Thinking more upon it I am wondering what possible occurrence's could lead to one losing every piece of gear but their PSK and knife while On foot?
Wandering off from camp for what ever reason is just way tooo....Simple? When dealing with people who put their mind to making a PSK and picking a Knife and Considering preparations for survival why would one such individual Not take some form of gear with them? If you Worry about survival enough to make a PSK wouldnt your first understandment is wandering off from camp without proper gear can result in what your preparing for and attempting to avoid?
The only other situations I can Think about is Encountering a Wild animal and using pack to distract it, falling into water, Falling down large hill.
Any Ideas on this?
Heres a real senario that happened to someone I know.
He was on a fishing trip with about 12 people. During that trip they were based out of a campsite accesible only by the boats down the lake from the launch. The other persons reffered to the campsite as being on an "island". However (unknown to him) the "island" was really a penninsula with connection to the main land. In the late evening he decided to explore the "island" and left camp, wanting to tour the shoreline of the island before dark.
He walked along the shore for longer than he though normal, never reaching his start point and darkness was now falling. He decided to cut back across the island away from the shore. At this time he had actually crossed onto the mainland, so when he thought he was cutting overland across the island he was actually headed away from the shoreline in the oppoosite direction and deeper inland. After about a half hour of walking he knew something was wrong and started to call for help. His calls went unanswered. At this point he was totally lost, and confused. He still believed he was on an island and even though he had estimated the size of the area to be fairly small he couldint figure out why he was totally lost. He realized he was just getting more lost.
Meanwhile it was now completely dark and everyone at camp realized he wasin't back and went into the woods to look for him. After a few minutes they called off the search, realizing that a search at night was a bad idea.
Meanwhile my friend had a pocket knife and a lighter and the clothes on his back. He may have had a few other items but definetly not a PSK. The clothes he was wearing were probably jeans and a hooded cotton sweatshirt (judging from what he usually wears). He made a fire to stay warm and he told me it was hard to keep going and he grew frightened being alone in the woods without a strong fire and no shelter.
In the morning he managed to find his way back to shore several KMs down the lake from the campsite and was spotted by members of the party on their boat. The whole incident lasted less than 16 hours and ended well, but goes to show how it is possible to get lost and seperated from your gear even when you had the best intentions. In this case my friend believed he was on an island of no more than a few hundered meters across and therefore had no reason to anticipate getting lost.
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