Posts by berry120
I'll caveat this answer with the fact I've heard of them but never used them. That being said: Would a fire piston have any advantages over the more modern ways of starting a fire such as match...
When a rattlesnake gets his rattle on, what exactly is the desired reaction it's expecting from you, and what other indicators does it give you that a strike is imminent? It's a warning that i...
I'd say the following are important things to have: Good signal strength is a must - Geocaching will often take you into built up areas or wooded areas, and it's incredibly frustrating going roun...
I'll echo the most prominent theme in the related question, which is that above all else comfort is the most important consideration in any backpack. The worst backpack is one that ends up causing ...
Any advice is greatly appreciated; I can't really afford new boots Well there goes my #1 piece of advice - I don't want to rub it in too much at all, but it just goes to show how important it ...
I don't want, however, to inform anyone around about that cache - I want to keep it secret only for 'chosen'. Although you don't want to, I'd strongly suggest rethinking this - does it really ...
I once saw a cache that got around this problem nicely by implanting 4 relatively tall upright sticks around the other pile of sticks. I think this only worked because it was relatively off the bea...
I'm lucky to come from the UK where this isn't really an issue (though we still have adders, so sometimes I'm a bit wary.) Having said that, I'll generally still take the following precautions to ...
When your hands are cold then your nerves will adapt to the cold, so lukewarm water will often feel boiling hot if your hands are freezing (the old hand in hot water, hand in cold water then both h...
Filter the water right away, when filling the bottle. This way I'm sure the water inside the bottle is safe for drinking. This. Why? The main point for me is accessibility of that water. If y...
I'm not sure I've seen an x hour hike advertised that hasn't been a round trip (unless explicitly stated otherwise.) This makes sense since a round trip is what almost everyone will be doing, and i...
There's two schools of thought here that I know of - the first is to avoid lighting a fire where there's ground you could easily damage, and the second is avoiding the heat getting to the ground. C...
A lot of this really does depend on the type of river - you seem to be talking about really quite big, cold rivers, and I'd question whether you should really plan to cross these by fording at all ...
As others point out, avoiding them is key, and because they're so aggressive it's generally the better stance to take. That said, if you find yourself unavoidably coming up against one then being a...
Not a direct answer, but to expand a bit it is possible in the UK, however you need to register your mobile first and it's really meant for those who are hard of speech or hearing rather than poor ...
In truth, there's no real fail safe way to test this - but after a quick check over the risks are low enough that, in practice, I don't worry about it. I will however make a note of the following p...
This is highly dependent on the type of water as well as the location, but I'll summarise a few things to be aware of. In many locations most of these dangers won't factor in, but they're useful th...
I have a few lengths of retired rope (I don't climb myself, but have them from others) - they come in useful! I've used them for pulling things along, tying odd bits and pieces up securely, and whe...
This is one of these subjective topics where there's advantages and disadvantages both ways - I've seen people that will religiously advocate either one of these approaches in all scenarios. I'd p...
I haven't found anything on this looking around, so I'll approach it from a different perspective - why not slide a small piece of thicker material round the thin guyline as a sleeve? You could the...
Generally I find a three person tent small and light enough that you don't need to split it up when backpacking - indeed I find it's much less hassle to keep it all in one place so when you come to...
Should you just put them on and warm them up with your feet or is there a better alternative? In fact, I've found just putting them on and putting up with the cold for the first few minutes is...
If you find yourself in this situation, then there's a few steps you can take - firstly try to extinguish the fire as quickly as possible by pouring as much water as you can on the flames, and stam...
It's a bit odd, I'm not sure what reason in production or otherwise would cause this to happen (perhaps a month or so, but 6 months seems weirdly long.) Perhaps a fault in one side of the boot caus...
It's difficult to tell exactly how long wood you've gathered will last you, unless as an expert you can gauge an accurate estimate due to the type of wood, weather conditions and other contributing...
