REI class with Gene Ward SOS

On 9/19/2005 I went to an REI outdoor survival class by Gene Ward of Survival and Outdoor Safety. I have been to the same class when he had it at Sportsman’s Warehouse. This time he got a little more into transpiration bag use. He said he tried his bag on a mesquite tree without much luck. He said the leaves are small and do not produce much water. Gene said the bag has to be airtight when you put it on a tree. I told him that I read that you have to change the bag once a day to get good water. He said that was likely. He said the bag kills the branch. He suggested that it might be better to take a barrel cactus and chop it up and put it in a plastic trash bag. He suggested sealing up the bag, with the cactus, so the bottom of the bag was empty and the moisture would evaporate and collect in the bottom. I have read (seen – Desert Survival DVD – Mr. Bigfoot) that the juice of the barrel cactus will make you vomit if you drink very much of it. I wonder if using evaporation and condensation will make the water more potable.

Gene was extolling the virtues of using fatwood and a ferro rod for fire starting. I have tried fatwood. It does work. Scrap some off and it will light with a ferro rod. It burns with a good flame for about one minute. Vaseline treated cotton ball burns for 7 minutes and takes no preparation time or manual dexterity. I have never seen Gene with a fixed blade knife. He likes the LeatherMan Wave. He likes the locking knife and saw blades. He does not use the back of the saw on his ferro rod. He uses a piece of hacksaw blade with the teeth filed off. He showed my wife how to use the file on her Wave to sharpen the edges of the hacksaw blade so it will work better on the ferro rod. Gene also takes a cotton ball and soaks it in melted Vaseline and then wraps it in an aluminum foil. He uses it like a candle. He said it will burn for up to an hour. He said that it is excellent for starting wet wood. Gene sells a large clear trash bag and a clear 60 gallon trash bag. The 60 gallon is good for transpiration and the large one is good for making shelter.

The best thing I learned from Gene is how to use a signal mirror 360 degrees from the sun on the horizon with a single mirror. Use the opposite hand for the eye. Keep your hand out of the way of the light, as you get close to 180 degrees you have to start tilting the mirror up and back. WoooHooo!

Thanks for the info -- I found out recently how even damp wood needs alot of help to get burning. Gonna start packing a couple of film cans with valaline/ cotton ball starters.

TRO

PS Also learned that matches are not enough -- Pack a striker too!

How does one *melt* vaseline?

Gene said he takes a double boiler of water on the stove. This liquefies the Vaseline. He then dips the cotton ball in the liquid. The cotton ball is so saturated that it will not light with a ferro rod. He has to put some scrapped fatwood on the cotton ball to get it to light.

I remember reading another method I think I'll try next time. Put some cotton balls in a zip lock bag with a little (2 tsp per 10-12 balls, or something like that), then spend some time squishing them around. Someone check me on this, but the ideal concentration is well short of saturation. In other words, you want some vaseline in / on the balls, but not so much they won't fuzz. The cotton ball catches the spark, the vaseline provides more fuel. If the cotton ball is so soaked with vaseline that you can't fuzz it out, it'll be hard to catch the spark.

I'm sure Gene is a well meaning person with some degree of knowledge. But your post has more orange warning flags waving than a pack of lost bird watchers. Basic survival skills don't require a white haired indian mentor or a year in some snake eater special forces unit. It does require an open mind, a little reading and practise. Hacking up a 100 year old cactus just to sweat and puke more than you gain is idiotic, Suggesting you try it to a student without having done it yourself doubly so. In all my studies of and conversations with Apache people none of them were recorded doing this in 19th century ethnographic studies or today. They carried water, or knew where it ( hopefully) would be found. Again, Mr Ward sounds sincere. I think he needs some more experience outside of a very limited bag of tricks and practises.

I got one of his 'SOS' kits, and threw it, a Ritter Kit, an Adventure Medical 0.5 FAK, and a Mora in a GI Butt pack and leave it in my truck. I don't dare keep anything more elaborate there, but it makes for a pretty neat and compact little set up. All in all, less than $100.00, and in a beat up old GI bag, not too theft prone -- so far. So far nobody seems to want to steal water.

I pilfered the mirror out of the Ward kit for another use, and put in a G2 for light. My truck has been broekn into twice, and I don't keep much in it, but I think that this set up is a pretty good compromise.

His pet gel fire packs do work, so long as you have an open flame to light them with. If you tear the corner off the foil pack, they can burn a long, long time as a sort of hot candle.

Chris,

I did get the impression that Gene may not have spent a lot of time in the Arizona desert. The good news is the class was free, he had some interesting ideas, and he has clear trash bags for sale that can be used for transpiration.

Plus, he taught me how to use a single signal mirror 360 degrees from the sun. I passed the knowledge on to my four sons. We were in the back yard practicing on the wall at sunset.

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Chris,

I just got back from a book store. There was a picture of using a clear trash bag and chopped up plant material to make a "bag only" solar still. It showed the bag having the plant material at the bottom of the bag. The bag was pointed down hill with a space for the water to pool toward the opening of the bag. The bag was shown sealed with a twist tie.

So the only questionable part was using barrel cactus. I was on an outdoor survival class, with PJ from Phoenix Parks, and he had Prickly Pear Cactus for us to chop up. We were making small solar stills with film canisters in the center. I got a little water in mine after about 2 hours. I did not taste it.