General Q&A about the great outdoors and outdoor pursuits.
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This woodchuck has been in and out of our yard in Massachusetts, United States, for a few weeks, since early May. It comes out from under our large rhododendrons which have a small area of woods be...
We had birds (blue tits) at who work last year nested in a metal wall mounted cigarette bin, this year we provided a hand-made wooden bird box specifically designed for blue tits and then blocked u...
What is the legal and practical position on wild camping in England and Wales, specifically in the Brecon Beacons National Park. I think I am right in saying that technically you need to ask the la...
I bought a queen-sized four-inch memory topper and cut it into two halves to get two twin(ish)-sized toppers. I use one half on my bed at home, but that left me with another extra half. I've hear...
This question asks whether the bowline knot is better with the tail inside or outside the loop. When climbing and tying in with a bowline on a bight, does it make a difference whether one starts ...
I use pierceable butane canisters for cooking outdoors: Given that butane boiling point is 30 to 34 °F, is it safe to punch a hole in the canister when the outside temperature drops below 30 °F ...
I am looking at a new pair of suede leather walking boots. Price is low due to one boot being in a shop window and so is faded and doesn't match the other boot. My question is: would the light dam...
I live in Chicago and would like to get a foldable kayak. As far as I can tell the only thing I need to do to be able to use it in Lake Michigan is get a watercraft registration. Once I have that ...
All of the butane gas cartridges I have seen have a screwable top for attaching your stove, however, there are apparently also pierceable cartridges without a screwable top. Source What would t...
This question is specific to France, as different countries have different hunting cultures and regulations. There have been a number of highly publicized accidents in France this year (1, 2, 3). ...
Sometimes you can't help but set up camp in an area where the soil is very rocky / stony or firm, especially when wild camping. This can make it incredibly difficult to drive the tent pegs into the...
I've enjoyed climbing and cutting trees for many years. I now want to go to higher levels, but safety is a primary concern, because I am afraid of heights. I'm about to order gear for recreation...
There is a recent question What material is a good alternative to neoprene? one of the comments to an answer says: whole suit filled up with water I might be taking it out of context, but as...
I live in the West Georgia area. We now have several trees chewed up beginning 5 feet off the ground and all the way around the tree, some to the very top. I found a birch that had a 4 foot section...
So I know how to calculate how many additional calories a day I need while backpacking. My question is how do I calculate how much food my dog will need while backpacking. I'm hoping for a genera...
Yesterday I was flying above the Mediterranean sea, it was a nice day, without storms or strong winds. I fly around 20 minutes above it before arriving to the ground. During these 20 minutes I saw...
Help me settle an argument. How big a patch of temperate wilderness terrain would you need to produce enough food to feed a family of four (two adults, two teens) indefinitely in an off the grid o...
Sometimes in areas with sandy/muddy ground, multiple parallel trails will start to form. What is the least impactful way to walk a trail like this? Do you stay on whichever trail shows the most ...
In Germany fishermen greet each other with "Petri Heil". I asked myself if this is only a German thing or is it kind of universal (at least in developed countries like EU countries, US etc.) for fi...
I am brand new to fishing and have only made it out 4 times before this morning. Today I planned on fishing all morning. After a few casts (I have a Shakespeare Ugly Stik spinner) I noticed that t...
I'm planning on through hiking Devil's Path in the Catskills in November with some friends, and I'm trying to figure out the transportation. We leave about 3 hours away, so I'd prefer not to have t...
I did a backpacking trip once where I was above treeline, there was no running water and I was low on fuel for my stove. While some of the snow was melting it was draining into the ground so fast t...
This instagram post by Colin O'Brady (just hiked across Antarctica) shows his compass needle looking fairly level, but I can't see enough else to know if he's holding it level. A significant fract...
Sometimes it is necessary to cut a climbing rope, either to shorten it or to trim worn ends. If were one to cut a climbing rope, how would one do so?
In one of the gravel parking lots I pass on my way to work there are a number of cotton tail rabbits that hang out there. At one end of parking lot there is piled up gravel from all of the plowing...
In Grand Teton National Park they have Rocky Mountain Goats and Bighorn Sheep and because they are worried that the goats will spread diseases to the sheep, they want to mountain goats gone from th...
I've had a pretty interesting discussion beneath this survival question. A source given in the answer to this question states that you shouldn't eat when dehydration can become or is a problem: ...
I've had a pretty interesting discussion beneath this survival question. A source given in the answer to this question states that you shouldn't eat when dehydration can become or is a problem: ...
For rain pants, there are both breathable pants that let sweat out and non-breathable ones that do not. The problem with the non-breathable pants is that your sweat can build up inside and then you...
Bottles of olive oil often have special caps that help prevent drips/etc. when pouring the oil, but an entire bottle of olive oil is far to heavy to carry for a hike. What's the best method for ca...
I have just tried using an automatic belay machine in an indoor climbing gym. I didn't receive any specific safety training, but it seems to be straightforward. So what safety concerns should I pay...
All of the times I have seen Rocky Mountain goats it has been by accident, you come around the corner of the trail in the mountains and there they are. If one were to go deliberately looking for t...
While hiking in the Ruby Mountains of Nevada, I came around the corner and saw several mountain goats who had made several fairly large scrapes (3-4 ft long and a couple feet wide) in the ground. ...
I live in the Willamette Valley region of Oregon, USA. A few days ago I noticed these rodents digging in my compost pile. This was in the early-afternoon. If I got too close (closer than 4 ft) they...
I'm crew on a boat (wooden 8.5m from 1973) which has a GPS and a tiller pilot that seem to work fine separately, but don't seem to want to talk to one-another. My captain is adamant this combinatio...
Even stainless-steel can rust, and I've seen axes and saws that were visibly rusted. I've been told that wrapping the metal parts of the tools in oiled paper will prevent this. Can oil really be u...
Odd Deer's latest archery question brought to mind a historical novel I read some time ago which featured a mounted archery contest. (The novel was otherwise forgettable.) Wikipedia, mounted arche...
Related to this question, firearms make different levels of noise depending on the firearm in question and the choice of ammunition. What factors cause one firearm to be louder than another?
I recently went bouldering for the first time and liked it a lot. One thing I wondered about are the climbing shoes. The mostly form your feet to a very firm, compact package. So the following ques...
We have bird feeders of all shapes, sizes, and types of material. Some we've had for years. We dump out leftover bird seed and shells when we refill them. If there are obvious dangers, like algae, ...
A flintlock rifle is a weapon that can be indefinitely reloaded without any reliance on infrastructure. Gunpowder can be made from resources commonly found in the outdoors (urine as the nitrate sou...
I've Googled this a lot over the last couple of days, but it feels like most of the answers are aimed at target shooting. I live in South Africa, and we do allot of hunting in the bushveld as well ...
Some hunting rifles come with a 20 MOA rail on top for mounting the scope or you can purchase the rails separately. What is the point of a 20 MOA rail?
There are two types of rifle scopes when it comes to which focal plane the reticle is etched on and they are called first or second focal plane scopes. What is the difference between the two types...
I was doing some target 22 target practice and had three different brands of ammo, supersonic Thunderbolt 35 grain, Aguila 40 grain subsonic and Aguila 60 grain subsonic. The Thunderbolt was the l...
Once a hummingbird feeder is set up and the hummingbirds know about it they will come back over and over again on a regular basis. They even seem to remember after the winter and will come to check...
Many many years ago me and my brothers used to go rabbit hunting with air-rifles. I was pretty young TBH and the details are not sharp in my mind. It occurred to me that the .22 calibre air-rifle t...
I'm looking to buy a new jacket for hiking/traveling during winter in Australia for temps between 8c to 15c and possibly in windy and rainy conditions. I noticed that snow jackets tend to be cheap...
Each year pronghorn shed the outer covering of their horns, and while they don't last as long as deer sheds you can still find them. All of the ones I have found have been by accident, if one was ...
This question is inspired by the question of @Sue on the peripheral vision of squirrels. It is a much less appealing question, but I figure if we can ask about animal behavior at feeding stations,...
