Aside from bringing your own, or finding birch bark or tinder fungus, how do you find viable tinder in wet woods?

I think that depends on the type of woods you are in, what I mean by that is what part of the US are you in?

No, what part of the US are YOU in?

Seriously, if your knowledge is wider than one area, please share all.

Thanks.

Pine stumps.

I have found that unless I'm in a double canopy or triple canopy jungle, I can find dry tinder by looking under logs or rock outcroppings. Mostly grasses or weeds. Some wood can be scratched under the surface.

I think the situation also depends on what your using to start a fire. A Mg block is going to be harder to spark wet tinder than say a road flare or bic.

First stop around here is a big spruce tree. Underneath you'll find the best tinder around -- fine, dead branches. The only exception is if there has been a (rare) penetrating fog, which saturates the best tinder with amazing effectiveness.

A dead pine tree is another good source. They turn bright red; not hard to spot. In very wet weather, you need at least the sustained heat from a Bic to get them going.

I've heard congealed evergreen sap from a wound is quite effective. I haven't tried it on its own, but worked into a bit of cotton cloth (jeans pocket) or a paper napkin as a wick, it takes a flame readily.

Snow in this part of the world doesn't have much effect. Unlike coastal or Great Lakes snow (mashed potato snow I call it), it's very dry, matching the low humidity. So unless there's been a freeze/thaw it's like blotting paper. With the heat from a Bic, even dry grass buried in dry, powdery snow will usually go.

None of the above is quite fine enough to ignite with a simple spark. Unless it's a modern ferro-whatsit-firesteel, which is plenty hot enough.

Find a stick the diameter of a pencil. Even if that stick is wet (but not completely saturated). Remove the small first-grade style school pencil sharpener from your kit and sharpen away. Use the shavings for tinder (once you've sharpened past the wet outer part of the wood). Same principle as shaving a stick down to its dry inner parts with your pocket knife, but it's easier to end up with very thin and consistant shavings using a pencil sharpener.

shaved wood from a fat wood pine or take the lose bark from a juniper and smash some of it up with a rock and then lay the rest of the bark on top and light with a flint stick,match or lighter.

I have heard cattail heads. I have yet to try them in the rain, but since they grow in water i would guess they will be fine. I used one to light a fire and it worked great, it was late summer/fall.

Morning glories. The weed not the flower, they have pods filled with seeds that have a bit of fluff that makes them float on the wind. You have to break up the fluff into a cotton-like tangle. I have been told I am nuts and it does not work, but I have fashioned a torch to light a bonfire with them.

Jim, are you sure you don't mean milkweed pod seeds (Asclepias) instead of morning glory/bindweed? http://www.pbase.com/salty_one/image/70700472

I guess I haven't wadded enough into a large enough lump, as I find they flash-burn so fast that they're useless.

Conifers: look for those tiny little short dead branches still attached to the tree trunk or the bases of the lower branches, the ones that are about the thickness of a pencil lead. I don't know that they will start with a firesteel, but they work well enough with a lighter. They never seem to be wet, even when it's raining.

Sue