Keep moving, keep quiet, and keep your ears and eyes open.

I don't know if I would try this in a life or death situation, but I would try to hide out up in a tree, I think most of the searching/scanning for clues would be done between the ground and eye level. If I noticed them passing my hiding spot, then I would double back and make myself comfortable near the start point.

PS Let us know what you did and how it worked out.

This would work with novices, most people don't spend much time looking UP, but with a good tracker, they'd just shoot you out of the tree (or yell gotcha in this case).

Troy

Why stop ? Go for as long as you can, put as much distance between you and the pursuers. Go as light as you can and skip the fire, maybe use some heat tabs in a shallow hole to heat up something at night. Find the worst terrian you can to hide in at night. I say hide and not camp, because that's what you want to do. Any chance you could look over the area ahead of time? That would help find 2 or 3 good spots to hide and help plan routes. You might even cache a few things to lighten your load.Don't bother with the extra set of clothes, take something warm for the night. If you are concerned about camoflauge, try a camo net/scarf over yourself to break up the color , shape and outline.You could also smear mud on your shirt or tuck folage around yourself, that might be a little overkill, though. Don't waste time trying to cover or remove your tracks, just keep moving. You are probably younger and fitter than your pursuers anyway. Don't forget about bugs, mosquito net and repellant.Floppy jungle hat recomended. PM me if you need any details.

Bit simplistic Chris.

Read Scott O'Grady's book , he spent more time hiding and concealing than running. I think SERE is a bit more complicated than just run ahead of your would be captors.

Concealment and good bush skills are all part of the game and every situation is different, sometimes you hide sometimes you run.

Flip

One night? I wouldnt even bring the day pack! Well OK, I would but all I would put in there would be the PSK, food, water and the pancho.

Look for hide postions that have multiple egress points. Move only when you are sure that you will not be detected. I would avoid trees, as if you are caught, you will be stuck up there. If you need to stop, find a depression, dry creek bed, old building, fallen tree, and DIG IN.

If its only one night, I may just try and move hard for an hour, then circle back toward the camp and hunker down somewhere los until morning, then waltz into camp while they are jsut getting back.

A mischief factor could be added by circling back after they have left, and taking all their gear. Make them earn their wilderness survival badge as well.

Happy Evading,

Garrett

Running is hard when surrounded, you might run right into the enemy

Ken is not surrounded, and he has an hour head start. Running is good in this situation. That's not to say he can't switch to hiding later.

Actually we're carrying the day pack with both useful and useless stuff because the scout leaders want to teach us the importance of packing right. Its to show us how the extra weight will bog us down. Learning by doing as they say. After that we'll know for sure what we arent going to take on a recce trip in future.

Ah this brings back fond memories of ROTC. Forced marches, EE, the obstical course and the mud course were more fun than one should be allowed to have for free. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Okay, enough nastalgia. It's been about 15 years since I have done these sort of drills with professional, experienced instruction and back then it was 50+ year old retired USMC drill sergants providing the instruction so my technique may not be the best or most modern and my memory of the instruction and experience may also be lacking so I may be way off, but here goes nothing anyway.

1st: Forget shelter and forget fire! (and I really wouldn't worry about eating much either... just enough so you can concentrate on evasion rather than be distracted by hunger).
2nd off there is no such thing at useless gear!!! <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> That's something you can teach the scoutmasters when you?re done.

Lets review your gear (hopefully I wont leave anything out).

1 set of clothes
enough food for 2 meals
a poncho
a PSK
a canteen of water

I don?t know what is in the "PSK" so I am at a major loss on this one and I will simply say that you hang on to this piece of equipment. Unfortunately there are probably lots of things in here that would be very useful but since I don't what's in there I wont speculate.

The poncho and the canteen of water will both be kept on your person as well. The poncho is all the shelter (if any) that you'll need for one night and the canteen of water should be obvious! You did say "jungle" in this implies warm climate.

That leaves us with 1 set of clothes and enough food for 2 meals. These may be the most useful items you have for purposes of evasion! Yup I'm serious. Since you're not being chased by bloodhounds (luckily) you will want to discard both the clothing and the food. However you will not just discard it anywhere... no sir. What you want to do is use it to lead your would-be captors on a false trail! Ah yes I see the little light bulbs going on above everyone's heads! Now, as Flip has already accurately pointed out, every situation is different and this unfortunately is why I cant tell you exactly how to discard your clothing and food properly in order to get you?re pursuers looking in the wrong places. I can however tell you the following. Don't discard your change of clothes. Put those on and discard the clothes you started off wearing. This is much more believable. Also discard your food in a way in which it can be found BUT that looks very natural. In other words, don?t just start dumping it all out on the ground and also try to discard mostly wrapping/packaging materials rather than actual food. Once again, I imagine even the most minimalistic of PSKs would be chalk full of useful items for evasion but I wont speculate on specific uses since I don?t know what you have in there. I realize youre a scouting so it may not be natural for you just throw your food wrapper and clothes all over the woods like it may be if you were someone less concerned with the environment. To this I say maybe it's best to carefully discard your food wrappings, clothes and other excess gear in a way that would imply that when the exercise is over you intend to return to the area to clean up your mess. The point is to be realistic about it and not be too obvious while still making sure that your pursuers see that which you have left behind.

Also let me close by saying one more thing. I almost left this out because I don't want to offend anyone else here but let me say very humbly that if you're truly surrounded then simply running as fast as you can, making lots of noise and showing fast movement in one direction is a very bad plan. This is a good idea only if you're sure ALL of your pursuers are behind you.

Good luck and be sure to let us know how it goes.

One thing I have not seen anyone post here is the strong leg circle syndrome. If you do not have a visible fixed point to which you are running, and you do not have a compass to maintain the chosen direction of running, you are liable to do the the strong leg circle. If the persuers spot a tendency for you to circle as you run, they could actually cut you off by taking a tangent line to your eventual position.

Bountyhunter