I am new here and have been reading the posts here with much interest. I have noticed that there are a lot of recomendations for gear that I don't use (such as whistles, mirrors, batteries, radios, etc.). Why are these considered necesary? Wouldn't it be more prudent to learn to survive with as little as possible rather than try to shrink everything and try to carry it all with you? I have a BOB but I don't really need it.If I do ever have to use it though I have enough gear to last me indefinitely. It weighs probably 50 lbs (which I can and have carried for miles) and mostly contains food, medical supplies, a lightweight sleeping bag, some cooking gear, several knives, two hatchets, and two saws. I double up on things that I might damage or break. Using this gear as a start, I can pretty much live for as long as it takes. Luckily I grew up learning how to survive with nothing more than a knife and some cordage for extended periods so for me a BOB is a luxury item. I am just now starting to camp in a tent with sleeping bags and I have to say I am a little uncomfortable with it. I usually make a large shelter that can sleep many people, is waterproof, and I can actually have a fire inside with me. Food is not a problem since I live in an area rich with wildlife and water is never a problem. I can distill my own water from any number of streams, lakes or rivers that abound in my area. As far as rescue goes, a five mille walk in any direction would get me somewhere and keeping on heading is elementary stuff (triangulation, stick compass, that sort of thing.) Fire starting has never been a problem and I have often made a fire with wet wood. I guess my point is that it's not what you have but what you know that can make the difference. People have survived for millenia without the benifit of batteries or lighters or even a good knife. We came from nature and we can return to it. All it takes is a little knowledge. By the way, I have gone out for very long periods of time with nothing but what was in my pockets and done very well, in fact gaining weight a couple of times so I know that it can be done. Weeks, months, or even years, I will survive. Hopefully I have offered some food for thought. Any circumstance is survivable with the right amount of knowledge and that is the most important thing I carry with me. The bag I can live without.

While learning primitive living skills certainly is beneficial, the readers and posters in this forum come from a variety of backgrounds, skills levels, and geographic regions. Some of the emphasis on gear reflects this, as well as the fact that certain gear can simplify (not to mention make more comfortable) the various tasks that a person in a survival situation may face. Also, remember that the overall goal for information sharing in this forum is to survive, not necessarily prove that one is adept in primitive living. Take fire-starting for example, you'll notice that DR's review of fire starting methods emphasizes the ability to start a fire with one hand, in the event of injury. Most of your primitive skills fire-starting methods require two functional hands, a problem if you find yourself injured. This isn't a criticism of primitive living skills, merely one explaination for the plethora of postings regarding gear.

First of all: welcome to the forum.

ETS and it's forum is primairly a gear-discussion and evaluation site/forum. Primitive survival-skills are of course very important and I agree with you that knowledge is at least as important than gear.

However we also discuss emergency preparedness: How can a person survive a Emergency/Survival situation, urban or wilderness. Unfortunately most people aren't very well prepared for those things, eather unknowing or unwilling. They don't have the knowlege to keep them alive with just a knife and rope as you apperantly can. That's why survival kits/BOB's contain more equipment: to make it easier for those people to survive. It sort of compensates for the lack of knowlege.

But (I hear you think) What about those skilled people that also carry a lot of ''luxury-gear''.
Most of us have a lot of experience on survival: They tested a lot and know what works and what doesn't. They choose The higher-quality-gear and want to have a few extra's with them. For example: If your making a shelter, it sometimes is a real pain to make it waterproof. A tarp is much quicker and easier, so we take it along. If we have to, we can improvise, but using a tarp is quicker and easier so it conserves energy.

And most of us are really addicted to gear. (that would be.... me <img src="/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> )

Greetings from another newbie! I bet there are all kinds of people reading this forum for all kinds of reasons! I have been gleaning from this site for ages to learn all I can about surviving as self-reliantly as possible..."just in case". I am researching everything from water purifying and firemaking to what to have in my stay-in-place supplies. I really do appreciate all the information I have gained from you guys and am taking this opportunity to say...Thanks!

Just wanted to say: "Welcome to the forum!" <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Welcome Boarcrow. Glad to see yet another experienced person join the discussion. You're definitely right that we should exercise our brains and could probably survive on not much else. But, this site encompasses a lot more than that. True, there's a lot of gear review here, but for the most part it's honest and field-tested, and there's not any agenda behind the comments other than good old discussion and searching for the best in terms of performance, weight, and utility.

You have assumed quite a bit about the posts here. This site is read around the world. When making the comments, realize that not everyone lives with 5 miles of civilization in any direction, nor next to a lot of indiginous game. Plus not everyone is capable of surviving without at least "some" modern tools.

ETS is just what it says... Equipped To Survive. Sure, equipping the mind is the primary goal. But even then, tools conserve energy, can get you out of a serious jam fast, and even save your hide if you are injured. I'm thinking how hard it would be to build a shelter with a broken hand in a freezing blizzard without a tarp or cordage. Plus many folks (like myself) have others depending on them, so every minute and advantage could count in a real emergency.

I'm not sure how far back you've read, but there are certainly many conversations that go away from gear, to preparing your house, family, and making plans, and how to do things more primatively should your equipment fail you. You've got one thing right for sure... more of us could use the knowledge and practice of old-school methods. Just don't ask me to give up my Leatherman... <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Again, welcome. I'm looking forward to you sharing some of your hard earned field knowledge!

Howdy, newb. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

As Jim pointed out, we are primarily a gear and situations group, and as a result, we don't spend much time talking about primative techniques. I don't think you'll find any of us disparage them, but let me ask you a simple question:

Can you start a fire at 20 below zero with a 15 mile an hour wind with a fire bow before you freeze to death after pulling yourself out of the lake your snowmobile is now at the bottom of, after dragging your soaked and rapidly cooling bones the 50 yards to shore? BTW, it's a half an hour before dark, and you aren't expected at your friend's camp for another two hours, and there isn't a house or occupied camp for about a mile.

Real world example. Someone dies in my area every two, three years from this. If you have to make your fire bow, you'll probably be dead before you have the first spark. With matches, a lighter, and sparker (and maybe a highway flare), you've got a chance. With the mirror, you can then use your fire to signal to people on the other side of the two mile long lake. Even before you have a fire, your whistle can be heard at the other end of the lake.

OK, now you are warmish, but at least you aren't shivering so hard you can't standup. You've got some brush, small trees, snow, snow, and more snow for shelter, but you know that if you'd stayed on the trail rather than cutting across the lake, your path would have taken you about three quarters of a mile to a mile north of the lake from where you are. How do you know? Becuase you've taken out your compass and your map. And you can hear people on the trail, but there is a ridge line between you and them, and over thier engines, they can't hear your whistle. BTW, the lights that were on at the camp, they aren't on any more, but you did see their taillights pulling away.

A map and compass let you "see" where you are, and get a direction (due to cloud cover, you can't find Polaris). It also tells you enough so you can decide if you can get out on your own, becuase it might be a while before you are found and first light won't be for about 11 hours.

It's still an hour before you're late, and knowing your buddy, he's going to give you another hour before he gets worried and starts looking for you ON the trail. Weather is deteriorating, with increasing wind and dropping tempuratures. It's an iffy move, but hiking towards the trail isn't a horrible option, because that is never more than a quarter mile from a road that forms the major corridor for truckers going northeast. So you take your flashlight out of your pocket, and following your compass, you head toward the snow mobile trail.

Without that compass to follow, you could wander in circles in the woods. Even with the stars out, if you can't see them through a pine and spruce forest, you can't use them to navigate at night. And without the flashlight (yes, you could have made a torch, but that isn't very effecient) you couldn't safely move. Sure, you could stay in one place, and have a fifty-fifty chance of a human-cicle by morning, or walk an hour (which will warm you up some), and within twenty minutes of walking along the three yard strip that seperates the trail and the highway at this point, get yourself found.

The place I'm talking about is a real lake/pond near US Rte 2 in northern New Hampshire, BTW.

Primative skills are better for the long term. They are great when you can be proactive. But they suck for the short term. Gear gives you better odds when you have to react to a situation RIGHT now. There is nothing sporting or romantic about it; we talk about stacking the deck here.

Besides which, most of us have built firebows or spindles or plungers. Most of us have worked with flint and steel. And while you can teach it face to face, there really isn't any good way to do that online. And once you've done it, there isn't much more to talk about, other than patting you on the back when you put up the "I've made fire!" post. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Thanks for the welcomes. I believe I may have misrepresented myself in my earlier post. I definitely appreciate the convenience of gear and I have quite a bit of it myself. I don't do everything primitively although I could if I had too and have in the past. I have a BOB that weighs in at least 50 lbs maybe more and that is just what fits in the bag. I have many items that I can carry with me to make the jobs easier. For the most part I never used tents (except when I was a child and my parents would take us on vacation) until recently. I always found I could make quite a nice shelter that was not only waterproof, but also warm, in about the same amount of time as putting up a tent, maybe a little longer. I do however have a lot of gear that I carry that makes it easier. Right now I have a MOLLE pack that is as full as I can get it. It mostly has food and medical supplies in it but it also has a tarp, a lightweight sleeping bag, mess kit for four (in case I have company over), a crank flashlight/radio combo with a siren, tinder, several lighters, magnesium fire starter, surgical kit, an Ontario Bowie knife, two hatchets, two saws, and a .44 revolver. I am not against gear in any way. My point was to simply say that the majority of the time when I take someone out in the woods, they have no idea what to do with whatever they have. As far as worst-case scenarios go, to me the worst-case would be the total absence of any equipment and miles away from any civilization. When I camp, I try to get as far away from anything human as I can. When I set up camp, I try to do it without the benifit of gear for the most part. I do this so that I keep the ability fresh in my mind and if I ever need it, I know that I can rely on it. As far as doing things one handed, I have had to do things with an injured hand before, and while it was no simple task, I did succeed. I have also gone out with one bad leg but that isn't quite the same. When it comes to sub-zero temps, Being from the south I must admit, I am not accustomed to that sort of thing. I would assume however that after just a few minutes of being wet in freezing temps, mental acuteness would suffer the effects of hypothermia and make even the simplest tasks seem like climbing Everest. Not to mention the fat that as the core temp drops, numbness takes over and makes it that much easier to further injure onesself without even knowing it. However, I would do my best with what I had and hope it was enough. I have tried to hone my skills on all of the gear I have as well as with the most primitive of methodsin the hopes that I will be prepared for anything that comes along. If something were to happen and I was left without any gear, I could still make it. I definitely hope I get to take my gear with me though because as you all have said, it does make it easier and it is nice to be able to get it done more quikly. Thanks for the replies folks.

Good answer.

BTW, I love redundancy mylsef, but why two hatchets and two saws? I would think one of each would be redundant for the primary function.

Sorry I guess I should have explained that one a little better. There are a couple of resons. First is if I break one. You would have to know my luck to understand that one. Second, if someone else is with me, I can put them to work to. That cuts my workload in half. Also the hatchets are two different sizes, one small one and a larger one. I can use the larger one as a wedge when cutting firewood and the smaller one as a hammer. Plus I just liked them both and would hate to leave one sitting at home.