to pay attention to any landmarks when trying to survive in the wilderness, they serve as points of reference if you need to backtrack.
That’s where a good map comes in. It is a useful tool in guiding you towards the nearest populated area.
Maps give you a detailed representation of the terrain, water sources and landmarks to help you find your way.
It’s worth stressing the importance of ensuring that your map is up-to-date and accurate to avoid confusion or further misdirection.
Study the Topography of the region you’ll be in before going, this gives you some familiarity with the area and will make trying to survive in the wilderness there much easier. It’s best to have physical maps on top of a digital one.
OsmAnd is our favorite mapping app that is completely open source and allows you to download offline maps, including terrain/topography only maps of any region.
If you’re going to bring your smartphone with you, then this is a must-have app.
Compass
The importance of a compass when navigating the great outdoors cannot be overstated.
While a map may provide the terrain’s topographical details, a compass is imperative in helping you orient yourself within the surroundings.
Its intuitive analog interface allows for easy usage, with no reliance on batteries or electricity, making it a dependable tool to have by your side.
However, reading a compass accurately requires a level of knowledge in orienteering that may not come naturally to everyone.
To hone your skills, it is highly recommended to attend an orienteering course with your local outfitter or mountaineering organization, your ability to survive in the wilderness alone may depend on it.
5. Food and Water
In order to survive in the wilderness you will of course need to find a source of food and most importantly water.
What to Bring
We recommend bottled water of course but more importantly, water purification tablets or a filter.
Tablets are very easy to pack, they are lightweight and fit easily into your backpack and don’t take up much room, these are an essential prep.
As for food, it is best to bring high-calorie dense foods and snacks such as preserved and dried meat like jerky, high-protein content energy bars, nuts and of course MRE’s.
When trying to survive in the wilderness, it’s important to ration your food as carefully as you can, do not splurge and overindulge, always consume the bare minimum needed daily to make it last as long as possible.
When Supplies Run Out
Look for rivers, streams, ponds or lakes, if none of those are in your vicinity and you do not see any signs of some nearby, you can dig a hole near damp ground.
You can also collect rainwater or find some on nearby foliage.
As a general rule of thumb, rain water is safe to drink while ground water must be filtered to prevent infection from bacteria and cause further dehydration.
In a pinch you could always boil water to make it safer to consume as well.
Hunting will not be a viable short term option as the time it takes to make traps or craft weapons like spears will be wasted if there’s any chance you’ll be able to escape the environment in the first place.
The knowledge required to use or even make these tools is pretty advanced and if you’re not already versed in the art of survival and bushcraft skills, your time is better spent sourcing edible plants or even as disgusting as it may be, insects.
Plant Identification is a vital skill you need to learn ASAP. We cannot stress how important it is to be able to tell the difference between something potentially poisonous and something edible.
6. Fire Starting
Starting a fire is a vital skill to master in you want to survive in the wilderness.
It is essential for keeping warm, cooking food, and signaling for help in an emergency.
If you’ve planned ahead, and brought a lighter, matches, or flint, then you have nothing to worry about.
Make sure to gather kindling to start the flames and wood to keep it burning, combined with a little patience. However, in the event of an unexpected situation, and you find yourself without these items, there is no need to panic.
You can attempt to start a fire using primitive methods.
Hand Drill Method
To make a fire using the hand-drill method, first dig or build a kindle pit.
Then, create a precise V-shaped notch on a small thin piece of wood (thick bark would do the trick) making sure there’s a depression close to the notch.
Place another thin piece of dry bark under the notch to help form the ember.
Then make a spindle stick out of a thick branch being sure to use a knife to carve and round the bottom, almost to a point.
Finally, apply friction with your spindle stick in the nearby depression to ignite the ember and catch fire, fast back and forth motion with both hands, some patience and strength is all you need for this method.
We highly recommend practicing this before you actually need it to survive in the wilderness.
7. Making Shelter
When trying to survive in the wilderness, it’s crucial to have a safe and secure shelter to protect yourself.
To create a very simple makeshift shelter, you need to follow a few steps carefully.
Start by collecting sturdy sticks and shaping them into a basic triangular structure that is tied securely at the top.
It’s important to ensure that the structure is strong and stable enough to withstand the extreme weather conditions.
Once you have created the basic shell, the next step is to cover it with natural materials like leaves, grass or branches to create a protective barrier.
Additionally, make sure to bring along emergency supplies like a rain poncho, a mylar survival blanket, and warm clothing to ensure your safety.
There are several different kinds of makeshift shelters you can create, all based on what’s available to you in your particular environment.
8. Mentality
Last but certainly not least
As a survivalist, there are a plethora of skills that are essential for you to learn in order to be able to survive in the wilderness.
However, simply possessing expertise in these tasks is not enough to guarantee your survival.
One of the key aspects of making it through a difficult survival experience is remaining calm and paying close attention to your surroundings, one method to remain calm in any situation is the Box Breathing Technique.
Doing so can you help to prevent going into shock and keeping yourself together long enough for emergency services to arrive or finding a way out.
It’s important to stay strong-willed and do everything in your power to procure what you need to survive.
Remember that these temporary discomforts are a small price to pay for your life and that keeping a positive mindset and preparing yourself for the challenges ahead will go a long way in increasing your chances of survival.
Now that you know the 8 basic fundamentals of trying to survive in the wilderness, you’ll be better prepared for situations like this if you ever have the misfortune of being in one.
