Wilderness Survival Task List

I have a couple of people who routinely talk to me, face to face, about Survival Preparation. Sometimes the discussion becomes one of training and skill sets, rather than Survival Gear and Equipment procurement, that would be necessary to survive in really decayed circumstances. Think The Road scenario.

Aside from having some Survival Reference material like the excellent US Army Survival Field Manual or John Wiseman’s SAS Survival books, the prepared Survivor needs to have some practical skills learned through hands on training.

In order to be able to survive various environments without the advantage of a prepared Survival location, stockpiled food and such, the prepared Survivalists should consider the below tasks list as a template on what field Survival skills would give him or her the best chance of surviving a decayed environment or wilderness type survival scenario.

These are what I think of as the Wilderness Survival Skills Tasks List:

* Build a field expedient shelter
* Procure/produce potable water
* Construct a water filter device
* Build a fire using matches, butane lighter
* Identify edible plants and prepare for food
* Identify poisonous plants
* Identify poisonous animal life
* Build a trap or snare
* Prepare an animal (field clean and quarter) and cook over a fire
* Build and employ field expedient fishing means
* Build a fire using matches, butane lighter
* Construct field expedient hunting/food procurement tools
* Utilize camouflage and concealment methods to minimize compromise/capture
* Use field expedient methods to determine direction; stick and sun shadow and watch method
* Define Terrain Features
* Determine position on a map using terrain association
* Read map margin information
* Determine magnetic azimuths using a compass
* Determine grid azimuths on a map
* Utilize G-M angle and convert grid azimuths to magnetic azimuths and vice versa
* Determine distances on a Map

I would be interested to hearing from my readers about what skills they think I forgot or what skills are important to them.