Survival exercise: you and your horse

Note: Try to answer this before reading the responses of others.

You are riding a horse and hunting in a rough mountainous terrain during December. You have managed to clear the tree line when a blizzard comes in causing a white out... you can't see 2 feet in front of you. The temperature drops so quickly that you are shivering. It must be at least -80 with the wind chill factor. You have a very small survival kit in your pocket (you had always planned to be in the trees where you could use the natural resources there). Unable to travel and with limited resources what immediate action could you take to save your life? Remember your "five survival needs".

Following my survival step by step process you:

1. Stop and recognize the situation for what it is.

2. Recognize and prioritize your "five survival essentials" (listed below) in order of importance.

3. Improvise to meet your needs ("five essentials").

while going through the steps of improvising you inventory your manmade and natural materials.


Question:

What immediate action could you take to get out of the wind and provide protection from the elements? BTW: true story. I'll tell you what he did once enough time has lapsed.

Note:

Recall that the "Five survival essentials" are:

1. Personal Protection (clothing, shelter, fire)
2. Siganling (manmade and improvised)
3. Sustenance (water and food)
4. Travel (with and without a map and compass)
5. Health (psychological stress, environmental injuries, traumatic injuries)

Good luck!

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Greg Davenport
http://www.ssurvival.com
Are You Ready For The Challenge?
Are You Ready To Learn The Art Of Wilderness Survival?

 
G

goshawk

Joined
Dec 27, 1998
Messages
297
I would take the saddle off the horse and let it lead me back down into the tree line for cover
but never go out of it if it were
that bad. You can usually tell if a front
that is bad is coming in.
If not kill the horse leaving the heart and
liver under the gut pile open it up far enough to get into the body cavity of the horse and wait for the storme to blow over
( sometimes 3 days here in Montana)
No I wouldn't carry my saddle out with me.

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http://www.imt.net/~goshawk
Don't walk in tradition just because it feels good!!!!!
Romans 10:9,10
Hebrews 4:12-16
Psalm 91

 
This is dangerous!
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My first thought is to get downhill to the trees if at all possible! This may be totally impractical so my second step would be to get the horse DOWN, as in lying down and attempt to keep it as such, while staying huddled against him for warmth. Hopefully this will work and the wind will subside enough to get down to the tree line!

Finally my last hope! This is gruesome, but it will save my bacon! Shoot the horse, open him up and get inside!
redface.gif
Yes, just like you saw in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.
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This isn't something I would enjoy doing, but when it comes down to just the horse dying or both of us...

I would have to add that you would probably want to kill the horse in some way to effectively bleed it out as it dies. You don't want to crawl inside a body cavity with a couple of inches of blood on the bottom, you would probably go hypothermic that much faster!

I imagine sticking the horse in the jugular with his head downhill would be one of the more effective ways. Putting a round through its head at the same time would probably finish it humanely, yet allow the heart to pump the blood out through the jugular. Comments on this would be appreciated.

Remember, sticking a dead animal does nothing to allow it to bleed out!

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Plainsman
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primitiveguy@hotmail.com

You use what you have on you, then you improvise!
smile.gif


[This message has been edited by Plainsman (edited 01 January 2000).]
 
Oof... Cold...

First, the horse and I would have a good talk, and hopefull, he'd be more than happy to lie down and get out of some of the wind, and I'd curl up on the leeward side of him and we'd have a grand old time waiting for the blizzard to go away. If I have the materials, and I know the horse won't mind, I would try to build a small fire, but it wouldn't be high on my priority list, especially if I thought it would cause the horse fear.

I suppose one could follow Luke's path, and kill your mount, and sleep inside him, but my guess is all that would do is make you wet and cold come tomorrow when you have to ride out.

Stryver
 
Hi Greg,
I might be quite a bit off but let's try this....

What I can see as an immediate life threat is the lack of shelter, clothing, and firewood in the mid of a blizzard on an exposed area. Thus, the major question is how to survive TONIGHT.

Equipment is very limited and it certainly will serve as a good lesson for the future regarding what to carry.

In my inventory, the horse is probably the only source of solution. Since the immediate threat is bigger than the ones potentially associated with the loss of horse, I would butcher my poor horse.

I tried hard to think of a solution where I could use the horse alive as a 30-something degree heater just laying down next to it but it sounds quite irrealistic. BTW, would the horse die in the same conditions by dawn?

So let's find a less exposed spot with some natural windbrake (big rock, rock craves, spot with good size rocks to build a quick windbreak), lay the horse down (leggs uphill to ease skinning) and shot it in head (that would definitely stir up my feelings but let's focus on survival). Skin the legs in one piece (to get a tube shaped piece of skin) and one side of the body. Turn the horse around (if I can!) and do the same with the other side.

Open the body cavity and clean it. Put cleaned organs underneath the corpse to use their heat. Pull the leg skin tubes onto my legs and arms (with hair inside) wrap myself into body skin (with hair inside) and try to hide in the body cavity to keep myself warm.
(To see that is not totally crazy look up p. 173 in Larry Dean Olsen's 'Outdoor Survival Skills'.)

I would try to build a windbreak around the corpse from stones and try to improvise a fire by using the fat from the horse (reference: John Wiseman's 'The SAS Survival Handbook') as fuel in combination with anything I can burn from the vegetation, horse food (do I carry any?) and the saddle.

If I survive the night next day I would make some decisions: can I just hike 'home' without horse or better off getting into the woodded area with the rest of my inventory and try to survive until SAR arrives.

Concerns regarding tho corpse: would bears or other predator pop up or bears rather hibernate in this weather? Still sounds less probability than freezing...
Can I rely onmy gun and hunting skills to protect myself?

Let's see now what others think.
Best,

HM

 
Sorry guys, but getting inside a carcass in freezing weather guarantees your death!! How do you get out after the carcass freezes???
I assume you have a small compass in your survival kit, and can figure out which way is downhill. Go back to the trees, build a shelter, fire and enjoy!!!
 
I'm very limited in the area of horsemanship, and a survival neophyte, but here goes ...

My biggest concern would be hypothermia.

I'd organize my 5 priorities in descending order of importance.

1. Personal Protection
5. Health
4. Travel
3. Sustenance
2. Siganling

My priority would be to seek shelter.

If possible, I'd point the critter down hill
and huddle over it to try to abosorb as much warmth while heading for the treeline. Once there, I'd seek shelter from the wind and build a fire.

If that's impossible, then I'd seek a natural windbreak and get the horse down in the hope that I could absorb some of its warmth. (I'd use the saddle and pad to keep off the cold ground.) If I was smart enough to pack my emergency blanket, I'd get under that too.

It would seem to me that a live horse would throw off heat much longer than a dead one. In addition, a dead horse would be usless for travel later on. Killing it would not be an option for me. I also figure that (for me) having any live critter to talk to would be would be a better psycholocial boost than not.

Given my speculations and assumptions, Mr. Davenport, what would be my projected life expectancy?
 
Don't kill the horse, of the two in this situation he's the only one with horse sense, give him his head. When he gets you to a place he's OK with use the saddle and blanket as part of a makeshift shelter/windbreak to get you outa the -80 storm. Work on your other needs from there and hope your horse doesn't decide to kick the **** outa ya for gettin' him in this situation.

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P.J.
P.J. Turner Knife Mfg, Inc.
Uluchet, What's an Uluchet? Find out at...
www.silverstar.com/turnermfg


 
Hi All,

I promised I would tell you what happened so her it is.

There were actually two men... they killed their horses and climed in after gutting them. Every 15 to thirty minutes or so they would climb out and work the animals chest wall so that it would not freeze them inside. They survived the night doing this and walked out in the AM.

That's what they did. Was it the right thing to do? I don't know because I wasn't there. All I know is that they survived and that we could debate the other options they had... forever.

The point of this exercise was to think about our options... to work our survival eyes and mind. In that respect...we have succeeded.

------------------
Greg Davenport
http://www.ssurvival.com
Are You Ready For The Challenge?
Are You Ready To Learn The Art Of Wilderness Survival?

 
This one would seem to be pretty well terminal if you've ever experienced a whiteout on mountains. The solution that the guys chose would also seem pretty improbable.

Maybe not. I had a friend who would go up mountains around here and one time bad conditions hit. We were all surprised when he appeared back down the mountain in the morning after spending the night in a snow trench. He figured he was just fine once he got out of the wind - and well he did come back. The horses would have provided such protection - I've been amazed how warm carcasses have been after being gutted at night and spread - with a hard frost.

I'm going to go slowly with experimenting on this one - I'm sure that there's more to snow trenches than would appear. No one will loan me a horse for experimenting I'm sure!

Jimbo
 
Greg,

The incident you talked about happened in Cambridge,Idaho a few years back. One thing you don't need to do in a situation like this is panic and those guys did. I lived in Payette (40mi south) for 20 years and hunted extensively in the Cambridge area. I don't ever remember the temp even getting close to -80 in over 40 years of living in Idaho. As I remember these guys were inexperienced in the mountains and got caught in a snow storm. They were unfamiliar with the area, went in unprepared, and panicked. All they had to do was give their horses their head and ride off the mountain. Cuddy Mtn is not that big and it's full of logging roads. A lot of jokes came out of this incident like...what do you call a flatlanders sleeping bag?

My point is, know your limitations(and your animals), and be prepared.

rk

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As for me and my house...

Joshua 24:15

 
I love hearing the rest of the story. I never condoned what they had done and knew there had to be a better way. As Paul Harvey would say "now you know the rest of the story" Thanks for sharing.

However, I still enjoy the story. I think I'll add the flatlander sleeping bag joke to it... if you don't mind. I had a good laugh when I read that....

------------------
Greg Davenport
http://www.ssurvival.com
Are You Ready For The Challenge?
Are You Ready To Learn The Art Of Wilderness Survival?

 
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