Urban Survival Skills – Wilderness Survival

I am often asked for recommendations on wilderness survival training courses and references on back country survival.

I was a Wilderness Survival Instructor for a military course where we presented two days of hands on round, robin type instruction on various desert survival related subjects including: Survival Sheltercraft; Building expedient weapons; Traps, Snares and Hunting; Water procurement and Purification; Edible Plants and Medicinal Uses; Poisonous Plants; Poisonous Dwellers (predominantly Rattlesnakes); Fire Starting; Navigation without mechanical aids; and, Recognizing and treating Dehydration and Heat Injuries. We then placed these individuals in small teams into a desert environment where they had to move 60 miles in 8 days to a pickup point for recovery. They were not given anything other than 2 one quart canteens and knife and some parachute suspension line, and, only eat or drank what they found or caught.

Anybody going through this training will have the skills and understanding to survive not only in Desert environments or also other wilderness’ as principles and techniques are essential the same even as some of the environmental concerns, animals and plant life changes.

But understand that being stranded in a wilderness and surviving until recovered is much different is living in degraded society after a collapse. To put it another way, anybody with sufficient training and skills can survive like an animal but living with any quality in an environment without packaged foods, services provided electricity and greater threats such as overtly operating gangs of criminals and lack of medical infrastructure is going to take a lot of planning, preparation and the acquisition of Survival related Gear, Equipment and Supplies.

Having said that, learning about surviving in the wilderness is something for the Urban Survivalist to consider especially if the Bug Out plan following a collapse may include transiting rural or remote areas, and possibly moving overland on foot. The Survival Bug Out Bag, which consists of essential Survival Gear and Equipment, should ensure you have the tools to survive until you get to your prepared Safe Location, but your movement may be much slower than you anticipate and you may run out of essential supplies and/or lose some of all of your kit.

So it pays to have the Wilderness Survival training and skills. Barring that the next best step is to have some decent reference material on Wilderness Survival.

For General Wilderness Survival there are three excellent books among many that we recommend: Tappan On Survival, by Mel Tappen; US Army Field Manual on Survival; and, John Wiseman’s SAS Survival handbook. These are available through the Recommended Reading link to the left and also on the bottom of this page.

For specific topics such as Edible Plants, three of the best resources we have found are; Wild Cards: Edible Wild Foods, by Linda Runyon; Edible Foods Master Class (book and DVD); and, an old time classic, Stalking the Wild Asparagus, by Euell Gibbons. Other good edible plants book are a available as well.

Survival Gear & Equipment - Army Equipment Initiatives

Lets look towards the U.S. Army and their Rapid Fielding Initiative of equipment for lessons learned that can be considered for the kit of Survival Gear and Equipment for the Urban Survivalist.

Certain units of the U.S. Army have been the first to benefit from Asymmetric Warfare Group and Rapid Equipment Force's projection of the newest and best equipment.

No where is this more evident than the replacement of the Mountain Combat Boot in favor of the Merrill Chameleon light hiking boot which has been best described as a tennis shoe on steroids. The soldiers equipped with the Merrill Chameleon love them for their lightness and traction. At 2 lbs compared to 4 lbs for the issued Mountain Combat Boot, the reason is evident.





The Army Modular Sleeping System Patrol Bag (shown below) at 2.3 lbs was replaced by the Mountain Hardware Phantom 45 sleeping bag which weighs 1 lb.

The Modular Sleeping System Bivy, an outside gore-tex cover for the Modular Sleeping System Patrol Bag, weighing 2.2 lbs was replaced by the Memo GoGo LE Tent which weighs 1.9 lbs, not a lot of weight savings here, but every ounce helps and the Soldier's reported comfortable sleeping on exposed mountain tops.


UrbanSurvivalSkills.com will be reporting on more innovations in Army gear in the future as the Army lessons learned from hard living and harder fighting in the mountains of Afghanistan certainly provide good data on the quality and ruggedness of the equipment that Urban Survivalist's may be be considering for their Survival kit.

After Armageddon 2 of 9 - A History Channel Program and Lessons Learned

Continuing on with Chapter 2 of the excellent History Channel Program "After Armageddon" and Urban Survival lessons learned from the scenario they depict. As you watch this Chapter of the video, ask yourself if you would have done anything different and how you could have prevented the predicament that Chris found himself and his family in. Not all problems can be overcome with the latest and greatest in Survival Gear and Equipment. Sometimes you have to prepared with survival and decision making skills.

We find Chris on Day 17 after the pandemic hits L.A. Some people are leaving the city; medical care is waning with hospitals closing. Chris reports to work, sees how futile it is and ends up stealing some medical supplies which in the back of his mind he knows he might need. Even on Day 19 Chris still wants to stay put and that's because he thinks things may get better and it's more comfortable to sit tight when you don't have a Survival Bug Out plan in place.



Chris stopped going to work because the hospitals closed (he was an EMT). Are you prepared to take leave, take a unpaid leave of absence or just quit? What will trigger your decision? Day 21 finds Chris buying groceries, the ATM is not working but he manages to procure a small load of food. What will trigger you to double, triple or quadruple your weekly grocery buy? What if the stores won't take personal checks and the grid is down so credit cards and ATM machines won't work? Do you keep an adequate supply of cash on hand? If so, how much to you is adequate? How about gold or silver?

Did you notice Chris looking at the man with the shotgun in the store? I'll bet he was thinking "Jezz, I wish I had one of those." I did not see Chris buying extra fuel containers and gasoline, which would have been my priority, but then again I have a butt load of food on hand and about every other piece of Survival Gear or Equipment that I think I may need. Storing fuel, at least long term, is problematic.

After Armageddon 1 of 9 - A History Channel Program and Lessons Learned

UrbanSurvivalSkills.com is planning on posting the History Channel Program previously reviewed here, and will provide commentary after each of the nine clips. Follow Chris and his family and us as we look at a fictional scenario following a collapse from a pandemic.



Obviously Chris from the video was not in the least prepared. Little to no Survival Gear or Equipment, certainly no long arms or pre-packaged items ready to go like Survival Bug Out Bags or other grouping of organized equipment; Chris waited much too long to leave the city which would have been a different matter if he had been better prepared; he was making decisions on what material and property to take with him and his family - packing at the last moment; no task organized of Survival Groups - we feel like this is essential to Urban Survival; Chris did not adequate plan routes of egress (leaving) the city; and, he demonstrated an lack of ability to recognize legal or illegitimate authority which would be pretty common in our minds.

This part of the excellent History Channel program brings up several key points: What are you going to do in a society without law and order? What are you going to do when forced to leave your home for your own safety? Where would you go? What are you prepared to do?