Post by Admin on Oct 5, 2014 15:29:37 GMT
One of the most important factors of survival in the wilderness, or following a natural disaster, is one’s clothing. However, I have seldom come across a book or training video which adequately discusses the subject. Too often those who partake of such instructional medium are told simply to “dress appropriately.” This admonition, while well intended, falls far short of addressing your clothing needs should you suddenly find yourself to be unintentionally stuck in one of the types of situations which will herein be discussed.
Yes, most certainly, the clothing you wear should be comfortable, attuned to the climate of the area and also the weather of the day. However, it is never enough to live in the moment with regard to this issue. For suppose you were to begin the day by walking into a woods on a well marked trail and then, as has happened to so many individuals, you were to become disoriented. At a later point in this volume I will discuss in detail various means of finding one’s way in both daylight and dark and in any section of the world. However, for the time being I must stressed, and you must understand, that while one never intends to become lost on an outing you should always set out having made adequate preparations for said possibility. In fact, you should prepare with the assumption that something terrible will happen and that you will be stranded and out of contact with other human beings for, at the very minimum, a period spanning from sunset to sunrise. In fact, I instruct my personal students to be prepared for no less than a 72 hour stay alone in the wilderness, or in the remains of their home or community following a major disaster.
Therefore, appropriate dress goes well beyond the t-shirt and shorts which were comfortable in the dry heat of the noon day sun. It must include clothing carried in your pack which is suitable for the coldest, wettest time of the local night. These too must be comfortable and must fit correctly if they are going to be of optimum value to the reader. While this may seem to go without saying and while you may well have chuckled at the notion of a finding yourself stranded in the woods or some other primitive setting, only to discover that your emergency clothing is a size too small, I cannot count the number of times when I have deployed overnight for the purposes of search and rescue and watched my fellow volunteers shake their heads in disgust at the realization that they were about to spend an entire night in the cold, wet woods, with no proper protection from the elements. I therefore recommend that if you are an adult you pack clothing which is oversized in their bug out, survival or emergency preparedness packs, so that in six months or a year when they are needed, you will not find yourself in like situation. Further, I recommend that if you are a youth you check the clothing you keep packed for proper sizes every month, in order to account for a sudden or unnoticed growth spurt.
Yes, most certainly, the clothing you wear should be comfortable, attuned to the climate of the area and also the weather of the day. However, it is never enough to live in the moment with regard to this issue. For suppose you were to begin the day by walking into a woods on a well marked trail and then, as has happened to so many individuals, you were to become disoriented. At a later point in this volume I will discuss in detail various means of finding one’s way in both daylight and dark and in any section of the world. However, for the time being I must stressed, and you must understand, that while one never intends to become lost on an outing you should always set out having made adequate preparations for said possibility. In fact, you should prepare with the assumption that something terrible will happen and that you will be stranded and out of contact with other human beings for, at the very minimum, a period spanning from sunset to sunrise. In fact, I instruct my personal students to be prepared for no less than a 72 hour stay alone in the wilderness, or in the remains of their home or community following a major disaster.
Therefore, appropriate dress goes well beyond the t-shirt and shorts which were comfortable in the dry heat of the noon day sun. It must include clothing carried in your pack which is suitable for the coldest, wettest time of the local night. These too must be comfortable and must fit correctly if they are going to be of optimum value to the reader. While this may seem to go without saying and while you may well have chuckled at the notion of a finding yourself stranded in the woods or some other primitive setting, only to discover that your emergency clothing is a size too small, I cannot count the number of times when I have deployed overnight for the purposes of search and rescue and watched my fellow volunteers shake their heads in disgust at the realization that they were about to spend an entire night in the cold, wet woods, with no proper protection from the elements. I therefore recommend that if you are an adult you pack clothing which is oversized in their bug out, survival or emergency preparedness packs, so that in six months or a year when they are needed, you will not find yourself in like situation. Further, I recommend that if you are a youth you check the clothing you keep packed for proper sizes every month, in order to account for a sudden or unnoticed growth spurt.