10 Survival Tips That Could SAVE Your Life While Hiking In The Bush

Feel compelled to do a video about the things you should bring on a backpacking trip and things you shouldn't bring. Been a rash of missing hikers, missing backpackers, hunters, everything this year, just in my area. I don't know if any of you know about the person, the YouTuber that does camping and hiking videos got caught in a blizzard and perished. It's tragic. There's been several people in BC here that some they haven't found yet. It's just tragic when these things happen. I've learned my lesson because I realized that it doesn't matter how skilled you are, if you get injured, can't get back to your camp, can't get back to your vehicle, can't start a fire, you're in big, big trouble. As I was saying in the one video where I fell and hurt myself on the rocks, I just took a nasty double. I was gonna get a Garmin. Well, I did. I bought an inReach. You have to have a plan with it, but you know, if you're out in the bush like I am all the time by myself, this could save your life. You've got an SOS button, you push that and Search and Rescue gets alerted. They know that somebody has a problem and they can track you down. I'm thinking about a couple of situations this year with certain backpackers and hikers where the one in particular, the fella ended up, they did find him alive after 50 days lost and stranded in the bush. He was frostbitten. He was in bad shape as far as malnourished, but it could have been avoided if he would have had one of these inReach or something. He didn't have to spend 50 days basically surviving. He could have been rescued within a day or so. I highly recommend, and I'm taking my own advice too because I bought that and when I hurt my back that time, I thought, hey, if this would have been really bad and I couldn't walk, what would you do? Other things that you should carry when you're going out on a backpacking trip, you wanna bring a knife. Carry one hopefully with a ferro rod, an alternative to starting a fire. Another very good thing to carry is a candle. It's not heavy and the reason for the candle, if it's very difficult to get a fire going, you can get a pile of wood together. You can put the candle under it even if the wood is wet because with your lighter, I mean to hold it long enough if the wood's wet, it can be very difficult to get a fire going with just a lighter or a ferro rod unless conditions are dry, then it's easy. You can put your fire over the candle and just let it burn for however long until the fire's going adequately. Just pile it like that and just leave it for however long it takes. You can see the steam starting to come off our wood now. Proves the point, wet wood, candle, no problem. These are important things to remember. Now, the other thing to remember too is like, I always stay in my hammock because I'm up off the ground. It's winter here. You can't set a tent up in the winter like this. It's just not gonna be good. You're gonna be on the cold ground and you need big, thick foamies and even if it's raining out, a tent is not ideal on the ground. And these hammocks, they fold down into a small pack. You're off the ground any time of year. So these are things to keep in mind. Now, this is the hammock, superior gear. Comes with a tarp, light. Doesn't take up that much room in a backpack. Lot less room than a tent. Compact, comes with a tarp and the tarps that come with them, I mean, they'd almost fit in a sandwich bag. Like, they're pretty small, but at the same time, perfectly waterproof. Even if it's snowing, the snow just slides off them. And the other thing, I always bring paracord. For tying your tarps, making a bushcraft shelter, like if it's windy and maybe your tarp and this isn't doing it, you can make some kind of a shelter around yourself. Paracord is very handy. Here's something you don't wanna bring. You do wanna bring a flashlight, but I've got this one that plugs into a charging system. It's got a chargeable battery, but I'll tell you what the problem with this is. When this battery goes dead, there's no indication. If you had to get out of an area in the dark, they say that it lasts six hours. No, don't get fooled by these gimmicks like this that say they last six hours. They last an hour and a half, two. And when they die, you're done, garbage. You're better off with a small pen light style with batteries and carry a spare battery or two. If you have to get out at night, probably can do it. That's another little tip there. Be careful with your flashlights. Get one that takes batteries. Take a couple of spare batteries. Something else I would mention that I would recommend bringing, which is important, is a first aid kit of some sort. It can be small and compact with band-aids, bandage gauze, and an antiseptic cream if you get a bad cut or injury that you can apply a disinfectant. And lastly, some Krazy Glue. All these will fit in a small little pack. If you do get a really bad cut or injury, Krazy Glue is as good as stitches for putting it back together. I've used it before on bad cuts. It certainly can get you out of a bind. There you have it. I don't recommend tents compared to a hammock and a lightweight tarp. Another thing is don't bring bulky flashlights. Bring your smaller compact flashlight with an extra battery or two. We pretty much covered it. Knife, candle, very important, even though recently, I only got this recently, the inReach Garmin. I'm a firm believer now since my accident, but we still have the one subject to talk about, and that's your boots. Do you know what is the number one cause of injury in the bush? Tripping and falling, number one reason for injury and fatalities in the wilderness. That's what happened to me in that one video, you remember? And it was basically a result of these boots. What it is is the hooks on these boots, the lace gets caught in them and trips you. Basically, that is what happened to me in that one video is I was walking, and the one boot, the loop caught in here, and then it trips you. I've actually tripped a few times, and the one time, it ripped the thing right off. These ones are all straightened out because I've hooked them so many times. It's just the stupidest, stupidest. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Design of a boot you can ever think of. There was a woman, actually, they just found recently that tripped and fell down a cliff, deceased. I kinda wonder if it's because of a boot like this. Be aware of these hooks. Stupidest design in any boot they could have ever come up with. And if you don't think that these boots have killed people hiking and backpacking, you're wrong. That is something to keep in mind. I'm gonna bend all of these now. I waited till now because I wanted to do this video and show you how stupid this is and how dangerous. That's my last safety tip for this video. Hopefully, you learned something about things to bring, things that you don't need or shouldn't bring, and about fixing these boots. You're gonna take some of my advice because there's just been way too many missing hikers and campers and tragedies of people falling down cliffs and everything else. And it would not surprise me if it's because of these boots because they're causing injuries and deaths, I guarantee you. So be smart, buy the ones with hooks or bend them over. Trust me.