This is one of the things I love about the Survival Forum - it makes us THINK, sometimes in odd or impractical directions, but it makes us use our minds and evaluate what we think we know, or are relatively sure of, in different ways and in new lights. I know that I personally have read about and absorbed more ways to use a garbage bag, a bit of string and a razor blade then I would ever have believed possible. Are some of these discussions and "what if?" scenarios off the wall? Sure they are. But one thing I have learned in my brief time on this rock is that when Mr. Murphy comes calling (and he has EVERYONE's number, whether it's listed or not!) it is never in a way you anticipated, let alone expected.

Its occurred to me that perhaps my last couple of answers to scenarios might have sounded a bit sarcastic. I am actually trying to make an important point (at least, I think its important). Survival is about living to the next day.

We carry all these gadgets with us because we don't actually know what emergency we will confront on any given day. But your brain is always your best survival tool.

IF you know beforehand that you're going to possibly be stranded on a desert island, make sure you have a GPS and a Satelite Phone. Then you can leave on short order!

And IF you know beforehand that you've got 5 days in the desert (and only 5 days), nothing is going to be more precious to you than water. You can make it 5 days without eating, certain religious types do that kind of thing as regular ceremony.

So why do you need a fire? To cook food, to boil water? If you're really looking at -40 degrees for a brief time before sunrise, burrow underground! The desert ground stays at a near constant 58-68 depending on where you are.

Why do you need a knife on a five day walk? To build a shelter. Why build a permanent shelter if you're walking? To hunt game?

Bleach to purify water? Not if you bring you own water with you!

I still say the correct answer is as much water as you can carry and maybe some cordage to help distribute it arround your shoulders.

If you just wanna have a 5 day walkabout that's fine, take all the gizmos with you and put 'em in you're $100 pack. But that doesn't really speak to the question at hand.

If you are unprepared and stuck 5 days walk into the desert ( next to a 7-11?) If there's a 7-11 you are not stuck and you don't need $10. What you have is civilization and phone and all you need is 911 if you are hurt or enough sense to call you mom / wife / husband / children / great-aunt tilly collect if you are not hurt.

OTOH, if you want to pose a scenario for use to exercise over then lets take the absurd as stated and rule out such convenient things as phones and emergency facilities and roads with friendly truckers for hitching a ride and to follow so we don't have to travel overland. What we have here is $10 worth of stuff that might have been procured from a 7-11 type convenience before we were summarily dumped 50+ miles in the desert with a vague idea of the direction home but nothing else.

Given the parameters of this exercise, a day spent without good direction due to inclement weather (sand-storm for example) could make the 5 day march into a two month ordeal of being lost. Just as we try to prepare around our homes for the remote possibility that we will burn it down with our children inside we might look at this scenario and consider the remote possibility that it might turn out to be somewhat more that a simple 5 day march in the right direction. Given this consideration I would want more than just "enough water to walk through the deser for 5 days" I might want to consider what I would need if the water ran out. I might want to consider what I would need if the ordeal lasted for a month. I might want to consider materials like tin-foil that I could signal to passing air traffic with. I might want to consider the ability to make fire to warm myself or to signal air traffic with or to sterilize whatever water I could find. Making an expedient shelter to keep warm or cool in the desert is much easier if you bring the roof. Digging the trench might be a hassle but you could probably find a soft enough place to dig with the help of a tin-can. Digging with your paws is going to get tiresome if not impossible. If I can walk through the night for 7 miles and then take 2 hrs before dawn to dig-in and throw a trash bag up for shade I can certainly make my water last a lot longer but the directional difficulties of traveling at night might ensure that I get lost in the attempt to travel this way.

Certainly knowledge is king. Without the knowledge to find direction by celestial objects at night you will be forced to march during the day. Without the knowledge of the habits of the desert birds your chances of finding water approach nil. Without the understanding of the need to stay out of the heat you are likely to dehydrate. Without the understanding of hypothermia you are likely to die in your shorts at night (even dug in you can die in 50 degrees of hypothermia). All of this knowledge is still only useful if you can translate it into action. Knowing that you need to dig a trench to wait out the day's heat is interesting but useless unless you have the where-whithal to dig that trench. Something like an empty 1 pound coffee can would do the trick nicely. Of course a military entrenching tool would be better but not in the budget of the scenario. Knowing how to signal a passing plane is interesting knowledge but if you don't have something shiney or can't make a fire you won't be spotted. Knowing that desert fowl will circle a fresh carcas and fly towards water in the evening is interesting knowledge but if you are blinded by the sun and can't look towards the sky you will not notice the birds patterns something like sunglasses or even cardboard with slits could make this possible.

It is neither the knowledge nor the gear but the combination of the two that represents preparedness.

Interesting thoughts...

But who said I would be digging with my hands? The hook on my belt buckle is sharp enough to cut open an empty water jug .Open up the mouth and leave the handle in place and you've got a nice little spade that scoops a half-gallon of sand on every pass. Mind you, I'll have a fresh one at the end of every day, so it only has to work once.

If I really need to start a fire, I wear glasses (and yes, they darken up in bright sunlight). If you say you're taking my glasses away, then the $10 worth of stuff ain't gonna help me anyhow. Oh yeah, and the glasses make for a pretty good reflector too, especially in bright sunlight!

Now, I don't think 7/11 sells compasses, but even if they do how will it help with your suggestion. How are you going to take a bearing in the middle of a sandstorm? You wouldn't wanna be walking in that anyway... unless you just want to be sandblasted. Take a nap and ride it out. The silk and needle thing aint gonna help in the middle of a sandstorm either.

It's all about assessing the biggest threats. I'd like to have my Swiss Army knife, my windproof lighter, my Photon II and my carry gun (all of which I have on me if I'm wearing my pants!) if I'm out in the desert. But if those are taken away and replaced by a $10 bill and a trip to the 7/11, then the question I'm going to ask is "what are my greatest threats to survival?" In this scenario, the answer is just one thing, "water". All the other possible threats are orders of magnitude down on the scale. I might get bitten by a sidewinder, I might trip over a rock and break my leg, I might get caught in a freak blizzard in April... but I'm not spending any of my $10 to insure against those contingencies.

I mean no disrespect, but I do want to leave you with a thought. Do you guys really think you need all that stuff all the time, or do you just have to have a lot of this gear as a kind of security blanket?

At least no one has suggested they need fish hooks, I am thankful for that! <img src="images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Seems to me that your proclaimed EDC covers the basics that everyone is attempting to compensate for with the $10. In your case you state that if you had none of these items you would only consider the need for water and attempt to get by without these items you would otherwise be carrying. In my case I presume that I will not be able to count on carrying enough water to get me through so I will get enough water to attempt to find more and also get some gear to make it possible to handle a longer duration situation. Seems like merely two different approaches. For you $10 you might be able to acquire enough water to safely march out - OTOH you might not. For my $10 I won't attempt to get that much water but hope to get enough to make it to the next water source and have the minimal gear to use that source when I get there and also the gear to deal with a few eventualities along the way. We don't disagree on the priority of water (I think). Let's say you can get water for $1 per gallon and spend $10 on water. At 8 pounds per gallon for 10 gallons you are carrying 80 pounds. Walking during the day with 80 pounds of anything will use up water extremely fast. You will probably go through around 2 gallons a day merely staving off dehydration. This will yield a 4 day march at most. (yes, as you drink it it becomes lighter so you might make 5 days). This leaves no margin for mistakes / eventualities of any sort. By neglecting to acquire any other gear you will be exposed (no shelter roof even if you can scoop out a trench), you will not have a knife to slice open that Yucca cactus for it's moisture, You will not have any thing to start a signal fire when it hits day 10 and you have long since run out of water and you still haven't found your way out. If you luck upon an oasis you will have to drink and take your chances since you cannot boil or bleach the water. The resulting diahrea will simply kill you.

In my case I will carry 16 pounds of water as 2 gallons and attempt to find water within the first 48 hours. I may succeed or not. My trip out will be a wander from water source to water source in the general right direction. I will not attempt a forced march of 50 miles. I will stop during the early dawn each day and attempt to build a signal fire and a shelter with shade. I will be equipped with aluminum foil for signaling passing aircraft and may be rescued on the first of second day rather than having to walk out on my own. I will watch the skies and what livestock I can see during the day for indications of water sources. I will walk in the direction of water within 90 degrees of my homeward path at night only. I may be a month getting out or a day if rescued but I will focus on surviving rather than on traveling. A shift in focus not a difference in priority. We both will choose our activities and gear with the priority of water in mind.

You're right, we do agree to a large extent.

If I can get the gallon jugs for $1 a piece, then I'd get 5 jugs. A lighter ($1), the cheap knife ($3), various super cheap goodies. The 99 cent hot dog followed by a sack full of condiments sounds like a good idea to me. I of course am assuming I can pilfer the garbage bags and cordage I need.

But if the 7/11 is asking $2 a jug (its 99 cents at Walmart, so I'm assuming its more at 7/11), then all the other stuff is secondary!

And I certainly would be planning on walking at night and resting during the day.

miniMe,

You make some excellent comments, but I have a question for you, how many miles can you walk in a day under desert environment conditions?

Also when would you walk?
One last question what are you afraid of in the desert?

I read your post but I want you to think about what you said before answering. Okay.

Hi Benman,

I agree with your approach to a point, but you do make good comments.

I have been reading all your post on the subject, digging a trench and laying in it is a lot of work and will use up a lot of water spent through sweat. Also when you lose water you lose salt. You need salt and water to survive and in one day you can lose so much salt and water in your body that it can impair your judgment and if you do not replace them it will end your survival experience. Also just lugging around 5 gallons of water at the wrong time would be the last time you lugged around anything, because it would not matter how much you drink your body will not absorbed the water without the a lot of salt. So the water will not be the only answer. One other thing during the trip one will need portable shade... Not just shade but quality shade.. Have you ever heard the story it is 110 degrees in the shade, Well if it is that hot in the shade how hot do you think it can get in the sun?

You are right food is a low priority in the desert, I have read many statements to that effect on this forum and that is correct. However People say do not take fishhooks, do not carry snare wire, do not take bullion cubes. That is great, just great, think about this if you do not have salt with you and you know for a fact that you have replace the salt your body loses or you will die. How are you going to replace it, Well my friend one way to do it is to eat meat.. I can go on here but I would like to get you comments first.

Desert environment conditions vary considerably with the season and the elevation. For sake of argument let us take the current season in lower elevations - hot 80 - 100 degrees during the day and perhaps as low as 30 at night.

Desert terrain can vary considerably as well which also affects the pace that you might keep.

I would travel at night from twilight evening until just before dawn. I would shelter in shade during the day. If weather or dark and terrain forbid travel at night I would make what distance I could from the moment the evening started to cool until it were too dark to continue. Given this choice of travel times and the need for caution to avoid injury I would probably not better 10 miles per 24 hours. Also, following the ration sweat not water philosophy I would not want to work up a lather trying to cover distance. The scenario posed the Sonoran desert. There is water there, it is not the sahara. I would spend the daylight hours resting and watch for any signs of water in the movement of wild life. I would navigate by celestial sightings.

My main fear in the desert would be dehydration followed closely by hypothermia. The other potential threat would be from snakes and spiders. Snakes shelter from the cold in the evening since they are cold-blooded, spiders really don't pose that much threat so I wouldn't worry about them other than to sweep up my area before settling in for the day. I would deal with dehydration as I said in my earlier post. I believe that the scenario posed doesn't allow for the carrying of enough water to safely walk out on that soley so I would plan on and work toward finding water on the way. For hypothermia I would count on staying warm at night by staying moving. If there were really cold evenings I would use the trash bag to setup vapor / dew traps and if they produced I would stay put until I had gathered a refill. This is spring and that is when the desert blooms, it does that because there is moisture in this season. Pose a scenario in a drier clime or season and I am not sure I would leave the 7-11. I might simply stay there until the police picked me up for vagrancy <img src="images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I need to say that this is completely a mental exercise for me. I have never hiked in the desert. I am northeasterner and my experience in the wilderness is mostly in the White Mountains of NH. Traveling more than 20 miles in a day there is pushing it. In a flat desert I might make much better time. I certainly would love to hear the experience of someone who has made a long journey in the desert.

Following this thread, I notice several references to digging a trench for shelter, with the implication that it will be relatively easy - "scooping a half gallon of sand on every pass." Wish it were that easy.

The Sonoran Desert (and many others) has a surface that is primarily desert pavement - armor hard rock that is an absolute horror to dig through. Much of the rest is a charming substance known as caliche - I have spent two days using a full size pick and shovel to dig a hole for a rose bush right in my own back yard. There is very little dune sand anywhere in the Sonoran Desert.

For that matter, digging in soft sand is not that easy, either. I have dug, or attempted to dig trenches in beach sand without good results. The dry sand moves easily enough, but as you dig down, the walls simply slump and you wind up with a very shallow dished hole. When the sand is wet, you can get something like vertical sidewalls, but they are very likely to slump at any time. You could easily die seeking shelter in such a hole.

How did I learn about digging holes in desert soils? More than twenty years as an archeologist at places like Fort Bowie, Tonto, Tumacacori, Saguaro, Grand Canyon and other Arizona locales. The only easy way to punch in a hole in the desert is with a backhoe or dynamite.

Actually, the shelter solution is usually rather simple. Seek out natural stream banks, overhangs, and gullies. They are surprisingly common throughout much of the Sonoran area, although there is considerable variation from locality to locality.