Book by: Laurence Gonzalez

If you’ve spent anytime reading or studying outdoor or wilderness survival guides than no doubt you’ve come across the following advice: The most important survival tool is your mind. This book, Deep Survival – Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why, will show you why. Not a traditional survival handbook or a collection of sensational survival stories (although the author does use true stories to illustrate his points), this is sort of a mental survival guide. Before you start thinking “Oh, great, sounds boring as hell”, please trust me and read on. Read more

Type lightning survival or lightning safety into Google and you’ll get a long list of great information in the search results. The problem is who wants to read through all that crap? Most people only want to know one thing – how to keep their ass from bring fried by lightning. So here is a short and to the point lightning survival guide for you.

Quick Facts About Lightning

It’s estimated there are more than 25 million strokes of lightning each year in the U.S. alone.

Most lightning deaths occur because of lightning traveling across the ground, not from direct strikes.

About 10% of people struck by lightning die, about 70% of survivors suffer long term effects.

No matter where you live, your chances of being struck by lightning are a whole hell of a lot higher than being attacked by a shark. Same goes for being killed by lightning vs. killed by shark attack. Don’t believe me, look here.

You can be hit by lightning even if the storm is 10 miles away and you’re under blue skies.

Lightning isn’t confined to thunderstorms. I can occur during volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, heavy snowstorms, and intense forest fires.

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There are certain things in life that seem to have the ability to instantly lift your spirits no matter what’s happening. Puppies. Chocolate. Winning a prize. If you’re outside in freezing temperatures, that thing might be a nice hot cup of coffee or tea, depending on your preference.

My wife to be drinks a lot of tea. Correction, she drinks an absolute fuckton of tea. Apparently it’s a Russian thing – something I’ve adopted, although there’s no way I could keep up. She was using a older stainless steel Thermos for her morning tea even though it was missing a part and would leak all over the place without some carefully engineered plastic wrap. I decided to upgrade her to a REI 1 Liter Bullet Bottle instead. Read more

Hypothermia is something every person stepping outdoors should know about. It’s a condition where your core body temperature drops below what is normal for your metabolism and body funtions. You probably know the figure 98.6° quite well – the normal core temperature of the human body (Technically, it’s a range generally accepted to be somewhere between 98° and 100° F). Keeping your body at that temperature is essential to survival.

You might be thinking you don’t need to worry about it because you don’t live in an extremely cold environment, but you’d be wrong. Possibly dead wrong. Hypothermia can occur at almost any outdoor temperature. Hypothermia is usually brought on by exposure to elements but can also be brought on by various things including: exhaustion, lack of food, poor diet, immersion in cold water, and wet or damp clothing. Read more

$7.99 is an unbelievable bargain for the information included in this travel sized survival guide, Collins Gem SAS Survival Guide. It’s small (4.6 x 3.2 x 0.9 inches, and only 7.8 ounces), and I wouldn’t want to be stuck in a survival situation without it.

The book is full of easy to follow and practical advice for almost any survival situation you might encounter outdoors. It’s written by John ‘Lofty” Wiseman, a 26 year veteran of the British SAS – and avid outdoor enthusiast. The original version of this survival guide was quite large, more of a coffee table type book. This version is specifically designed to be small enough to carry in a backpack or glove box. Read more

If you search around the internet you’ll find a fuckton of advice about what you should carry with you in your car at all times in case of emergency. Some lists are short, some are so long you might need a trailer to carry all the supplies they suggest. There are a few items that turn up consistently though, and without a doubt having them will make survival and safety in an emergency situation much easier.

Most experts agree, if you get stranded with you car, most of the time the best thing to do is stay in or with it. (Of course, there’s always times to break the rules, but in general you should follow this advice) Two reasons make this the best choice — if you remembered to tell someone where you were going then they’ll be looking for you and your car along your intended route, and your car provides instant shelter and protection from the elements. Read more

Short post, but something you might not think about as often as you should — When you’re packing up your basic outdoor survival gear it’s easy to forget about your eyes. Everyone remembers food, water, shelter, warm clothing, fire, and stuff like that. What about protecting your eyes? As difficult as things are in a survival situation, they’re bound to get a whole lot worse without having the use of your eyes.

“You’re kidding, right? What the hell is going to happen to my eyes?” Read more

Well, actually it’s the end of the weekend – so, I thought I better write my list of exciting things (My to-do list basically, that I’d like to think you were excited about) that are gonna be on the website this week.

I’m almost done with Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why. Really, I am. Review is coming soon.

Outdoor survival article about hypothermia is almost done. It’s long… and it’s taking long… so hopefully it’s good.

Now I’m working on a survival article about lightning. With all the Southern California storms last week we had a little lightning and it inspired my wife to be to write this, Knee Deep in Survival Mode. So, not to be outdone, I had to write my own.

Gonna write a post about the importance of protecting your eyes from the sun in a survival situation. Read more

What’s the best way to learn about outdoor survival and preparedness? If you ask me, it’s to listen to the stories and advice of someone who has ‘been there, done that’. Deb Lauman is definitely that person. She’s an avid outdoor enthusiast, has completed the thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail (That’s 2,167.1 miles!), written a novel, been a guide in the Grand Canyon, and is a volunteer with a Search and Rescue team. And that’s just the beginning.

Q1 – How did you decide to get involved with Search and Rescue?

Soon after taking a Wilderness First Responder class, I read an article in the local paper about a Search and Rescue mission, and I decided that joining our county’s team would be a great way to put my love of the outdoors and backcountry medical skills to good use, while giving something back to the community at the same time — both to people who live here in Coconino County and those who visit. Read more

Back when I was fat and lazy (Now, I’m just lazy) I used to stare with amazement and jealousy when I’d see people crankin’ through a set of pull-ups at the gym. I’d glare in disgust and think to myself, “You bastard!”, all while straining away on a lat pull-down machine trying to simulate real pull-ups in hopes of one day being strong enough to do the real thing.

Fast forward a few years – I’m about 60 pounds lighter, mostly due to a diet change mandated by my damn gallbladder (Gallstones), and can easily lift my own bodyweight in a pull-up. I’m still not one of the guys who can churn out 50 or more in a row like its nothing, but I can surely do 4 or 5 sets of 10 to 15.

Why am I telling all this garbage? Mostly because a yoga class kicked my ass recently.
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