Surviving The Wild Outdoors Surviving_the_Wild_Outdoors | Page 13

If you have food and water for the night you are good now to get some shut eye, but
I would advise you add wood during the night so your fire stays going and hot. If you
don’t have food or water, don’t worry…we can deal with that in the morning.
So, let’s say you have got up early as you probably didn’t sleep well the first night.
Hopefully, people are already aware of your absence and are looking for you. One of
the most important things to do before you leave on a hunting or hiking trip or
anywhere for that matter is let someone know where you are going and when you will
be back. Even if you have no family near, let a neighbor know. This will greatly increase
the chance of you being found fast, but you mustn’t think that way. You should think
no one is looking for you and you must survive. You don’t want to become vulnerable.
Now, back to what I was saying…
Before you venture out for extra food and water you may want to gather more wood
for the fire later. After doing so, take your pack and tarp, who knows, you may become
lost again! Throw some wood on the fire just enough to keep it going and hot while you
are gone. We can’t worry about silly stray fires and whatnot. This is your survival we
are talking about here. As long as you picked a safe spot for the fire and you have
cleared the area around it, the fire should be fine.
If you want to find a certain direction and don’t have a compass you can use this
method.
Find a stick about 2 inches in diameter and hammer it into the ground in an open sunny
spot. As a shadow cast on the ground, place a small stone at the end of the sticks
shadow. Wait about 30 minutes to an hour, go back and place another stone at the end
of the new shadow. The first stone represents west. The second stone represents east.
In the northern hemisphere the sun faces away from the shadows and just the opposite
in the southern hemisphere. It will look like this…
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