Grand backpacking (camping) plans.

[darxus]

I got this urge to practice surviving in the woods with only what I could carry. Seems like a decent hobby.

I ordered a military Modular Sleep System (used, for $150) which includes a bivy sack so I don't need a tent, and the total system is rated down to -40F.

I plan to test it in my back yard as soon as it arrives, and then go backpacking in the White Mountains, in the direction of a designated Wilderness, the following weekend or so. Starting on a Saturday morning, walking away from civilization for a day, curling up in my bivy sack for the night, then walking back. My current plan for food is MREs because they're easy - hot food without the need to build a fire. Easy, right?

Then I hope to make a habit of this. Then start bringing a rifle with me, maybe do some target shooting. Or coyote hunting (always in season). Then get some other people to join me. I'm really out of shape, so this is going to be starting off slow.

If you're wondering how long a drive it would be, look up Conway, NH.

I found a website of people with very overlapping interests: http://www.zombiehunters.org/forum/
The closest group is in NY. They're camping in the Adirondacks in February:
http://www.sheffspace.com/zs/nny09wct.html
http://www.zombiehunters.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=37166
But they're camping a short walking distance from a parking lot, with an outhouse. Wusses. From previous experiences they're recommending sleeping bags rated for -30F.

The still unformatted equipment list I've been working on is here: http://www.chaosreigns.com/shtf.html

It's funny that using a bivy sack now seems like cheating. Apparently camping with just a sleeping bag with a tarp wrapped around it is common.

I got info on MREs from http://www.mreinfo.com/ and based on that ended up buying Menu C civilian MREs. $102.42 per case of 12.

I recently ordered a gun for the first time in 6 years. It's a DSArms STG58STD FAL. They're back-ordered for 6 months due to everybody buying weapons they're afraid Obama will ban. The FAL was supposed to be selected as the standard US issue main battle rifle instead of the M14 (the one before the M16). Bigger bullets and longer range than the M16, with a 20 round detachable magazine.


Does this sound fun to you? (Happy to sell you several MREs for simplicity.)

Comments

[dilletante.livejournal.com]

How do you carry a summer's worth of food?

well... you can't, especially not a summer's worth of hiking-in-the-mountains-with-a-heavy-pack food. thru-hikers resupply in towns (or through some sort of system of caches) every 1/2 to 2 weeks. still, food is a large component of pack weight. that might be different for you-- maybe very different; your food will have a completely different cycle, if you're killing live animals and preparing them. do you figure on setting up a base camp somewhere and pretty much staying there while you hunt the areas nearby? (it seems to me that spending all day hunting is probably very different from spending all day hiking; i don't know how much they can be mixed.) is there some way you can smoke or dry some meat to carry with you, if you move camp? i've always wondered how that would work, and how well...

there's probably a whole set of techniques related to how you handle your kills so that bears (and raccoons, and...) don't wander into your camp and steal all your food, but i don't know much about that. i know about bear-bagging, but i'm sure dealing with a carcass, and parts of it that you throw away, is less simple than that-- some hikers say never to prepare food where you're going to sleep at all, for instance, but if you're setting up a base camp that seems impractical. i'm curious to hear how that works, though...

if you're setting up a base camp and staying for a while, your calorie requirements might fluctuate more than thru-hikers' do, also. everybody needs more calories in the winter, but a thru-hiker would really like to be eating continually every minute of the day-- carrying a heavy pack through mountains all day is hard-- and that might not be as true for you. which means that although your life is still going to be a lot happier if you've always got some sort of fast calories like a candybar on you, :) you might not need piles of 'em as much. dunno.

one of the problems thru-hikers have is eating the same thing every day all summer. it turns out a summer is long enough to get serious vitamin deficiencies. like scurvy. a lot of thru-hikers figure the chances of forgetting something are too high to mess with and just take a daily multivitamin in case. for all i know eating game might spare one a lot of these problems, but for variety's sake if nothing else you probably want to make a serious study of edible north american wild plants. :)

I wonder if my body could be adapted to un-purified/filtered water :P I guess it would be more realistic to find water that was already pure.

no. and, no. in the u.s. the main thing people filter or purify their water against is giardia, which will ruin your whole week and which is apparently pretty widespread in u.s. water supplies. i haven't heard anybody say they'd acquired an immunity by getting it a lot. :) water's kind of a pain in this way. on the bright side, here on the east coast at least it's also plentiful... also, afaik boiling will do just fine too; maybe you can work out a camp routine that makes it ok to just boil all your drinking water, or something. i think i would totally go with iodine tablets for initial test runs, though. :)

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

google "rabbit starvation" - basically rabbits don't have enough fat, and unless you eat the organs, well, you need other things. like plants.

vitamin C is curiously abundant in new england. pine trees and relatives :) make tea or chew it.

and a special treat, at least on some trails: rat-fevers. including stuff that looks like ebola. they hang out in the lean-tos and huts. if you get something seriously flu-like while hiking those trails, well, get help... or die. yay! (hanta virus i think)

there are some really good water filters that one can get. one should. esp for a bug out bag, but in general, survival camping... long term, boiling, as you say, and a simple filter for particulates will go far, unless you can find a pure spring - which is wonderful.

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[darxus.livejournal.com]

I don't know how much I would be staying around a base camp vs. traveling. I guess it depends very much on how remote a location I can get to before gas runs out, and what percentage of the population does off (affecting how remote any given area becomes) :P
"Safe is anywhere a hungry person can't walk in three days." - John Titor
John Titor was the name used by a person impersonating somebody who came back from the future. On the internet. Based entirely on some post-apocalypse book. However, the statement continues to amuse me.

I believe you would enjoy reading the Army Survival manual: http://www.ar15.com/content/manuals/FM21-76_SurvivalManual.pdf
It does cover smoking and drying meat (on pages 97 and 98).

Also, snaring sounds like a far more efficient means of acquiring protein than hunting.

Thanks for the info on water.

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

that PDF should convert well to my Kindle :) holds a lot of books. could be more rugged, should be easy to charge by solar :)

paper would be better, but there's a good thought for SHTF... what book or books would you bring?

also: what skills will one pick up NOW, that you can keep in your head, that will be useful later.

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[darxus.livejournal.com]

There was a discussion of paper on the zombiehunter forums....

I have used this National Geographic Adventure Paper (Teslin) before ($25 for 20 sheets at rei)

http://www.rei.com/product/684961

Completely waterproof.... and can be printed on with a standard inkjet printer.

This is one of the best investments that I have ever made... really really nice in snowy/rainy hikes.

And they make a couple different sizes... legal... ledger... standard letter. (just look at the bottom right of that page)

- http://www.zombiehunters.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=37379&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=24