Second quiz

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jmjkd

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Hypothetical exercises like this are fun and a great learning tool to do at home and everyone is free to complete the task their own way. You don’t even have to post anything if you feel funny about that, if you have a question you can ask? or Not, or send a private message. Regardless it lets you know where your weakness lies.

Here is another fun one I have the guys use on site, but can be used online as well.:

You are in the northern hemisphere at point A ( say somewhere in Baxter State Park) on foot without anything but a cotton t-shirt, pants w/leather belt, socks and boots. It is 9am, the temp is a summer 75 degrees with high cirrus clouds over head with a 3mph North westerly wind..

Your only gear/supplies is a 4 inch fixed blade w/sheath and a can of Dinty Moore beef stew .

Your cache w/food only is in a saddle 25 Mils SE, 4 ½ miles away from point A under the only deciduous tree among the conifers. You have no compass or map.

When you arrive you will need a shelter, a signal fire for rescue, potable water for hydration and a note leaving details of your journey.

How would you do this?
 
I would ask "why do I have a saddle? where is the horse? Why would I wander 4.5 miles away from my saddle, which doesn't have a horse attached? Why would I wander 4.5 miles from my only source of food with no means of navigation?"

Then, I would feel stupid for getting myself in that situation.
 
Fun is fun but folks get lost all the time. Just recently a girl from mass wondered off in Oregon and almost died. She was lucky because she new nothing. If you don’t know how to do this exercise that’s ok everyone is at different places in the learning curve, but there are a lot of people who come here and they might want to learn what to do if this happens to them. so I think we should support that. After all it is a survival forum.
 
boghog 1, This one came out my ass...... but I had a survival coach who would set up these situations or deliverables as he called it and we would have to do them, document them with vids, pics, and journal the info. But that’s how I learned to do the same. I think it’s good stuff, kinda hard at first but pretty cool. I thought the other members could benefit from the exercise but ya got to empty your cup and start….That might be tough to do because it means you don’t know stuff and that’s a bitch for some, I know, I felt the same way after years of camping.
 
ok ok i'll bite.

Since there is only food at the second location and it is an undisclosed amount. and i have no means in which to navigate to it. I'm clearly lost So rule one is stay where you are. there's no fire starting equipment at the second location so I have just a good a chance of starting a signal fire where i am as anywhere else. To start fire i'd take a boot lace and make a bow to spin a stick to hopefully light some dry grass or weeds. For shelter i would build a lean two out of scavenged logs tree branches and moss. for water hopefully there is a water source near by the water can be sterilized in the empty food can held above the fire with the leather belt. if there isn't a water source i would fill the can half way with pine needles then take a chunk of my t shirt and stuff it on top of the can and put it over the fire the water in the needles will steam out of the needles and into the shirt you can then suck the moisture from the shirt. it taste like crap but its better than dying. a note isn't really needed since i didn't leave that spot but for sake of argument i could take some char coals from the fire and write a note on some bark
 
Business, that is pretty good dude, but you have to be mission specific so you have to get to the cache, that’s the navigation part of the exercise You got to find a way to get there with what you have k?
 
Why would I have to get to my cache? I am in Baxter state park and based on your directions my cache is off of baxter state park why would I leave the center of civilization (it is for northern ME) and head into the Bush to get food when I can get a ride and most likely anything else I need from other tourist in the area. my Cache is also located in a saddle 25mils SE? which is it I know you are actually looking for how I would make shelter start a fire purify water etc... but your scenario is bogus at best. Did you get your survival training mail order?
 
it’s an exercise, if you don’t want to play then don’t, that’s fine, if you were here or you were there it don’t matter.The direstions are the directions. If you can follow the exercise great, if you can’t that’s fine to , and believe me it's frustrating to try to figure this stuff out, I know, imagine if you had to do it under pressure for real. It seems to me that people are stuck getting to the cache…right?
But be cool bro this isn’t some mystery quiz if it were mail order it would be easy to build you up so they could sell you more..
 
jmjkd said:
Business, that is pretty good dude, but you have to be mission specific so you have to get to the cache, that’s the navigation part of the exercise You got to find a way to get there with what you have k?
Click to expand...

I know the sun rises in the east so with the sun at me left I do a left oblique of 45 degrees to start walking south east. But if you use K instead of OK ever again I will no longer play this game with you.
 
LOL!!! Agreed.
We got lucky with this sunny day, use it to find your cardinal directions NSEW
 
Is this EOTWAWKI, or just SHTF? I just want to know if I have time to pull out my fishing kit and wet a line.
 
jmjkd said:
LOL!!! Agreed.
We got lucky with this sunny day, use it to find your cardinal directions NSEW
Click to expand...

So you are going to hit a cache 4 and a half miles away using only the sun to navigate? How big is the cache? There are a number of saddles around Baxter. Which one is the right one? Could you do it? You must be a land nav superstar. The right answer to this is stay where you are, and await help. Maybe get a fire going and build a shelter if you are bored. This time of year you wont have long to wait for rescue with the number of people up there. To travel is just foolish. You should fail this scenario if you travel.
 
Evlrh.jpg
 
I read a bunch of ways on how not to do the exercise, and only one stepped up even to try….Ouch!!! Not good.

btw, Baxter was just an example, an example.
Anyway, one way to get to the destination only with what was available is with a sun compass, 3- points of reference and a converted hand compass for travel.. I did a vid on this stuff but I like Ron Hood’s version better. So here he is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUmdkOjpYzw&feature=related

Once you get the cardinal direction split the E-W quarter in half, giving you at the point 140 degrees, converted is, 25Mills. Keep in mind that magnetic north is about 16 degrees or 3 mills east of true north in the Northern hemisphere. The Ottomani small compass that Ron Hood showed, I make using a natural line on my hand and a twig, that way I don’t have to carry that little thing with me. Now line up the 25Mills on the hand compass then get two visual references lined up one after another 25, 50 even 100 yrds apart ( like sights), once under way when you reach the third reference start again. This will keep you from lateral drift and help keep you on course..

Also the high cirrus clouds usually have a trailing tail pointing in the direction the clouds came from. In this case the tail will be facing SE the direction you need to go. It’s not exact but it is an additional reference with the hand compass and sights.

Now all you need to do is figure out how measure distance…41/2 miles.


.
 
You have no idea WTF you are talking about Magnetic and true north vary by location and Mils is a division of a circle in 6400 increments unless you are Boris in which case he would use 6000 at least that is how the .mil uses Mils normally reserved for Artillery, a Mil over 1k is right around 1 meter to give you an idea of how small a Mil is. That would make your variance in Mils from true north to magnetic north roughly 284 mils if your 16° was accurate. Lets get on to your assertion of 16° east

The angular difference between true north and magnetic north is known as "declination." Declination is different for different parts of the globe. In Washington State, the angle of declination is approx 20° east. This means that magnetic north is 20° east of true north. In Tennessee the angle of declination is close to 0°, and in Maine, it's approx 20° west.
 
Boghog relax dude it’s just a fun exercise….;-)

btw In your first post you wanted to do NOTHING !!!, stay put and look for tourist’s to help you, now you know all the answers. To funny LOL.

The little exercises are to encourage folks to learn and research navigation, primitive and modern., 25millls IS 2500 that ‘s understood dude, and part of the exercise for the guys is to learn how to relate degrees to Mills and be able to move from location to location without modern aids, not to show how Fnnn smart I am. There’s no threat out here to you bro you don’t need to put me down to build yourself up. If you are truly that smart you should be helping the members not mocking their efforts.

The next thing up is measuring distance, do you have anything to offer? or are you gonna wait again and see if maybe someone writes something you can correct.

let’s move on.
 
Yes, I have something to offer but your scenarios need to be thought out better 25 Mils is not the same as 2500, South East even using your assumptions is would be 2400mils by going 25Mils over the course of 4.5 miles I would be almost a half mile off my mark. Now if we look to where you said 140 Degrees we still would only be at 2488Mils trying to navigate cross country to a specific location over a rather large difference is going to be near impossible. Could it be done? sure but this isn't the SERE forum, this is survival, if you are lost in Baxter State park 4.5 miles from your campsite you stay put, anything else and you increase your chances of never being found again. try your quizzes here and see how they go over
http://forums.equipped.org/ubbthreads.php
 
jmjkd said:
Boghog relax dude it’s just a fun exercise….;-)

btw In your first post you wanted to do NOTHING !!!, stay put and look for tourist’s to help you, now you know all the answers. To funny LOL.

The little exercises are to encourage folks to learn and research navigation, primitive and modern., 25millls IS 2500 that ‘s understood dude, and part of the exercise for the guys is to learn how to relate degrees to Mills and be able to move from location to location without modern aids, not to show how Fnnn smart I am. There’s no threat out here to you bro you don’t need to put me down to build yourself up. If you are truly that smart you should be helping the members not mocking their efforts.

The next thing up is measuring distance, do you have anything to offer? or are you gonna wait again and see if maybe someone writes something you can correct. let’s move on.
Click to expand...

Just out of curiosity, what is your background as a survivalist and outdoorsman?
 
There is a chance of a good result from a "thought experiment," but speaking from a [literal] armchair, the secnario was not presented in a way that predicates "having" to go to the cache.

The first "real" response is, IMO, completely valid, as there's little to be gained from the hike (aside from food, but there's an obesity crisis, and I'm personally good for a good while on stored up donuts), so there's no real benefit from risking the hile and getting more lost.

Just because the answer given is not the one you thought you'd get, does not mean it's not right. If it's a survival scenario, then the only answer is the motto of Camp Suk-I-Tup (tm), "Alive at the end."

If you want the players to jump through hoops, you have to explain why. There's a lot of people that want to be the one to beat the Kobiashi Maru test.
 
I am inclined to agree with Mr. Happy's assessment. There should be an element of reality here, and if you are in Baxter State Park and find yourself lost, then the best thing to do is stay put. If you find yourself lost in the vast tundra of Alaska, it might be a different story.
 
Some guys are stuck on Baxter State Park BSP and because it is such a popular area with tourists, rangers and such the best thing to do is stay put and wait for help. I agree 100% and I am truly sorry I used BSP as “a for instance”. I should have said you are in a remote place with no one around for miles and explained a reason how, why and when you got there then set the scene. That set up could have gone on 3 pages or more depending how detailed I wanted to get.

The thing is there would still be many reasons why someone might not be in that position, “why would I be in a place like that?, says the sales guy who never leaves the city. I would never go anywhere without my BOB, says the person who frequencies the survival forum daily. I never go into the woods alone, says the wife. what if I had a broken leg and couldn’t walk? what if I am to fat to walk that far?” and so fourth.
At the end of the day no matter where you are BSP or some remote place in Alaska, if you don’t know haw to get out using nature and your skills, you don’t know, no matter how you spin it.

Folks like to have everything presented in a nice organized package, they want clear instructions and all the parts labeled correctly and if not, there will be hell to pay.

Anyone out here can set the survival stage even boghog and I know myself and many others could start pointing to” the what if’s and how comes and everything else” like little Lawyers finding all the grey area’s for objections.

The reason why I love the outdoors is because you don’t get that, opinions mean nothing to Mother Nature.. Cold, Dark, Wet. Nothing else really matters at that point.

BTW, What are you saying that the kids in the Special Olympics are un-able to right rules, shouldn’t? or don’t have the ability to do things like you and I ????
You may have just opened up a whole new can of worms.
 
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