Do you love outdoor adventure? Imagine that something unexpected happened, and you found yourself in very bad circumstances. For example, you lost in the mountains or your car stalled in the middle of a waterless desert. What do you need to know to survive in such a situation?
The Most Important Survival Skill List for Outdoor Adventures You Should Know
If you plan to go hiking through the wilderness, you should learn the basic skills of saving your life.
Survival Backpacking
Backpacking is a hiking trip that combines healthy recreation and exploration of the surrounding world. This type of tourism develops endurance, strong-willed qualities, and discipline and requires the following skills:
- Competent packing. The main skill that can solve many problems is to pack a backpack properly and take everything you need with you — warm clothes, a tent, a lighter, a water tank, a map, first aid kits (for example, Medic First Aid Kit or TFAK Trauma First Aid Kit ), etc.
- Route development. Skills in working with the map and calculating the distance will help you get back home safely.
- Shelter arrangement. Choosing the best place to stop, starting a fire, looking for water, setting up a tent, protection from rain and cold are significant for survival backpacking.
MEDIC FIRST AID KIT |
TFAK TRAUMA FIRST AID KIT |
Wilderness Survival Skill Saving Your Life
The first aspect to think about is the right clothing. During your travels in the wild, the weather can dictate its own rules, which you must adapt to. In case of a sharp deterioration in the weather, you should immediately start looking for a place to hide from heat, rain, or snowstorms.
An equally important aspect is the ability to get food. Food sources will vary depending on your location, from flora and insects to fish and animals.
Do not forget about navigation. If you want to get to a certain point along a specific route, you will have to learn to work with a compass, paper maps, and even GPS technologies.
Outdoor Survival Skills
Extreme situations happen at the most inopportune moment. You can read dozens of survival guides, but things might not go according to plan. And therefore, it is very crucial to adapt to the environment, look for a way out of difficult situations, invent something from the available items and apply it.
If you get lost and realize that you cannot find your way home before nightfall, stay where the night found you. If you have no tent, start equipping a place to sleep from improvised materials — branches, sticks, tree barks, palm leaves — it all depends on the terrain.
If you need to send distress signals indicating your location, learn how to build a signal fire or use a signal mirror or firing flares.
Basic Survival for Beginners
If fate throws you into the wild jungles of Indonesia or the arid expanses of Australia, such a “soft skill” for survival as psychological stability is a necessary aspect. Even if you have absolutely no equipment, do not know how to make a fire, and cannot distinguish north from south, willpower and courage will help you survive.
Survival is always a physically demanding process. You will have to cut down trees, carry firewood, and make many kilometers of crossings through mountains and forests. Regular activities and exercising can keep your body in good shape. Also, it has a positive effect on your emotional state.
Vital Wilderness Backpackers Skills
If you want to venture out into the wild, you’ll need a specific set of skills and knowledge to meet the basic necessities of life: shelter, water, food, and a return to civilization.
The ability to make a fire by any possible means and in any weather is, perhaps, the most crucial skill for survival, not only in cold climates. Fire is warmth, protection from dangerous wild animals, psychological comfort, clean water, and food.
Another important skill is water extraction. After all, a person can survive without water for only 2-3 days, depending on the climate and physical activity. You have to be prepared that you will need to purify the water to make it drinkable.
Survival Activities
In the wild, many dangers wait for you at every turn. These are various severe weather conditions, poisonous plants, small insects, and dangerous animals. Keeping safe from all these dangers is not an easy task. But it is still possible.
Adapt to the terrain. Do not try to deny the current situation — accept it. Try to adapt to the new environment. Be attentive to everything that surrounds you: plants, animals, and insects. Use all the resources of nature and available equipment (tourist knife, water vessel, multitool, first aid kits, ropes, etc.) for your survival.
Hiking Survival
The first thing you should do before going on a hike is to prepare. Study the terrain and create a list of the necessary equipment, items, and tools. Don’t go hiking without the right tools that help you build a shelter, find food, give distress signals, and boil water. The most necessary items can be a knife or machete, flint, a metal vessel for water, and first aid kits.
