I’m thinking that sometime early next winter I might spend a month just living off of the woods. I’d rather do it during the winter because otherwise I don’t feel it would be enough of a challenge, and also the winter coincides with the small game season. I would bring enough food to survive for a while on my own, but I would try to subsist only on hunted rabbits and squirrels (I’d probably bring some potatoes and seasoning, too, for variety.) Maybe try ice fishing too if I could find an area of the state forest with a pond or stream. I have an extremely good tolerance for the cold and I wouldn’t be that uncomfortable out there, with a good insulated sleeping bag and a tent and enough wood to keep fires going. If I ever got too cold, too hungry, or bored, I could just leave the woods (obviously I’d have a map and compass.) Worst case scenario, I’d use a flare and emergency radio if I was hurt or something.
Has anyone done anything like this? Please share experiences or advice, especially on how to ensure that water is safe and that hunted game is free from toxins.
I camped in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado in November before. My sleeping equipment consisted of a canvas tent and an old army mummy bag which saw me through nights with temperatures reaching thirty below zero. Here are some general safety rules.
#1. You need to tell people exactly where it is you’re setting up camp. If you’re in a state park you need to let the rangers or whoever is there where you’ll be.
#2. Have access to a weather service. If a winter storm is heading your way bug out of camp.
#3. Bring an emergency heat source such as a propane heater.
Honestly, I’d go with Oakminster’s suggestion. Instead of just going out for a month start small and make a weekend of it at a state park or something. You’ll have a chance to test your equipment and acclimate yourself to winter camping with a safety net.
There’s a helluva difference between camping in summer and winter, especially at night. Tolerance to cold or not, -40º at night is nothing to mess around with. A tent is not adequate protection against the cold, a small cabin or lean-to at minimum is better. If you’re going to be camping in a place with a lot of snow, a quinzee would probably work well for you. I actually just did a detailed writeup here on how to build one.
As far as the water goes, just melt and boil the snow. The vast majority of it is safe to drink, provided there’s no dead thing under the snow, or spilled diesel, or things of that nature. Just avoid the yellow stuff.
Definitely start with just an overnight, to see if it’s something you’d want to do for a month.
Camping for a month in winter is a big undertaking. Living in a tent, if you’ve never done that, it mind numbing, regardless of the cold. Living off caught game is not something I’ve ever tried.
In real winter conditions, hunting and trapping may be far more difficult then you imagine. I agree, a few shakedown cruises of a night, and a weekend, are essential before you tackle even a week.
The folks who have suggested starting with a trip of a few days are giving wise advice. I have done winter hikes on the Appalachian Trail in Maryland and Pennsylvania without taking any food with me. Cold is a very different thing when there is no escape from it except to lie in your sleeping bag. You will also be amazed how much of your day will be spent getting and cooking food. Completing a survival trip can be a satisfying thing, but don’t set too long a goal for yourself. Try three days.
Do you have any experience hunting or trapping? How about skinning and gutting? How about ice fishing? Usually ice fishers will bring specialized equipment like an auger to cut holes in the ice and a skimmer to keep a new skin from forming–and you know you shouldn’t venture onto ice that might not be solid, yet, so “early winter” is not a good time for ice fishing. Where would you get your wood to keep your fires going? Wet wood (from snowmelt) won’t burn well, and snowcover will hide a lot of your tinder and kindling.
Seriously. Start small. The woods will still be there.
What, no Into The Wild references yet? All the suggestions above are good. I’ll just add keep your escape routes open. I took Outward Bound’s ski mountaineering class decades ago where we went backcountry in Colorado in March. There are great skills to be had but take little steps into the foray.
I haven’t done it to that level myself but I been to survival camp and have read about it a lot throughout my life as an extreme backup plan or just as an experience like you want to do. Living off of hunted or fished food can be difficult, especially the hunting. You can live for a long time without food but it won’t be pleasant and you could get yourself into a panic and do something stupid if you force yourself to continue. At least have some backup food like MRE’s or just dried rice and beans.
A good Swiss Army knife is invaluable and there are a few other useful gadgets out there. My mother got me a Swiss Tech electrical survival tool for Christmas that is pretty cool. It has a hand cranked generator that powers a radio, an LED flashlight, a very loud alarm signal, a strobe light, and can charge a cell phone or an MP3 player. It seems pretty cool even if you just end up keeping it in your car for emergencies and works well.
There are books on this stuff even though I can’t think of any specific recommendations. I do know that much of the stuff you see on TV and read isn’t divided into how well things probably will work. I have never seen anyone get a snare to work worth a damn for example but all survival book include it. Bring a gun or at least a hunting bow and arrows if you want to stand a chance. Primitive firestarting techniques are iffy at best as well but shaved magnesium bars can start hundreds of fires and burn extremely hot and can light even damp kindling.
In the OP I was actually going to compare what I wanted to do with Into The Wild (except with much better planning, and in Indiana and not Alaska), just to try to illustrate my goal, but I decided against even mentioning it because Christopher McCandless was such an idiot. I don’t romanticize people like that. Suffice it to say there would be a hell of a lot more planning and preparation than what he did, and no misguided luddite philosophy behind it either (I don’t have any problem with cell phones, radios, emergency equipment, first aid kits, telling everyone I know exactly where I am going to be, etc.)
Starting off with a shorter trip is definitely a good idea.
I definitely considered building a shelter out there, as it is something I have done before. I built a domed shelter from bent and lashed tree branches, insulated with tarps, many years ago (I think I was 13) in the woods behind my house, which turned out extremely good and was capable of holding several people. My friend and I used a technique we had learned at camp (it was originally going to be a sweat lodge.)
I’ve been shooting squirrels, rabbits and other small game since my early teens. (I’ve never done any trapping and don’t expect to rely on that for food, though there’s no harm in at least trying it.) I’ve also been camping for about the same time, though not during the winter and never alone. I was going to ask someone to come with me for this winter excursion and I still would, if I could find a single damn person who would actually want to come with me (doubtful.)
All that stuff is a given; this isn’t some primitivist trip. Got no problem with shortcuts, to a point. Backup food, also a given.
I was planning on going early in the winter before the snow starts falling (which, where I am, usually isn’t till around Christmas) so forget about the ice fishing. I would make sure to have a very large backup supply of firewood, covered over well with tarps and tied down.
If you are planning to be gone a whole month, nobody expects you for a month, you are alone, and there is no cell phone coverage (or you loose it or it craps out) and you get hurt or sick things could go pretty badly if not actually deadly.
Just saying this is FAR from just going out in the woods for a bit. A 30 day camp is not just 15 2 day camps in a row.
I’ll probably do a few days to a week first. There probably will be cell phone coverage where ever I wind up and if so, I would give regular updates to someone at home. (I’d bring some spare batteries, also, and possibly a backup phone too.) Definitely a weather radio.
I would suggest you bring enough supplies that you do not have to do anything except stay in your shelter for the entire time. Doing anything less than this you are taking a risk. Anyone expecting to to winter over somewhere will have enough supplies built up, that is food, cut and dried wood and anything else they think need already on hand before the first snows. Anything less risks death, even if their adventure is only scheduled to be for a month. What if while doing this you find yourself experiencing a one or two week long snowstorm? Expecting to be able to rely at all upon your hunting and trapping skills (especially if you’ve never done this before) is fool hardy at best.
Going with a group is the best idea as man is not meant to be alone. Remember in a primitive tribal situation banishment meant almost certain death. Also a group gives more safety. If solo and stricken with a serious illness or injury you will almost certainly die. Even with two you are in bad straights. Does the healthy member stay and care for the injured one or does he go for help? Taking off in the middle of winter with only what you can carry is risking death. Ideally, you would be able to send more than two for to go for help.
If you really insist on testing yourself my suggestion is to find someone with land enough that you can set up your camp, do your hunting and fishing, but still be able to walk to their house in less than an hour at most. That way you can bug out with little difficulty. Further I would suggest you have someone check in on you every few days.
I’ve been involved in the modern survival and primitive living and survival skills world for nearly 20 years now. I know people that have gone off for a year or more and I’ve made a few solo trips myself. However, they all started with over nighters, week long trips, et cetera long before undertaking anything like a year. I do not think I know a single reasonable person among this group that would head out in the dead of winter without full provisions for the time they expect to be gone. It is usually the newbies that get ideas like this and they too will say they have no thoughts of romanticism in mind. Yeah, right. If you do go, have fun, but please, please be safe and smart about it.
First of all, while building and maintaining traps is a useful survival skill to know and far more efficient than trying to hunt small game, deadfall traps and snares are cruel, often illegal in state and national forests and preserves, and shouldn’t be used except in a genuine survival situation. There’s no real merit in terms of survival skill to trapping–once you know the basic techniques, it’s just a matter of setting and checking the 30-40 traps you’ll need to sustain you two or three times a day–so I’d skip this and just bring non-perishable stables like rice, grains, dried legumes, jerked meat, packaged fish, et cetera. If you really want to live off the land, fishing is your best bet, especially in winter. You’ll still need some kind of grain or legumes as a staple, though, as fish is low on carbohydrates.
Camping in the winter has the usual perils of camping and backpacking plus the joy of potential fast-setting hypothermia and climate hazards. As others have said, a tent isn’t well-suited for sub-zero camping; even a double wall tent won’t hold in enough heat to keep it above freezing, and you’ll find that your breath will coat the inside of the tent with a layer of ice, which will then melt during the day and make everything in the tent nice and frosty. If you are going to remain in one place you’re better off building a log lean-to with windbreak, or a thatch wickiup, which will let vapor escape but stop the energy-sucking wind and provide sufficient insulation to keep you moderately warm. Also learn how to build a hot coal bed, or if you want to go to the effort, a chimney bed (in which you create a covered fire pit at the foot that feeds into a channel that runs under your bed, and thence to a chimney above your head). These can keep you nice and warm through the night and are well worth the effort if you are going to stay in place for more than a couple of days Do not–do not–do not build your camp under a tree; under snowfall or ice storm accumulation may build up and cause branches to collapse.
You also need to be prepared to move and operate in the winter. This means snowshoes or cross-country skis (if snow accumulation is expected), and crampons (for ice). You should buy a waterproof pack intended for winter hiking, or take a heavy-duty pack, Scotchguard™ the hell out of it, and then buy a good raincover to keep it as dry as possible. Once you get anything wet in the winter, it will pretty much either stay wet or frozen for the duration unless you are able to dry it over a fire (which is harder than it seems in winter). If you are hiking, you’ll want to plan your hikes so that you can make your objective in one march and then change out of your damp clothes as soon as you stop; many hikers have suffered from hypothermia by not changing because they were too tired and then freezing.
Also realize how absolutely bored you are going to get, especially if you are just camping in place rather than hiking every day to achieve a series of objectives. It’ll be too cold and (if you’re spending your day foraging and hunting) too dark to read or play games. It’s actually better to do some kind of craft work like weaving that will keep you occupied.
As several others have already stated, this is not something you want to do on a lark. You really need to spend some time preparing and acclimating, including overnighters, weekend trips, and at least a 4-5 day trip. It may seem all romantic, but living off the land (as opposed to backpaking) is incredibly tedious and boring rather than physically challenging and mentally engaging, especially in winter.
My favorite outdoor survival skills book is Larry Olsen’sOutdoor Survival Skills. I did a survival course based on this text (from students of Olsen) as a teenager, and while I didn’t enjoy many aspects of the course (run by a bunch of Christian fundies) the skills learned were invaluable. The best specific handbook for winter camping that I know of is the NOLS Winter Camping.
IMHO, this is a waste of space and weight. As any sailor, soldier, or marine will tell you, anything electronic is virtually guaranteed to fail when you actually need it, and you’re better off spending your weight budget on something that is going to help protect you from the elements or light a fire than a weather radio. You’ll see what the weather is going to do soon enough, and you’ll either be prepared for it or you won’t; a weather radio isn’t going to do a damn thing for you, as you’re not going to be able to navigate around storm systems like a plane or boat can; you’ll just have to hunker down and wait for it to pass. Cell coverage is generally uncertain at best in remote areas (despite what you see on The X-Files), and if you don’t have coverage, what are you going to do if people are expecting you to call? You’re better off with a GPS personal locator beacon, or if you absolutely have to communicate, a portable ham radio and a hand-crank dyno. Better yet, select a site or route that is reasonably near ranger stations and check in with them periodically rather than rely on any electronic gizmo and batteries.
Absolutely true. I recommend watching Atanarjuat to get a flavor of what actual winter survival is like (plus is a great visual film), or Akira Kurosawa’s Dersu Uzala (another great movie). Should you be ill or wounded, unable to forage, or exposed to the elements, it won’t take you a month to die; it could be as little as hours.
I would come with you I promise except I have a job and two daughters to support. Your planned stunt is one that I also have as a dream and always have for some reason. It sounds fun and completely sucky at the same time. That is the perfect combination. I built a real log cabin when I was 12. We had tons of land that I could do anything I wanted on it. I could camp for two days on our own property for the entire weekend on our own property without my parents or anyone else knowing where I was. It was only about 8’ by 10’ and I screwed the roof up but it was functional with a fireplace and handmade bunk beds and I used to sleep in it when I wanted to disappear get away from it all no matter what time of year. That was in Louisiana though where it doesn’t get cold much (but chilly sometimes in the winter).
You might want to start by building a decent shelter first that is semi-functional. That gives you almost all of the mental benefits of being a mountain man while still having a decent place to sleep although primitive. They are fun to build and you can let your imagination run wild but that is the whole point. I built my log cabin using only an ax, hand saw and other hand tools from drawings that I made. It only took two weekends to build but I loved it and had a fire going the whole time to get rid of scraps.