General Q&A about the great outdoors and outdoor pursuits.
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Often times in city parks people will use the trees for slacklining, the problem comes when they use trees that are not big enough, and given enough time and users this can be unhealthy for the tre...
More states in the US are decriminalizing switchblades, yet there are many other methods of opening a folding knife with one hand such as studs on the blade or groove to make it easier to open. I ...
In addition to space blankets, you can get reusable tarps with a reflective coating on one side. For the most part, they are just like regular tarps with grommets for tie downs and are big enough t...
We have several posts about fire most of them are about specific challenges. A recent question had myself and others searching for fire starting basics. We don't seem to have a post about it. Wh...
We were recently driving through Berlin Hew Hampshire, and saw these small islands in the river for several miles. There was not a good place to stop and take a picture of them, but they show clea...
We have been using older water filter bottles with charcoal filters. These are easy to drink from a combination of squeeze the bottle and suck will quickly fill your mouth with a swallow of water. ...
I am disabled in the wildness, there are no natural water sources available. I have 2 gallons (7.5 liters) of water. The only practical solution is to sit and wait for rescue. I will be resting i...
Some terms may not be global, inline descriptions for questionable terms A motorhome is RV with an engine (as opposed to a camp trailer that is pulled by another vehicle). Many people will tow a ...
The alcohol used for cooking is poisonous. Denatured alcohol, also called methylated spirit (methylated spirits in Australia and New Zealand) or denatured rectified spirit, is ethanol that has...
I have been considering a folding bike, it would be multipurpose, for short rides of 10 miles or less. I think I want multiple gears, as it may be used as part of Canoe Advventures My primary mot...
There is a method of finding north with a watch described here So you point the hour hand of your watch at the sun. Halfway between your hour hand and the noon mark is south. How accurate is ...
Inspired mostly by this answer, if I were to decide to buy a set of throwing knives for just for fun, what exactly should I be looking for? I do realize that throwing knives are not legal everywhe...
Every time I have slept in a snow cave, I have woken up to a ceiling that was noticeably lower than when I went to sleep. Is there a good rule of thumb for estimating how much lower it will get? ...
My wife and I recently bought an inflatable, tandem kayak. I grew up canoeing and we've had many enjoyable outings on the water together, so I thought two-person kayaking would be relatively easy....
From this answer, -148 °F has been survived inside a snow cave, and this question is asking for the unadjusted temperature, which leads me to wonder how much the wind chill would matter. If you ha...
Related to this question, I have had better luck with the smaller energy drink/V8 juice cans than standard 12 oz pop cans. The other question on the site mentions both beer and Redbull cans. Is th...
This question asks "Are the Goldtip and Easton spine declarations AMO/AMA or ASTM??", What exactly is the difference between AMO/AMA and ASTM spine declarations and what difference does it make?
Is there any reason to pick bow-fishing over rod-fishing. As far as I know it's extremely difficult to aim for fishes beneath the water surface. This makes me wonder if there is any rational reaso...
Quite a few fishing regulations say something similar to this, Don’t dispose of fish entrails or other byproducts into any body of water 2018 Colorda Fishing Fish die in the water all of t...
The related question Is it safe to drink snow? tells us that in addtion to then normal considerations for any wild water source, you also need to consider how the snow may tip your metabolism into ...
An inversion in weather terminology is when the temperature actually rises with altitude, instead of decreasing like it usually does. As the lapse rate can be useful for calculating temperatures a...
We have a question about how to store dead bait shrimp, both answers suggest that you can simply eat the bait shrimp, but one says, As for freezing them, they won't be alive anymore but they sh...
Inspired mostly by this question, where a person was asking what the climbing rating of a brick wall was. Compared to all of the varied climbs in nature with the many different rock features and t...
Hiking in the rain often left me with thoughts about acid rain. I wonder if I'm able to recognize it and if yes, how strong the recognizable symptoms are. Are there any direct (forest dieback etc...
Stallions will kill unrelated foals, but I have heard that male mountain lions will kill their own kittens, ostensibly to bring the females back into heat so they can breed again. (Bears will do th...
The trigger on my hunting rifle has a rather heavy pull and doesn't break very well, will getting a trigger with a lighter pull weight help me be more accurate?
This answer made me wonder how a slingshot would compare in power to an airgun, especially as for that location, without a license you are limited to 12 ft-lbs of energy. For hunting with firearms,...
In addition to all of the ducklings currently around the area, one will also see mallard ducks without, (the mallards would run the duck with a red head off if they had ducklings). Lots of other...
In hunting/shooting, you will often see the term MOA (which stands for minute of angle). What exactly is an (MOA) minute of angle when it comes to shooting?
I have a hydration bladder with a screw on the drinking hose, and the problem is that given enough time it will come unscrewed and then leak inside my backpack. I have tried tightening it as hard ...
Note, I am not asking how to tie three different types of knots, but rather one knot that goes by three different names. Its a knot that can be useful in building anchors especially at the top of ...
When shooting it is a good idea to wear eye protection, most ranges and shooting competitions require them. There are two basic kinds, clear plastic, and amber/yellow tinted ones. From what I have...
The local shooting range requires eye protection, when I look on Amazon there are "shooting glasses" in the hunting section, and then there are "safety glasses" in other sections. From what I can ...
When getting an early alpine start (3-5 am or earlier) it will probably be before the sun comes up. Hopefully, the weather will be better in the morning (that is often the point of an alpine start)...
I parked my camper at a full hookup campsite, I plugged in my 30 Amp cord to the 30 amp plug but did not get power. The campground owner checked the plug with a simple polarity checker and everyt...
We are in a Robinson Crusoe situation where we're stranded on a tropical island (lonely or not). We've to setup our camp. How to determine the right piece of land? For example you might wanna hav...
More and more I see discarded freeze dried packages abandoned in the woods. The ones I have seen are made out of plastic and are foil lined and so don't decompose the way that oatmeal packets would...
It's pretty common to use 1 oz Nalgene bottles to hold the spices in a spice kit for backpacking as they are waterproof and the right size. Image Source The problem comes when trying to label t...
Balling up is when the snow starts sticking to the bottom of your crampons to the point that the crampon points are no longer touching the surface. As one can imagine this is a rather dangerous sit...
We have several places on local trails maintained by volunteers where the trail crosses a small stream or ditch. In these places the stream is a bit too wide and deep to expect people to jump accr...
In addition to sunglasses, you can get clear safety glasses that claim "Blocks 99.9% of harmful UV rays". The advantage of clear safety glasses is that they can be worn both during dusk and after d...
We're currently planning a tour in the alps. Nothing too big. Just going uphill with the cable-way and then doing 15 km on top. This is because we've a 2 year and a 5 year old girl with us. We can ...
Besides a few exceptions (Finland, France, Hungary etc.), it's generally prohibited to hunt with a bow in Europe. At least I'm sure for Germany, Austria, Sweden and Switzerland :). What were the ...
In lots of places around the world, locking folding knives are illegal for everyday carry while non-locking folding knives are much less restricted. Almost everyone I know who carries a knife dail...
Right now the irrigation ditches and ponds have lots and lots of mallard ducklings, sometimes multiple families to a single pond. The way to tell is that there will be too many ducklings for one fa...
As it is the time of year when carp spawn and are in close to shore, I have been seeing people along the lakeshore with archery equipment, bow fishing for carp. If one were to already have a bow ...
There are pictures of bobcats climbing on top of really tall cacti, the one story I read says that the reason the bobcat climbed the tree was to get away from a mountian lion who was trying give it...
I was on the canoe trail at Presque Isle today, and there were large fish splashing in the shallows all over the place. We learned from a passerby that it was carp mating season, and the splash w...
I want to have a look in other aiming methods and tried to start off with "gap shooting". However, I'm not quite sure whether to leave both eyes open or one eye closed. What is the right thing to d...
We were in a central European forest last weekend and discovered a few places where a bunch of sticks were leaned against a tree. They build kind of a circle so that it looked like a small hut. How...