Useful Information.

BUG-OUT BAG -

In this post I would like to make a few personal comments which I hope will help those new to wild camping, which is what we are mainly dealing with now. The scenario that most people seem to wish to prepare for is that of snatching up a 'Go-Bag' or 'Bug-Out Bag' and going off into the wilds. In my opinion this should be the last resort because by far the safest option is to stay put where you have shelter, water and heating. Only when your safety at home, or you are forced to leave, should the next option be used. 

Again, in my own opinion, the next option would be to use your car/truck, loaded with as much equipment as possible, to move away into a safe area. Doing this you can take a tent and camping equipment that will make things much more comfortable. And you have the car or truck to sleep in whilst you find an area and set up a semi-permanent camp. The car or truck also has a heater which will keep you warm at the start. With this option your Go-Bag and Bug-Out Bag can be taken, together with as much other stuff as you can get in. 

In regard to this there is the added advantage of being able to fix a roof-box on your car/truck, or have a small trailer ready and waiting to go at any time, so long as you have a tow-bar fitted. These will give you much more room to work with, and you have much more room to fit in not only the essentials but to add comfort to the equation. This option would only be if you know you need to stay away for some time. 

The last resort is the Go-Bag or Bug-Out Bag, and here you need to pack just the bare essentials for survival - and this will probably be the case when you will need to have some knowledge of survival. This should have the following -

• Some form of quick shelter - a tarp/basha/poncho. Paracord or cordage of some kind. Tent pegs. 
• Fire-Lighting Equipment.
• Water - a small quantity, plus some form of water filtration system, and a Milbank Bag. 
• A torch or head-torch - solar power/wind-up is best in this situation. 
• Small packets of food which are high energy. Dried food. (*)
• A small sleeping-bag and mylar-backed survival bag. (Summer bag would be better than nothing here.)
• A knife/saw/small axe. 
• Cooking Kit/Stainless steel cup etc. 
• A First Aid Kit - very important.
• A map and compass. 

(*) In regard to dried food this need not be expensive stuff made for the purpose, there are other ways much cheaper -

1. Empty a 'Pot Noodle' carton into a plastic bag and use this in a cup that is carried; all that is needed is to mark the cup with a measure suited to the contents. 
2. Cup-a-Soup comes in small sachets and these are easily carried with you.
3. You can make up the dry ingredients of Camp Bread or Bannock Bread and put in a small container or plastic bag. These can be mixed with water on site and cooked in a small frying-pan (skillet). You can add some extras into this such as raisons, sultanas or other dried fruit, and in the summer add fresh fruit such as blackberries etc. Put a little sugar in the mix to taste. 

These are the basics that I would carry because they give immediate shelter, fire-lighting, water, and some food to start off with, high energy being the best. For both the option of a car/truck or backpacking I have seen a really good tip on a YouTube video, and this was to take some packets of seeds with you for future growing - something I have seen no-one else mention. This would be something to think about since in such a situation we would need to look to the future and a long-term plan, and not just an immediate plan. Packets of seeds could be placed in a Bug-Out Bag ready for use. I will look further into this later because the subject is important.

BASE CAMP UPDATE -

I went over to the woods yesterday for the day and set up a tarp-shelter and started to clear the area ready for the 'Great Reset'. I have cut five small pine-trunks which were dead and would have been a hazard to camping there. These will make a log back for the tarp to fit over, giving more space under the tarp-shelter. My take on this base-camp is to have a place that is local to me and which is very rarely visited by the general public. With plenty of dead wood around this will eventually be camouflaged to hide it even better. This would be a temporary base-camp used before onwards. In such circumstances storing certain things at the area would be a great help -

• Store stocks of wood cut ready for use, with kindling and tinder too, keeping them dry by putting into a bin-bag and hiding somewhere from view. 
• If possible store water somewhere too, even if this is only a small amount to tide you over.
• If you have spare equipment store this too, in some form of hidden, underground container. Needs only to be small but this would make for a good start. 

Fat-Wood Processing -

The area is made up of small pine-trees and birch-trees and the above shows a low branch cut off which shows the fat-wood content. The branch I took home to process and dry off completely for later use. This brings me to another point since it is sometimes thought that you need to collect tinder and fat-wood on site, but this has never been the case since when making a trip people used to take with them the essentials, processing these ready for later use.  Yes, there is a need to collect dry tinder during the dry summer months for later use, and where possible use stuff on site if you have little with you, but being prepared and collecting is the best way, since it is ready for instant use. Collect when dry and use your stocks when it is wet. Otzi the Iceman started his trek over the Alps some 5000 years ago, and on him was found fire-making equipment and medicinal herbs, so as far back as time goes the essentials have been made up before a trek and carried along with the individual.

After taking off the bark, saving this for later too, and cutting the wood for the maximum amount of fat-wood, I have drilled a hole in one end and put a piece of para-cord through, allowing this to be stored on one of the loops on the molle-pack and safely held on by the cord. I always dry the fat-wood because the sticks are usually made up of part fat-wood and part not so much, and the whole thing being dried and ready is an advantage. 

Boiling Water -

I used the home-made (or bought) 'stove' with a cooking-pot but this proved to be a problem when I was doing something else and it went out due to not putting enough sticks on. My fault, of course, but to be honest it would have been better to make up a tripod and hang the cooking-pot over the fire, which would not go out as easily. Looking at this as an option now. Another method would be to carry a small grill in the rucksack (maybe in the area used for laptops), and use this over the open fire. The above 'stove' would serve to use where a larger fire placed on the ground is out of the question. 

Char-Cloth Making - 

This is a simple and easy task, and all that is needed is a small 'tobacco' type tin with a small hole drilled in the top. Use and old T-shirt or the like which is cut up and put inside the tin. Just throw the tin onto the fire and wait for the smoke to stop coming out of the hole, in which case it is usually done. 

This is the finished char-cloth in a different tin, ready for use when needed. This takes just minutes to do on a hot fire. The same method applies to using punk-wood, but this needs a larger container. 

The tin is placed on the fire, usually on the embers but I have no patience to wait for that, and this did the job quicker anyway. Make plenty for future use, and keep with you bits of an old T-shirt or other suitable material. 

Boiling Water at a base-camp area -

One thing that I have been experimenting on is to have a fire-bowl ready in the garden for making char-cloth, processing punk-wood, and for boiling water in an emergency. When we had an electrical problem a few weeks ago this made me think on this, since if it had been for longer we would not have had heating or hot water. 

I have an old aluminium container which sits on the shelf at home, doing nothing for some years now. There are those who see aluminium as not being totally safe, just as Teflon now is seen to be suspect; with this in mind I decided to use this to boil water for washing-up and washing, rather than for drinking, although I have used aluminium for years with no problems. This was placed over a small wood fire, and the results are as below -

1. The first day I used this it took 30 minutes to boil the water from a cold tap, without the lid on (forgot that!).
2. The next day I tried again, this time putting on the lid, and it took 22 minutes to boil. Neither was a 'rolling boil' but this is not necessary for washing and washing up when tap water is used. 

This will be useful for a base-camp where water is needed to wash, wash up and to wash clothes with. It saves using small containers and having to boil over and over again. The last time I went wild-camping for a week I had to boil my water is a kelly-kettle, which is fine for tea or coffee, but for other tasks takes a lot of time up. 

Heating an enclosed shelter -

This year we have had several really cold nights which have gone down to below zero and given us nice frosty mornings. I have a small mini-greenhouse which has tender seedlings in, and have resorted this year to making my own candles, as in the above photo. My daughter started to do this, buying the kit from Amazon, but I decided to do it without buying anything but the candle-wicks. I have used old candles which are broken up and melted down in a tin-can (can which had beans, peas, etc.) on the oven-top. Old used small glass jars were used to save money, so the only thing I have bought is the wicks so far. The tops for the jars should be saved and put on after cooling down completely. 

One of these home-made candles lasts over 12 hours, and I have left them overnight in the mini-greenhouse where the temperature is kept above freezing all night. I have used bought night-lights in a shelter in the woodland, but these last nowhere near as long, so the gardening experience here will help with the wild camping or survival. Two or three, lasting all night, would keep the temperature above freezing. This is yet another way of recycling old materials, and no doubt old candles can be bought cheaply from charity shops or second-hand shops. 

Note - In regard to being ready and prepared for any emergency I would like to relate an experience I had when I was in my early twenties. At the time I was a long-distance lorry-driver and had deliveries from Leicester to the North of England. The last one was in Oldham, Lancashire, and I was held up during the day and got there at 5.10pm. They closed at 5.00pm and refused to accept the delivery until the following day. I had no night-out gear at all, and that night the temperature plummeted to below zero centigrade; I had only a coat to wrap around me and could not use the heater since I had to park outside the local houses. It was a freezing cold night that taught me to make sure that wherever I went I would at least have a sleeping-bag with me. 

We have had fairly mild winters here in the South of England but in the past this was not always so. Back in 1981 we had a freezing cold spell and I was parked up in Monmouth for the night when the temperature went well below zero; the next morning the truck would not start due to the water-droplets in the diesel freezing completely, and trying to use a small stove the canister of gas was frozen and useless. Even with a sleeping-bag and blanket on top I was not comfortably warm that night. Again, being prepared before going on a journey is something to ponder on. On more than one occasion I have been stuck for 2-3 days with heavy falls of snow. This teaches you to look ahead, but for some this type of thing never happens, hence why I am trying to look at such things for others.