133
votes
Accepted
My car broke down in Siberia. What do I do now?
When travelling on extremely remote roads, you need to prepare for the worst. This is even more true if you are travelling in a climate where the weather might kill you within days, such as in ...
- 27.1k
107
votes
Accepted
Is it actually useful to ration food?
There are several reasons why I think rationing is useful.
Morale - If you eat all your food on the first day you won't have anything to look forward to. If you eat a little bit twice a day you can ...
- 9,668
92
votes
Accepted
Jumping off of a cliff into water - survival tips
There's an abandoned quarry near me where local kids used to jump off the topmost cliff edge, 100 feet up, every summer. When done properly it is survivable without injury.
You have to break the ...
- 866
65
votes
Accepted
I am lost, I found a trail, which way do I go?
Settlements tend to be near water like rivers, lakes or oceans and the larger the body of water, the more likely there are people. A small stream is likely to join another at some point. This is why ...
- 2,270
55
votes
Is it actually useful to ration food?
Aside from the previously mentioned micronutrients, your body doesn’t really store protein in any significant way, so in order to ‘repair’ your body you need a relatively constant stream of protein (...
- 2,270
52
votes
Accepted
How do you aim a signal mirror?
How I've practiced is I hold my left hand palm out, and I create a "V" between my ring and middle fingers with the plane or person between my fingers. I then hold the mirror by my face and shine the ...
- 590
52
votes
My car broke down in Siberia. What do I do now?
First, if you go somewhere in a car, take along the clothes necessary to be outside for an extended period.
406 MHz PLB (Personal Locator Beacon)
All the tragedies have one thing in common: they ...
51
votes
Is it warmer to sleep in a car or in a tent?
I suggest using both the car and the tent together.
A car will lose heat fastest through the windows, so use the tent to cover them (and the top). The windows are a thin single layer of glass, while ...
- 25.9k
49
votes
My car broke down in Siberia. What do I do now?
Well, I'm from Russia, and I heard that in the most desperate situation like this you can burn your car's tires. The tires are made of oil, so they burn well. Using fire from tires you can use other ...
- 591
41
votes
I am lost, I found a trail, which way do I go?
In many parts of life, you have to play the percentages. The likelihood is higher that going downstream will lead you to a trailhead or some other sign of civilization than it is for going upstream.
...
- 23.1k
37
votes
Accepted
Ways to desalinate water when "lost at sea"?
Salt dissolves in water so will pass though a normal filter or cloth. You can try that with a coffee filter at home. So there's definitely an error in the article.
A still (i.e. distillation ...
- 25.9k
37
votes
Ways to desalinate water when "lost at sea"?
You can place an empty cup in the middle of a lightly filled bucket of sea water. You then place a plastic bag over the bucket, with a stone in the middle so it has a dip in it over the cup. The sea ...
- 471
36
votes
What do mountaineers eat and drink on the day of an Everest summit?
Hot soup mostly, it does depend on the individual diets of the climbers, not everybody eats the same thing, but most carry hot soup with them.
Despite the massive amounts of energy needed to summit ...
- 53.4k
35
votes
Accepted
Can you boil/decontaminate water with heat from a magnifying glass?
Let's do some back-of-the-envelope calculations.
The specific heat of water is the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of a particular amount of water by 1 degree C. This is 4.186 joules/...
- 1,543
34
votes
Accepted
In a survival situation, should I drink unpurified water?
Dehydration will very quickly reduce your ability to undertake the activities required to survive and so finding and conserving water should be a very high priority in any survival situation.
...
- 6,202
33
votes
Is it actually useful to ration food?
There are many nutrients that your body cannot store, or not in decent extra amounts. Water, salt, potassium, vitamin C, etc. You will rapidly excrete these, and then greatly feel the lack of them ...
- 431
31
votes
Is it actually useful to ration food?
The simple answer is that yes it does make sense to ration, see the stories of the men who survived the Essex or the Mutiny on the Bounty or the Chilean Miners or many countries during wartime.
From ...
- 69.2k
30
votes
Accepted
When will a rattlesnake strike?
When a rattlesnake gets his rattle on, what exactly is the desired reaction it's expecting from you, and what other indicators does it give you that a strike is imminent?
It's a warning that it's ...
- 22.5k
30
votes
I am lost, I found a trail, which way do I go?
Trails show less use the farther from the trailhead one goes because fewer people walk the trail all of the way to the end and most turn around far more quickly.
The odds are that going downhill will ...
- 69.2k
30
votes
Accepted
Surfacing out of a sunken ship/submarine - Survival Tips
Even though the question describes a hypothetical and unlikely situation I think it has some merits as it is somewhat relevant for SCUBA diving also: it describes an emergency uncontrolled SCUBA ...
- 12.6k
29
votes
Are there any natural materials found in the wild that can be used as an effective sunscreen?
As you said yourself: mud. Or cotton as Gabriel answered, or wood, or leaves, or bark, or anything that stops light from reaching your skin. Is there any natural material that without any processing ...
- 1,923
28
votes
Accepted
In a survival situation, what can I use from a green coconut palm?
Ah, why wasn't this question already asked here!
As Food and Hydration: If you are trapped on an Island (Refer: Castaway) probably Coconut Water can be only major source of potable water for you. As ...
- 31.7k
27
votes
Is it actually useful to ration food?
What I've always understood to be the rationale, and doesn't seem to be directly addressed with the other answers, is that the human body adjusts its metabolism to its resources. If you gorge on all ...
- 433
26
votes
How do you aim a signal mirror?
A modern (Korean War era and later, at least) signal mirror has a hole in the center, and the hole is surrounded by a grid of retroreflectors. You aim the mirror spot at something close by, then look ...
- 361
26
votes
What gear should I carry along for winter emergencies?
As usual, skills are the lightest and most effective thing one can carry. From how to bushcraft useful things from natural materials, to clever ways to satisfy needs like signaling or navigation, to ...
- 3,949
25
votes
Accepted
Is it possible to 'live off the sea'
Theoretically, it might be possible to survive on fish, rainwater and desalinated seawater. In one 1930 experiment, two men survived for a year eating exclusively meat without experiencing any health ...
- 1,319
24
votes
Surfacing out of a sunken ship/submarine - Survival Tips
First and foremost: Don't Panic
At 30m, you'll be fine if you can free yourself within about 20 minutes and know what you're doing. That being said, there is a good chance you won't know your exact ...
- 341
23
votes
My car broke down in Siberia. What do I do now?
This is not constrained to Siberia. A snowstorm/blizzard can occur at many locations and throw down so much snow that roads are blocked and people outside the main routes (or even on main routes) get ...
- 909
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible