Berries and Boot Water. Lost in the woods 10 days!

In case you haven’t been following the outdoor news, all you bush crafters, survivalists, and outdoor adventure enthusiasts have just been schooled by a 34-year-old hiker who became lost in the mountains of northern California … for 10 days … without food or water when he disappeared!

A lesson in real-life survival.

Lost for 10 days in a remote canyon in Big Basin State Park  this a tale of true survival for all your armchair-watching Alone survival “experts.” The funny thing is, a lot of the Alone contestants don’t even make it as long as this guy, and they know it’s coming and get 10 items!!

According to news reports, all he had was “a flashlight, and a pair of folding scissors, like a Leatherman tool.”

Now that’s one bad dude you can make it 10 days alone in the wilderness with nothing else to survive on. That’s the real deal.

So how did he do it?

Did he build a shelter, kill an elk, make smoke signals, start a fire????

“.. he survived 10 days lost in the wild by drinking water from creeks and waterfalls out of his boot, eating wild berries and sleeping on a bed of wet leaves.“

That’s it. Drinking water out of a boot and eating berries. Sounds like Sasquatch.

What we can learn from a real-life scenario.

It’s easy to be the classic arm-chair adventurist and start asking questions like …

• why didn’t he just go downstream until he found civilization
• why didn’t he have fire start on him, or try to start a fire for a signal?
• why didn’t he build a more permanent shelter than some leaves?
• why couldn’t he catch a fish or trap a squirrel?
• the list goes on.

The truth is, according to him, he left for what he thought was a 3-hour hike and never came back. That’s how this stuff happens. It doesn’t happen in a vacuum, people don’t mean to get lost, it happens at the worst and most unexpected times.

You don’t have time to plan or prepare.

Real-life survival is rarely like being on Alone, and it doesn’t happen to experts most of the time. Just average people on an average day in the outdoors.

But, what, if anything can we learn from this situation that is real, and not some TV show?

• You can survive a long time if you have water.
• You’re going to need a little food to keep going.
• Basic plant identification (so you don’t kill yourself) for where you live is probably a good idea.
• You will most likely have to rely on plants for food, killing animals if you’re not on Alone is a long shot.
• Make sure you don’t stop or give up trying to get found (dude was yelling 10 days later).

I mean sure we could come up with a million things he should have done or taken with him, but that’s not the point, people don’t expect this to happen when it happens. In the end, he survived by taking on the basics and doing simple things.

• staying near water sources and drinking water.
• eating wild berries
• not giving up calling for help
• simple shelter, pile-o-leaves!

Yes, you can probably say he got lucky, but you know what, he made it. It’s a reminder of the survival basics. Simple food, water, and shelter, and perseverance not to give up, a will to live.