LUCKY! When I did my Wilderness Survival MB, we weren't allowed ANYTHING. We spent 3 days making the shelter, then were walked to it about 8pm on the overnight date. We were allowed clothes only. No 10 essentials, flashlights, fires, etc (though any fire would have set the island ablaze). Being that I was on Catalina Island, it was a bit chilly with the fog coming from the ocean. Every couple of hours the leaders would make rounds and make sure we were still there.
I'll give our guys some credit, they didn't have 3 days to build a shelter, they had about an hour and a half before it was dark, so I think they did a pretty good job. They all sorta realized that it would be important to start sooner in the day. (Especially the ones that were getting pretty wet around 1AM.)
I definately agree that it's good to see how you handle a night out with just what's on your person. Back in the dark ages (that is how MY teenager refers to MY childhood years) before our society became so litigeous, and we all had to "feel good about ourselves", we had a leader that during one of our camping trips, took us on a "day hike" about 8 miles from our campsite, and out of nowhere said, "weather's looking iffy, we're staying here tonight boys".
Now, most of us had a few of the "essentials" on us, and that's all we had to work with. A couple guys were pretty unprepared, but, we all pooled our resources and made out ok, a little cold, and hungry, but, not a big deal. Couple of the young guys might have made the cardinal error of, you guessed it, crying... That wasn't what our Scoutmaster was looking for... paraphrasing the sage advice of our then leader:
"Son, a woodsman doesn't cry when he gets his britches in a bind, now suck it up and go gather more firewood before I feed you to a bear!" Today, we'd have to have them all sign waivers, releases, etc. and the Scoutmaster would be sued by a parent for verbally abusing their kid. Ah, the good old days
Previous Topic
Index
