What: Bug Out Hike
When: Jun 11, 6-10 pm
Where: NE Ind.
Why: To give the NE Ind Social Group a chance to test their equipment, and to meet some local Ingunners.
I had a ruck planned and decided it would be good to extend the offer to the 30 members of the NE IND SG. Summer is busy and only Culpepper could make it.
My goal was get out and test some gear and practice some skills.
It has been raining like crazy up here, flood warnings thunderstorms. The area we are in covers, river bottoms, fields, hardwood forests, and pine groves.
We started out following the river in 5 foot weeds. Picking our way along a yote trail that was half underwater due to the flooding. Holes, logs, rocks, and the edges of steep banks were not visible due to the high grass. This made it slow going. It was so humid rain gear would have been useless. We were soaked from the get go.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5wpvuSJhRw]YouTube - VID00108.AVI[/ame]
We popped out of that stuff and headed to some overgrown fields leading to a pine grove. There are Mulberry everywhere and about half are ripe. We literally could have picked 10 lbs if we wanted to.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GObmqhRXUsU[/ame]
Spent some time looking for dry tinder in the pines, no go, collected small pine tinder that would dry easily. Kicked up a doe and moved on to some hardwood forest. Found a hollow tree with a lot of punk wood in it. bagged and moved on.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGtAhDxWopk[/ame]
Next we crossed a few streams, and purified some water.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yjo5fq0a1_Y[/ame]
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5F--M_beoE[/ame]
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1OBnfAnM1g[/ame]
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92H0mdSRb14[/ame]
Finally we made our way up a ravine to some older hardwoods to eat some chow, and try a fire. I set up my rip stop nylon tarp as a rain block and found some dry leaves under a log. Some relatively dry hickory bark burned after the fire had some heat. I did use a cotton ball starter. We were running out of daylight and wanted to get rolling. Boiled some water in my high tec tin can for coffee, ate some MRE's and Granola, then packed it up and headed back out at a quick pace.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNg-nc94YmQ[/ame]
still uploading
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVzUcZbUZMg[/ame]
What Worked:
Loose fit synthetic shirt. Even wet it felt dry and was comfortable.
Smartwool socks, 4 hours of water filled boots not even a hot spot.
Peanut lighter and bag balm cotton balls. Made getting a fire going much easier.
My huge 10*10 ripstop nylon tarp with grommets and paracord loops. 5 minute set up, stayed water proof allowed the fire to get going out of the rain.
Steripen and MRE lime-ade makes brown water safe and tasty, quickly.
What didn’t work:
Water proof boots, of course hold water. They sucked, my jungle boots are in the mail.
I grabbed the wrong pants. Heavy cotton Sucked.
My homemade sling sucked. I need either a bungee one or one that is very quickly adjustable and a wider strap.
Glasses kept fogging bad, I just took them off.
Over all it was a good test in very wet conditions. I had planned a 6 mile route but we were delayed by the flooding, high grass, and extra time needed to find dry tinder. I am guessing we covered 4.5 miles.
I will let Culpepper chime in his observations.
When: Jun 11, 6-10 pm
Where: NE Ind.
Why: To give the NE Ind Social Group a chance to test their equipment, and to meet some local Ingunners.
I had a ruck planned and decided it would be good to extend the offer to the 30 members of the NE IND SG. Summer is busy and only Culpepper could make it.
My goal was get out and test some gear and practice some skills.
It has been raining like crazy up here, flood warnings thunderstorms. The area we are in covers, river bottoms, fields, hardwood forests, and pine groves.
We started out following the river in 5 foot weeds. Picking our way along a yote trail that was half underwater due to the flooding. Holes, logs, rocks, and the edges of steep banks were not visible due to the high grass. This made it slow going. It was so humid rain gear would have been useless. We were soaked from the get go.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5wpvuSJhRw]YouTube - VID00108.AVI[/ame]
We popped out of that stuff and headed to some overgrown fields leading to a pine grove. There are Mulberry everywhere and about half are ripe. We literally could have picked 10 lbs if we wanted to.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GObmqhRXUsU[/ame]
Spent some time looking for dry tinder in the pines, no go, collected small pine tinder that would dry easily. Kicked up a doe and moved on to some hardwood forest. Found a hollow tree with a lot of punk wood in it. bagged and moved on.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGtAhDxWopk[/ame]
Next we crossed a few streams, and purified some water.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yjo5fq0a1_Y[/ame]
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5F--M_beoE[/ame]
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1OBnfAnM1g[/ame]
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92H0mdSRb14[/ame]
Finally we made our way up a ravine to some older hardwoods to eat some chow, and try a fire. I set up my rip stop nylon tarp as a rain block and found some dry leaves under a log. Some relatively dry hickory bark burned after the fire had some heat. I did use a cotton ball starter. We were running out of daylight and wanted to get rolling. Boiled some water in my high tec tin can for coffee, ate some MRE's and Granola, then packed it up and headed back out at a quick pace.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNg-nc94YmQ[/ame]
still uploading
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVzUcZbUZMg[/ame]
What Worked:
Loose fit synthetic shirt. Even wet it felt dry and was comfortable.
Smartwool socks, 4 hours of water filled boots not even a hot spot.
Peanut lighter and bag balm cotton balls. Made getting a fire going much easier.
My huge 10*10 ripstop nylon tarp with grommets and paracord loops. 5 minute set up, stayed water proof allowed the fire to get going out of the rain.
Steripen and MRE lime-ade makes brown water safe and tasty, quickly.
What didn’t work:
Water proof boots, of course hold water. They sucked, my jungle boots are in the mail.
I grabbed the wrong pants. Heavy cotton Sucked.
My homemade sling sucked. I need either a bungee one or one that is very quickly adjustable and a wider strap.
Glasses kept fogging bad, I just took them off.
Over all it was a good test in very wet conditions. I had planned a 6 mile route but we were delayed by the flooding, high grass, and extra time needed to find dry tinder. I am guessing we covered 4.5 miles.
I will let Culpepper chime in his observations.
