Survival Chronicles of Jim – Chapter 7

Boy it seems like I just posted an update on my Urban Survival preparation, but it has actually been 13 days, so I am pretty proud of myself and what I have accomplished since my last post.

Using the US Geological Survey maps I bought at the local Bureau of Land Management Office (BLM) I have planned three routes from my house in the city to my family’s cabin. I am planning a route reconnaissance in the next few days, maybe this weekend, primarily looking at my primary route and the problem areas of my planned Alternate and Contingency routes. That will settle the PAC portion of PACE. My emergency route will overland on foot - this provides the E in PACE.

This reminds me to say that I also bought a Silva magnetic compass and was looking at buying a GPS units. During my route recon I also plan on doing some short routes on foot, plotting an azimuth and using my new compass and skills that I am trying to learn from the previous Urban Surival Skills posts on Map Reading - just to get a taste for land navigating. When TSHTF I may be taking Neomi with me therefore may have use of her GPS unit, I need to buy my own and be proficient at using it.

On this route recon I will also be emplacing a couple of caches around the cabin. I have bought an extra Aqua Mira Bottle Water filter unit, Frontier Pro Water Filter Straw, some extra water purification tabs, a pack of three butane lighters, six of the Three Day Main Stay bars, two small green ponchos on which I used sand and brown vinyl spray paint to sort of camouflage it.

I also bought a small camp hatchet, a 100 foot roll of green parachute line (small diameter rope). I will include a set of long underwear, four pair of extra socks, 25 rounds of 12 gauge buckshot and 450 rounds of .22 LR ammunition. This will fit into two military surplus ammunition cans which I’ll try and bury or otherwise hide above ground like the previously Urban Survival Skills on Caching when they talked about above ground concealment caches.

I am also going to cache two additional ammunition cans containing canned meat, Ramen noodles, beef jerky and some freeze dried items. I think this would give two people about one meal a day for 30 days. I know this is a not a long term storage solution nor a complete Survival Caches for hard times, but it will give me a interim solution until I can prepare some longer storage life food caches and get them emplaced near the cabin.

I have tentatively identified the back side of a small hill about 500 yards SOUTH of the cabin to emplace these caches. Just in case when I get to the cabin it is occupied by people maybe hostile to me, I can still retrieve my caches.

Have not talked to Neomi lately, after her initially expressed interest in a TSHTF Survival Bug Out Plan. If she wants to have a part in this Urban Survival contingency plan she was got to produce,……no, not in the way you are thinking,…… but in Survival Preparation, Survival Equipment and Gear acquisition. Until next time. This is Jim – OUT.