#482: Steven Rinella — A Short Introduction to True Wilderness Skills and Survival

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No Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris show. I'm gonna keep my usual preamble short. I wanna get to the meat and potatoes of this conversation with Steven Ranella Instagram at Meeater at StevenRella. Ranella. He is the host of the Netflix original series. Meat Eater and the Meat Eater Podcast. He's also the author of seven books dealing with wildlife conservation, hunting, fishing, and wild foods, including the Meat Eater Guide to Wilderness Skills and Survival.

Which is his newest and you can find it now. On the web, you can find all things Steven Renella at the meet eater.com. And then on Facebook, he is Steven Renella. That's with a V, Steven Renella R- I N E L L A. Meat eater. Steve, welcome back to the show. Thank you for having me on. I appreciate it, man. I have so many questions for you, in part because you are

Not just an expert. In survival, wilderness skills, but you actually practice and showcase this on a regular basis. So you're not Describing

in your books or On television, some type of Fetishized, romanticized version. Of survival, which I think is highly, highly uh

Common. Survival fantasy versus survival reality. I'll leave it broad. On purpose. But where where should we start in terms of

Discussing. The common misconceptions of survival or portrayals of survival versus the realities. Yeah, I think you can set it up as a sort of a dichotomy or like uh two mindsets. One is the impulse to run away from the woods.

That it's this bad place that you found yourself stuck in. And you need to get out as quickly as possible before something terrible happens to you. The other is and it's it's sort of my mindset and it kind of captures the ethos. Of

Our new book. Is that It's a place worth running toward. The outdoors, nature, wilderness. Is a place we want to be.

It's fun to be there. and a few skill set and knowledge base. Helps you do it. fairly risk free or at least having a good sense of what the actual risks are. Do it safely.

risk free, enjoy it for you, enjoy it for your family. So you might imagine like a lot of survival materials is kinda like you said, it's it's like this fantasy thing. There's this fixation on Drinking your piss. Which is really s really like it's nonsense. It doesn't do you any good to drink your own urine. And uh you know, these like cockamy ways in which you would

Kill large animals that would never in a million years work unless you trained and studied those approaches every day for your entire life. Which you'd be prevented from doing because of the regulatory structures that govern such practices. It's just Hogwash. And then there's People who

Through passion. Do professional discipline. Through Wanderlust. Wanna be out. In the woods. They wanna be up in the mountains.

They wanna be smart. They wanna be able to stay a long time. And that's the information I try to provide and that's the people I want to speak to. Let's just jump into Some of the

recommendations that you might have. And we can weave to this in a more But As we were discussing possible points to touch upon. in our conversation beforehand and record, you mentioned a number of things. You mentioned

technology and how you can buy your way out of trouble relatively easily in certain respects. You referred to something known as paradoxical undressing, which aside from being the name of my forthcoming memoir, is unbeknownst to me. We talked about odds In other words, perceived threats versus real threats and much more. Let's begin just because I think of I that one I think of the threats that are fun to think about. Right. That are exciting to think about and the ones that are just real that no one likes to think about. The first blood threats like carry a serrated machete into the wilderness versus other Let's begin with paradoxical undressing. What is paradoxical undressing? Just to scratch my own itch because it's stuck in my head.

Yeah, I first wrote about And got to thinking about Hypothermia. I've come up close to feeling like oh wow, I'm like in the initial stages of the hypothermia. I I've had that happen to me a few times. One time in a very pronounced way. It was being in uh

In a river. In Alaska in October. with a dry suit on. that had a r ruptured seam and like my dry suit was full of water. And

Some of the things that happened in those in the it was kinda this Over the course of forty five minutes to an hour. Intense thirst. Like just this intense desire to quench my thirst. And

Being disoriented. Realizing that I was very cold, realizing that I didn't have the ambition To remedy that situation. trying to talk myself into doing the things that would be required to get warm again.

And then oddly The sensation that the cold had passed, though there was no plausible explanation for why I would all of a sudden Not be cold anymore. Mm.

And in researching this I hypothermia and in in addition to some interesting things, like the number one state for hypothermia deaths is Alaska. Number three is New Mexico. Which caught me by surprise.

Number two, I think, bounces between Wyoming and Montana. But then jumps down south to New Mexico, which may people have in their head as being like a plenty warm place. Yeah, that's surprising. So your body when In terms of the paradoxical undressing. As you're getting cold Your body starts to

Restrict blood flow to your extremities. The blood vessels constrict. That's why you might notice it. You know, as you're getting cold, your fingers are turned white. Right.

Your toes get cold, your fingers will turn white. Your body doesn't want to be pushing all that blood. out to places where it's getting cooled. I want to add in a thing here to talk about like A lot of animals.

Use The movement of blood into thin parts of the body as a way to shed heat. So If you look at a African elephant. An African elephant has these giant ears, right?

Compare that to a wo a woolly mammoth. An ice age animal, the worthy mammoth. Very small ears. Willie Mammoth lived in these very cold climates. They didn't want to have that blood out in their ears because it The heat gets sapped out of it.

An African elephant, very hot place, puts a lot of blood into its ears to try to cool that blood off. It's like you know, running it into a radiator, so to speak. So your body thinking the same way. In as much as we can call it your body thinking. Your body doesn't want to send blood out to the extremities where it's getting cold.

It tries to keep things in your core and keep, you know, your your internal organs warm. That requires a lot of energy. So there's this thing that happens to hypothermia victims. Or they'll find someone who's died of exposure, died of hypothermia, their clothes will be laying all around them.

Because it requires all that energy to constrict the blood vessels. Eventually they tire. You run out of the energy. To restrain it. And all of a sudden your body allows all that blood back out into those places.

Because it's difficult to keep it in as your energy fades. So that hot blood goes out to these cold fingers and and goes out toward your skin. And gives you the sensation of burning up. Some people paradoxically undress to the point where they start discarding jewellery. You'll find victims of hypothermia with a shoe and a sock off, a wedding ring off.

Clothes scattered about. But then lying there dead. The paradoxical undressing, so it starts to make sense is like you're dying of being cold. But you're discarding your clothing. It's kinda hair like

Like Spooky. It's just Such a A nerving thought. I think too, when I think of people die of exposure.

It wasn't too long ago, not far from where I am right now. Where An ice fisherman. Fell through the ice. And

Just speaking of spooky scenes. An ice fisherman falls through the ice and there's no snow on the ice. And imagine how slick wet ice is. Like imagine trying to pick an ice cube up out of a drink, right? when ice is wet, what it's like to hold on to. You try to squeeze it, it just pops out of your hand. There's no snow on the ice and he goes through the ice. And because he's punched to the ice and he's splashing around, water is getting up on the ice.

So there's nothing to grab onto. You had mentioned like you can buy your way out of a lot of bad situations through preparation, but you know, they make a device for this, these little ice picks you just wear around your neck. He doesn't have a set of these. Someone finds them a couple days later. Frozen to death.

Up to his armpits in a hole in the ice. With one of his boots laid up on the ice. Just Perched there. Dying of cold, man, is a real

thing. Dying of exposure is a real thing. And just the mental images that come up from it. Are Kind of more ghastly. Then Some of the more fantastical ways that we

Imagine ourselves Getting injured in the woods. Being like fixated on Grizzly bears and mountain lions and such. Let's talk about exposure for a second. I remember I was told

Many years ago. This I'm sure is just a convenient mnemonic device, but someone said to me you can go three weeks without food, three days without water, three hours without some type of protection in really extreme conditions, environmentally speaking, right? Something like that. Yeah, that threes thing I've heard it described in various ways. Three weeks food.

Three days water and then it'll be three whatever. Without air, say But yeah, no, I I I I I'm familiar with the thing and I and I've and I've heard it used a handful of ways. What are some of the ways That you can By your way.

into some margin of safety. Maybe you don't eliminate risk entirely, but what are some of the easy purchases that would go into a basic kit of some type. Doesn't have to be even basic, but just some of the specific purchases that are easy ways. to remove a lot or mitigate a lot of risk. Like you mentioned the ice picks that hang around the neck. Yeah. For someone who's doing a lot on ice, right? Yeah. So th th those ice picks are common for not common. They should be way more common among ice fishermen, but ice fishermen are the ones who use them and they're made

They're generally manufactured by companies that make fishing equipment, if that speaks to who it is. But it's like these little Imagine a ice pick inside a retractable sleeve. So that there's nothing sharp sticking out, but the minute you jab it down you know, the sleeve retracts on a spring and the ice pit goes into the ground. Or into the ice. And it's just a thing It's like an epi pen for getting out of the ice. Exactly.

And You can be on the slickest ice in the world. Ice you could never stand up on. You could take the slickest ice in the world. What Water on it. Lay down, take that pick, and just drag yourself all over the place with that pick.

When I was mentioning to you just in in private conversation earlier I was mentioning you buying your way out. I'm reminded of a thing that I don't know if you're familiar with John McPhee, who wrote That Pulitzer Prize winning trilogy. Coming into the country. No, no, his geology. His geology. So he wrote the Pulitzer Prize trilogy that was it came out as like Basin and Range, whatever it's Annals of the Former World. So it's

Three massive books all combined together into Annals of the Former World. And I remember that within Annals of the Former World. John McPhee says If I was gonna sum this book up. In one sentence. It would be that

I'm trying to capture what he says without This is not an exact quote. He says if I was gonna sum this book up in one sentence. It would be that the peak of Mount Everest. Is marine limestone. If I was gonna sum up

The Wilderness skills and survival book that We just finished. I would say on X in Reach. And I'll tell you.

What these two things are. Onyx is a Mapping service. There are many. I like on X and and just for full clarity, I also, you know, work closely with the folks at Onex. So bear that in mind, but Let me continue.

Th there's a reason I do that. It's a mapping device that you use on your phone. And there are other ones. There's like Gaia and a handful of other ones. Um you can I'm not sure if Google Earth has download function. quite like on X does, but It's a mapping service that you can

Download maps on your phone. You can download Aerial imagery. Topographical maps. And hybrid maps. So it's aerial imagery with topographical line overlays. Then you can download maps areas you're going to.

That are highly detailed that are, you know, five miles wide. Than ten miles wide. And then lower detail, lower resolution maps that are a hundred miles wide. What it does is Your phone has a built in GPS function.

That does not require A cell signal. So if you're using an iPhone and you're going into you're going to some area for whatever reason, you're going there for work, you're going there for pleasure, you're going backcountry skiing. You're going on a a hike with your family. in Yellowstone National Park.

Your Whatever. Whatever you're doing. You're on a rafting trip. You're doing a afternoon hike and do a little area you've never been into before.

You can go online and download a map. And then even when you have no cell signal. All you need to do Is Turn on your phone, put it on airplane mode.

You now have two or three days Worth of battery. Because you're on airplane mode. And there's a blue dot that shows you where you are. When you aim your phone in any direction and hit a button, it shows you what direction your phone is pointing relative to your map.

So at any time you should be able if you take the early pre-game preparation The idea of getting lost is almost becoming An obsolete notion. Or you have to almost self select to be lost. by not taking preparations. Of course, things can happen to phones. People lose phones. They drop in water. I've all this kind of stuff has happened.

But they they destroy them in a puddle of mosquito repellent. But that's why I was saying On next in reach. Because there's also a device that's I don't know.

A third the size of a phone? Called an in reach device. Some people c spot devices or in reach devices. And what it is is it allows you to Send. Text messages.

Through satellite. So you can take an in reach device. And no matter where you are. You know, on the face of the earth. If you have a line of sight to the sky.

You can save addresses in your in reach. You can take your in reach and set it so that it's sending pre program messages every day saying You can type your message ahead of time, hit a button, it sends a message says, I'm okay. You can also hold down a button that says SOS. And it's satellite driven.

And the batteries last for days. So in talking about like buying your way out. There are just steps now that you can take to if you're the kind of person who takes preparation seriously, there are steps you can take that really reduce a lot of the risk. There are still things that can happen to you, right? You'd still

I m joked about it earlier, but yeah, man, you could get Mauled by a bear. The bear doesn't give a shit. About the fashion. You have any of these technological devices. But

If you're still able to crawl around It's pretty nice. To be able to hold a button down. And Get help.

And so these are all things That I spent a great deal of time on. In the book. Because it's not trying to treat survival like you've survived a plane crash and you have a large bowie knife. You know.

And you're stuck on an island. It doesn't start with that mentality. It starts with the mentality. It starts with the reality. That The vast majority of trouble that people get in outdoors is Somewhat willful.

We do things, we go places. We take drives during inclement weather. We decide to go on a route through the hills when we're driving. That we've never been on. And we don't know the road conditions and your car gets stuck.

And then you wait there two days and no one comes and you're like Screw this, I'm walking out of here. But you don't quite know what to do or your car is not loaded properly. That's how people get in trouble. It isn't shipwrecks.

in plane crashes, though those things do happen. But pondering those and fantasizing about those throws off people's ability to actually like Think and behave properly. And

These little technological preparations are just things you can do that just make you breathe easy and allow you to go into wild places and do what it was that you intended to do. Just to be like successful. And be impactful. and pursue whatever goals you have, whether it's finding a mushroom or bagging a peak. Without

feeling as though you've entered a survival situation. I just wanna comment on a few things that you've said. So number one, totally Sort of unbeknownst. To me.

Or I should say rather I had no pre existing awareness that you Used on X Hunt. I

also ended up using on X and have for the last five months. And I should just mention to people that if you search for it on the app store, I think it will show up as on X Hunt, but the the hunting certainly is one application, but it's not a requirement. My realtor uses it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So this is this is this is actually this is related to my point. So I was exploring the wilderness in New England. And During Covid lockdown.

And I wanted to know a number of things. I wanted to be able to track my own movement so that I could retrace my steps, which Onex allows you to do. I wanted the offline maps, which you mentioned. I also wanted the ability to know where property boundaries were so that I wouldn't end up Wandering. right up to somebody's house or into someone's property that would get me into trouble. Uh, so I was able to overlay the property information, which is just Fascinating. I've never quite experienced anything like it. So Onex

I'll second that and then the in reach. I'm not sure if more brands make it, but I used a Garmin In Reach when I was in South America at one point and the pre-programming with the texts is I think a a key step pre-departure because they are they can be a little unwieldy for actually typing out messages. So if you are in an SOS situation, you want to have your contacts And messages.

pre programmed. Let me give you some hot let me give you some hot tips about that when you're done here. Yeah. Fire away. I'm done. Oh. There is a

iPhone app. Called Wanna give you the right name, so I'm looking for it. I'm I'm actually looking for it on my phone right now. There's an iPhone app called Garmin Earthmate.

Mm. And Garmin Earthmate pairs with your in reach device. Over Bluetooth. Oh God. You're about to see this is the solution that I didn't know I needed to. Just have at it, man. There's an important thing to remember though.

Then you just have at it. Then you're just you're just flying. It i then you just wine then you can send out novellas. Dude, yeah, and I think you're you know, there's a there's a limit. It's more than a Twitter message, but Then you gotta go to number two. But the other thing to keep in mind When you're using it, you're using satellite. You can text Someone who has

Cell service. Someone with cell service can text you at your in reach number. But if you're in a remote area using your in reach address Trying to contact, say, your buddy who's two miles away at camp. You need to know their in reach address.

So we can communicate Like let's say I go to text my wife and I know that she's at home and has cell service. I can text her directly to her number. That she can then reply, but she's replying to my in reach number, which is independent from my normal phone number. lot of people mess this up'cause you could go like let's say you go down to South America, no one's got cell service. If you don't communicate with your travel mates

Like, hey man, what is your crazy ass sounding in reach address? You can't send each other messages. So you have to build an address book. Ahead of time. Or else you are in a situation of Texting someone back in the US who has cell service.

And they're like texting around. We were doing this the other day. I was trying to I could see a person. And I'm trying to send him an in reach message. But instead I'm in reaching his wife. Does she if she can and she's like, Well was everybody okay? I'm like, Yeah, I'm looking at your husband. He's fine. I just g want to send him a message.

Ha ha So You gotta do a little bit of you know. Take five minutes and make sure that everybody's communicating everybody's In reach address.

In the process of separating more fact from fiction, or or really just pointing out Essentials versus non essentials. As you mentioned, little things can be really costly, right? And a lot of the mistakes that end up in disaster are not of the outdoor thriller action movie variety. They would make the most boring television show in the world, right? It's like oh shit, I forgot the batteries in my headlamp. And then I die. Or something stupid.

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What are some of the essentials? that you routinely use that listeners may not find obvious or may not grok the subtleties of, right? You mentioned like the bowie knife. I think a lot of Unseasoned outdoors.

Men or women. are inclined to get these big honkin you know, jump off a ravine and kill a grizzly. Uh in an action movie. Knives as one example. Pieces of gear.

that you would have in your kit. Yeah. I I'd like to talk for a minute just about Like the kit. You know, which is something spent a lot of time on the book explaining how to assemble and how to make it. Adaptable and versatile.

To get a sense A somewhat widely available product. There's a there's a thing called a OR. backcountry organizer. various companies make different ones that are various heavy duty fabrics, but I've long been a fan of a thing called the OR Backcountry Organizer and it's uh

It'd be like a slightly flattened Pretty big coffee mug. Size. Okay. It's this little bag. It's got a bunch of zippered pouches in it. And

Me, the folks I hang out with. We all have like a kit. That we we call it a kit. Like it's like your Essentials. And a lot of us assemble ours in one of these.

In one of these little bags. I put that thing. I take it virtually Everywhere I go.

I don't mean to my office. But if my fan we go to for instance, we go to Baja every year for winter vacation to go spear fishing. And just messing around. Spending family time together. I always pack it.

Because in it I have like all the things that I know I might need. Regardless of the situation. If I had a kit and I go on a day hike. If I'm just going You know, for an hour hike up a hill

With the dog and the kids. I bring my kit. Now, when I say my kit, I would say a survival kit. I would say a s first aid kit, but it's All of those things. And more.

In it. I keep Several single sized Ibuprofen. Tablets.

Acetaminophin tablets. Benadryl. Okay, various medications. I bring I have like one or two things a day quil and nyQR in there. antihistamine things, like single serving packs, very, very small.

In there I also keep Two Twive foot length. dynema cords that are very thin. Or like three or four mil Cords.

That I keep in the case. Yeah, it's like a souped up it's a it's a souped up, strong, lightweight paracord. There's nothing wrong with paracord, like Paracord like six sixty cord, like six hundred pound cord. Stuff's great, man. I use it all the time, but for my things I like to keep it very small. As small as possible.

I use that stuff. I keep a small thing of dental floss. And tape to it. Is a heavy duty needle. That can be used to sew up clothing and stuff.

I keep that in there all times. I have a small sharpener. There's a small knife in there. There's a small backup headlamp in there that's about the size of the end of your thumb. that burns on a coin battery and has a retractable

Little head strap. I also put my primary flashlight. in there. as well. I have

A basic first aid kit assembled inside a plastic envelope. That includes a a variety of bandages. Alcohol swabs, antibiotic ointment. A very small tourniquet. Other items like that.

I keep a chew tin. A tobacco tin. Full of cotton balls. That have been rubbed in Like thoroughly rubbed in with petroleum jelly.

Or Vaseline. Which are phenomenal fire starters. The reason I use Vaseline rubbed into cotton balls stuffed inside a chew tin is is because one, Vaseline is also helpful for chap lips. Chafe skin.

Can be helpful for alleviating pain from blisters. The primary reason Is that the T S A agents At the airport I travel a lot.

They will pull. Fire starting. Devices. Like incendiary devices or fire or uh not incendiary. What what's the word I'm looking for, Tim? Like um accelerants. Fire accelerants. Excelerance. Yeah. They will pull accelerants from your bag and find you.

There's no problem with having some Vaseline in your bag. Now a a a cotton a cotton ball rubbed with Vaseline burns It's a Great fire starter. Uh it can get wet. It doesn't mess it up. And T S A guys never steal it. So it's just always in your bag.

I keep a small multi tool. I have a multi tool. that allows for a certain bit adapter. So I'm able to keep some basic screwdriver bits. that fit various things that I own and use in there. I hunt a lot, so I have Archery stuff, firearm stuff.

Little screws and bits I like to have on hand. I keep those in my organizer. And it's filled out. Like that. Two small lighters. Tape, med tape.

When I say th that it's adaptable, is let's say I'm spending some time up in south east Alaska. There are places in south east Alaska that get Thirteen feet. of precipitation annually.

Okay. Where I'm stay where I am right now it gets twenty inches of precipitation, Annual. Let me just put this in perspective for a second for six and Yeah, let me just put this in perspective for folks. So Yesterday I was looking at

Historic ski reports and precipitation for Taos, New Mexico. This is a place famous for skiing. And I was looking at sort of end of November to mid December, and it was an average of Something like point eight to one and a half ski days per week. That's not a lot of snow. And this is a place that ultimately is well known for skiing. So then you imagine the amount of precipitation you're describing. That is a ton of. Precipitation. Yeah.

Oftentimes Here's a here's a survival. Like a a survival trope is that You know that you're gonna Being in an environment like this and fashion a a fire drill, like a little fire bow.

And start a fire or You're gonna take like a Flint and Steel and start a fire, or you're gonna take a hatchet and a rock. And start a fire. There are people on the planet.

Including like the native Alaskans who Lived in that place. And you know, grew up there feeling as though they had excellent equipment. And they used equipment that their grandfathers had used.

And their fathers and mothers before them and And it was just like a part of life and they knew how to use it. All right. There are people on the planet who can do that. But I'm gonna say that when I'm talking to you, I'm talking to the collective you out there. You are not going to go.

To a place that gets thirteen feet of rain a year. And start a fire. Just the the ninety nine point nine percent of you. are not going to go there. And start a fire.

using anything other than matches or a lighter. You're just not. It is so Heart. It's so hard. So hard. So hard. Yeah. So when I'm going to a place like this, I will have I have a drawer.

In my garage full of Kits that go within my kit. Okay. And I have my super Hard to start a fireplace.

Bag That goes into my kit. I have a you know, other little envelopes. That I will stick in there. I have a little envelope that has Some survival snares.

And some very basic fishing equipment. If I was going to an area like an extremely remote area in Alaska, I might for peace of mind. Grab that little like enhanced food acquisition envelope. Just to give me peace of mind that in the event of there being a grounding of aircraft or something else. That prevented a timely pickup, a timely prearranged pickup.

that I would have extra stuff. And in those situations my kit might blossom. Now you might think, like, what are the odds of that? Well After September eleventh. So on September eleventh. There were people in backcountry Canada and backcountry Alaska who had arranged to be picked up at airstrips, people out hunting Could be that they're out prospecting, gold mining, whatever the hell they're doing. We're waiting at airstrips to be picked up.

And the one thing, no matter where you are in Alaska, man. Most days, sometimes all day, you hear aircraft. Aircraft is their car. In in Bush, Alaska. You wake up one day, you don't have news. You don't know what's going on.

But you know that The skies are quiet. Nothing flies. You're supposed to be getting picked up. No one shows up.

It's as though the world ended and you don't know what happened. There was another occurrence in Alaska. I believe this occurred in the eighties where there was a big volcanic eruption that put a lot of ash in the air. And they resumed flying shortly after. But a jet's coming in.

And This ash. gets picked up in the engines and turns to a sort of glassy like substance and blinks out all four engines. Eventually the stuff like shatters out somehow and they're able to get a couple engines relit. And they land, but they grounded aircraft for a long time.

I had a friend. He was out at a remote wilderness camp. Taking care of some horses. And he got stuck for weeks. No supplies, nothing flying, had no idea what was going on.

He ran out of food and had a salt lick for a horse, like a salt block. He would eat porcupines. And go out with a pocket knife and scrape salt off a salt block in order to get some salt to put on the porcupine meat. That sounds terrible. And it's like a thing. Then you're you enter the fantastic, but think about the people I'm talking about.

These people aren't people that fell out of an airplane. There are people that went willfully into a situation. Where if you do a good risk assessment And you think about what are the problems that would actually happen. To go into a very remote area of Alaska or Canada, wherever you Frank Church in Idaho, I don't know, like a a remote area.

And you're flying in. Anyone that does any amount of homework can realize now and then you simply don't get picked up. Because of weather. Because of a Terror attack?

On the east. Coast of The United States? Because of a volcano. On the Alaska Peninsula or the Aleutians?

So That's the thing that we're thinking about often. Is okay. In our risk assessment, what's the real problem that might occur? I would say high on my list of shit that might occur would be that we're gonna sit here for three or four days. Yeah.

And Are we prepared for that? 'Cause that could be a little miserable. And I I wanna also

emphasize for folks who are listening that I consider you Uh, no one bats a thousand, but I considered you An expert in risk mitigation with

simple and elegant Insurance. Countermeasures, if that makes any sense. It's a very wordy way to put it. I understand what you're talking about. Yeah, because there are a lot of let's just say We're in the perfect era right now with COVID sort of Mad Max scenario planning. where people are thinking where it's gonna be on the road by Core McCarthy and

People are gonna be trying to eat my kids and I'm gonna stockpile silver coins and like shave off gold bar bars to get tampons with the guy in the back of the seven eleven and It comes down to probabilities. sort of historical likelihood. And the cost of

the intervention, right? So I've never had a significant fire of any type in my kitchen. Nonetheless I have A let's call it twenty or thirty dollar. Fire extinguisher that sits there gathering dust because it's cheap. It's easy to use and if you need it, you wanna have it. Yeah. On the other hand

You might have, let's just say, using a bow drill to start a fire, which I've practiced doing and I have Got to the point where I could do it. very infrequently successfully and that took a lot of work. But to rely on that

To get to the point where I would feel comfortable relying on that, that becomes my new sport. Like it's like learning that that's kinda what I'm saying is like people that can start a fire with a bow drill. are people that start fires with bow drills. Because they they do it recreationally. Yeah.

They practice they live with it and practice it. Backcountry organizer. And That I would just again to perhaps restate the obvious, is taking something that is half the size of The

Say water. Container you might be. Take with you are. It's smaller than an algene bottle. Right. So it this is we're not talking about a lot of inconvenience here. Is the OR backcountr just the container or does it come pre-loaded with a lot of these items? No, man. It's just the container. I have and there are there are other ones. There are other companies that make similar products and the difference tends to be weight and and durability. You know, they're susceptible to tear, the seams give out, but it it's it's lightweight. There are other companies that make

You know, F F H F makes certain organizers that are pretty heavy duty, that are great. That one is just a a very lightweight one. What is your preferred Multi tool. Do you remember what you carry? Yeah. I c I I use a leather man.

I like the wave a lot. It's heavy. I got friends that really don't like'em. I'll I'll tell you what I like on them. Like a regular blade. And we we know we've been joking about

Big ass. You know, Rambo knives and Bowie knives and stuff. I've done a lot. Of everything that you would need to do with a knife. And there are cases where it would be great if you had some giant machete type knife.

But generally. For the kinds of things we're talking about. Like keeping yourself out of trouble, handling basic repairs. The the knife on a multi tool is a good backup to also having, you know, I carry like a a very high quality Very lightweight.

Pocket knife called a bug out. But I have a Molecule with me. Yeah. It's very lightweight. Very sharp. You can get it in a variety of ways. You don't even know it's there. It it's a good knife. So

The leather man, I like one that has a saw on it. Like wood saw, bone saw? I like one that has a serrated blade for doing work that would very quickly dole your normal blade. I like it to have A normal blade, you know, two or three inch blade on it.

And I really like it to have a pair of needle nose pliers. I use those things all the time. In the book we provide lists of all this kind of equipment, but in my kit I carry this little A little sliver remover. It's like nothing. It's it you know it's

earlier mentioned something being the size of your the end of your thumb, this is like a couple of thumbnails. It's like a slivery mover pair of tweezers. Which is invaluable, especially in areas of the South and South West. For just the annoyance of getting junk stuck in your skin, which can drive you crazy.

But I also use the needle nose players for all kinds of stuff. We've used needle nose pliers for Everything from like pulling porcupine quills out of dogs, fixing ingrown toenails, repairing clothes, fixing firearms. So like I can do anything with a pair of needle nose, man. Um I like that to be on there. And then a number two Phillips bit.

A flathead screwdriver. Of of a of a fairly universal size. If I I actually wound up in some situation. Where I was stuck out in the woods for a week. And tell us.

I'm gonna return to my point, but I just wanna make something clear. For a living. For a long time. I travel. Two.

The remotest places out there. I did it as a writer. I've done it for a decade. Doing television. magazine work and such, like I go to really remote places. I go to the places where people imagine troubling occurred.

And I travel with A crew of Highly adept, very skilled individuals. Someone might say like, but you've never had to like live out for a month with no food or anything. I'm like That's kind of the point.

They have done the things that We've done. And figured out the ways in which we like avoid trouble. Avoid disaster. Get what we need to get done, done.

That's the survival I'm talking about. And If I knew I was gonna be stranded out somewhere like Oh yeah, man, I'm Really want to have a multi-tool. But I just use a multi tool in living my life. That's why like a big part of the title I think that in in struggling with it would be like the guide to survival. I'm like, Okay, my head just goes to fantasy land.

Wilderness skills. Wilderness skills is just like the doing, how to be out and do things. And yeah, man. I have seen

Everything from Outboard. engines to generators to cars to human beings. repaired. With a multi tool by someone who

kinda understands how to do things. I always have a multi tool in in the car. I will since we Since we invoked the name of the TSA earlier, I will Just mention to folks that I've had to sacrifice

Quite a few multi tools and those are sad moments. The multi tool stealing his sons of bitches on the planet. God bless, but my God, do they take some multi-tools. I understand that yeah, you can't go on to playing with a with a knife. And it's like now and then you're standing there and you're in line and all of a sudden they pull your bag and you're just like Ah that's another one.

Not another one. This is so bad. It's the actually like standing in line now, we actually like Like if I'm with, you know, buddies of mine or guys I work with. It's like a common thing. You know, you'd be like, Oh, you got your passport. You'd be like Dude, knives, knives, knives. You know? Right, got it. Thanks.

Oh, it's a sinking feeling. You can like I I haven't looked into it, but somehow they Auction or sell Oh the confiscated items like bucket I think you buy like'em by the bucket. I I don't know I I I I I wanna look into it. I think they like somehow you know they all go somewhere. The Ketchcan Airport in Alaska, this is one of my my favorite things on the on the planet is in in Ketchikan. As you're waiting in line for security, they have a display case of things that have been confiscated at the Ketchkhan Airport.

In this display case. Is a Brass knuckles Dagger. So it's

Brass knuckles with an eight inch double bladed dagger. Coming out of it. So which makes me feel a lot better about the multi tools I've lost because someone who thought that that would be a thing to pack along. On a trip.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I just would love to have Been able to have a brief interview with with Presumably that gentleman. Maybe it was the woman, but presumably the gentleman who had the brass knuckles dagger at the Ketchkan Airport and lost it.

And they're like the kind of brass knuckles that has the pointy knuckles, like the like Oh yeah. It's it's the greatest. Let's talk about water. What

Are your recommendations for how to think about procuring or purifying water. That could that could be an extension of kit and then we back into Finding and filtering, but uh how how would you suggest people Yeah. Think about that. Would love to. So

In laying out like in a lot of the chapter in the book, we lay out like the food chapter The water chapters laid out this way. navigation is laid out this way. It starts out like the chapters always start out like perfect world. Right. So

And water be like perfect world. Here's how many gallons a person's gonna use. A day. For intake, meaning To make food.

Um, you know, if you're using freeze dried food, whatever on on camping trips or outings, work outings, whatever. To make food and drink. So how w what's the quantity of water that'll actually go into your body? And then There is the quantity of water per day with some, you know, climatic variations depending on where you are in the world. That

With Intake, so physical intake and then basic cleaning and then water for if you're doing some amount of bathing and like all these water quantities that you'd bring with you in jugs, right? So you fill a jug off of garden hose. Load it in your camper, loading your truck. And that's where you are. You just live off of jugged water, which is great. Do it all the time. Car camping water. But then the chat would go through like worse, worse, worse, worse, worse, worse.

And then and kind of on a oh shit. So Starting out with that idea of water. moving into the idea of sourcing water. So

Sourcing water. where you have the proper equipment to do so. And then it moves into sourcing water where you do not have the proper equipment to do so. And then basically down to sourcing water you have You don't have shit with you, you have nothing, you gotta figure everything out. Including a container. But

For real world use. I spend most of my time. When I'm out. With equipment sourcing water on site. with some basic equipment that enables

Me to do so. And I feel that like a good universal water kit for any kind of overnighting trips. Or trips that could turn into overnighting.

Use An algine bottle. It doesn't need to be n Nalgin. We we use Nalogy now, but it's like a brand name. They make scientific containers and equipment and beakers and stuff, but they've become a real dominant force in like screw top bottles. They're great, they're very durable.

You can freeze stuff in'em, it doesn't crack'em. Great. But it's hunter companies that make'em. An algine bottle. And then we use a thing we call a drum.

Or a dromedary. Which is a collapsible Water bottle. You can get various things like liter, two liter, maybe one point five liter And when they're empty

It's nothing. It's like imagine an empty duty, somewhat heavy duty little shopping bag. And You put it in the bottom of your pack, you don't even know it's there. But when it's full, it's it's great.

So good source water. So carry an algen. Carry a drum. In my kit that I mentioned earlier, I always carry Water purification tablets. Okay, in single serving packs. So it's these little foil packs and each of those foil packs has one or two tablets in it.

You put those tablets in water. Iodine or what is Yeah, there's iodine, there's some diff there's some different ones that have different active ingredients, but yeah, uh iodine tablets. I get into the other compounds, but there's It it's all iodine like, but there are some different active ingredients and different tablets. Um and they and they might argue amongst themselves about which has the worst or better aftertaste.

There are also neutralizers you can add. Like if you g if you hate that taste that comes from water purification tablets. There are neutralizing tablets that that diminish that taste. And you can get them in single serving packs. So I keep those in my kit no matter what. No matter where I go, I have those in my kit. So I have those with me. And I also lately well, not even lately, for years now

I have used What's called a sterepen. With Great results. I love'em.

It's a UV light wand. Imagine a lightsaber. That's maybe Five inches long. Um it runs on a CR one twenty three battery.

You Put it in there and it can Purify. A port? Of water.

In ninety seconds using a UV light wand. That you just swirl around. In the water. Couple complications with this is like if the water's too turbid, so if it's like an incredibly muddy water, you would need to double dose it or triple dose it. Because of light penetration through the water.

A problem you might encounter. This is all stuff we cover. Like a a problem you might encounter is that Scooping water up can be hard. Like if you're just trying to get water out of wet moss You know, and you can press a hand down

and like get a little bit of water in your palm, it can be an arduous task. I usually carry a small plastic camp cup with me anyways for drinking coffee and stuff in the morning. You can use uh And the camp cup is a little bit flexible. So you can force this thing into little crevices, like if you have a cliff face with some water just sort of like running down it and that's the only water you can find. You can kind of mash this cup up against the cliff face.

And slowly get Dripping water into the cup. And use that. to fill that rigid mouth. naal gene and eventually get that thing full.

And then wand it. With a sterepen to purify it. Where you might have a problem is if everything's frozen. You can't stare your pen Nice. But

When you're using snow melt. All you need is a small stove. And you can run off snow melt. It's exhaustive on fuel. And that's something we get into as well is like the yield on snow is surprisingly low. It takes a lot of energy.

fire, fuel, whatever. It takes a lot of energy to melt snow in the water, but it's like a thing we cover. But if you get that basic thing down, and again, this is like standard operating procedure. Of Water bottle. dromedary. And the dromedary bag I I carry a two liter dromedary bag.

I just keeping the bottom of my pack. You can fill that at a source and then carry it with you and purify it as you use it. You can get two fills. And dump it into your Bottle, purify it with a sterry pen.

And You're pretty bulletproof, man, with that setup. As long as you can find some source of surface water. And we explain a lot of the tricks of the trade. And how to locate surface water. When you don't have the obvious locations of creeks and ponds and stuff.

But I'll point out here. A real, real risk. And this is not a fun risk, but a real, real risk. Waterborne pathogens.

are a problem. I have been sick several times from waterborne pathogens. It is miserable. You can get so sick that it's debilitating. It can just be bad or it can be bad bad.

So you cannot afford to be careless. Drinking Surface water. And people make a lot of mistakes of seeing some water they feel is like coming out of some little seep. And they think, Oh, it must be fine'cause this is the source.

When in fact if they walk ten yards uphill they'd find like a elk wallow. Where they're shitting and pissing and rolling around in the mud. And it's not adequately filtered from having passed through that mucky ground. And you can get sick. Waterborne pathogens.

They're like part of this whole suite of the little things that kill. And that is the thing with water more than bears, more than mountain lions. Waterborne pathogens are are a bitch. Do you Also carry.

A smaller Purification device that is pumped, something like ketodyne. I don't know if that's pronouncing that correctly. I do not anymore. I personally A lot of people like'em. I personally have had a lot of trouble.

With things with ceramic filters and other filters where It's wet from use and it freezes. They get plugged up. I've just had a lot of hassle on river trips. On river like rafting, canoe trips and stuff where you just you know like you just have water because you're floating down the damn river, right? You know you're gonna have plenty of water around. We will use those gravity fed Drip bags that hold a few gallons of water.

You just scoop it up in the river and then you hang it from a tree limb. And there's a gravity fed filter. On there. We will use those if we know that conditions are gonna be good, like summertime conditions. Where

You're it's not gonna be freezing at night. Crippling your filter. You're gonna have a pretty good source of water that's not gonna be overly muddy. And It's just kinda like when when times are good, it's a it's a good device.

But the pumps, no, I've not I don't like them. on glacial rivers with the glacial till It's just a a lot of headache. I'm sure there are people that know what they're talking about and they like'em. And there might be people who Dislike.

U V light pens for various reasons because if you're traveling overseas, like if you're traveling in Africa you need to have a purification system and you always need to check to make sure what you're using and how you're using it. You're gonna want a purification system that also can handle viruses. If you were in The US Okay. If you're hanging out in the US out

Doing like camping type activities. And you're not in like, um you're not around a lot of human contamination, but you're out in like, you know In the woods, in the mountains, whatever, like somewhat like halfway pristine environments. You don't need to worry about Viruses.

You're mostly talking about really big things. Giardia, Cryptosporidia. Large things that are easy to filter out. So if you're going on a backpacking trip in the developing world somewhere.

Um, and you're gonna be dealing with areas that have human potentially human waste. In the water. We we explain all this stuff too in the book, but human waste in the water, you need to you you're gonna practice a a different Purification system.

And you might even do something like a dual purification system. Where you have things like again from human contamination. But the primary focus here that I'm talking about is like is Classic like Backpacking hiking, wilderness outings. What are some items that

People should have in their cars. Um I'm wondering if there's anything that people might not have thought of and I'd love to hear your opinion on what some people call space blankets or Mylar blankets, these emergency blankets. Are they Is there helpfulness overestimated, underestimated?

But generally things that people might want to consider in their car, right? Because I have uh people have uh get themselves into trouble in all sorts of places, including spots where they might not expect to get into trouble, like north of Say San Francisco going to Tahoe. And underestimating the amount of snowfall. And realizing that they don't have

chains but perhaps they've driven already three hours in traffic and they're like Fuck it, YOLO. I'm going skiing. And then lo and behold, uh oh. I mean that's mistake number one. People die every year. People die every year in stranded vehicles in this country. Talking about cars, we're start getting into we're talking about like, you know

Like preparing. And I'll point out that I'm a In my car and at home. I'm a sort of Unintentional or accidental Prepper.

Where I do a lot of camping, so I have like a lot of freeze dried food. I buy a lot of it. I keep it in bins in my garage. So that when I'm going somewhere I have a lot of it. And I also just like also take us just I I like to have it on hand. I'm gonna use it anyways.

It's in my garage. So I have enough freeze dried food. Two Because I bought it for one thing in mind. It also serves the purpose where I have enough freeze dry food to keep my family up and running for quite a long time.

On freeze dry food. We have all kinds of'cause you know, we camp lots, we have all kinds of camp stoves, alternate fuel sources. Water purification equipment that I own through camping. I'm I'm a firearm owner. I keep

you know, for that purpose I keep quite a bit of ammunition on hand. The one thing I do, like the one thing I do that's like totally prepper like And this came from time I spent living in Seattle where you have you're in a very seismic seismically active area and also you have Volcanic activity. And things.

We kept treated water. In a closet. So in my crawl space I do keep a bunch of jugs. of water that I put long term treatment. Like a chlorine type substance. that you can put in there for long term treatment. That's the one thing I do that doesn't have camping ramifications, though I'll point out

I own those big ass jugs because we use them for water transport while camping. I extend the same kind of mentality to my personal vehicle because Yeah, we do a lot of adventuring. I live in the northern Rockies. Climate here can be crazy, world conditioning is gonna be crazy.

So I'm gonna give you like a pretty extreme version of like the kinds of things I keep in my car. I keep a Patch kit. I also I drive a truck. I have an F one fifty. the back seats lift up, you can fit all kinds of stuff under there.

I have a decked toolbox in the back of my truck so I just can keep Various things around. But I keep a spot la battery powered spotlight. I have a battery powered air pump. I have a patch kit.

Uh I keep An extra headlamp. Might sound funny, but I keep toothbrush and toothpaste in there. I keep uh glow sticks. In the glove box. They you know, those break glow sticks that Ravers use.

Just you could use them if your if your vehicle is stopped along the side of the road, you can put out glow sticks so that in a snowstorm or dark conditions people could see it. I keep a military E tool. Like a folding. It's a sh a folding shovel. Like a military folding shovel.

Not all e tools are created equal. I got m I got mine from uh a serviceman who was like, No, dude, you have to have the right E tool and he went and got me the right E tool. A very heavy duty E tool. It's a folding a folding saw. I'm sorry, a folding shovel. When there's snow on the ground I put in a big aluminum scoop shovel with a D handle. In the back of my truck.

I have two insulated ponchos. So they're basically like sleeping bags with a hole that you can put over'em'cause I have young kids. So I keep my insulated ponchos in my truck. I have a food stash. in my deck system, like one of the boxes is just full of granola bars and stuff. Which I also use for my kids all the time'cause if anyone has kids they know that they're always

Like whining about uh wanting food and I just feed him out of that box. In the summer months I keep water in there, but it freezes and and breaks the containers in the winter, so I pull'em out. And then I have like a basic toolkit. So things I need to

To do repairs. I keep some garbage bags and things in there. Candles are great because if you are in a car. In the winter and for whatever reason you're stranded. And you're running a

Camp stove, say? In your car? You can kill yourself from carbon monoxide. Poisoning. You do not want to burn. Fossil fuels.

In a car, it is a very quick way, especially if there's a risk of you falling asleep. It's a death sentence, man. If you fall asleep in a car. Burning a fossil fuel. isopropyl, whatever, you know, gas lean, white gas. You're in trouble, man. You will kill yourself. So candles

You can bring up the mean temperature in a car by several degrees. Beyond several to a substantial level of warmth by burning candles in your car. Um never will realize that. Oh yeah. And then even like an alcohol stove that people use on sailboats. People use alcohol stoves on small sailboats for the same thing, so you can run it without getting carbon monoxide poisoning. You could have a small seven dollar alcohol stove.

And a little pint bottle full of alcohol. And he to car to T shirt warmth. With an alcohol stove and you don't need to worry about killing yourself from carbon monoxide poisoning. There's still a fire risk. Well you can sit in your car and hang out. It doesn't need to be running. You can be out of gas. You can have a dead engine.

And keep warm. And then finally I also keep a a thick wool blanket. That I Just roll up and put a strap on. I know a lot of guys will

Just have a tote. You know? Like just y you go to Walmart, whatever, and buy like a plastic tote of an appropriate size. put all this stuff we we have lists in the book of all this like what what's minimum, maximum, like you know, best recommendations.

Make a tote. And if you're just around town going back and forth to work, don't worry about it. If you go driving three hours to go, you know, visit relatives for the Christmas holiday. Throw the tote in the back.

And in that tote is all the shit you would ever need. to be more than comfortable. People might laugh, you know, Oh you're a little goofy, oh you're a prepper. Was this Mad Max? It's like I like to just feel at ease and prepared.

The other day we were coming back from a hunting trip and my kid pointed out he's ten years old and he pointed out the thing I like about our truck Is that we have all the stuff we need. And I was like, uh glow uh you know Glowed with pride. Upon hearing that. Um the the even the sense of

The sense of ease and comfort. That My kid got no, he had whatever, a headache and I gave him something for it. Anyways. A sense of ease and comfort that he got of feeling like we're on top of it. You know?

We're our own people. We got our shit figured out, our systems dialed. Yeah, and it's it there's it's also a uh different breed of preparation compared to like putting on a ghillie suit every Saturday and climbing into a spider hole in your backyard and

Yeah. Right. It's this is this is just I mean a lot of these things, particularly I wanna underscore the water supplies, the backup water supplies, for me is cheap, cheap insurance that is kinda one and done. I mean, perhaps you uh replace it every once in a while, but I'll give an example. Here I have A garage with significant amount of potable water because I want to say a year and a half ago, two years ago in Austin, Texas. This is first world Incredibly

Developed City. Incredible medical support and facilities This is a top tier city within the US as far as livability and everything else. And at one point they had flooding.

This happened. So there was an incredible Torrential. Downpour for a day or two and it overwhelmed the municipal water treatment plants and there was a uh a boil warning. for the entire city. Oh I could put dr uh human fecal matter into the municipal water supply. That's right. So you could not drink you could not drink water out of your faucet.

Yeah, you're like. Because there's poop in it. And within I don't I d I don't know. Twelve hours, twenty four hours. All bottled water in the city gone. Like there's nothing available. And that was a huge pain in the ass and a m massive hassle. And for a few hundred bucks If you think of all of the things you waste

money on or spend money on. It's very inexpensive. Insurance. for an event like that which Is Demonstrably not.

has a non zero chance of happening. And I remember that with Hurricane uh Sandy back in the day also in New York. Yeah. And I mean these things do happen. Uh maybe they happen as infrequently as a kitchen fire. Or a head on collision, but you still have a fire extinguisher in your kitchen, you still wear your seatbelt when you drive. Uh yeah, I I like it that you're pointing that out. It's an interesting thing, is like no one Thin you're a whacked out proper. To have a fire extinguisher.

Or to have a first aid kit. Or to have uh Homeowners insurance. You know It's like you so I'm kinda you know. Right wing. Right, but it's like

Yeah, it's just uh I just view it as a a a thing, you know, it's like a the a peace of mind issue. If nothing else. What I used to have when I w in you know Seattle gets so much rain, I bought a I use this for my garden. But I I loved it where I bought a two hundred and fifty gallon

Tank. That sat under the I had a roof deck on top of my house. And it came down this down spout. And it rains all the damn time, you know, in the summer. Or sorry, in the winter.

And I just rigged this two hundred fifty gallon tank. under my down spout. And you could get You know, ten minutes of rain off that rooftop and fill that thing up. And I used to love that thing.

Because I was like I was like dude. It's like a you know? Bulletproof, man. As long as it rains. You mentioned the the dried. Uh freeze dried food.

Uh there is sort of the good, the bad and the ugly in freeze dried food. Do you have any particular favourites? Man It used to be simple, like it in the old days. It was like you had a company and th this company is the pioneer of

Freeze dried food. I wanna tell people real quick, I wanna explain freeze dried food to folks. It it it's an interesting process. I wrote a pie I wrote a piece for Outside Magazine years ago about The freeze dried food industry and freeze dried food. And I revisited that article in and working on this book just to get some of it. back straight again. But uh during it I visited when I was working on this article, I visited Oregon freeze dry and Oregon freeze dry. Is

They do all kinds of military contracting, they do like NASA contracting, it was Oregon freeze dry that sent all kinds of products into outer space. They're Consumer brand. is Mountain House. And so Mountain House is pretty ubiquitous. Like you walk into any sporting good store or whatever you'll see.

I I think it even turns up McCosco. You'll see these square buckets or individual things of of Mountain House. Now it's a consumer brand by a by a major player in the freeze dry food business. What they do is they make In this process you produce You produce table ready food.

Okay, so Let's say you're making Spaghetti with meat sauce and you're gonna freeze dry it. They actually make spaghetti and meat sauce. So It looks like You could sit down and eat it. It's ready to like put in your bowl and serve at the dinner table.

They then spread this out. Into about a inch layer. On on these big huge sheet trays. They spread it out about it. Inch thick.

A giant magine, a giant cookie sheet. With inch thick spaghetti. And meat sauce on it. It goes into a freezer. And they freeze it. And like the the the speed at which it freezes is proprietary.

There's a lot of magic in like how quickly you freeze it because you're trying to get a certain size ice crystal. that's optimal for freeze drying. But They freeze the sheet.

And then it goes into a sublimation chamber. Um these sublimation chambers bring to mind a What an amazing name. Yeah. Sublimation chamber. Looking at it, it looks like the end of a submarine sticking out of a wall. Okay. And the sublimation chamber is a vacuum chamber.

So you put all these sheets of frozen food. So you could do the up till now you could do it at your home, right? They put these sheets of frozen food into the sublimation chamber. And then they pull a vacuum on it. Okay. And

Once they got a once they pull a strong vacuum on it. They start to slowly warm up. There's like heating coils start to warm the food up. Sublimation means that it's going from a frozen That the water goes from a frozen to gaseous state.

under vacuum. With the right pressure. So that It ski the water phase. The ice and melting goes directly to gas and collects on coils.

When you pull it out, you now have It doesn't look any different. If you pulled it out of the sublimation chamber, it would look like just how it went in. Except you'd be able to pick it up and break it like a sheet of glass. It's then

You know, mashed up, crumbled up, and put into a bag. That's freeze dry food. Shelf life of, you know, with the right packaging, these like these like laminated bags, the right packaging on these products, you know, the shelf life of thirty years, forty years. I think that They don't quite know the shelf life because no one's had any sitting around long enough.

You know, with the right packaging to figure it out. There's a love and a hate for freeze drive. The convenience is unbelievable. And there are now many more freeze dry companies entering the space and they're all kind of, you know, whittling away at Mountain House, uh You know, uh the Heather's there's a company Heather's Choice, it does some freeze dry stuff, peak refuel, we eat a lot of that. Those freeze dried food.

Th there are a bunch of them out there. And now you can buy your own sublimation chambers, I think, for like three or four thousand bucks and get a sublimation chamber at your house and make your own freeze dry food if you're like super prepper. Yeah. A few thousand bucks. I was just camping with a guy whose buddy has his own sublimation chamber now. And this dude, like, whenever he makes dinner, he like freeze dries some too. Uh it's a ride.

Yeah. But a lot of people Report. I've experienced those. A lot of people report that there's nothing harder. On a person's gut.

Then three or four days were the freeze dry. Most anybody can hack a day or two of freeze dry. But you get it to a point where just something different. is going on in the old stomach. I don't know what it is. I've had people tell me that it's not true.

It's just true. Um It's just true. I can't tell you why it's true, but it's true.

Some people thrive. on it. I do quite well on it. Some people it just tears them up. The problem though Is that

You cannot mis confuse freeze dried food with dehydrated food. The hydrated food. Can take a lot longer to rehydrate. It can be that you do it, you don't get it fully rehydrated. Like dehydrated beans, you want to talk about something messing your gut up. Dehydrated beans that you haven't gotten properly d uh rehydrated.

can tear you to pieces. Freeze dry rehydrates pretty quickly. I got a friend that does a lot of backcountry travel. And he's a he's a light he's a minimalist. He's a lightweight fanatic. He doesn't carry a camp stove with him. He takes freeze dry food and around noon he'll pour

Cold water. Under freeze dry food. And then just carried around. Strapped to his backpack. Knowing that about by six or seven hours it'll have fully rehydrate and he'll just eat cold freeze dry.

If you put hot water in it, it's just ready in eight minutes. Yeah. Seven or eight minutes. And like I said, you just can't argue with the shelf life. The the stuff came into widespread use with the Lerps in Vietnam.

long range reconnaissance patrollers. That was kind of like the the pioneering days of freeze dry food. And then it had big ramifications for, you know, NASA and military use and such. When I was at the Oregon freeze dry company years ago, it was funny'cause I was with one of the guys a a lab technician, he's like a cook or a chef, you know, executive chef, whatever there. And we go into this room and he goes, Name It was like their lab room where they have everything on the planet freeze dried. And he's like name something. To see if I have it in here. And I'm like, I don't know.

Uh capers. He's like, got it. You know. They they freeze dry everything. Experimenting with it. They make freeze dried shrimp cocktail.

I'm not kidding you, man. Cans of freeze dried shrimp and freeze dry cocktail sauce. I don't think that that's I don't know if that's available to the public, but I have a fascination And a deep love hate with freeze dry, but it is unparalleled. As an emergency food. Backpacking food, wilderness preparedness food. It is the best thing going. There's nothing that even approaches it.

Shelf life. I'm looking online. Between twenty five to thirty years. So It was one freeze dry company when I was working on my article, one freeze dry company. I said, What's the shelf life? And they said, We switched to this style of bag. I can't remember what it was. So like we switched to this style of bag thirty years ago. It's all still fine. Uh this that we're not making a recommendation.

I don't know how they handle the recommendation part of it, but they're like, We know that it's at least this, but that's all the longer we've had it laying here. So who knows, right? It's g it's really, really great stuff. It's expensive. But It just

You know, fill up a tote with that and put it in your garage and it's just like you all you don't need to check it. You keep mice out of there. You don't need to check it. You your kids will have emergency food. The deadly. Ha ha

Oh my God. And uh a note on freeze drying for folks who just want to play with something. The Freezer in your home is at least for a lot of folks will be the driest place in your home, which is counterintuitive for a lot of folks. So you can take if you want to get a really good sear on a steak You can actually put it on a drying tray or rack of some type in your freezer for

Say thirty minutes. thirty might be too long, like fifteen, twenty minutes before you cook to To dry off the surface of the stakes that you can get that well. Myard reaction when searing. So that's a that's a trick that people can also use. It seems that there's evidence of the Incans. Doing something similar to freeze drying.

With Potatoes. I don't remember the details on it, but they would Store potatoes. Or there are instances where potatoes were stashed or stored.

You know, ten thousand feet. And preserved through freeze drying. And they would also Do an equivalent. Of They would sometimes put

Human remains. Oh. Ten, eleven thousand feet. And I don't know if you've ever I I went to Salta, Argentina to visit

those Incan children that they're the uh there's kind of a famous story of these three Incan children that were put in a little rock shelter. At very high elevation. So perfectly preserved. That You could still see coca leaves.

on one of the kids lips. It looks like they could just wake up from a nap and walk away. But they think that those children's Are from the fourteen nineties. Wow.

Perfectly preserved. Like they basically like naturally freeze dried at high elevation. Um they they display one of these children at a time. And Salt to Argentina. One of them was struck by

At some point in time. One of them was struck by lightning. And their hair was burned. But they have beautiful Feathers.

Beautiful clothing, all perfectly preserved. It's incredible. Wow, I'm looking at images right now. This is Creepy. It's like something out of the Horror movie The Ring. Wow. There was an issue that they they don't

out of a out of a Agreement with the indigenous peoples. They will not display all three at once, and so I believe they rotate the display unless that's changed. When I went there

To see one of these children. You could only see one. Wonder why I guess the uh Related to some. mythology or superstition or belief system of the indigenous, suppose. When they looked at

The they they did some work there And When they look at the stable you know, you c you can tell people about about people's historic diet. It seems as though those children

If I remembering correctly it seems as though those children spent most of their lives eating primarily potatoes, had a very poor diet for most of their lives. But in the year or so leading up to their death. they had like a phenomenally Diverse diet. And they had with them gifts and trinkets.

From all over the Incan Empire. And perhaps they were on a sort of tour. Being honored. Across the empire. festivals and being fed and honored across the empire.

before being brought up and killed on that hilltop. The oldest one had been given a blow to the head with a hatchet. But the other ones they appear to just have been drunk. They were drunk. On a

Some kind of fermented drink. And Maybe just passed out and left. Except for one of them they had to give a knock to the head. Oh, it's a walking story.

Anyways, freeze dried. Freeze dried food. Free freeze dried children. Don't eat them. Mummies of Juja Jacó. With the double L's. I'm saying it with the Z since it's Argentine, but the children of Juja Jacko, which I'll link to in the show notes. That's incredible.

In in in a perfect world I would go back two more times to see the other See the other children. So I feel like we can't end on this particular story. Oh, the real digression, but go ahead, pick something there. Well, let's uh

Let's talk about what you Or let's Not let us let you. Tell me about what you hope and feel the

psychological benefits will be. from those uh or for those who read The new book, The Mediator Guide to Wilderness Skills and Survival. And actually Yeah.

Take steps. to practice to equip themselves in some of the ways described in the book. Uh just thinking to your story about your son with the truck, but

What what do you hope or expect the The benefits would be. Uh psychologically for people to do this. Yeah. I hope and expect and anticipate. That

People who spend time With the book. Will come away feeling More comfortable. Feeling comfortable.

And prepared. in wild places and better able to go with Friends, loved ones, colleagues, children. What have you. Into nature, into the wilderness.

And not have a Uh you know, maybe a a vague sense of Foreboding. About something happening or feeling that

You're in over your skis, or as we like to say, in over your waiters. That When approaching a frozen pond. They instead of looking at it like this unknown super dangerous thing that you dasn't go near.

You would look at it as a thing that's Comprehendable. That there are some simple things you can do to determine is this safe for me to be on? If I do make a mistake and go there and something happens, I know what to do. I know how to do proper risk assessment.

That when you're out camping you're not having baseless fears of getting mauled by a mountain lion. You're not running around with concepts in your head about how to deter animal attacks that are One unwarranted or two the opposite of what you ought to do if you were in that situation. Because I think that Even if none of the bad things

If none of the oh shit things That can befall a person. happen to you outdoors. And even if I can come and tell you statistically they won't. They still live in your head.

There's still an anxiety. That people suffer. Around nature and around The unexplored Around the unusual.

And Once you arm yourself. With a mental tool kit and a physical tool kit at times. You wind up feeling better.

And once you feel better and you get that cockiness, you get with a a a friend of mine Calls your wilderness swagger. Everything goes more smoothly for you. You're able to do and focus on the things that you came there to do and focus on. So

By being prepared, you do away with The nagging sense in the back of your head of what would I do if. It just frees you up. So I just want people to be

Have that liberated swaggering feeling. Outside. Dig it. Last year

Last or maybe second to last question, and this could be a dead end, but If you were A cyborg just executing on Commands. You would have a certain kit, a certain approach, should be super methodical.

all highly rational. Is there anything peculiar You take with you. on some of your trips or anything absurd that you feel compelled to do. Yeah.

that would not be in the textbook. Instruction Manual. Related to skills and survival. Anything. uh particularly

Steve Renella. That uh that your friends or companions in the wilderness make fun of you for? Uh, man. I'm gonna approach it a slightly different way and this is this is brand new fresh information. I have a friend who's a very avid alpine hunter.

And he uses and likes Crampons. Okay. I had always shy away from Could you describe what describe what those are for folks? Yeah, crampons are like a thing you you lock onto your boot, strap onto your boot, and it's cleats. Like very, very gr like nothing like a golf cleat, like

Steel or aluminum. Spikes. That are used for extr like that are used for ice climbing, extreme mountaineering. Okay. I've always always been a fan of crampons. I'd always been under the feeling that

I didn't use crampons in the mountains, typically. Because I thought that crampons are things people use more to get themselves into trouble than to get themselves out of trouble. Meaning uh you know some basic repelling skills are are good to have, right? And that's something we cover, but I don't advise for just normal people, like normal use outside of mountaineering. I don't advise using that to get somewhere. I would advise using that to like you got somewhere and now you're like oh

And you used it to get out. And I thought crampons were potentially trouble making. That it would give you it would give you know the wilderness swagger I mentioned? It gives you too much swagger and you'd wind up doing shit that you should not do. And so I was with him.

And I finally brought a set of cramp ons and I came away from it like holy shit because Even just um A steep pitch. Were there some wet snow? I used to take for granted that you walked along side hill and along a steep pitch of wet snow. I used to take for granted that you just ate shit, right?

Every other step. This is like how it goes. You know? And it'd be like five steps. Whoop, five steps, whoop. And putting those on I became a believer so quickly.

And like Moving around on wet Grass. Icy stuff. how that allowed you to s just grease through that I used to view as being hard to get through. So I could see now

Being a guy at the trailhead. With a set of crampons. Strapped to my pack and other people at the trailhead being like What is this idiot doing? The same way a month ago, if I saw someone with crampons, I'd be like, Oh, come on.

Come on. Really? Really? And now I'll be like, If I see that dude, I'm gonna be like, Yeah, bro.

Right on. I gotcha. What adventure Have you Up to this point left unrequited. Like you've you've had so many trips, so many adventures.

So much travel, so much outdoor wilderness time. What is still on the bucket list for you? Oh. That's an easy one. There's a river.

And South America. That I've done Two river trips on. And I was able to do these river trips.

With a group. Called the the Makushi. A tribe called the Makushi and they have a few villages along this river. It's a long, long river. And they talk about

The Head of this river. There's a couple of them that have been there. Most of the guys haven't been there. And they talk about the head of this river as being like what they regard as like kind of like the most magical place on the planet. And the lower end of this river where I've been

Blows my mind. And they have this attitude like You haven't seen shit. Well you gotta have about three you know, it's three week trip.

To get up. 'Cause you got a portage around all these waterfalls. I don't have a concrete plan yet. But at whatever point in life that you sort of like

Approach retirement, but you still have your physical capabilities. I wanna go up that damn river. Until it's a trickle. Like Ideally I'd go with my

Brothers. I won't go up that river so damn bad. I like I think about it all the time. Mm. Ha ha Yes. To the bitter

And Like I said, to where it comes out of a rock. And like That's my thing that I wanna do. And these guys live off fish when they're traveling too, and I like fish.

Well that's a win win. Steve, always fun. Always a good time and you're making me want to get out into the wilderness. A sap uh and actually two. do a fair amount of prep beforehand so I'm not just yet another idiot wandering out with with no plan, no contingencies, no nothing. And uh excited about the book. I'm really thrilled that you were able to carve out some time today.

Is there anything else that you would like to Say Complaints, comments. Requests for the audience. Closing inspirational quotes, anything at all before we

Bring this to a close. At the top of Mount Everest. It's marine limestone. That's it. Thank you very much, Tim. I got I got enough.

All right, Steven Renella, folks, thheMeteater.com at Meeteater on Instagram at Steven Renella with a V Steven R I N E L L A. The new book is the Meteor Guide to Wilderness Skills and Survival. I will also link to everything we've discussed in the show notes at Tim.blog forward slash podcast. Until next time, thanks for tuning in. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun for the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up. in the uh the world of the esoteric as I do, it could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite.

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