Archive:Minimalist Trip

The Minimalist Trip

Can you survive a night in bleak November in BC with no tent, sleeping bag, or mat? Come on this trip and find out.

Details

Trip Meeting

Wednesday Nov 15 in clubroom, 6PM. Be there.

Who

Organizer: Maria
Knowledgeable Person: Will
Participants: we need a group of at least 4 (including Organizer and Knowledgeable Person), preferably 5 or 6. Sign up in the Interested People section.

When/ For How Long

(we have reached a decision) Trip scheduled for: Nov 18 and 19

( old content ) One weekend in November. Sat -- go, set up camp. Sat-Sun nite -- survive. Sun - clean up & come back.

The LONG WEEKEND is approaching. We may not wish to do this trip then because there are several other good trips that actually require the 3 days. As a result, we may have less interest from both the participants and the organizer of the trip. That said, the trip organizer will sacrifice the other trips, so if this seems like the best option, we'll do it. We need to know how many people are available for each weekend, so please indicate this in the Interested People section.

WEATHER is certainly an issue on this trip, so we cannot plan very far in advance. However, we need to hurry, before snow makes everything difficult. Therefore it is possible that we will simply pick a weekend and go regardless of the weather. If you are OK with wetness, please indicate this in the Interested People section beside your name.

What to take

Be prepared for cold, snow and wet. Have a dry change of clothes, sleeping bag, matress and maybe a tent in the car just in case. We won't be camped far from the car. I will have a stove just in case as well.

General idea: take what you would/should on a day hike; this trip attempts to mimic being stranded with no camping gear.

I carry a small pocket sized emergeny kit on all trips. There are far to many components to survival than we can prictice on one night out, so we are going to focus on shelter and fire building. Although there are lots of thing in my pocket kit, I will only list the items related to shelter and fire.

Duck Tape - several feet

2mm accessory cord - 30 feet

Mylar (space) blanket - 5' x 8'

safety pins - 2 med. 2 small

birthday cake candle

mini Bic lighter

tinder tabs (petrulium jelly impregnated cotton balls) - 4

ranger bands (1 cm wide cuts of bike inner tube) - 3

one handed flint and striker

Most things are the list are cheap and can be purchased at MEC on Canadian Tire. For the Space Blanket, I suggest the orange Adventure Medical one from MEC. The orange side can be used to signalling, of finding you camp, and it has survival tip printed on it - a bonus. It is $6. The cheaper Cohglans one is a little smaller, and can be good enough for practicing if you want to save money. These are single use items.

Ignore the flint and striker. The one I have is not readily available, you can practice with mine. I will also bring a bunch of candles and ranger bands to go around. The ranger bands not only help hold you gear together, they are great fire starters that are impervious to moister and work when wet. They will light with a match or lighter and burn for about 5 minutes. Cotton-ball based tinder tabs burn for about a minute or two per Vaseline soaked ball, and have the added benefit of being ignitable with only a spark. These too are waterproof.

Because the Vaseline soaked cotton balls are a little messy to pack, I have a few suggestions. Stuff a whole bunch into a film canister. Another idea is to cut a section of drinking-straw a couple inches long. MacDonald’s straws are good because they are wide. Using a q-tip or toothpick, push the Vaseline cotton ball into the straw, then carefully melt the ends shut. When it is time to light, cut off a tip, pull out a bit of the cotton and it will light with spark and burn for a few minutes. Rolled up 3" wide sections of newsprint dipped in wax then stuffed with cotton balls burns a really long time, but is messy and time consuming to make. I have a bunch of these that I will bring along.

other things to bring:

Basic first aid equipment is good idea, but I will likely bring a more complete kit.

Water purification tablets

WARM CLOTHES

food: we will have a pot for boiling water on the fire. Bring food that can be prepared in your bowl with just water. We need two lunches, dinner and breakfast. Lots of snakcs for the long cold boring night.

headlamp, Swiss Army type pocket knife, or preferably the more useful as safer Leatherman tpye multi-tools...whatever else you normally carry.

This is not a competition with each other, so we should be aware before we go of what each of us is bringing so we know where we stand as a group, and can modify our gear selection accordingly.

Becasue we want to practice these tasks, I see this trip as an excellent opportunity to practice using verious tool and techniques, so for this reason if there are thing not on my list that you want to bring to try using, by all means bring them, or suggest them.

Certain things need to be ruled out for safety reasons: Axes/hatchets, machetes, kukuris, parangs...

A proper fixed-blade knife that can be used to split wood is a mandatory piece of equipment. I have several of various sized that I will bring along, as well as folding pocket saws. If you don't own this stuff, don't worry, I have enough to share, and then after the trip you can decide what size knife, or combo of tools work best for you. Everyone is different. I prefer a 6" blade knife and a folding pruning saw. Others prefer a different set up - you won't know till you try.

I will also bring a good survival manual as reference to help in the learning process.

Where

(Update)

We will drive up to 2000 ft along the Brandywine Callaghan Forest Sevice Road (for several km) and park at a large cut out. From there we will walk along an old overgrown (now closed) road west several hundred yards and set up camp out of sight and earshot of the service road. There is fresh water, the ground in reasonably flat and clear, and there is a good variety of tree types and sizes for shelter/fire building. As of Sat Nov. 11, there is about 6 inches of fresh snow on the ground. The service road is snow covered right from the highway, but drivable on the 11th.

Several suggestions have been made.

1. a side road off Squamish or Elaho roads a ways and then drive up a side road
2. a logging road off Hwy 99 such as: Chance Creek, Roe Creek, Brandywine; roads up the Cheakamus and Mamquam rivers.
3. the Chilliwhack Valley
4. far end of Lynn Valley
5. Mt.Seymour park towards the Elsay Lake Valley

Interested people

If yer interested -- put the weekends when you can go beside yer name.

Put a (W) beside your name if you're completely OK with being Wet. If you do not put a W it's still assumed that you are somewhat OK with being slightly wet and accept the possibility of unintentionally becoming entirely wet.

1. Maria { Nov 11; Nov 18; Nov 25 } (W)
2. Will {whenever} (W)
3. Piotr {not long weekend, flexible after that} (W)
4. Andre {dates avail}
5. Irena {dates avail}
6. Matthew {dates avail}
7. Heraward {dates avail}
8. Rick {any weekend except 25-26. have car, can drive} (W)
9. Tristan {dates avail} (W)
10. Ignacio {dates avail}
11. Pawel {Whenever} (W)

Cars:

Rick's car (can take 4 plus driver).

(add more spots if they're available)

Rental car.

1. Maria (to be picked up at Broadway & Granville at [Will, pick a time and put it here])
2. Will

Nota Bene Gas & car rental $ will be split evenly between passengers; drivers don't pay.