Posts by ab2 MonicaNotForgotten
Your question made me wonder how Robert Falcon Scott wrote his final diary entries on his trip to the South Pole in 1912. This article, from The Guardian, Scott of the Antartic's final diary pub...
This answer will work only if you have a knife, preferably a multi-tool knife, and are adept at using it. Make a pair of Inuit goggles, as described in Snow Goggles, Wikipedia: The goggles are...
The short answer is Yes, but. I will confine my answer to the California Sierra, because that is the area I know best. You can certainly camp for days without seeing anybody, except possibly in t...
These are trail running shoes, not dress shoes that you will wear to the opera or to a job interview with a stuffy firm. They will get dirty on the next run, or the run after that, so there is lit...
Actually, I don't remember many fire rings at May Lake, but we always camped well above the Lake. It is the site of a High Sierra Camp, and there is thus an incentive to keep it "clean". Camping ...
I like the answer of @Charlie Brumbaugh, and it would be hard to do better as an official answer, but I would like to add the perspective of one category of prospective client: The older, highly e...
Warning: Contains details that may be too graphic for some cat lovers. Today's New York Times has an article titled Man who Strangled Cougar Cited a Lesson from His Cat. See He's no Chuck Norris...
I am reading Three Among the Wolves by Helen Thayer, who is best known for walking and skiing to the North Magnetic Pole accompanied only by her husky, Charlie. In a subsequent trip, she and her ...
Charlie has given you an excellent summary of the difference between the two, focused on the difference in exertion and time to reach them, and the amenities to be found at each. There is another...
Because of illness in my family, I cannot travel far from home for awhile, and have to be able to return quickly if necessary. However, I will be in Boston at the end of February visiting MIT and ...
We have a woodpile, protected from wind and precipitation, under the eaves of our house. Earlier, perhaps a month earlier, I several times saw two chipmunks emerging from, and going back into the ...
As a general rule, I think it unwise to attempt, solo, for the first time, the sort of climb that one has no experience with, especially if it carries the potential for a serious accident. You ha...
I have old snowshoes which were fine for hiking in TGO when I was younger, but they are too large now for comfortable walking in TLO (The Little Outdoors), by which I mean walking up and down an un...
Omura's whale is definitely smaller in length than the blue whale. The New Bedford Whaling Museum says: Length as an Adult: Male Omura’s whales are approximately 33 feet (10 meters) and fema...
Disclaimer: I have never been lost in the woods. I have mislaid myself a few times above timberline, but after I climbed to a local high point, I found myself. The OP asks specifically about bui...
Many years ago, I was reading a book in which the Chamonix guides of the 1940s and 1950s were featured. It could have possibly been Annapurna by Maurice Herzog, but I just don't remember. Several...
Chubbs, the alligator in the question, is 15 feet long, according to the OP's link. OP's source and mine: Sports Illustrated. According to this source The state's [Florida's] biggest alligato...
My question is prompted by the answer of @Aaron to this question; his answer referenced Geraldine's Largay's death on the Appalachian Trail. Ms. Largay was hiking alone on the AT in Maine. She g...
I looked first at bears to get a handle on this question, because it is well known that bears get a significant part of their caloric intake from berries. I should have looked first at berries! ...
There is a summary of the Bombard voyage in Surviving the Extremes by Kenneth Kamler, MD, who started his explorations into extreme environments through climbing. On one of his Everest trips in 19...
Doctors are not omniscient. They miss things. Some are sedentary, and they don't understand how important a full recovery is to an athletic person. Everyone, when going to a doc, needs to thin...
Splitting logs takes energy and skill. If you are unskilled, a survival situation is a bad time to play around with an axe for a nonessential reason. If you don't have much food, and do not have ...
It is not clear whether you are motivated mainly by scientific curiosity or mainly by a desire to ensure comfort in the wild. My answer assumes the latter. This answer adds only one point to Char...
It would not be wise to take a leaking inflatable sleeping pad on any trip where you actually need a sleeping pad, and cannot hike out and replace it easily. The pad is already leaking. You have...
Wood ash As @Monster said: anything that stops light from reaching your skin. The OP her/himself suggested mud. All you need to get wood ash is a campfire, which you probably want anyway, ...
