Primitive and modern outdoor skills

The reason I quit my job

2013-08-28

Surprisingly, I think almost everyone I talked to "got it". I think that's because I hang out with some unusually awesome people. For anyone who didn't though, this is the single best explanation I've seen. Thanks Bill Watterson, you still help clarify life for us all

I don't usually repost, but this is worth it.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/08/27/bill_watterson_s_cartoonist_s_advice_in_comic_form_by_zen_pencils_aka_gavin.html

Vixen talking to her kits

2013-08-28

It's pretty hard to hear, it's the best I could get with my cellphone, but if you turn it up and use headphones you should be able to hear it.

I'm pretty sure that this is the sound of a Vixen (female fox) talking to her kits. Each time I heard this sound it was right after almost a peeping sound, the sound of her kit I assume. This would mean that what I was hearing was the sound of kits that were old enough to come out of the den and play, but still young enough that their calls sound like peeps.

This recording was taken just outside of Yosemite on route 140 where I camped last night, next to a river. I went looking for the den in the morning (including crossing the river etc.) and was unable to find it. I'm not a good enough tracker and there was a LOT of background noise in the area, the soil was all either too hard or too soft to hold a really good track, so I couldn't locate a path to follow back.

In any case, if you're curious maybe you can actually hear it. It sounds like a choking noise (it's actually quite a horrendous sound). I was able to get the whole call because I started recording after hearing the "peep" that preceeded it each time.

http://www.smalladventures.net/recording-680046973.3gpp

Swiftwater Rescue Technician course

2013-08-28

I recently took a Swiftwater Rescue Technician (SRT-1) class from Sierra Rescue of Rescue 3 west.

1075366_566404473420067_841959551_o

You should take this course

First, I highly recommend this class for anyone who spends time around water, or in the backcountry. The rest of my family nearly died on a backpacking trip not all that long ago up in the white mountains when they got caught by a hurricane (I wasn't with them on that trip). The tiniest of rivulets grew into barely crossable rivers. Steep hillsides became 6 inch deep running water across the whole hillside. They had to do *many* river crossings on or past the boundary of reasonable safety just to get out from where trees were falling around them threatening to kill them another way. My family did it and got out alive. This situation is not that likely, but now I can look at that river and judge when I will lose my footing, or whether I can swim it based on having actually been in rapids. This is a really good thing in my mind.

In other words, if you read this blog with intent to DO any of the stuff we do, this course is probably for you.

Sierra Rescue

Second, a shout out to the Sierra Rescue folks. Julie and Don were both amazing. One of the fireman in the class said it was the single best class he'd every taken. I don't know if I can qualify it that broadly (I'm lucky to have taken a lot of really good classes), but it was extremely well taught, and a lot of fun, and I learned tons.

The course

So, what is a Swiftwater Rescue Technician course? The course is aimed basically at two demographics. The first is professional rescuers (e.g. fireman) who might have as part of their jobs to pull people out of rivers. The other is lay-people who work around rivers and bodies of water and are likely to end up performing a rescue of opportunity. For example white-water raft guides, or folks who work for fish and wildlife.

The class started off with understanding the river. The had us swim around quite a bit in class 2 rapids. The idea is to understand how the river moves, where the eddies are, and how you can use all that to your advantage. One big surprise for me is that while being a strong swimmer is helpful, it's absolutely not necessary. Basically, if you are crossing a fast-moving river you need to swim effectively enough to move significantly slower than the river. Then you use the river's current to push you across by angling your body properly. As long as you are going slower than the river you'll succeed in moving sideways. Similarly sometimes you go faster swimming downriver, the main goal is just to be going faster so you have some momentum to punch past things that would stall you if you moved at the speed of the river. This is so much the case actually that probably the strongest swimmer in the class had the most trouble. They had to get over the idea that they could just swim where they wanted to go. The photo at the top is of someone learning to swim through the wall of an eddy using a barrel roll.

Next we did wading. One of the keys to swiftwater is to *never* put your feet down if you are moving. You don't put your feet unless you are absolutely still. So wading is okay as long as you aren't moving at all. The idea is that most swiftwater rescues are hands-on. The instructors theory is that you have a very very short time to get the person's head above water. If you have to do anything technical chances are it's going to be a recovery and not a rescue. So if you possibly can do it safely, just get in and get hands on. The picture below is of us using a wedge technique, this is great for creating a giant eddy behind you for someone else to work, or to drag a victim across.

620318_566405786753269_49003860_o

Then we did throwbags, which they stressed are useful but are way overused and overtrusted. One of the things this drove home to me is that if you expect to save someone with a throwbag, you darned well better practice a LOT. It's easy on land, it's really hard in the river. Another interesting thing to note is that generally you don't haul the person in, instead you just hold the rope, often letting out a little slack to swing them to shore, preferrably in a nice eddy.

Another rule of the swiftwater rescue is you never tie anyone to anything. Their are two exceptions. The first is a live-bait harness on your lifejacket. The second is a victim who will probably drwon if you lose them. The live bait jacket is a specially designed quick-release loop of webbing so you can drop whatever is tied to you if something goes wrong. It's called live-bait I think because it's usually used to tie a rescuer to a throw-bag. The rescuer then jumps in... so they are in the water on the end of a line, like bait on a hook. This is super awesome for deeper water. Instead of hoping your victim will grab a rope you can just jump in and grab them directly, then have your mates on shore swing you back into shore.

This picture is of two people helping pull one over and off of a strainer (the rope in the picture is holding the strainer in place, not a person). 1097155_566405390086642_1759719230_o

We also went over using boats, and paddling boats around the river. By this time Julie had discovered that I was thinking of doing some raft guiding eventually and decided to teach me how to raft. I've canoed and whitewater kayaked before. The boat moves a bit differently, but it's basically the same

Even more fun than the boats is using riverboards which we practiced surfing on to help build a better understanding of the river and currents. A riverboard is like an extra floaty boogy board. You wear flippers with it and move through the river using the flippers and often your arms as well. You can surf standing waves with them. They are in fact used for rescue as it gives you something to hand the victim when you get to them so they jump on that instead of drowning you. It also gives you a great view of the river.

And of course we covered some rope stuff. They stressed that generally ropes aren't the answer, but if you can't get in the water or use a boat safely you don't have a choice. We practiced pulling someone's head out of the water with a rope in the case of a foot entrapment, and then trying to free their foot with a second rope. We did this with Julie actually in the water pretending to drown. We also practiced pulling someone off a strainer (one of the rare cases where it's okay to tie something to them... in this case we laso'd them under the arms). And we practiced lasoing someone who was going down a river.

This is the easy way to cross a river (if you already have a tension diagonal line): 1119814_566406566753191_2087021167_o

Overall the biggest thing with ropes is understanding how angles multiply forces and using that to your advantage. I already knew this from technical ropes, though even then one trick (mentioned in the swiftwater course) I only picked up due to discussions with another nerd in CalESAR. If you take a rope and pull it taught between two objects, if you push sideways on the center of the rope your force is multiplied infinitely. As you push sideways the angle decreases and the factor drops. By 120 degrees it's 1:1. This is really bad if you are trying to hold a rope straight and something (like a person in a river) is pulling it in the middle, and you need to account for it. On the other hand it's awesome if you want to move a car and all you have is a long rope.

We also did a bunch of scenerios. We had two groups for most of the time, my group was working with Julie, while the fireman worked with Don. Julie and Don are both white-water rafters having done a TON of rafting. Don has done first ascents all over the world. Don is also a firefighter though, and being male tends to use more... macho techniques, so that fit made sense. Julie is actually the owner of Sierra Rescue. Anyone, our group spent our time saving Julie for the most part, wading in and dragging her out, swimming her out, lasoing her, etc. We did live-bait and swim-outs with each other as well. At the end we did a scenerio with everyone.... We basically "killed" everyone (oops), the mistake was trusting one of the victims to help (the rescuers had him paddling). I was one of the backup's with a throwbag downriver - though was upriver from where everyone "died".

Final takeaways:

Here's more photos: https://www.facebook.com/sierra.rescue.7/media_set?set=a.566404206753427.1073741881.100001515572160&type=3

Stone age pack list

2013-08-21

Author: Jess

The time to actually go out in the wilderness is coming up soon, so I thought I'd give you all a glimpse of my pack.

Jess with (mostly) stone age gear
(Edit: mbrewer added the photo)

here's the list:

Clothing:
Buckskin tunic
Buckskin skirt
Buckskin leggings (basically pants without the crotch, which attach to the garter belt to keep up)
Garter belt (not pictured, for holding up leggings and menstral pads)
Felt vest with buckskin sleeves (borrowed)
Two tanned adult coyotes to be tacked into a rough vest with buckskin thong
Tanned coyote puppy to be sewn into a hat
Barktan belt

Foot wear:
Rawhide buffalo sandals
Moccasins
Broughs
Felt booties (For cold weather)

Food:
5.75 pounds of dried berries
About the same amount of dried buffalo meat
About 6 cups of dried mussels
2 cups mussel bullion
a handful of roots
a few California bay leaves
a bit of salt
A coconut of duck fat
A gourd of maple syrup!
Other things I'm forgetting. :)

Bedding:
Felt blanket (7.6 pounds, which is on the thin side)
Tanned sheep skin

Other:
Pack basket (Dogwood staves, rawhide netting, buckskin and felt pack straps and buckskin tump line)
Clay pot (borrowed, mine broke in the firing)
Coconut bowl
Alligator juniper spoon
Fire kit (Salmon skin wrap, hand drill kit made of buckeye and canadian flea bane, bow drill kit)
Journal (One of the not stone age items)
Menstral pad (Not pictured, Stuff with dry moss and tie to garter belt to use)
Bow (Beautifully handmade by Brewer out of hickory.  The string isn't primitive and I don't have any arrows, so it's not super practical... especially since I can't draw it to full draw length yet, but I want to bring it so I will assuming the pack isn't too heavy)
A water gourd

Tool kit:
Bone fish hooks (horse mane will be used for the line)
Bone awl (for mending)
Cattail fluff for tinder
Bow drill socket (borrowed)
Mussel shell (for drinking from very small streams)
Save pot with deer fat, bear fat, yarrow, plantain save

It currently weighs in at 24 pounds before the food and bow.  Not ultra light, but not as heavy as I expected

Things I'd like to have that I don't:
A more reliable way to start fires.  Hand and bow drill can be really reliable, but I need to practice more to get there.
A hip belt.  These basket packs just don't really work with a hip belt in any simple way so I'll have to make do with the tump line and shoulder straps

In less happy news one of the two goats in camp fell and tore the ligament in his leg.  He'll probably have to be put down as fully severed ligaments don't generally heal without surgery and his job in life is to be a pack goat.  He's a sweety though and it's really sad to see him go.

Anyway, to the mountains!  See you next month.

I'm not dead yet!

2013-08-10

Author: Jess Mink

This summer has been way more intense than I was expecting.  I'm still in Washington working on a crazy stone age backpacking trip .  The idea is we spend most of the summer preparing and then go out into the woods for three weeks with only stone age equipment and wild food.  I'm currently frantically sewing the last of my clothing, trying to get straps onto my pack and making bags to hold all the food I've collected over the summer.  Well, almost.  I'm currently in Seattle for a friend's wedding, but I do have a moccasin on my lap.  It's been a lot more work and time than I expected to build all the gear and I have a lot more respect for the things I use on a day to day basis now.  Especially blankets.

It's been fun though and a bunch of pictures of the first half of the summer have been posted here .

Hopefully I'll be disappearing into a true internet black hole in the next week or two for the actual backpacking trip part of this crazy adventure and then, maybe, will have time to write all the blog posts I have queued up in my head.  Sorry for the radio silence.

Oh, and here's a movie about what I'm doing.