Activity for cbeleites supports Monica
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
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A: Drinking water in the backcountry wilderness in Northern Great Plains (Grasslands National Park). How to deal with the salinity? I've been to the Northwestern part near Val Marie in April 2004. Carry Supply of Water ... probably the only realistic option. Val Marie drinks reverse osmosis water and I took the advise of the rangers and took a supply of such reverse-osmosis water with me (a large supply in the car, making sure... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
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A: Are elk and deer colorblind to blaze orange/pink clothes? Have a look at Can deer see blaze orange?. They have a picture of a hunter rendered how we think it looks to deer. The orange vest (without camo pattern) becomes indistinguishable from a yellow-green-brownish color, sticking less out in terms of color but very much due to its uniformity. The bluei... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
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A: How often should I clean my water bladder/reservoir while on a thru-hike, extended backpacking trip, or survival scenario? First of all, I don't think a one-size-fits-all number can be given. Some influencing factors I'd consider: Temperature? What works fine in April in Canada with the water still freezing every night may land you in disaster in summer in Italy. What water do you put in there? Molten snow? Untreated s... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
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A: What conditions should lead an alpine team to abandon a mountain climb/expedition? IMHO your turn around point "developing hypothermia" is too late. AFAIK, hypothermia usually doesn't happen out of the blue: there's a typical mix of exhaustion and not enough food, usually also accompanied by dehydration. There are also vicious cycles involved (being at one's limit and already sli... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Long distance hikes with small children Disclaimer: this doesn't really answer any of the specific questions other than the "anything else" one - which is why it was originally a comment. However, as @fygsin asked me to put it into an answer, here go my 2 ct: How far do kids walk? When I was in kindergarden (so age 3 - 6), sometimes da... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Water preparation on desert hiking Summary: Heat adaptation (i.e. being able to do physical excercise in the heat) has a number of mechanisms, but among them the "water-related" mechanisms rely on having and needing, i.e. using more water. Heat adaptation increases the body's total water volume, so in that sense it improves water r... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Clothing for cold weather hiking To add to MichelKejzers' and Alexander's answers At 3 - 5 °C while hiking I often wear only a long-sleeve shirt or T-Shirt + thin fleece pollover, if the sun is shining or there isn't much wind or a bit later in winter you may even find me in T-Shirt only. A lot here depends on acclimatization... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: If I kill a deer how long can the body last before preserving? In addition to @JamesJenkins' answer: Blood and innards of a deer are removed asap, and AFAIK the same was done in pre-fridge days: they'd probably cook + eat the organs (possibly incl. the blood) and possibly wash the gut so it can later be used to make sausages. If they have hunting dogs with the... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Are Italian mountain huts accessible when unstaffed? Do I need a key? I seem to remember being told that Italian huts will have an emergency shelter room as well. In any case, this emergency shelter may not be meant for people who stay there over night during a planned trip: it is meant for proper emergencies. I've seen signs saying "to stay while not staffed, pl... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: How can I protect myself in case of a human attack like the murders of the hikers Jespersen and Ueland in Morocco? Summary: all in all, In my humble opinion the two had the super bad luck to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. There may still have been things that they could reasonably be expected to have done (in the sense of things they may have normally done without being particularly suspicious about ... (more) |
— | over 4 years ago |
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A: Is it safe spending night in wild boar territory? I'd be careful of wild pigs (boar or sow doesn't matter that much) when moving rather than when camping/sleeping: the danger is if you meet them and they are cornered. But unless you like to enter swamps and very thick brambles, and pick the blackberries only from the outside of the bramble thicket y... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: Uses of a rabbit in a survival situation? Summary: eat the rabbit. Every single bit of it. With 1 rabbit per day, you are in starvation while probably not exceeding your normal capacity for daily protein digestion, though it may very well exceed the protein digestion capacity if you are in total starvation (also without protein) for a pro... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: How to tell whether a particular pair of sunglasses will effectively protect your eyes? "blinkers"/blinders (usually leather or plasic pieces that close the gaps at the side and top of sunglasses) effectively block diffuse, ambient, scattered and reflected light coming from the side (of all wavelengths). For the UV protection of the lens, check the description of the sunglass. Or meas... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: Is there any reason to avoid sunglasses with blue lenses? Blue light can injure the eyes. Is there any reason to avoid blue lenses? Will I do more long-term damage to my eyes than choosing another option like these? UV light (which is blocked by good sunglasses) can cause photo ceratitis and conjunctivitis (inflammation of the cornea and/or the conju... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: One week bicycle tour around Berlin As @Pont says, there are lots of train connections to Berlin, so one-way bike tour + return by train or also hopping from one nice region to another by train is definitively an option you should consider. In terms of maps: https://www.opencyclemap.org/ will show you that the whole place is full o... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: Does an ice chest packed full of frozen food need ice? To give two more numbers that can serve as rough guesstimates which make clear that cooling for 18 days on a tour is likely unfeasible. I'm assuming hiking tour as it isn't specified. One rule of thumb for shipping biological (research) material on dry ice in the type of styrofoam containers used f... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: How to calculate backpacking food requirements for a dog I don't have numbers (yet), only rough guesstimates from observing the appetite of my 3 yo swiss mountain dog He's on the skinny side and the least greedy dog I know, so appetite probably translates quite well to needs (at least for dry feed). I observe decided variation in appetite depending on ... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: How stiff of a sole should I look for in hiking boots? In addition to what the others already said, I'd like to say that there are some considerations that go beyond saying a sole is stiff. Stiff soles under the toes help with climbing. Such sole designs are available both with flexible (see e.g. Vibram Approach soles) and stiff soles (e.g. Mountaineer... (more) |
— | almost 5 years ago |
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A: Skis versus snow shoes - when to choose which for travelling the backcountry? Summary from a winter spend in Winnipeg long ago compared to Central European conditions: there are probably good reasons why native North American people went with snowshoes while native Europeans invented skis. terrain Snowshoes have advantages over skis in bushy terrain off trail (where long sk... (more) |
— | about 5 years ago |
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A: Keeping water from freezing while cross country skiing Not a solution in itself, but pushing the "unusable" point somewhat further: Carry the bottle (preferably in thermo sleeve, and with warm/hot water at the beginning of the tour) upside down. This way, the ice mostly starts forming near the bottom of the bottle instead of first thing closing the ope... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: What gear should I carry along for winter emergencies? Lots of good and valid points in the existing answers, but I'd like to add a few points from a Central European perspective, and for situations that are as described i.e. the serviced lodges are not seen as a nice find in a tour that was set up as winter camping. For alpine tours I'd probably take so... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: What should I consider when planning my first multiple-day hiking trip on hills? I'm used to walking for longer distances a few times, even up to like 30KM on kinda even areas, but I've never done a multiple day trip in a hilly area. One important differences between (multiple) day tours and a multi-day hike is that you need to keep enough strength to do all the setting u... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Where can we see genetically pure American Bison, including Yellowstone National Park? If it's just about seeing bison but doesn't need to be yellowstone nor in the US, there's also Elk Island national park just east of Edmonton. They keep plains bison as well as wood bison and are involved in conservation efforts particularly for the wood bison and thus do put considerable effort in... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How should I dress for sweat inducing activities in cold weather? Between 0 and +10 °C I'm often (usually?) still in T-Shirt when active (depending also on weather: sunny vs. fog + wind etc.) and still may sweat a lot. If it's too cold for T-Shirt, I use a loose long-sleeve shirt of light but pretty wind-tight fabric or a tight thermo-shirt. I accept that I'l... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: How do you take field notes at below 0 °C, without freezing fingers? Let me suggest that some acclimatization may help (though I'm not sure how practical this is). I was personally rather astonished how much we can actually adapt to cold weather: I spent a winter in Winnipeg (office job, no outdoors job). Nevertheless, whereas I had been freezing on the bike in win... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: What to do if woke up in a tent hearing a bear/boar or something else close by? I assume you take the usual precautions of having food & other smelly stuff at an appropriate distance in bear country. A friend once insisted on a tour to also put the backpacks up a tree because of wild pigs, but I've never heard of that being necessary (I live in a region with lots of wild pi... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Are there any natural materials that can be used as a magnifying lens (or to craft one)? (Taking into account that we do have an "ice" answer already) The one magnifying lens that is fast and easy to get and that does have an optical quality that actually helps vision as a magnifying glass are in fact drops of water. But that's for the "home-made field microscope" application of a magni... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Why are long-distance hiking trails in the USA so much more famous than in Europe? In the more densely populated areas of Central Europe these long distance trails just seamlessly blend in with regional or local trails, so while the whole, say, 2690 km of the EB Eisenach - Budapest may not be well-known, e.g. its westernmost 170 km is the Rennsteig, a very famous regional trail in... (more) |
— | over 5 years ago |
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A: Is it possible to differentiate between a dog print and wolf print? European version: Diagrams (also with measurements in the [German language] text) English description including photo of direct register trot. single prints cannot be distinguished from large dog prints. (Here in Germany, I'm pretty sure we still have more Newfoundland and St. Bernards' dogs than... (more) |
— | almost 6 years ago |
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A: What are the steps you would go through to teach someone how to split logs? (Started as comment but then I realized it's getting too long). Short version: quite in contrast to Monster's advise, I recommend to start with a splitting maul if possible, because the splitting maul features fewer possibilities to hurt yourself than axes and hatchets. If your wood is too soft for ... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: Should one attempt to rescue a stranger from a crevasse or wait for mountain rescue? I'd like to add one point to the other good answers: You call mountain rescue and they say they will be there in 30 mins. As you are in communication with rescue, once you have answered all their questions, ask them how to proceed meanwhile (tell what knowledge and equipment you have). Side... (more) |
— | about 6 years ago |
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A: How do I make people not be afraid of me and my dogs? Some more points in addition mainly to @CharlieBrumbaugh's answer: Both in Central Europe (where I'm from) and traveling Canada I've only once in my life encountered a "visibly" and truly homeless person in the "outdoors" (actually just outside my home). All other encounters with homeless persons I ... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Can a rope&bucket used to gather water from a well be kept outside, tied to this well, or does it have to be kept inside? If you are talking about a wooden bucket, you'd want to keep it moist all the time. It will crack and leak when drying thoroughly. Incidentally, this will not be a problem, as it will go into the well several times per day. (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Does firewood have to be stored inside or is storing it in a lean-to sufficient? Here's my central european (Cfb/Dfb climate: temperate or continental humid climate with warm summer, no dry season) take on the question: We have enough rain and moisture so that having some kind of roof over the wood is good. Nowadays, no problem (lean-to with sheet metal roof or just tarp or she... (more) |
— | over 6 years ago |
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A: Are there any techniques for starting and maintaining a fire in snow? I'd say this depends much more on how wet the conditions are in general than just whether there's snow on the ground: when winter-camping in Manitoba, we trampled down the snow a bit and started campfires on top of that. It was usually easy to find birch and spruce wood that was reasonably dry (due t... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: What to do when finding huge pieces of trash? Suggestion for Germany: tell the owner. The owner often has the strongest interest in having it cleaned up fast, because clean places tend to stay clean, but once someone dumped rubbish, others may add to it. The owner may know this already but may be waiting e.g. for the weather to be dry enough ... (more) |
— | over 7 years ago |
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A: Will drinking lots of water in the day(s) prior to a long trek mean I will need less water on the trek? If I know that I am going to be trekking over the weekend, does it help if say from Thursday, I start drinking more water than I usually do? This clicks my mind because I spend the whole day in air-conditioned office, so, naturally and unfortunately I drink less water than I am supposed to. ... (more) |
— | over 8 years ago |
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A: What is the point of hiking boots, versus any comfortable walking shoes? One advantage I'm missing so far is that hiking boots also protect the ankles against the outside (not only against sprainng): from getting scratched by or hitting stones, wooden branches sticking up, or stuff like blackberry twines (which I find very bad as they scratch heavily over the front part ... (more) |
— | almost 10 years ago |
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A: Do mountains really make their own weather, and if so why? The German Wikipedia article on thermals is also quite nice (better than the English). In higher latitudes the sun shines closer to orthogonal on the sun side of a mountain face. Compared to a flat landscape more heat is transfered to the air immediately above the surface, and it starts flowing up. ... (more) |
— | about 10 years ago |
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A: Why do people who backpack sleep in tents instead of tarps? Short answer: I use both. But then, I don't have particularly light weight gear. For weekend hikes (my home is in Germany with hills and abundant forest) usually the tarp or nothing at all (or maybe a cave). Moskitos drive me into the tent. In fact, I once returned to get the tent because moskito... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: How to warm up your cold toes and fingers? There's not yet a good answer that asks for the reason the fingers, toes (and nose and ears) are cold, so let me add a few points: (I'm assuming around 0°C according to the question - of course, -40 °C is different). Here are a couple of reasons why your fingers and toes get cold in the ... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: How safe is drinking distilled water? Distilled / deionized (as for lab purposes) water tastes stale. So do reverse-osmosis drinking water, and cooked water: this is attributed mainly to the lack of CO2 / HCO3⁻ compared to fresh ground / tap drinking water. Yes, you can encounter distilled water in outdoor situations. In winter ... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: Does packing boots with newspaper make them dry faster? If you have a dry airflow available (some huts have stands where heated air goes through the shoes), that is of course faster. However, just leaving your boots stand does not lead to much air flow. With (news)paper, you can easily take out the moisture and put in a new, dry paper. That is actually ... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: What backpacking water purification techniques can be substituted safely during a city's boil order? I assume that you are somewhere where the normal situation is that tap water is safe to drink. The order not to do so can result from analyses (water samples) failing the microbiological or chemical testing breakdown/repair of a pipe, so that the water can get contaminated (the order for that is u... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: When are cotton socks actually better? When would actually one want to wear exactly cotton socks? Hygienic reasons where washing your socks hot (95 °C) and frequently is important. I guess the most common such reason (besides being doctor/nurse/...) is having a fungal infection. In that case in addition to the proper medication... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: How bright a flashlight would I realistically need for searching through terrain? I'd think that it will depend very much on what you search for: do you expect the person to respond, e.g. put up whatever scrap of reflective material they have with them when they see your search-light? In that case, and open landscape a highly brilliant lamp would be good: you could sweep a larg... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: Is cold shock response a real danger, if someone is used to cold water? According to this article, Avijit Datta and Michael Tipton: Respiratory responses to cold water immersion: neural pathways, interactions, and clinical consequences awake and asleep, A fall in skin temperature elicits a powerful cardiorespiratory response, termed “cold shock,” compri... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: Are water purification tablets safe? Just as an addition: For treatment and filter, I'd filter first, then treat. For 2 reasons: After a while, filters get alive and things start growing. Most of the chemical treatments work by oxidation. No use spending the oxidation capacity on stuff that can be oxidized, but could have been filte... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: How can I ignite coal on a grill device without using kindling? I use the wood pieces method. For charcoal pieces medium twig-sized sticks (say 1 cm diameter) are OK. For pressed charcoal, I go for sticks of 3 - 4 cm diameter. For real coal (on the grill 8-o who wants to eat stuff roasted on a real coal fire?) I'd go for a nice wood fire with sticks (chopped... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |
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A: At what point do I need snow goggles or glacier glasses when hiking? I own only glacier glasses and use them as sunglasses as well (I take off the "blinders"). If you decide to go with sunglasses only, make sure they offer proper UV protection (not all of them do). Reasons as explained by @WedaPashi (I'd only add that while cataracts can be operated IMHO that is no ... (more) |
— | over 10 years ago |