- Joined
- Jul 18, 2007
- Messages
- 610
went out this afternoon to make a fire in the snow. found this to be useful as a shelter out of the wind.
started by collecting some stuff for birds nest and put it between my bibs and jacket to dry
took some trying but after 15 mins or so i decided to cheat a bit and use some dryer lint and couple drops of hand sanitizer.
once i got it going i started adding more wood so it would dry out some before it was burned
took a minute for a photo op. used most of the blades and my cold steel hawk i picked up this weekend.
as i am sure most have seen this weather front move across the states. we got some ice, then around 8" of snow. i decided to go out today after they shut our shop down at noon. i figured it would be a good time to try some skills and test some blades. we hung out for a few hours and had a blast. i wish i would have had someone to take more action shots but he was busy gathering wood and building a bow drill. i consider this a dangerous situation for the fact we were out of power for 5 days a few years back in a big ice storm. i was not able to get home from monday-saturday. i walked to the house every few days to get clothes and feed the dog. stayed in town with friends or family. all the limbs falling made it too dangerous to clear 2/10 of a mile driveway with shit falling down. so we waited until it warmed up. i have family that live much farther out than i do and a grandmother that lives out by herself. i called to check on her a few times today and made sure she didnt need anything. also reminded her to leave her phone on the charger just incase power went out she could hopefully use her cell phone. her land line is dsl type provided by her cable company. overall with the weather there were mad rushes to the stores, i had plenty on hand to make it a week if needed. i was more interested in seeing how hard it would be to get a fire going had it been a need in this type of situation. i take my lighter and torch for granted. this was done with firesteel/striker and until i cheated it seemed almost impossible. most of the wood we gathered was cedar. it burned quick and made me realize how much would be needed for a night let alone a few in these conditions. we also melted snow in a pot and stainless bottle. that made us both realize why it is important to carry water storage and even a pump/filter if there is moving water or a pond around. all in all we had fun and learned some things from a less than ideal situation. im just glad i have some of the gear i do and kinda know how to use it. if we did not have to work tomorrow i think it would have been great to stay the night just to do it.
hope you might enjoy this read as much as i did going out in it. we were lucky to find the "shelter" and get a fire going as easy as we did...
Last edited:
