In my opinion, a survivor is one who can truly live
outdoors...you don't need to be "equipped" to survive.
I can walk out into the desert empty handed and return with
atleast 8 different kinds of tools, including weapons,
pouches and basic nessecities...The first thing you need
to survive out there is trust...You have to trust the environment and be perfectly comfortable with the fact that
you could be stranded out there. If it was up to me, I would'nt
even come back to society...with the horrible things going on today. I am not a survivalist. I hate it when people brand me like that.

But why walk out into the desert empty handed when you could take a Leatherman, and return with 100 tools? And don't forget the sunscreen and sunglasses, those eskimo goggles made of cacti sure are uncomfortable, and mud all over your face is quite demoralizing.

All of us here know that knowledge is the first piece of "equipment" we should obtain. Although we mostly converse about "material" gear, there is some great outdoor advice mixed in with that. I suggest you explore the forums a little more. Also, while your here, why not share with the rest of us some of your outdoor surivival skills. After all, that's what this forum is for.

Welcome to the forums! <img src="images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

John McIntire

The first thing you need to survive out there is knowledge.

Frank

Sphinx, First welcome to the forum. Your comments reflect views that are very common among us. Our community includes 2 M.D.s, a D.V.M, retired Dentist, 2 Archaeologists, many folks involved in emergency services, military,ex military and all the many occupations my grandmother called 'honest work'. We have people from many nations,religous and political identities and all age groups. We have one common bond; being prepared for urban and wilderness emergencies. There is a social conceit regarding 'modern gear, or stuff'. Returning to our primordial roots clean and pure from nasty old industrial gizmos has become a psychological rebirth and rejection of the urban termitorium and Koyyanisquatsi. But lets reverse our journey. Our ancestors created cities WITH those same tool kits we laboriously replicate. There is utterly NO difference between a Leatherman and a chert scraper. There is even less difference between Gilgamesh and the Wildman, Beowulf and Grendel or Abbot and Costello. <img src="images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Chris,

I'd beg to respectfully disagree. There's a huge difference. It comes ready to use and it will last through years of abuse that would render chert into fragments or dust, to say nothing of all the added capabilities it offers. Those are the sorts of advantages that your primitive would have traded just about anything for. They used the best they were able to get, if they could have gotten better they would have done so in a heart beat. Once metal tools became available, they didn't refuse them. In fact, they sometimes killed to obtain them.

Someone once said, "Only a fool looks down their nose at an advantage. A fool often soon dead."

Just some ramblings as I contemplate my navel with a bit of writer's block. Have I ever mentioned I hate yellow inflatable things. <img src="images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

I meant to say there is no intellectual difference behind the genius of a lithic tool or a modern steel unit. Incidentaly, the latest on "Oetzi" is he was slain by his own people! The recovered projectile was barbed, common to that time and Southern Alp region. People to the north used flat based arrowheads. Flat or barbed,chert or steel; some things never change <img src="images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Chris,

Well, why didn't you just say so? <img src="images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Did I mention the first venture of a human upon the waters? Oetzi is being pursued by a saber toothed Tiger and comes to a lake. He grabs a fallen log , yellow with lichen. he desperately fumbles with an attached vine ,pulling and yanking to deploy the thing.The cat eats him. <img src="images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />