Guerrilla Camping

Have You Seen This Man?

2011-12-30T22:44:00.000-08:00

An old buddy from the GNN days was seeking a picture. I decided I would post a few. While going through it, I found this picture:

I'm the pale kid in camofluage in the picture, which was taken a few days before I walked out of the city. The big guy in the picture is "Papa", a vietnam vet who lived in the door way of a closed down drug store near the corner of 7th And Market in San Francisco. I lived a block way in a cavernous basement beneath 6th and Market and When walking home from night shifts papa and I gradually grew to be good friends, spending many late nights and sunny afternoons discussing life and slinging stories.

On every return to San Francisco, I look for Papa. I haven't seen him since this picture was taken five years ago. If any of you know his real name, his whereabouts, or can contact him, let him know Sean from San Francisco would love to share another cigarette and has a much warmer place to spend the evening.

Papa was a fixture at Seventh and Market, a man who many protected and who protected many in one of the grittiest parts of the city. A disabled vet who lost his right leg in Vietnam after leaving his family hog farm behind, his decline to the streets was inevitable, given our country's definition of "supporting the troops". While I have spent lots of time hanging out with homeless vets from every war since Korea, Papa was one of the wisest and kindest of all. While I'd occasionally help him, he helped me much more than he may ever know.

There has been much recent talk about percentages. Let me assure you that papa is the 1%

He is the 1% who gave his life for his belief in this country. While he did not die, his life was so changed by his wounds that he was left destitute, to fall between the scracks of society as he slept upon the cracks in the street.

He is the "bottom" 1%, disregarded by those who ordered him to a foreign nation for reasons still argued upon by historians and political scientists.

He is the top 1% who, though he has nothing, gives the world to everyone around him. His presence and arbitration in the sixth and market district of SoMa calmed tensions, settled disputes and gave consolation and consultation to others who society had feigned to swallow whole.

He is stronger than 99% of us, who would wallow and consume ourselves in self pity at the lot we were dealt, but who instead still took every day as he could, once explaining to me that he had a good day because somebody had stolen his crutches, and in an hour or two, friends had found him a better set and padded em out real nice so he was able to walk to the Chinese restaurant on the corner for some $1 chicken legs.

Hanging on the closet door behind me is a small nylon American flag that Papa gave me for Veterans day in 2005. He thanked me for serving when he gave it to me. Someone had been through the tenderloin passing them out to homeless vets, and he said he was excited to get it because he wanted me to have it.

I'm not sure what that flag means. Perhaps it is to remind me how small my sacrifices were. Maybe it is to recall the things that are possible when we continue to believe in the fight even when it maims us. I like to believe that it is to keep me thinking of all the things that flag means to so many people around the world, a thing to burn, a product to sell, a symbol of freedom or stamp of oppression. This flag, gifted to me by Papa, simply makes me think.

So, Bigato, there is my pic. I'll post another soon.

There was once some confusion about my identity.

2011-12-03T22:36:00.000-08:00

So, here I am.

I wanna rock.

2011-11-15T20:45:00.000-08:00

As the weather changes, old injuries come out to haunt. A couple of dislocated knees commiserate with a pair of shoulders who shared their fate. Tingles and pops remind of awesome, decade-old stories, but the fame shines on a point just at the ball of my right foot, where cold weather becomes searing pain and taunts me with the notion that I may have crippled myself away from the very freedom I once swore by.

Yes, five years after the infamous rock in the dark that ended my cross county hike, I still enjoy frequent pains from that damned foot.

An update for those of you just tuning in, Stocked for a 72 mile trek up the rails aside the Eel river, I turned 220 lbs of pack and body weight onto a upturned rock in the middle of the night, and destroyed the inside half of the right foot behind the big toe. Live long lesson learned: Yes, "hiking boots" use less calories to lift than mountaineering boots, but even civilian roads can occasionally call for heavy soles and steel shanks.

I want that rock.

It's probably about two inches long, an inch or so at the bottom and half an inch on the business end, and if you look carefully, you might see shards of shattered dreams left across the narrow end. I collect odd mementos. I am willing to trade my deer molar for this one. Consider it a bounty and a mission.

Sorry....

2011-10-14T23:27:00.000-07:00

Real life is oft a sledge hammer to my promises to write more. Thank you to everyone around the world who continue to send messages of encouragement, particularly those who see the bits that only get posted for a new minutes and who e-mail words of encouragement from the four corners of the globe.

Its not that I don't have tons to write about. It's just that I'm not a nomad anymore. I'm a dad. In seven years, I will attempt to conquer the final stretch to complete California by foot, and we'll see if my boy wants to knock out Oregon and Washington with me in the following years.

But you guys jumped on for my backpacking adventures, which I lack now. My passions lie in gardening and self sustaining systems now. I've been back to the 9-5 world for a few years now, and have been doing well enough (considering the current depression) that my wife and I joke about our outmoded and stereotypical gender models. Our boy is beautiful and we struggle to find domestically made toys for him, bought from local merchants.

I still religiously pick up hitchhikers in hopes of someday repaying the karma that drivers heaped on me from 19-31, so I try to keep my ear to the ground. But I'm going to have to expand my horizons if I continue to post. I'm sorry if you are a long time follower and disappointed by the taming of BlackPacker.

You're not going anywhere.

2011-04-20T00:13:00.000-07:00

Most disasters will not require you to get out of town, as romantic as the notion may be. In fact, in the bay area, most disasters will completely strand you as bridges, tunnels and overpasses are shut down for inspections or reconstruction. Not only will this keep you in, it will keep essential services out. In the event of a major quake, you can expect to be on your own for three days to six months depending on the severity of the incident. Truth be told, the following advice will help you even if the tremors you experience are a layoff, an earthquake or the proverbial zombie apocalypse. This is what you need.

Water

Water is easy. You turn the tap on, and out it flows. But the terrible truth is that those water lines run underground, often only a few inches away from the sludge that flows out your toilets. With any major flooding or infrastructure damage, your tap water will be rendered unsafe.

You need 1 gallon a day for cooking and drinking, but a safer estimate is three gallons a day if you want to do important things like washing dishes or your stinky ass. You already have 30-50 gallons of water stored in your hot water heater. As soon as a major trembler hits, pour yourself a nice steaming bath. If your water lines are contaminated, this water will not be clean, but it will be cleaner than what you get later. This comes out to ten days of water. You may need to treat it, but at least it is there. Likewise, the tank behind your toilet holds a days worth of water, and if you refrain from flushing, it should be clean.

If you’re freezer is largely empty, throw a few bottles of water in there. Two liter soda bottle are best, since they don’t break easily. Gallon milk jugs work as well, but require and incredible amount of cleaning; I thawed a few gallons from my mom’s freezer and they reeked of spoilt milk, and I wouldn’t wash in that crap, let alone drink it. Frozen bottles have the advantage of serving as thermal mass and will slow the thawing process of any food you have in your freezer.

The blog in the side bar details treatment options, but for the average SF apartment, your best bet is a gallon of bleach. 1 TBS of bleach to each gallon of water will probably kill any nasties, though if you experience an extended loss of services, you will need to boil your water as well. If you have the spare cash, a pump filter will allow you to drink the rainbow water on sixth street without becoming a pigeon.

Food

Living in the city, I always had my slow day stash of food; a buffer that allowed me to stay fed if I lost my job and was forced to choose between eating and paying rent. You’ll want 1000-2000 calories a day, but you can make it on less. My stash was 10 lbs of pasta, 5lbs of rice and 5lbs of dried black beans alongside my favorite canned food. Since then, I have discovered Quinoa and Polenta, both dried food that offer great nutritional benefits and which are pretty cheap in bulk at wholefoods. (Quinoa is a complete protein in grain form) The 20lbs of food above can be had for less than a Franklen if you find them on sale or hit Grocery Outlet in the east bay. My canned foods usually included a bunch of veggies (even though I hate canned veggies) thanks to the vitamin content. Canned meats can be intolerable, but tuna, chicken and Vienna sausages are great in recipes. Canned tomatoes are essential for the pasta and rice.

The 20 lbs of dried food and canned stuff for sauces and tastiness was enough to last two weeks without eating out, and if I really pushed my bachelor’s selection of condiments, might even taste good. Thank god for Siracha and Tapatio. If you frequently cook at home, you can easily adapt your existing pantry to serve as emergency rations.

Fuel

You gas mains are going to break if a cat farts on a fault line. This means your gas range is not going to work. Anybody who has lived in the city for any length of time remembers the rolling blackouts, so if you have an electric range you don’t even need to wait on feline flatulence to suffer a Frisco Famine.

I would personally recommend two stoves; a multi-fuel camp stove and a solid fuel stove capable of burning wood or charcoal. Neither are suitable for indoor cooking, but both can be used semi-safely next to an open window.

Multi-fuel stoves can run on white fuel (naptha, camp or coleman fuel) or gasoline. In the event of a major disaster, you will be using gasoline, which is dirty and VERY dangerous to use inside due to the additives that gas contains. It will also leave a sooty residue on the bottom of your cookware, which is made easier to clean by swiping a bar of soap along the bottom of your pots and pans prior to cooking.

Multi fuel stoves can be had on craigslist and ebay for cheap, from $15 to $50 depending on the model. The Coleman Peak One is the usually the cheapest used stove on craigslist. I personally own an MSR Whisperlite (which will also run off kerosene and similar fuels) and a ridiculously oversized two burner Coleman campstove.

A solid fuel stove is easier to build than buy, and can be made out of a coffee can in less than an hour. A very efficient version of the tin can stove is known as the rocket stove and requires a coffee can and a regular old soup can to construct. Awesome instructions can be found with a quick google search. If you aren’t going to build one now, print out the instructions, as your internet will probably go down before your gas lines.

More info on stoves can be found in the sidebar under the “Playing With Petrol” blog, including a stove which can be made with only a few beer cans, and which will run off rubbing alcohol, Bacardi 151 or any sufficiently strong alcohol.

Shelter

Odds are good that you apartment will be fine, but there have been many a building knocked flat or rendered useless due to the structural stresses of a strong earthquake. A box of trash bags and a roll of duct tape is enough to temporarily cover broken windows, but in the event of a wrecked building, you may find yourself needing some other sort of shelter.

A military poncho makes a functional, light and versatile shelter but, to be honest, for just a few dollars more large camping tents can be had from a number of sporting goods stores for under $40. If your home is unsuitable to remain in, contact a friend to set up in their place or in their backyard. DO NOT stay next to an unstable building.

A sleeping bag is good if you can afford it, but your own bedding will suffice in most situations; particularly if you can crash a nearby friend’s house. Using couch cushions or any other sort of padding (yoga mats are awesome) will keep you off the cold ground, make sleeping easier and keep you warmer. If you have the inclination, a roll up foam mat, or a self-inflating matt such as a Thermarest is easy to carry, packing up to about the same size as a water bottle.

Tools.

A Flashlight with spare batteries. Seriously, if you lack this, stop reading and go get one now. Better yet, get a few.

A battery or crank powered radio. You can get these at dollar stores and they are very important. When you get one, spend a few minutes to find out what you local NPR stations are. Big stations are often computer controlled, and will not have any good information for hours after a disaster. One September 11^th, numerous New York stations continued with regularly scheduled broadcasts for up to 24 hours after the towers fell. Local public radio will tell you the locations of hazards, shelters and resources, often starting seconds after a major event.

A multitool like a leatherman or one of the hundreds on knock-offs is essential. However, after an earthquake a crescent wrench is imperative. A broken gas line can ruin you day, and having a wrench able to shut off your gas line is important.

A prybar of any sort should be kept under a couch or bed. DO NOT KEEP IT IN A CLOSET. After a quake, buildings can lean or sag, making doors impossible to open without a lever. If you find yourself stuck without a bar, remember that doorknob screws are always on the inside, and after pulling out a door knob you might be able to pull open stuck doors.

A cellphone is important, and while it may seem counter intuitive, after a major disaster, you should call one person out of the area and then turn it off. If the circuits are tied up and you are unable to get a call out, text messages will often go out when calls won’t. Turn off your phone once you’ve made contact to let people know you are alright. It may be a while before you can charge it again, and probably not long before you need to call someone.

Heavy shoes are one of the things I would usually forget to mention, as I’m the kind of guy who shines my hunting boots for job interviews. But there will be lots of glass and other hazards lying around after a quake, and flip flops won’t cut it as well as shards of broken windows cut your feet.

Rain Gear can be as simple as holes punched in a trash bag, as cheap as the $5 sets you get from grocery stores, or $150 fishing gear from a company like Dutch Harbor. Do not expect a disaster to happen on a sunny day. Umbrellas are worthless.

Epilogue:

There are a lot of things to really consider when preparing for a disaster, and this list has barely touched the surface. For lots of professional input, visit www.ready.gov for information in preparedness kits, emergency resources and advice. No matter what, make a plan, build a kit and keep your head.

I’m heading out the hills for a week tomorrow morning, but will finish the blog about that $50 kit when I return. Stay steady.

Nomadic Electronics

2011-04-12T12:13:00.000-07:00

As much as we all want to leave civilization behind, the need for electricity is perpetual and often aggravating. In 2005, I invested in a few small sheets of Powerfilm flexible photovoltaic sheets. Using a cheap battery pack and diode from Radio Shack, I built two simple solar chargers capable of keeping our lights, FRS radios and other electronics working. The whole set up weighed .8 ounces and produced 7-8 volts, enough to charge four AA batteries over the course of the day as we walked through sun and shade.

Unfortunately, the first version of the panels lasted through our field testing, but not through an actual trek. Twenty miles from town, and fifty from the nearest electronics store, the wear and tear of the road ripped the positive wire from my panel, leaving us with only one charger. After the second day of trekking through train tunnels with dim headlamps, I’d had enough and decided to make a field repair.

That evening, after finishing heating water for dinner, I took an old nail I had found along the side of the railroad tracks we were hiking and placed it on the burner of our stove. While the nail was heated to red hot, I laid out the panel on the ground and held the wire in place with a few small stones. I put the maulie clips I used for my map packet onto the panel as an impromptu heat sink to keep from burning it up with the heat from soldering

It took a minute or two for the nail to get red hot. Once it did, I pulled it from the stove with my multi-tool and pressed the wire against the panel in a series of light taps to keep heat low. The solder melted just enough to complete the circuit. I used a small piece of duct tape to add a bit more stability to the junction, and hoped for the best.

The next evening, I pulled the batteries from the charger and was quite pleased to have a bright headlamp to complete my evening’s journals.

Since then, I learned another trick. Creating two jumpers, using alligator clips on both ends of short lengths of wire allows you to clip the panels directly to cell phone batteries, which can be problematic to charge on the road.

Living nomadically does not only rely on your hiking and outdoors skills, it is a perpetual test of your resourcefulness and creativity, and you will frequently find odd applications for many seemingly unrelated life skills.

Migrations Have Occurred

2011-04-11T19:18:00.001-07:00

So, I certainly owe everyone an update.

We moved off the hill in December of 2009. It was a long story, but worked out for the best; three months later, we discovered we were becoming parents! So now there is a little BabyPacker learning to stomp around.

Before he was even born the family gave us one of those terrific baby backpacks by Kelty, complete with brush guard! I can't wait to get out there with him once it warms up! I guess I'll have to start going ultra-light now, if I'm going to have the little bush-rat in my pack.

As I mentioned last week, the original Guerrilla Camping blogs have been gradually refined and expanded over the last four years, and are presently going through a lengthy proofreading process before heading to layout. I'm hoping to get it all done before the end of spring, but everyone laughs when I suggest it's possible.

I think I'm going to put out a first edition with less layout than I would like, and sell it cheap to guage the reaction.

Meanwhile, the lost chapters are finished. These were chapters I felt were quite important, but at the time I was unable to post them, or complete them to my satisfaction. I spent my family leave finishing these up as I completed the expanded Guerrilla Camping book, and will be posting excerpts here once the proofing process is finished.

The most important new chapter is on staying out of trouble when stealth camping or guerrilla traveling. Another involves the use of supply boxes to move seasonal or sensitive gear without having to lug is or risk it on your back every day.

I will be migrating the original GNN Guerrilla Camping 101 Blogs here this evening, so if you've been looking for them, here they come! If it is your first time reading them, please keep in mind that these were furiously written in the limited time I had in front of a computer at that time; forgive the terrible formatting and wretched typos. I'd also like to throw an immense amount of thanks to Floyd Anderson who's work at the GNN Archive prevented an immense amount of information from going down the memory hole, including Guerrilla Camping!

2011-04-05T22:06:00.001-07:00

There is so much to say. Guerrilla Camping is currently going through the proofing process with two very amazing editors. Patiently patiently waiting. We might yet see a book!

Changes changes changes. Work work work.

2010-10-15T22:39:00.001-07:00

Thanks for all of you who have continued to keep up with this blog and send me letters of encouragement and thanks. I am very happy to know I keep finding readers. I have gone back and reedited most of Guerrilla Camping and am working on laying it out to either self publish or pimp out.

The blackpacker persona exists today only as a spark in my soul, the foundation of who I have become. I've settled in Mendocino county, married my fiance, and had a son. I still work at the farm supply, and have started doing all the marketing for them.

I've got to be one of the only people in the world who could decide it was time to grow up and get serious with life and go back into graphics design. Well, marketing.

Those of you who followed my blogs on GNN when I was posting as hagcel will understand this immediately, as most of the issues I covered revolved around media literacy, culture jamming and memetic engineering. For those of you who tuned in as I started writing about my lifelong hobby as a vagabond, it might seem a bit confusing.

The primary reason I am doing this is because my community needs me. Seriously. Small businesses are buried in search engines even in local results. It seems that unless you make wine and use a Napa, SF or New York ad firm, you don't exists around here.

It took me less than one week to fix that at the farm supply, and over six months, I have nailed down every relevant search result for our business and was able to build some markets that are particularly favorable to my ethics (organic nutrients, sustainable micro-farms, and self-sufficiency), so I can still sleep at night even though I'm paying taxes and being a legitimate member of society.

So, I've restarted the marketing and design firm from SF, and am going to try and make enough money to give my son the ability to go to college without going to war.

Urban Merit is a full service Ukiah marketing and design firm that works to build our local economy by supporting local businesses and entrepreneurs. We specialize in search engine management, brand development and outreach and print and web design. Our team has been assembled from many parts of the state to create a dynamic and fully featured marketing firm.

Our website, www.urbanmerit.com is currently in stasis and will launch sometime this weekend. Once my book is finished, you will be able to buy it there or find out where to buy it form there.

Thanks for sticking around.

Hey! I'm over here!

2010-01-26T08:24:00.000-08:00

You know, I'm a lifestyle migrant; Offline and on. That said, you can keep up with my current projects at work over at REDACTED. There you will find info on our gardens, grow rooms, chicken coops, and helpful tips on everything from erosion control to treating mite infestations in chickens.

Guerrilla Camping is still going, but since it's been a few years since I had internet with anything but that dumb phone, posts are still going to be intermittent. Big news coming up soon though, so stay posted.

For all of you who followed my stuff on GNN, drop me a line! I miss you!

Funny customer inspired thought...

2009-11-09T20:32:00.000-08:00

I'm going to sell organic cyanide from organic apple seeds so at least
our rats won't die of cancer...

I think my sense of humor is intact.

"Sorry for typos, Sent from a cell phone, not an illiterate."
-The Spicer Family

Quick Update. Coming up for air again.

2009-07-08T09:03:00.001-07:00

Well guys, once again, long time, no blog. As I have mentioned previously, blogging via the iPhone is obnoxious at best, impossible at worst. At last, however, I got a computer. Just the cheapest little netbook I could find. I don’t need the distraction of trying to see what a machine can do. A word processor, a few MP3s and the ability to work online is enough for me.

I’m still quite off the grid, however, I can upload stuff at work, so am working on getting that set up right now.

It has been a wild and convoluted year. The rise and gradual fall of our daily victories, right? They finally got me working full time at the Farm Supply, and it is possibly the best job description I have ever had… “Just wander around and do what you do.”

That’s right. No looking over the shoulder, no second guessing, just the support and assistance of my co-workers and manager. Without question. Open accounts at all the best shops in town, and working for a store that instantly gets me handshakes and warm welcomes at all of them. I must be a running joke at the local welding shop, as I have the most experience with a welder at the shop, and before I got promoted, I had about 14 inches of wire-feed welding under my belt. But they are helpful, and certainly don’t make me feel like an idiot.

About two months ago, we finally got DOGS. Yes. Big DOGS. Well, giant puppies at least. A mix of Great Dane and Cane Corso (an impressive Italian mastiff and, according to legend, descended from the same dogs that fought the lions in ancient Rome). Jack and Liberty are amazing dogs, already able to come, sit and stay with hand commands from a distance, and comfortable in lots of unusual situations, such as parked next to the machine gun booth at the 4^th of July carnival in town.

The cabin is… well, the cabin. Things are strange, and we are looking for property to own ourselves.

Well, I’ve got more pressing things to write, so that is all for now.

Homestead blacksmithing

2009-04-01T21:12:00.000-07:00

The newest addition to the abilities pile. Forged a little coal
scraper before work today... The wife loves it. More later...

2009-03-27T09:37:00.000-07:00

As always, when there is silence on the blog, you can rest assured that there is a lot going on. Lets see, since the last blog, our garden has grown, but most surprising, the garden at the farm supply has exploded. A few days after publishing blog, I was told to go ahead and plant a garden out in the warehouse yard, something I had given up on, aside from a few onions and garlic, due to a lack of interest from other workers.

In a wild chain of events, we went from “lets plant some stuff and make raised beds” to “lets buy a skip loader and sell bulk soil.” Then on to, “Hey Spicer, go buy a tractor, build a soil bin, license a few of the guys in back, and think about a trailer so we can take the tractor out to our own houses, and rent you out to customers.”

Then, last Monday, this article his to front page of the local paper. The article prompted a few new customers to come in and ask me questions like, “why doesn’t my garden grow?” Wednesday, I got a phone call from the boss, who asked me if I’d be in on Monday because the head of the ag department at the college wants to meet with me, and that we’d also be working out a plan for a community plot for the local senior center.

Our wonderful neighbors, The Donners, are moving back to England again, and I spent last week working with the patriarch of the family helping him finish off projects before his departure. I spent the week mostly holding things and minding the fire on a small forge as I picked up a bit more practical experience in blacksmithing. Upon their departure, we’ll be moving their forge and anvil down here to my place to keep a blacksmith on the hill.

Yet another neighbor moved, but this time he moved his whole house. Having spent nearly two decades in a tipi, he was able to move the house and have it set up in one day, a mile deeper into the hills, finally getting him out of the dust channel of living beside our road. After helping him move a 1000 gallon water tank down a half mile foot path, he asked if I wanted his old tipi, which he had replaced a few months back. So, now we’ve got a 20 foot tipi that will be residing in the west side of the garden.

He also threw in an old box stove, some chairs and planters, and anything else he didn’t want to drag down to his new place. If anybody wants one of those dangerous folding plastic chaise lounges, he’s got one for you cheap. And a little cooler.

Finally, the fourteen month odyssey into experimental wind power resulted in a 30 foot erection as our new slavonius turbine went vertical, producing a whopping 20 watts before choking out and getting set back down.

Our neighborhood watch program got kicked into high gear with the arrival of trespass growers on the timber parcel beside our place, with a neighbor and I tracking them down the river road far enough to make sure they weren’t out in our backyard. A few days later, the security manager of the parcel arrived and we spent about an hour going over the tracks, and being shown the survey markers that mark the limits of our property.

A few days after the trespass growers went driving down our road, I ran into a guy in our driveway with no good business and a downright bad attitude. Being unable to encourage him to leave on my own, the neighbors got called into action and we managed to run him off the hill. Later that day, he enjoyed a 60mph high speed chase down a road I have trouble going more than 20 mph on, flipped his 4runner, and proceeded to defy police as he sat in the wreck. He was found to have a switch blade, tear gas and an empty flashlight containing just over a pound of meth. One of my buddies up here on the hill described him as a spunion, a word I will be using as frequently as possible when encountering tweakers.

Just a normal everyday hillbilly life.

Guerrilla Camping 101 : Advanced Class - Simmer Down Now

2009-02-18T09:34:00.000-08:00

Simmer Down Now - Simmering On a Liquid Fuel Stove.

I love my multi-fuel stove. The ability to switch fuels on the go, depending on their availability in the area I find myself is indispensable. However, in my first few years using it, I was dogged by the apparent inability to simmer on the stove. Any attempt to cut the fuel level down enough to get a slow flame resulted in sputtering death. This required me to carry a simmer plate if I planned on anything requiring a long slow cook, wasteful of both weight and fuel.

I eventually learned how to simmer on liquid fuel stoves. The method of doing this is dangerous, and after I heard the trick, I found an apartment parking lot surrounded by a lot of inflammable asphalt to try it in. Having inadvertently created mushroom clouds when first learning to relight a stove after trying to simmer, I knew this trick could be very dangerous.

I pulled my cook set out of my pack and walked far enough away to not catch my pack on fire if things went wrong. I set up the stove and windscreen as usual, checking the tank pressure with a shove or two on the pump before connecting it to the fuel line of the stove. I bled about a tablespoon of fuel into the priming cup and shut off the valve before lighting it. It took about 30 seconds for the fuel to burn down and I turned the valve back on. The assuring whoosh blared from the jets as the stove kicked into full blast.

I gave the stove a minute to warm up, figuring I’d bring something to a boil before simmering it, and I knew the stove needed to be hot for this to work right. As the old edges of the jet plates began to glow red, I turned off the stove and waited for the last licks of flame to finish spiraling around the inside of the stove.

I quickly snapped the fuel tank off the fuel line and walked a few feet away, before cracking the seal on the tank by slowly unscrewing the pump from the fuel bottle. The compressed fumes hissed out from the edges of the bottle’s mouth. Distance is important; doing this near enough to the stove would risk igniting the escaping gasses. As soon as the pressure was released, I reconnected the tank to the fuel line, and gave it one pump. I leaned my head way back, and held a lighter to the top of the stove with one hand as I turned the valve on with the other.

I was immediately greeted with the sputtering death I expected, and gave the pump one long, slow thrust. The sputtering slowed, but did not entirely subside. I pulled the pump handle out, and slowly pushed it in about half an inch. The sputtering stopped, and I was rewarded with a small steady flame. About a minute or so later, the sputtering began again, and I pushed the pump handle about half way, stopping as the flame steadied. I continued this for a few minutes to make sure it worked, before shutting the stove off and allowing it to cool.

As soon as the stove was cool enough, I put my cook set back together, stuffed it in my pack and got off the asphalt as quick as I could...

Since then, I’ve used this a lot. It is especially useful if you make your own dehydrated meals, as it uses less fuel and is not as likely to encrust your dinner on the bottom of the pot. If you use freeze-dried meals, or stick to stuff like couscous and ramen, which only require boiling water, it’s just an interesting trick. However, if you want the convenience of cooking at home, no matter where you might be, this is definitely worth trying.

If you just bought your stove, and have not yet had a flare up, DO NOT try this until you do. There is nothing like a good mushroom cloud to teach you the principles and the dangers behind cooking on compressed liquid fuel. If you screw up, you will start a fire, or worse, blow your hand off. Hell, now that I’ve gone and posted this on the internet, I’ve decided: NOBODY should do this, and I’m stopping right now.

Remember kids, today’s lesson; Always Follow The Manufacturer’s Instructions!

You Can Find Me In The Garden If You Want Me...

2009-02-17T09:42:00.000-08:00

This was originally shaping up to be a huge blog; heavy with both polemic and practicality. I decided to split them up. This is the garden plan as it goes at the cabin.

The Mountaintop

The top of the mountain behind the cabin was cleared a decade or so ago, and is in the slow process of remediation. I’m planning on a feral garden up there eventually, with collected wild edibles from around the county. So far, all I have done is put in a few transplanted fir trees to serve as an eventual windbreak and thrown down about 25 lbs of a local wildlife forage seed blend both to improve the soil and to draw in more deer. My goal is to make this garden actually meet the dream above, working to establish self-sustaining guilds of wild natives, so I only need to go up there when I have a hankering for wild foods, or deer huntin’

The Failure Garden
A small portion of the main garden will be dedicated to torturing plants. Experiments on nutrient bombing, water deprivation, off-season growing, forced fruiting, and whatever dumb ideas I have. By expecting to fail in most of the experiments, I will hopefully not be disappointed when I discover that strawberries cannot grow on a diet of pure urine and that you can not cross breed marijuana and hops.

The Greywater Garden
I want to do a grey water garden at the bottom of the hill below the cabin with structural bamboo. But that shit is EXPENSIVE! So it will probably be flowers and such until I find a good cheap source for thick bamboo. Thinking about setting up a few drainage beds from the grey water to feed craft gourds and maybe pumpkins for the trebuchet.

The Cabin Planters
Nothing says “home” like planters in front of the house filled with beautiful flowers. Of course, we’ll have flowers. Bee Balm, Nasturtiums, burnet, Marigolds, chamomile, Bachelor’s Button, Lavender, Lilac, Roses, Violets and Borage. Should look pretty. They are also ALL edible. Behind the cabin (south face) is a 45 square foot area totally overgrown by native Yerba Buena. It had over grown chicken wire, old wood and assorted rubbish when I first got here, and after ripping it all our, I had a few dire strands of herb. A year later, I have a lush ground cover and an unrelenting supply of tea.

The Wild Ones
Blackberry, Huckleberry, Bay and a really hilarious Boletes patch coming up in a tanoak fairy circle next to our manure pile are our primary cultivation spots. We also have oyster alley, a strand of oaks that keep falling over in the wind and which have provided oyster mushrooms three years running. I don’t expect this to continue forever, but the more I know about “when that tree fell” the easier it is to find oysters. Meanwhile, we have a good blackberry strand starting up behind the Yerba Santa, which we have been training into a hedge row. The bay is all over the place, though we have four trees by our gate. Selective pruning has provided me with a great amount of wonderful smoker chips for the BBQ (Bay smoked asparagus is one of the best things I have ever cooked in a barbeque.)

The Roadside
Our driveway runs along the edges of three hills, and during heavy rains, huge rivers run off the side of the road. I have trenched the driveway repeatedly, and have inadvertently created silty little run-off beds on the sides of the road. I’m hoping to put in some sort of useful dry land plants that can take advantage of the winter rains and make it through the summer on fog drip. (any ideas? I want useful, before pretty.)

The Main Garden

The main garden is a half acre flat spot about 100 yards from the cabin. This will be intensive raised beds, potato towers, herb spirals, inverted tomatoes and any other thing we find that works, or at least entertains. . . We’ve been sacrificing firewood for edging as we clear firebreaks, using the felled trees as the walls of our raised beds. I put down a total green manure crop in fall, using rye grass, clover, mustard vetch and bell bean seed that had been spilled at work. We mulched it with a dozen bales of wheat straw, and now have a decent pasture coming up, which I will till down at the end of this month, or the beginning of next.

This tilling is merely an attempt to get some topsoil action going on, as the clearing is mostly sandstone and clay at the moment. I’m not planning on a lifetime of soil chopping, just trying to get a bit of organic matter in the ground around the beds before the first year. Also note, that without the tilling, it would take years to do what I am still trying to do totally organically, not even adding gypsum to break up the clay.

Our raised beds are a combination of our own compost, three year old horse manure (very well composted) and peat moss along with a generous helping of the local “dirt”. Underneath the soil of the beds is a thin layer of rice straw. I chose rice straw since it doesn’t seed out like wheat. In the areas that were heavily overgrown with chaparral or yerba santa, I’ve put down unbleached cardboard sheets beneath the soil to try and kill off the root spreaders. I had a redwood shoot out of the cardboard I put down for the cabin planters, so we’ll see how this works with some actual cover over it.

I hope that in fifteen years or so, the raised beds will have rotted away the logs, and the whole garden area will be fertile and capable of sustaining plant life. My ideal dream is that some sort of symbiosis will occur and I will just go out and pick food year round with no weeding, planting or work. Yeah, right… But dreams provide direction, even if they are perfectly unattainable. I’m sure we are all familiar with that feeling.

The main garden also includes the orchard, which right now consists of a lonely self-fertile peach tree. I’m planning on apples, plums, cherries and pears as well, but don’t have the money for trees this year, nor the time and experience to try and graft my own. I am bringing up some seed from neighbor’s trees, but this is a VERY long process, so I will be bringing in some more developed babies when I can afford them.

The Seeds

We’re focusing on using only open-pollinated, non-hybrid seeds where ever possible. We hope to save, trade and share seed, with gradually decreasing orders each year as we increase our personal seed bank. I hope that in a decade or so, we’ll simply do our yearly seed planning by ordering a new varietal or two

Surprisingly, it’s only about a dollar more per packet than buying your standard Ferry Morse packets from the garden center. This year our seed order is a bit odd, as we are experimenting on growing interesting heirlooms for sale at the farmer’s market, and trying to find out what does well here. I will also admit the three colors of carrots simply feeds my current obsession with stew brewing.

This year’s Seed Order
Lima bean (Henderson Bush),
Green Beans (Contender and Mayflower),
Broccoli (Romanesco),
Brussels sprouts (Long island improved),
Cauliflower (Purple of Sicily)
Carrots (Atomic Red, Cosmic Purple, Lunar White)
Celery (Tender Crisp)
Corn (Yellow King Dent, Dakota Black Pop)
Cucumber (Crystal Apple)
Huckleberry (chichiquelite)
Strawberry (Red Wonderwild)
Quinoa (kasalala)
Bok Choi (Canton)
Peas (Sugarsnap)
Hot Pepper (Anaheim)
Sweet Pepper (Golden Cal Wonder, Sweet Chocolate)
Radish (Purple Plum)
Squash (Lebanese White Bush Marrow, and Vegetable Spaghetti)
Tomato (Green Zebra, Kentucky Beefsteak, Cherokee Purple, Red Grape, Tom Watson)
Artichoke (purple of romagia)
Asparagus (Precoce d’ argentevul)
Salad Mixes

Stuff we’re getting locally
Potatoes (Calgold, Yukon, Red LaSota, Trueblue) (We get these at cost, so aren’t pursuing anything fancy)
Garlic n Onions (We already have a bed of each coming up strong, even with the snows this winter)
Our Trees

And, finally, yet another appeal.

As I said in the companion blog; Grow! Fill boxes with dirt if you need to. Shoplift seed from walmart if that is the only way you can do it. But right now, we should all be focused on growing our own food, by any means necessary. If nothing goes wrong, you have the freshest, healthiest food possible. If the dollar tanks, or food shortages and famine erupt, you’ll at least eat a bit more than you would otherwise.

Those of you with backyard lawns, SHAME ON YOU! Tear that sod up, compost it, and plant a garden. If you already have a big backyard garden, tear out your front lawn.

Grow!

2009-02-17T09:41:00.000-08:00

I am not a lifelong gardener by any means. I have done a bit of “dirt in a box” planting, and kept an underground herb garden in the SF basement using $8 full spectrum light bulbs and aluminum shaded work lights. I have a few tomatoes under my belt, and a few houseplants. I set my mom’s back yard up as a garden, but did it too well, and the work of harvesting and storing was too much for her, so she’s got flowers now in a few good strips of fertile soil. By nature, I am a walker and a builder, not a grower. So, again, my experience in this blog is limited compared to my camping stuff.

However, I want this blog to inspire you. I am not a master gardener; I don’t have a permaculture design certificate. My thumb is only green when the hammer pounded blood blisters get gangrenous. However, even for me, it is surprisingly easy to stuff a few seeds in some dirt and let the seeds do the rest of the work. Just water and occasionally feed. Some plants will flourish and feed you, others will die and feed the soil. But eventually, and probably sooner than you expect, you’ll get that breakout plant. You’ll be wading in food and you will instantly be hooked. Your successes will increase, and eventually, you’ll be sitting in a camper in the mountains trying to figure out what you can grow there. Well, it worked for me, anyways.

At this point in history, gardening may be the most socially aware and culturally subversive act we can involve ourselves in. If we are truly concerned with liberties, rights and justice; we must realize that dependence breeds consent. Not needing to rely upon the established distribution networks allows us to work directly for ourselves, without paying our tithing to the cesspool of corruption in corporate boardrooms, and government’s halls. Nothing is as liberating as being free to feed yourself. Should you grow enough to feed others, you can safely call yourself a revolutionary.

If we are to change the world, we must change our relationship to it. It is difficult to bite a hand that feeds, no matter how hard it strikes us, but it becomes downright impossible with it wrapped around our throat. We must begin to provide for ourselves in any way we can. And while in many places we are unable to dig a well, built a wikiup, or sleep naked under the stars, there is NO place we cannot grow.

When we grow food, we are doing more than growing calories, we are growing ourselves. Gaining a deeper understanding of our agrarian past and the fragility of our agricultural present. But one of the most important things we learn is a potential for independence. Once I realized that I really could grow my own food, all bets were off. I had always known it was possible, but until I took that first bite of a tomato that had grown in a old, duct-taped television box on my apartment’s balcony, I did not understand what it meant, how easy it was, and how deprived we really were to not have that simple understanding forced into our brains while in kindergarten. The fact that I spent months on a fairy tale history of America, and “oh yeah, here’s a lima bean in a milk box…” is probably 90% of the reason this country went to shit in the first place. Food comes from money and money grows on trees, obviously.

This year, plant a garden. If that seems too much, buy a packet of seed, spend fifteen minutes on google and bring up your favorite plant. Do it in an old shoe, coffee can or a million dollar antique vase. When you eat something you have grown from seed, you might find yourself growing roots, becoming more safely tied to the earth in these topsy-turvy times. And you will grow more next year.

If you have the spare time, or can make it, I urge you all to grow much more than one seed. Plant guerrilla gardens, pull out your pretty willow trees and drop peaches, stick alfalfa seeds in your ears. But GROW! Because the ability to feed yourself could become very important in the coming months. If it does not, and we can still rely on grapes from Chile, then at least your food won’t reek of diesel, and you can spend your grocery budget elsewhere.

You should grow for others. If you wind up with too many zucchini starts, give them to friends. Tell them you just want a hundred dried seeds back. Involve them. Give the meme of seed this year. If you’ve spent the last eight years protesting, then you should be ready to convince people of the importance of growing. Every bite we take that is not fed to us by a system which we claim to abhor is an act of personal liberation, and every convert we gain is an act of insurrection against the agro-chemical-corporate-complex that would patent our world into monoculture.

I always liked Sartre the best of the existentialists. He wasn’t such a freaking emo-kid about the absurdity of life, like Nietzsche and Camus. But one of the most important things he ever said, in my opinion, was when he was talking about the validation of ethical systems in a world without a god. He suggested that we should live our lives with the hopes that everyone will live exactly like us.

While this is not the source of my personal ethical philosophy, it does guide a great many of my actions, and enlighten many of my concerns. But when I stand at the garden gates and look out at my green manure and the slowly emerging grand garden, I frequently wonder what our world would be like if everyone grew food as a hobby, as a passion, or as life support.

We may overthrow a government with guns, but we will make it obsolete with gardens; under-throwing it with seed.

Lessons of the Land

2009-02-10T09:29:00.000-08:00

Lessons of the Land – 2 Years In.

DJ Farnabyover at GNN asked me if I could write a series like Guerrilla Camping explaining the lessons I have learned so far in my homesteading adventure. The reason I have put this off is that I had been hiking and packing for 23 years when I started the guerrilla camping series. I now have two years experience in clearing land and repairing an old saggy cabin. While I see our current work as the culmination of many years of related projects in various places, I cannot help but feel like a babe in the woods. Nevertheless, I will try to share some of the things I have learned over the last two years.

Shelter

It is okay to learn as you go, but have a trained eye come in FIRST and make sure what you want to do is possible, affordable, or even desirable. In our case, I took a look at a 20 year old redwood cabin, originally used only in the summer, and figured that while it would be a long and hard process, I could rebuild parts and finish it. I was not wrong exactly, but as I get further into the process, I have realized a few things about the cabin and it’s foundation that, had I realized the problems to begin with, would have encouraged me to take down the cabin and use the wood to build a new structure. A trained eye in the original evaluation, not just enthusiastic and half-experienced friends, would have shown me these problems at the onset.

Now it is far too late. Too much work and love have gone into the cabin, and it is going to be home.

Water

Fog harvesters are a pipe dream for the small homesteader, but it was fun to try. But at the same time, wells are expensive. We sit at 2900 feet, with a clear view to the ocean. It’s amazing. But our high altitude and location on such a high ridge required quite a deep well. Our 300 foot deep well with 160 feet of head will likely never go dry but it was $13,700 to drill the well, and another $5000 for the pump, casings, wire, etc.

If at all possible, ALWAYS store your water uphill. Our tanks are half way up the mountain behind us, and the 100 foot drop over 470 feet of 1-1/2 inch pipe gives us better water pressure than we have ever had in the city. With a full tank, a high pressure nozzle gives me a 35 foot range with a garden hose.

When it comes time to put in your plumbing and irrigation, put valves at low points in the lines. The ability to cut water to an area, then drain all the water from the lines is essential in an area prone to freezes. Likewise, the weekend rental of a Ditch Witch allowing you to get your lines 2 feet deep is much easier than doing it by hand.

It can cost about 50-60 dollars to have your water tested. And you will likely need to do a few tests. But the joy of hearing that your water is impure with non-ecoli coliforms is priceless. In the words of the lab tech, “That’s the good stuff, the organic matter, that we should have in water but are filtered and chlorinated out of tap water. Most people call this sweet water.”

Food

It is immensely worthwhile to get some regional books on wild edibles, as well as a good guide to trees and shrubs (birds too, if you are into them). But don’t bother getting a mushroom book. Be sure to check your public library too. I found seven books on JUST our county at the library, published by small local presses over the years and many of which are long out of print. By working with newer books with better pictures, I have been able to identify a number of wild foods on our property, and when I need to get away from it all, I’ll grab the book and go walking until I find something new. Its fun, but I will admit that my favorite is the mushrooms.

Do not bother with a book on mushrooms. If you live in an area with lots of them, find a group or a knowledgeable neighbor to take you out hunting. Here we have hundreds of different mushrooms. I can spot and identify Chanterelles, Black Trumpets, Matsutake, Oysters, Boletes and Jack o Lanterns. I have yet to determine the best method of differentiating a certain species of edible amanita, so I am waiting on it until I get a more educated guide up here. I’m not saying it is impossible to learn to identify mushrooms with only a book, merely that the possibility of a fatal mistake is too high to risk recommending it.

If you are planning on hunting for your food and have not hunted before, start small. I culled a bit of two of our quail flocks earlier this year. It took me two trips, as my scope was slightly off, and I was doing this from 40 yards with a pellet rifle. The process of field dressing the quail is simple compared to a deer or even a turkey, and can be easily learned by reading, unlike deer which are best to learn to clean from an experienced hunter.

I was forced to wonder how many people I know would not have been able to finish the task of gutting something that had been chirping along on the ground only a few minutes before, even though it is cleaner than gutting fish in my opinion. Now that the rabbits are starting to come out in force, I’ve loaded my .22 with cc caps, special low noise bullets, and am planning on a rabbit roast and my first go at preserving pelts by the end of March.

Our garden is immature, as we try to build soil and raised beds. However, my employers have a huge organic garden on top of the hill that I am tasked to care for. Although the harsh wind and wild temperature fluctuations of being on a mountain top severely limit what can grow there, the garden is awash in medicinal herbs, cultivated wild berries, grapes and currants. All is planted biointensively, with a preference towards perennials, both for the ease they lend to yearly spring tasks and their ability to cast deep roots. We also have a 25x15 foot green house up there which produced a few hundred tomatoes last year, but will be adapted to a pesto garden this year.

We are currently waiting for our seed to arrive for the planting down here at the homestead, and we have four raised beds in place, two of which are already planted with garlic and onions which are currently confused as hell by a recent Indian summer that threw most of our plants into a frenzy. We are focusing on open pollinated heirloom varieties, with a goal of seed saving and eventually having enough resources to trade seed and select from our own seed library.

Power.

Our power system is a nightmare. We got a good deal on 6v surrette batteries, and they had sulfated while sitting. This collection of sulfer on the lead plates of the battery reduces efficiency, and requires a long process of equalization and discharge to alleviate. While we use much less than the 1kwh a day our solar panels generate, we had to run the generator from 1-3 hours a day to keep the batteries conditioned. This has finally been fixed, and things are much better, and I now use about 5 gallons a week to “touch up” the batteries.

I have also been working on decentralized power systems. Our outhouse, my shop and our campers are all equipped with modified solar lighting. I bought a bunch of the cheap solar lights, and unwired the LEDs. I then attached some 18ga wire to the leads and ran the LED to wherever I needed light. I used aluminum flashing and a rivet gun to make simple lamp shades, and used small madrone branches as mounts. These cost me about $1.50 each to make and they are all still going strong. They can be placed anywhere I need light and require no maintenance.

I am also working on a small inverter-less solar system for our guest house, a 23 foot Komfort travel trailer. It will consist of a 12v automotive solar charger, and two deep cycle marine batteries. This should provide enough power to run the furnace at night, and provide a few hours of light.

Waste

We have to drive to the dump about once every six weeks. This is five trash cans. One each for aluminum, glass, plastic and tin, paper and then trash. We generally make about $10 from the recycling after paying the dump fee for our one box of un-recyclable rubbish.

We use a small grey water system for wash water, and use a composting bucket toilet for now. The details of this really easy toilet system are laid out in the humanure handbook, available free online.

Neighbors

When you first arrive on your new land, it is imperative that you become overtly friendly and humble. Good relations with your neighbors can make or break your stay. Although many neighbors were skeptical two years ago when two “city kids” moved onto the hill, we have come to become great friends with many of them. We have worked together on the road, and the use of their tools, such as backhoes and mill saws has been a tremendous boon for us. While we all have various political and social ideals, we stay friendly when discussing them, or avoid the topics if disagreements are too much. I recognize that they moved here to get their own space, and the recognize the same thing. A little Saturday gunfire, or the roar of a distant dirtbike or chainsaw is nothing to worry or complain about. There are families on the road who have ostracized themselves through a long series of confrontations with neighbors, and seeing how they must go it alone is almost painful. I wouldn’t call neighborly friendship work, per se, but I do work to maintain great relations with all my neighbors.

The Original Inhabitants

I made no mistake when I moved up here that my property was occupied. Packrats, grey foxes, bobcats, quail, rattlesnakes, deer, ticks, two black bears and a mountain lion frequent our property. Thus far, I have seen all of them, but the only truly hazardous moment was when I thought a fox was trying to get into our food locker. I threw on my slippers and ran naked out the front door. As soon as I jumped down the steps I realized that I was not hearing something small outside our window, but something large across the driveway. I shouted, and what I got in return sounded like a 300lb man rolling down the hill behind our trashcans.

After that we got a lot smarter about cleaning everything that goes into the trash, and while the bears return NIGHTLY all summer long, they have not returned to the trashcans. They do occasionally raid our compost bin, and I have changed from trying to make the bin bear proof to making it easy for the bear to pop open the side. They don’t make much of a mess, and tend to turn the compost for us. This will probably be problematic when the garden area is fenced and the bear has to rip down our fencing to get at the compost.

The mountain lion is another matter. Probably 12-14 feet long including the tail, it’s 200 lbs of pure sleek muscle. I managed to catch a glimpse of it at the end of our property line about a year ago while driving off the hill. Since then, it has only made it presence known by scat and occasional prints and screams. My best friend was alone on our hilltop about six months ago and just as he began to sit down, he heard the unmistakable scream of the mountain lion behind him. I have been stalked down our driveway in the early evening, and found a killed deer in one of the remote clearings here. From dusk til dawn, I do not leave the main clearing without a spot light and a sharp stick.

Guns

I’m not a gun nut, but I am comfortable with them. In fact, I sleep with a loaded 30.06 under the bed. A few years back a particularly clever bear figured out how to break in doors with propane cans and raided a neighbor’s kitchen at midnight. If this were to happen in our camper, we would have a full sized black bear between us and the door, in a space too small for it to turn around. Yes, we have bear mace, and it is close to the bed as well, but if the bear is IN the camper, I’m changing his name to rug.

Aside from defense, I own guns to hunt. My collection is sometimes referred to as the rancher’s trinity. A .22, a 30.06 and a 20ga shotgun. Ironically enough, the .06 and the 20ga were my grandfather’s ranch guns which my mother still remembers shooting when she was a little girl. It is an ideal collection for everything from small game to bears, and I have a selection of ammo for different tasks from quiet rabbit hunting to trying to knock a bear out a window.

We also have an air rifle, which I originally got to familiarize my wife with rifles, but which quickly became the only thing she would shoot, and a fairly nice way to pass an afternoon, plinking little metal ducks I have set out in a makeshift range below our garden.

Tools

I am a tool nut. If I need a tool that will see repeated use, I can spend months looking into which one I am going to buy, then a month or so trying to find the best deal. I look for tools that I will be able to pass on to my children. When I opted for a Bosch router, I chose it because it has a metal motor casing, while the more popular Porter Cable had switched to plastic motor casings a few years before. I rely on my tools at all times, and have finally gotten to the point that it has been months since I had to stop work and run to town for a saw blade or new box of #2 driver bits. The failure of a tool when it is more than an hour round-trip to the hardware store is too much to deal with. A great quote I heard once was that only a rich man can afford cheap tools.

There are some tools that are indispensable in my eyes.

Pulaski – Recognized as a firemans axe, it is a combination of an axe and a mattock. Used for clearing fire breaks, once you learn how to use it, you can remove a bush as big as you are in less than ten swings. Nothing comes close for getting roots out of the ground, and by splitting the root ball into sections, I have used it to pull out full sized trees. This was our main tool as we cleared the overgrown area around the cabin.

Impact Driver – A cordless impact driver is GREAT, and has saved me hours of pre-drilling holes for screws. The hammering action used to put the screw into the wood cuts the wood fibers rather than simply pushing them apart, avoiding splits in all but the oldest and thinnest wood.

Chainsaws – Yes, plural. Possibly the least elegant tool I have ever used, they do one job, do it well, and break down constantly. I use a husquivarna for real work, and carry a little MAC in the toolbox in my truck. Nothing is worse than coming home to find a tree across the driveway, and having to walk a mile to get the chainsaw, then walk a mile back to clear the road. This only happens in the rain.

Machete – Although I knew that there had to be good machetes in the world, based upon how many cultures rely on them, I had never used one, and thought most machetes you could purchase in America were useful only as props; made of soft metal, prone to bend and dent. For my birthday a couple years ago, a neighbor of mine gave me a machete his brother in Mexico had hand-smithed out of an old truck leaf-spring. A wicked looking curved piece of thin black steel, it holds an edge forever, and while sharp can hack down a two inch thick fir sapling in one swipe. I have been known to sharpen it, and walk down the drive way idly swinging and clearing the drive way in the 30 minutes it takes to walk from one end to the next, something that would take twice as long with a gas powered hedge trimmer.

Post Hole Digger – A compound shovel with two blades and two handles, it is meant to be used for digging the deep, narrow holes needed for placing fence posts. It is also the best tool for digging out sites for transplanting trees, and for digging catholes. I use mine as much as I use a standard shovel.

5lb pick mattock – Most of our top soil is an inch thick, layered on top of sandstone or compressed clay. Any serious digging often requires the use of a pick. This is one of the heaviest picks you can get, and makes quick work of trenching for water lines, driveway sluices and breaking up the ground for raised beds.

Dremel – The leatherman of power tools. While it’s most frequent use is tool sharpening, I also use it to remove broken screws and bolts, etch glass, and even drill locks. I personally use a 10.5v cordless, as I have so many places I need to work with it.

Six foot hardened pry bar – I carry this in my truck all winter long. The hardest lever I own, I have stuck it under tires to unstuck trucks, pried trees off roads, and even stood thousand pound rocks upright with the use of it and a come along.

Gloves, Goggles and Respirator – Working with composite woods, cutting hardened steel, running a hand planer, or placing fiberglass insulation all place your hands, eyes and lungs in immediate danger. Although I am not the most safety minded person, I have learned my lessons, and now wear safety gear almost half the time I should. ;)

Family and Tribe
I almost forgot to mention this when I first wrote this a few days ago. You will never be self-reliant while alone. It is impossible. Yesterday morning, I wrecked my back jumping down off a stack of hay bales. It was cold, I had been at work about twenty minutes, and landed in such a way that all the force shot right into my lower back, hopefully just pulling a bunch of muscle. I was able to pace around, sweep and run a forklift all day at work, just grinding through the pain but once I got home and laid down for a bit, I lost all my core strength, and was unable to sit up without intense pain and strenuous effort.

At home in the suburbs, this is not a big deal. But suddenly, I couldn’t fuel and start the generator, change out the propane tank I expected to run out in the middle of the night, re cover the corner of the woodpile where the tarp had blown back, or any of the various chores I have when I get home in the evening. So, there went my wife out into the cold, and outside I could hear her cursing having to change the tanks, how hard the generator is to start, how soggy the path back is. And I thought, “good, she’s obviously been watching me do it, she’s doing it perfectly…”

Without her here last night, every support system we had would have been useless, because I was unable to operate them. Flipping a light switch is easy, but not if you have to monitor batteries and then yank start a generator to make sure you have power on rainy days. Imagine trying to carry wood to a woodstove with a broken leg. The lifestyle is great, but it perpetually requires the ability to move yourself and other things around. Once that goes out, even for an evening, difficulties pile up.

Another rapid fire update....

2009-01-27T09:58:00.000-08:00

Windmills suck. Or at least the project at hand has proven to suck. We are currently guinea pigs for a new VWAT design, and have been forced to rengineer every step of the way. Mis-shipped nuts, an outdated manual and an installer who dropped out before he ever dropped in have left us with an amazing erector set. I'm now off to replace every airfoil nut using a hand crafted tool, some pipe clamps and a bit of cursing.

The cabin is 99% wired, and I'm into the crafty stuff now, a single switch in the bedroom that turns on emergency lights, which will also turn on if the power goes out. Spot lights over the windows, DP switches, etc. Scored some cool fixtures on last weekends trip to the city.

We have also started insulating the cabin where ever possible. This morning, looking back at the cabin, I noticed a stange pattern of dew on the roof. It was still damp where the insulation was, meaning that less heat is escaping. The cabin is already begining to feel warmer.

LIfe is good.

Catching up.....

2009-01-07T15:46:00.001-08:00

Sorry for dropping out for so long. Wordpress for the iPhone is crap, and eats about 80% of the blogs I write on it, so I will be returning to one picture per post when blogging from the iphone.

What you have missed:

Windows: We now have six windows in the cabin, at $15 a piece from the local window and glass shop's bone yard, they were recycled, cheap AND double paned. The only thing more beautiful than the view from our kitchen windows are the friends who helped hang them.

Much love to E&Z, who have helped shed a little light in my life, more times than they might ever realize.

Did I mention E loves rockets...

So, a few weeks back, a mountain lion killed our neighbors dog, and has the entire hill on edge. The same kitty was also seen stalking another neighbors dogs, while they played with their kids. Since the first snow, though, when we saw some tracks out by the edge of our property line, we haven't seen the slightest trace, though the bobcats currently seems to be suffering from some sort of exhibitionism.

Poop

2008-11-19T22:22:00.001-08:00

This bastard ate another post. This is like being crippled. Here's another ducking picture... I hate auto correct.

Lights. All circuits. :)

Oh, and I opened comments. Say hello.

-- Posted From Stupid Blogpress

The garden begins!

2008-11-19T17:11:00.001-08:00

Stupid blogpress! Spend tons of time writing a blog on this stupid little on-screen keyboard, and it gets eaten on upload. Let's try this again:

We finally got our first raised beds in! Just a simple winter start of garlic and onions, but we are excited! The soil is a mix of peat moss, horse poop and the native "soil"; alternately clay and soft sandstone. Smells rich, now let's just hope this is the last of our Indian summers, and we don't wind up with young shoots too early.

We also took the time to try an experiment with blackberry cultivation. Apparently, burying the tips of the plants at the onset of winter will encourage them to root. Come spring, you snip the arches in half, and you've got new blackberry starts to transplant.

The solar panels have also been transplanted qto the garden, giving us a substantial increase in power as the sun dips deeper and deeper into the southern horizon. I'll likely be running the last twenty feet of romax for lighting fixtures this evening.

This blogpress program is buggy as hell, and will not scroll down enough for me to see what I am typing, so I'll write more later.

The powerhouse! A tour of the solar system!

2008-11-09T12:52:00.001-08:00

Testing out a new blogging app on the phone that allows multiple pictures, and hopefully will not turn my text into haikus. Let's see how it works!

So, here is our power system. Also known as "the contraption that turns much gasoline into little electricity". Since we use almost no electrical devices, it is basically a ridiculously innefficient money sink... Why?

Because we can't let these guys go below 50%...

That's our 24v battery system, which I believe are already ruined, and which were costing me $70 a week in gas when it was 4.50 a gallon. It's gotten better by reprogramming the charge controler, but when the revolution comes, they'll be thefirst against the wall.

All this; Despite our beautiful panels. We're pulling in 1-1.4 kw hours a day during the summer with these little guys, but in our current winter days, they are simply fun to look at. We could use more panels when the sun comes back next spring, but I bet with better batteries, these two would meet all our needs.

Which is where this little guy comes in. It's a little 3.5kw generator from harbor freight. We've got a larger 5kw Honda we use when pumping water, but it uses way more gas, so we only use it to charge the batteries when pumping water. This one runs about 90 minutes on a gallon of gas providing 18 amps to these:

...The brains behind the operation; overkill for the moment, but as we add other electrical generators, be it solar, wind, or orgone, it will accomodate.

All-in-all, kerosine lanterns and a solar cell charger would probably suit our needs at the moment, but if we shut down the system now, our batteries die; lesson learned; the big solar system should go in last. . .

The beam is up!

2008-11-04T07:51:00.000-08:00

...And with it, the last task I am left unable to complete alone is
the ceiling drywall upstairs. I may be crazy, but I still expect to be
in the cabin by christmas, provided we accquire a woodstove in time.

Into the winter...

2008-10-30T09:20:00.000-07:00

And off we go into winter… The rains are supposed to arrive tonight, and carry on until Tuesday, ending the wonderful indian summer we have been having. I was very thankful to have the earlier rains, as they gave us a chance to see what needed to be done before the season begins in earnest. I expect to be out with a pick and shovel on Saturday trenching out the drive way to prevent a recurrence of the river-runs-through-it episode we encountered a few weeks ago.

Summer was good, we got a lot done at the ranch, definitely more than the cabin, but I still managed to get the second floor supported, sub floor laid, some windows installed, and of course, the immense leveling and clearing that led to the wedding back in August.

I expect a lot of work to get done with the coming rains as ranch work generally slows down this time of year. We’ll be placing the final support beam Sunday, and from there, I get to work on pulling in walls, finishing the window installations, and from there, it should be a short matter of drywall and flooring before I get to start working on the artistic side of cabin building.

Bring on the rain!

Better late than never.

2008-10-29T08:29:00.000-07:00

Painted the cabin with 17 gallons of recycled paint over the last few days. Should reduce weather damage this winter. Rains to start tomorrow and snow coming soon, so we spent yesterday getting things covered, and indoors when needed. We should be lifting the new gable beam into place on Sunday, and I will be picking up an entire kitchen's worth of cabinets, countertops and fixtures early next week.

No, really, 5000 pounds!

2008-10-16T08:10:00.000-07:00

The mountain of empty concrete sacks on top of the mountain. New word is that the Mariah turbine will be on the truck in the first week of November. Weather permitting, we might have this beast up by Christmas.

A concrete burn and a sense of acomplishment.

2008-10-15T17:51:00.000-07:00

This is 5000 pounds of post-crete. I carried it up the hill, I mixed
it, I made this... Now I go take a shower... Somebody relax for me!

All in a years work!

2008-10-14T16:35:00.000-07:00

We finally got the foundation kit for the Mariah wind turbine, only
about 9 months after I jackhammered this damnable hole on the top of
the rock.

Looks like we'll be pouring Crete tomorrow, though the boss and I have
a bet on when we'll actually get the whirly bits.

Wheeeeeeee!

We had a touch of rain last week

2008-10-13T18:48:00.000-07:00

It was our first heavy rain since moving up here, and since doing an
amazing amount of clearing and leveling... Little did we know that we
had conspired with nature to create a river running to a small lake
beneath the camper. I now know that you cannot simply fill in a pond.
You can however invent mud golf with a pollaski and a tempest.

The Aut Haus

2008-09-26T21:10:00.000-07:00

The door to our humble commode...

Inside lies the great composter experiment...

The assembled cookset!

2008-09-21T18:09:00.000-07:00

Here's that pocket cookset assembled...

A small can stove cookset

2008-09-21T18:05:00.000-07:00

I've wanted to share this for quite sometime. This is my little
daypack cookset. Used with a wide top enamelite or sierra cup, this is
great for small meals, or reconstituting freeze dried meals.

The carrying case is from an old M-17 gas mask decon kit.

The stove is your basic tin can stove.

The stand is a bit of engenuity provided by my favorite mad scientist,
EDC.

The utensils are a set of collapsing titanium chop sticks, a birthday
gift from the same brother.

A little three mile hike today

2008-09-21T16:54:00.000-07:00

Had a great hike with the wife today, went about three miles down big
river road, saw the old homestead and hunting camps, and a made it a
little less than half way to the river. I really love it out here,
just wish more of my old friends were here to share it.

Telephono!

2008-09-17T14:39:00.001-07:00

Thats right. Over a year since the last update, the well went in as planned, solar went in a few weeks ago, I'm married, and living full time on the land, scrambling like mad to get the cabin done by winter. But I am back and blogging by Iphone, so should see alot more activity, even if the posts wind up being much shorter.

Missed you all.
-BP

The Map Is Not The Territory - Guerrilla Camping 101.13

2008-07-04T21:00:00.000-07:00

Draft originally posted at The Guerrilla News Network. Included here with GNN commentary courtesy of the GNN Archive.

Guerrilla Camping 101.13 The Map Is Not The Territory

Asset B27848 Posted By BlackPacker

That’s right. Another Guerrilla Camping. This article is about 60% the size of the expanded articles from GC 101.1-101.12. All told, the manuscript sits at about 160 pages now. If anyone reading this has any connections to legitimate publishing houses, or even can find freelance writing jobs for me, please drop me a line at hagcel at hotmail.com I’m going broke as a haybucking ranch hand.

Guerrilla Camping 101.14
The Map is Not the Territory

More than halfway up the pacific northwest rail line, my fiance and I encountered some creepy stuff in the woods that had us humming the theme to deliverance; voodoo crosses and piles of polished pennies sat on the tracks in the middle of a woodlot with stumps wearing animal masks and wedding veils. As the last bars of deuling banjos crossed my lips, I spied a man on an over grown black ATV approaching from the north.

“Hi there”, I said, smiling and puffing my chest out a bit, attempting to look both friendly and, at the same time, large.
“Holy Shit!, did you guys walk all the way from Cloverdale?”
“All the way from San Francisco”, we replied, my fingers slipping under the Velcro tab holding my hatchet to the bottom of my bed roll.
“Holy shit, do you know where you’re at?”
“About three quarters of a mile south of Hopland, I hope.”
“Holy shit! How did you know that? “We’ve got maps, we’re not totally wandering.”
“Holy shit….”.
It turned out our friend on the ATV was a very friendly young farmer who gave us a breath taking one-mile ride to town on his four wheeler.

Likewise the time we told a dairy farmer that we had slept on Neil’s island, a rather large, sheltered hilltop in the middle of a vast convergence of wetland and his dairy pasture.

“Now, how do you know Niel?”
“We don’t. It was on the map. You man there really is a Niel?”
“Was, he died about 50 years ago. Used to live out there, sometimes during the rainy season there would be months on end that he had to use a boat across the pasture to get to in and out from his home. Even in the summer he had to carry everything in with a wheelbarrow. Never thought it would be called that on a map.”

There is a lot to be said about knowing where you are and a lot and be said about a person who knows right where they are. Talking with a random local as you “trespass” across a corner of his property, it is surprising the amount of respect you gain if you know exactly where you are. You immediately transform from “another shiftless homeless guy with a pack” to “Interesting traveler” I have gone from a hostile stare to a offer to have a beer and rest for a while with just the question, “Is this Leslie creek?” (Note, this usually works best if it actually is Leslie creek.)

And of course, let’s not forget that maps and a compass are the most reliable tools to keep you un-lost and on-track. But only if you know how to use them.

Types of Maps

Maps come in an astounding variety. There are maritime maps, data maps, aerial maps, topographic maps, line maps, relief maps, political maps, historical maps and hundreds of other maps. The two types of maps particularly important for the nomadic traveler are topographic maps and simple line maps.

Topographic, or topo maps are the mainstay of backwoods travelers. Using contour lines to represent the lay of the terrain, it is possible to determine your location almost anywhere you can get a good view, without the need for any manmade landmarks such as street signs. Topographic maps are widely available; Offered by the U.S. Geological Survey for about $7 each, found in countless trail guides, commercial map books such as DeLorme’s Gazeteer and on DVD and CD-Rom such as National Geographic’s TOPO! Series.

Line Maps are simply the representation of roads and landmarks in a series of lines and symbols and almost never indicate geological features. Just about every map you see is a line map, most often only detailing streets and landmarks. These range from the maps offered for free by the Automobile Association to multi-county bus route maps. Some are artfully designed with cartoonish pictures depicting landmarks. Some towns even offer themed business maps from their chamber of commerce and any gas station will carry run-of-the-mill road maps and atlases. Even the “you are here” maps in hospitals are variations of line maps.

Acquiring Maps:

By Computer:

Map Sites
Map sites such as Google Maps and MapQuest are mostly worthless for the true nomad. They often only give you a strip map to a specific location leaving out the details in between. The need to be online to use them makes them impractical for any significant use. They can be useful when planning since they can automatically generate routes, but since those routes are designed for drivers, they are often impractical or impossible on foot or by bicycle.

There are a few exceptions however. Trails.com features an online collection of trail guides and maps available for download to your computer. Their subscription fee is moderate, and their volumes of trail and camping guides are useful, allowing you to forgo a book for every state you hope to find a legal campground in. While it is limited by being an online resource, the trail guides are easily printed or saved as Adobe PDF allowing you to use them offline.

Google Earth

Google earth is certainly fun and it has its uses when planning a trip. Using it for aerial reconnaissance is fast and simple, and making routes is just as easy. However it again relies on automobile roads, and lacks any significant way to create usable trail maps.

USAPhotoMaps

USAPhotomaps is the best program I have ever seen for planning long walks. It’s shareware from JDMCox.com and uses publicly available data sets from USGS and Terra Server. It allows you to work directly with USGS topographic maps, and with the hit of a button switch to high and low resolution aerial and satellite photos. Use of tiger streets data overlays everything from 4wd jeep trails, to 10 lane highways, and allows you to choose which to display. Searching is simple and you can search for Addresses, Populated Places, USGS landmarks and latitude longitude coordinates.

Photomaps biggest drawback is in trail planning and printing of routes. While sections of map are easily printed, and the ability to create giant JPG files of high resolution photo or topo maps is present, the route entry and printing is problematic, often forcing you to kludge results.

One interesting aspect of Photomaps is that in some places, it seems to pull older pictures from terra server. This can be problematic, as bridges may be gone, roads added, freeways built. But in wilderness areas, I have been able to find timber skid roads using these old areal photographs that are now completely overgrown.

Delorme Topo

Delorme has been map making for ages. Their popular gazetteer guides are concise, organized for outdoor enthusiasts, and indexed for a wide variety of activities from camping to skiing. The Delorme Topo program takes all of those features and presents a VERY useful program for working with maps. Unfortunately, I find the data sets to be incomplete, and the simple data based topo maps are often left lacking when you are passing down a valley with no real landmarks printed on your route sheet.

The ability of Delorme’s program to generate guide books is its saving grace. With a few clicks to configure, you can print out a series of one page maps at any scale, from 5-500 miles per page. When walking, I generally opt to carry a self printed guide at a 15 mile per page scale. On average, this leaves me at a page per day, making it much easier to plan resupply points, anticipate long stretches without access to water and other logistic hurdles.

National Geographic Topo
National Geographic makes a HUGE variety of map programs, ranging from their flagship TOPO, distributed with discs for individual states, the weekend explorer series which focuses on smaller geographic regions for a reduced price and National Parks Explorer, which included maps of the major national parks, their trails and services offered.

It seems to me that while the data in the National Geographic line is quite similar to the Delorme series, most likely culled from USGS data sets, the tools in the software are nowhere near as advanced. I will be quick to admit that my exploration of the software has been limited, however, so it may be that I just haven’t found the good tools yet.

Printing Maps

National Geographic also offers a product billed as Adventure Paper. It claims to be waterproof and tear proof. I only recently discovered it, and have three maps stapled to the outside wall of my shop. They have lasted about two months, shaded with about a dozen storms and have not run. As such, this is amazing. Sweating on an ink-jet printed map on normal paper will create blotches. It’s pricy, but I have to admit it works.

Printed Maps

USGS Maps
As have mentioned, the USGS Topographic maps are the best out there, unless you can get access to military quadrant maps. However, their utility can be limited by scope, scale and size. The fact that USGS maps are meant more for surveying and not sight seeing, is one aspect of this, it can take seven or eight maps for a two week walk, and you wind up with a generally unneeded periphery.

Delorme Gazeteer
A great alternative to the USGS topo maps are the Delorme Gazetteer series, available for every state. These books are oversized atlases, featuring topographic information and trails from 4wd jeep trails to major highways. Although the maps are not as detailed at the USGS maps, basic orienteering is still easy. The books are easily pulled apart for easy packing, letting you keep the sections you don’t need at home. Again, like all map packages, these maps are geared for the automotive traveler, so be warned, about 75% of the “campsites” labeled in the book are nothing more than parking lots for RVs, a fact that becomes obvious and painful thirty minutes after sundown when you arrive at a trailer park with your pack and tent, only to realize you’ll be sleeping somewhere else.

Unfortunately, Delorme did not follow the cartographic standard of putting magnetic declination on the bottom of every map page, so you either have to remember it, or make notations on each page you carry. I’ll explain more in a bit.

Bus Maps
In urban and suburban areas, the best maps I have found are the municipal bus maps. Free, pocket sized and free of extraneous information, they often give you enough information to navigate your way through larger developed areas, aside from telling you which busses to catch if you wish to simply bypass them altogether. In some places with great public transit, these maps include routes to state and national parks and even essential services, such as hospitals and police stations.

AAA
If you happen to be an Autoclub member, or know someone who is, they offer many free regional maps and tour books. I carry AAA maps in my trucks, but have never used them for more than additional background information while researching trips, as they obviously focus on travel by car. If you are a hitchhiker by habit, it’s as good as a bus route.

Park Maps
Yes, national and state park maps DO have trails. However, these trails tend to be loops, and they leave off tons of features in an attempt to keep people from getting lost. I have found unmarked airstrips in national parks, something I consider criminal, since it would be an important feature to know should you become hurt or sick out there. Park maps are great for day hikes, useless for through-travelers, unless you just want to find your way to the camp showers.

Bike Maps
As much as it bothers me to get passed by a blur of a mountain biker on a remote single track; the community, ingenuity and determination of mountain bike enthusiasts have done much to aid the long distance pedestrian. Lobbying for legal right-of-ways along storm washes and rail road lines, fund raising for green belt bike paths and scouting nearly impassable, forgotten mountain roads have created a loose network of trails all around the country. Most important to nomads, is the fact that they have put all this information into map packs in many places. A few minutes work on Google, or a quick visit to a local bike co-op can net you a wealth of information on roads too obscure to even appear on published maps. I’ll continue to put up with the terror of a sixty mile collision with 200 lbs of aluminum alloy and spandex sheathed sinew as long as they keep scouting those trails for us.

Orientering

First off, as I did when I wrote a bit about foraging, I will make the disclaimer that I am providing enough information in this article to be dangerous. I spent enough time with maps in the military to pull off some of my walks using questionable routes. What I offer here is enough information to keep you found on anything down to mapped jeep trails. It is not enough information to try to do a straight traverse across two dozen miles of uncut forest. If you hope or plan to do such adventuring, I not only recommend reading a few books, and if possible find a local orienteering group. It is also possible to learn a lot about navigation by geocaching without a GPS. The most important thing, as with many things, is to practice a skill before you really NEED it.

The first step to using a map and compass is orientation. If you are the type of person to turn a street map upside down to get a better feel for an area, you’ve already got it. Orientation is simply the act of lining up a map in the same direction as the terrain. With the aforementioned street map, it is easy. Put the last street you passed below the street corner you are on. If you’ve never done this, try it, you’ll be amazed how much simpler navigation becomes.

However, with good maps, topo maps or places where the road is not so easy to orient, you will need to use a compass. The easiest for this purpose is a map compass with a straight edge. Place it along side the north arrow, then turn the map until they line up. The map is now, close to oriented. For road travel this is enough.

When you are actually navigating by map and not a road, you must take into account declination, also known as magnetic variation. There are actually three norths; Magnetic North is not True North, or even Map North. Map north, sometimes called grid north is distorted by the very nature of converting a round surface to a flat object, causing an increasing degree change as you approach the equator. Magnetic north, is not only no where near the north pole, it moves around constantly. If that were not bad enough, because earth magnetic field also curves, the further you are from a pole, the more the angle between true north, map north and magnetic north vary. Lost yet? Good. If you want to go from point a to point B without a road or trail, At least read a reputable book on orienteering and blame them when you get lost.

Now that you have your map almost oriented, tell yourself it’s good enough. Its time to locate your position. On a big street map, this is easy, look at whatever intersection you are on. Well, on a lonely mountain road, it’s still that easy, all you have to do is find your intersection. You do this by finding two distant landmarks. The farther away, the better. You first want to point your compass as object one. Draw a line on your map tracing that angle. Next you do the same thing with a second landmark. It’s most accurate at 90 degrees, but you take what you can get. Where those lines intersect, is your rough position.

Now, this is a fine way to figure out where you are, when you land there. But honestly, it’s over kill. I keep track of where I am by carrying my map page in a neck pouch with my compass. I look at the map at every sharp turn or landmark, and always know where I am. It’s not so much a matter or staying found as it is a matter or setting my pace. My keeping a mental overview of how far I have gone in a day, I can pick up or slacken my pace, by seeing the spacing of campsites behind me, I can anticipate the length of time it will take to complete upcoming legs, allowing me to anticipate needing more food, or even dictating a lazy sunny day spent swimming and reading because I’m ahead of schedule.

In the simplest terms, it is much easier to stay found than get un-lost, and while the map is not the territory, it should at least help you find your way around it, and eventually out of it. The most important thing about staying found is that it gives you constant practice with your maps. And when you do, one day, become lost, it are those skills that will let you find your way again.

tango R335586 2 years ago	Yes! Thanks for another GC, BP!

Disenchanted R335603 2 years ago	“Well, on a lonely mountain road, it’s still that easy, all you have to do is find your intersection. You do this by finding two distant landmarks. The farther away, the better. You first want to point your compass as object one. Draw a line on your map tracing that angle. Next you do the same thing with a second landmark. It’s most accurate at 90 degrees, but you take what you can get. Where those lines intersect, is your rough position.” Better to take 3 landmarks, then you know you are in the triangle formed where the lines intersect.

kbz R335649 2 years ago	However it [GoogleEarth] again relies on automobile roads, and lacks any significant way to create usable trail maps. GPS makes it easy. Just have to walk (or other forms of travel) the trails. ;)

The Map is Not The Territory - Guerrilla Camping 101.14

2008-04-07T22:15:00.000-07:00

Draft originally posted at The Guerrilla News Network. Included here with GNN commentary courtesy of the GNN Archive.

Guerrilla Camping 101.13 The Map Is Not The Territory

Asset B27848 Posted By BlackPacker

Guerrilla Camping 101.14
The Map is Not the Territory

Likewise the time we told a dairy farmer that we had slept on Neil’s island, a rather large, sheltered hilltop in the middle of a vast convergence of wetland and his dairy pasture.

And of course, let’s not forget that maps and a compass are the most reliable tools to keep you un-lost and on-track. But only if you know how to use them.

Types of Maps

Acquiring Maps:

By Computer:

Google Earth

USAPhotoMaps

Delorme Topo

Printing Maps

Printed Maps

Orientering

tango R335586 2 years ago	Yes! Thanks for another GC, BP!

Disenchanted R335603 2 years ago	“Well, on a lonely mountain road, it’s still that easy, all you have to do is find your intersection. You do this by finding two distant landmarks. The farther away, the better. You first want to point your compass as object one. Draw a line on your map tracing that angle. Next you do the same thing with a second landmark. It’s most accurate at 90 degrees, but you take what you can get. Where those lines intersect, is your rough position.” Better to take 3 landmarks, then you know you are in the triangle formed where the lines intersect.

kbz R335649 2 years ago	However it [GoogleEarth] again relies on automobile roads, and lacks any significant way to create usable trail maps. GPS makes it easy. Just have to walk (or other forms of travel) the trails. ;)

Can you dig it?

2007-07-14T09:21:00.000-07:00

My mother used to warn me that I would be a ditch digger if I didn’t study hard and get good grades. Well, twenty years later, after a good corporate run, a few of my own businesses and some very high marks in college, I am indeed a ditch digger.

The well drilling rig arrives in five days. We got 8 days notice of its impending arrival, and have to rush to finish the preparations for its arrival. Clearing 10 square feet of poison oak around our fence posts was easy. The hard part is the 8 foot clearance needed by the 40 foot rig to drill the well a few feet from a cliff. The cliff has about a gagillion tons of collapsed sandstone at it’s base, under which, the dowser assured us, is the best place to put our well.

So, out come the picks, the shovels and wheelbarrow to move the giant pile of rock and sandstone someplace else. (thrown off the side of the mountain on Thursday, to be spread on our new drive way today)

Yesterday was spent doing fire clearing. We need to clear 100 feet around the cabin to help keep wildfires from licking at our eaves, and with the help of a neighbor, we cleared quite a bit of brush and dead trees. Turns out the best way to limb giant fir trees is to knock a dead madrone into them. This is really fun when the tree is so dead and gone that two guys can literally pull the tree down with rope. Especially the part where we had to run under the deck to avoid getting smooshed. Having a fifty foot long tree trunk plummeting down on you is another experience that goes onto my “better than coffee” list, right alongside hydroplaning down a frozen dirt road and stepping on rattlesnakes. After the first tree, we started using the chainsaw and the full length of the rope, still using the plummeting wooden carcasses to limb the taller living trees surrounding them.

By the end of the day, we had uncovered a ten foot wide flat spot behind the cabin that will be perfect as a garage, keeping our ugly cars out of sight and hopefully in the shade. We also discovered three or four gorgeous berry bushes of which the bears and deer had been kind enough to leave us two berries each. Yum! Until the first tree on them.

So, shoulders and elbows aching, I am back up the hill now to continue developing my skills as a ditch digger.

Growing the Holy Weed

2007-06-14T08:28:00.000-07:00

It is estimated that in Mendocino county alone, the illegal cultivation of marijuana is a five billion dollar a year industry. Teenagers write sorrowful letters to local papers bewailing the situation where a straight A student struggles to have enough money for clothes, while their near drop-out peers, already employed at $30 an hour to trim buds, are driving around in gigantic new trucks. Indeed, when many of my friends heard of our move to Mendocino, they asked, “You gonna grow pot?”

The answer is always no. However, I have recently discovered another weed which might prove quite lucrative in the future. Yerba Santo, the holy weed. Used in a variety of methods such a direct chewing or steeped as a tea it is widely hailed to relive respiratory problems, such as asthma and bronchitis. It can be applied directly to inflammations to ease hives, rashes and swelling or combined with other plants can be used to make a salve to alive these symptoms. Until I read this, I had more interesting names than holy weed reserved for the thousands of yerba santo plants littering the area around the cabin, which could miraculously re-grow in days after clearing an entire area. We have thousands of these plants.

In my Guerrilla Camping articles, many often commented on my avoidance of the topic of foraging. The reason has been because there are dozens of authoritative books on the subject with great illustrations and written by experts with a profound understanding of poisonous look-alikes, seasonal uses and a vast catalog of plants they understand. My foraging and wildcrafting abilities are narrow, yet regularly grow as I find myself living in new places, exposed to new flora. In short, I don’t want somebody to read something I write and then go and poison themselves with a poisonous fennel look-a-like.

One interesting piece of wildcrafted lore is that whenever one finds a poison in the wilds, you will find it’s antidote within fifty paces. So when I read that Yerba Santo, combined with a weedy yellow flower called San Francisco Gum Weed, is an excellent southing agent for the rashes of poison oak, I banged my head against the table. Of course! I have thousands of poison oak plants and thousands of Yerba Santo plants.

Yerba Santo, the ubiquitous weed up here is actually quite useful and grows out of control. The weed is sold, dried and powdered, online for $40 a pound, and 365 capsules (presumably a year’s supply) sell for slightly less. Yet my interest is in preparing a poison oak salve for the use of my WWOOFers, my guests and myself. Should it prove effective, I might try to prepare it for sale at the farmer’s market, combining it with Aloe and other soothing agents.

The lesson is this: before you go ripping plants out of the ground in hopes of growing something profitable, find out what earth has given you first. It will be easier (or unnecessary) to cultivate, will grow within the confines of your available water and soil condition and hopefully someday, when somebody asks what I do, I’ll be able to blow their minds by saying, “I grow the holy weed”. . .

Deepwoods salvage. The tank on my tank.

2007-06-11T08:16:00.002-07:00

To hear my neighbor tell the story, fifteen years ago, the sheriff, the army and the DEA came rolling up the narrow dirt road to our side of the mountain and raided the entire community. Helicopters floating in the air, HMMWV’s in the road, machine guns and loud speakers. Often, Ryan and I will be walking around our parcel and wonder at what kind of chaos must have occurred to leave the place in such desolate shape. Off the side of one hill lies a stack of half a dozen aluminum framed windows, the animal pens are littered with old tin cans and random trash, ranging from the skeletal remains of a baby stroller to some very impressive aluminum machine parts. When possible, I salvage what I can, and thanks to some dedicated British WWOOFers, the animal pen area has been cleared of junk and rotting wood, leaving only the old coop and a grove of ancient Yerba Santo.

On their last day there, I promised something different than the incessant clearing and foundation work we had been doing. With three able bodied young men to assist me, I knew the time was ripe for some serious salvage.

Looking down off the side of the hill approaching the cabin, you can see an impressive length of ¾ inch PVC running from a culvert to a deeply wooded spot nearly half a mile away. There, overgrown by poison oak, surrounded by decade old trees was a thousand gallon water tank, doubtlessly used by the previous tenant’s marijuana cultivation system. Shaded by a grove of madrone, the tank was in remarkable condition and I had been figuring out how to get it out of the woods and next to the cabin where it would be the main storage for my rain catchment and fog harvesting systems.

We began the morning by walking tooless up to the tank, amazed at how invisible the road had become. The poison oak was everywhere, ranging from little spouts springing up from the duff to enormous vines, brushing dangerously close to our faces. After a winding trip up the hill, we found the tank and proceeded to scout out the path of least resistance.

The easiest way to get it out involved clearing a six foot wide swath through the woods, then abruptly turning west towards the drive way. Of course, once we got set to clear, the chain saw wouldn’t work, so I grabbed my cordless reciprocating saw, a brush cutter, a set of loppers and strapped my hatchet to my belt. An hour later, we had a passable road to the tank, which led to a six foot drop off beside the drive way. All that was left was to free the tank from the poison oak, and the thirty five foot madrone that had sprung up between the tank and the clearing.

The chainsaw would have made the task simple, but since we didn’t have it, I told the boys to go relax a hundred feet down hill and proceeded to get down to work with the hatchet. Now, this is not your standard deep woods hatchet, it’s an ultra light gerber camping hatchet. Fortunately, it’s light weight and short handle is offset by the fact that I keep it razor sharp, so wedging the tree and girdling down to the heartwood was easy. However, upon reaching the hardwood, the work slowed. Hearing my pauses become more and more frequent as my shoulder began to ache and a blister formed on my hand, the boys shouted up, “need some help?” I told them to send up one person, and a few seconds later, Tim arrived with his wry smile.

I showed him what we were doing and explained how the tree would fall. I pointed to a large tree to the left of the path of the fall to run to when he heard the crack. And we started at it again. Five minutes later, we shoved on the tree and Tom let out a bellowing “TIMBER” that echoed through the valley below as the tree fell neatly across a strand of brush I had decided not the clear for just that reason.

I limbed the tree and tied some of my climbing rope into a harness around the tank. Pulling it free from it’s foundation, we set it on end and used the downed tree to get the tank up and onto the trail we had cleared. It wasn’t easy work, but compared to clearing the trail, it was simple and not as exhausting. Once we reached the main trail, it became a downhill battle, and we split up, two men to push it down hill, two to make sure it didn’t go careening into a stump or branch and puncture.

Our goal had been to get it right to the edge of the roadside, and leave it there until Creek returned with the big brown truck. Looking down at my truck and back at the trail we created, I asked the guys if they wanted to give it a go and take it all the way. Their response was an immediate and resounding “YES!”

To get the tank onto the truck, we had to stop rolling it, and instead begin to tumble it, end over end until we could slide it onto the roof of my SUV, a 94 chevy blazer, which could have easily parked inside the tank. As we worked, we joked how the story would improve with age, about how the mountain lion that moved into the tank had chased us, how the tank and started to roll down the hill prompting a Raiders of the Lost Ark Moment and how the tank would get larger and the car smaller until we were pulling down a 20,000 gallon tank and slapping it on the roof of a Mini.

It took four 25 foot tie downs to get the beast strapped on properly and then the cameras came out. The appearance is farcical. My truck, which I once considered large was dwarfed by the immense tank and the only thing that let us know it was safe was knowing that the tank probably only weighed 100 lbs. I had used low four wheel drive to back my truck up the side of the driveway, and had only two feet of road between us and the hillside below. I carefully maneuvered the truck back onto the driveway, and Tom hopped in.

A few minutes later, we were parked in front of the cabin, still laughing at the absurdity of the incredibly large tank on my now dwarf sized truck. We maneuvered the truck around for a few pictures of the group before unstrapping it and rolling it off the side.

In place, we clapped and patted each other on the back. It was the Brits’ last day at work with me, and we had accomplished a lot, though this was the crowning grace, as we had started the project together, worked past various obstacles and completed it. Our spirits were high, through we were quite tired, and I drove everyone up the hill for a much needed Tecnu shower to rinse off the poison oak that covered us from head to toe.

Huge thanks to Dave, Tom and Stu who spent way more hours than they needed to, working way harder than they needed to to help make my dream of living in the cabin in the woods a reality. I'll miss you guys and look forward to the kind of trouble we can get into when I get out to the other side of the pond for a visit. Another game of Kings Cup is definitely in order.

I inspired a comic...

2007-06-09T13:47:00.000-07:00

When I wrote "Guerrilla Camping 101.5 Burn Baby Burn", I mentioned a fast way to get a fire started in the woods. The method was taught to me by an ex-con who said they would use these devices, known as baby bunsons to heat up food in their cells. All you need is a few few of toilet paper, which you wrap tightly around your hand, then fold the edges in. Put it in place of the tinder beneath your kindling and light. Voila, instant campfire.

Alex over at GNN liked the notion, especially when I said, "If you don;t carry toilet paper, you are a savage and can probably light fires with a hard gaze..." and produced a funny, if highly bizarre comic called Toilet Paper Donut.

Thanks Alex!

On this rock I build my house

2007-06-09T10:59:00.000-07:00

Sorry everybody for the delay in this post. I promised myself that I wouldn’t blog until I finished the last project; shoring up the foundation of the cabin so we could move on to building up. Little did I know that the flurry of activity would make it impossible to blog until I had more than one blog to post, fortunately, I have a few days off, So I will be able to post BOTH blogs in short order.

With a morbid creak, the cabin started to move. Slowly, I pumped the handle to the 30 ton bottle jack I had propped between redwood slabs, cautiously peering between the concrete and the wood of our foundation. With each pump of the handle, the cabin raised a few more millimeters, the wooden supports groaning precariously, until I saw a fingernail of sunlight through the opposite side. Working quickly, I took a maul and knocked out the old wooden shim, and banged in an identically cut block into its place. Checking to make sure the alignment was perfect, I pulled the handle from the jack and using it to release the pressure, I slowly lowered the cabin back onto its concrete piling as the wood gave a sickening, stressful moan.

I was sitting under the cabin with Gabe, a WWOOFer from Washington who was on the first leg of a motorcycle trip around the continental United States. He had just come from working at an oil refinery, and I was grateful to have somebody with me who knew tools, and understood how they worked. As we worked we told stories and got to know one another. He liked metal, had remarkably similar political and apocalyptical views as myself and was out to learn everything he can about everything there is. Needless to say, we got along great. Meanwhile, Tom Stu and Dave, three British wwoofers were demolishing the old animal pens and loading the truck up with rotted wood.

The cabin now supported by a piece of wood that did not look like swiss cheese, we hollered off the measurements for the side blocks as Creek worked rapidly to cut the blocks on the chop saw in the shop. The difficulty of cutting 16x9 inch blocks of wood with a chop saw should be obvious, but the table saw killed the generator, so it was our only choice. We marked the eighth of an inch metal straps that would secure the cabin on the foundation, and sent them up to the shop to get drilled by Creek. We hammer drilled through the pilings, fit the blocks and straps together, drilled through them, using a 50 year old auger bit that belonged to my father, and slipped ¼ inch bolts through the whole shebang, binding them together with an impact driver.

Working there, securing the foundation of our cabin, I was forced to think alot about tools and collaboration. The drill bits and 6 foot pry bar were my fathers, the drill press was an early Shop Smith, which my friend Matt had sold to my friend Zack when he followed my lead; selling everything he owned to go wander Asia for a few years. The tape measure was a janky broken-locked 12 footer from Tap Plastics, which had somehow moved up here when we vacated the SF warehouse and which belongs to my old roommate Ed, the mad scientist. And, all the while, I was surrounded by men from around the world, who I had known for only a few days yet who were here helping me build my home for free. I knew that in addition to building memories for all of us, I was building upon memories: With each strap, I thanked Matt, with each hole through the foundation beams I thanked my Father, and wondered what he had done with these bits so long ago. And at the end of each day, I thanked the young men around me profusely, knowing that someday, soon, I would live in this house they were helping me build.

There were 12 foundation pilings to support and by the last one, I was lying prone next to a small patch of poison oak, with barely a foot of clearance as Dave handed me tools, and worked from the outside to get it all together. But now, the foundation is secure, the rebuilding can begin in earnest, and I will hopefully never have to pick up another house again. Whew!

What is Guerrilla Camping?

2007-05-22T07:59:00.000-07:00

At a local mutual support meeting a couple of weeks ago, we did the round robin bit where we each explained “what we do”. My mention of this blog caused a bit of confusion. “You write about trespassing?” “Illegal camping?” So I decided to explain what Guerrilla Camping is.

Guerrilla Camping is simply camping where you aren’t supposed to. The term is in vogue with cross country cyclists, while distance hikers seem to prefer the term stealth camping. Either way, it is an option that allows a more direct experience of the wilds we find ourselves retreating to. It is also an option forced upon the increasing numbers of people who set out to bike or walk incredibly long distances.

The act of guerrilla camping comes with great responsibility. As you are often camping in pristine environs, it is your duty to assure that when you leave, no trace is left of your presence. No burn scars from cook fires, no mounds from cat holes, to trash and only the flattened grass gently rising for a day after you depart to hint at the one time presence of your tent or sleeping bag.

I adopted the practice in the mid ninties when I spent my long weekends hitchhiking and walking throughout the deep south. I discovered that the best nights in towns were spent camped out with the resident street artists and hobos who knew the back sides of the cities. I found that camping in a hidden corner of some farm’s grain field was always quieter than that developed campsites on national forests, lacking the throngs of RV driving loudmouths who must live in war zones to consider a night in the woods with a generator, camped out next to a dozen others with generators to be relaxing.

To me, the act of guerrilla camping is one of empowerment. Especially when on foot. Increasingly today, there are places that are legally unreachable on foot, boxed off by no pedestrian signs, freeways, no-trespassing signs and other imaginary lines. The first time you walk someplace distant, without a trail, without an authorized path, you realize how much we have forgotten about our land and about ourselves. Weather you are camping in a hidden clearing in a national forest hoping to avoid the rangers, or camping behind an abandoned paper mill in a half forgotten boomtown hoping to avoid the sheriff, guerrilla camping shows you that the world is not the place of ownership and fences we believe it is. Going guerrilla teaches you that camping is what you can get away with.

Ads and journals...

2007-05-15T01:18:00.000-07:00

I've recently been published in the journal 20 Dissidents, copies are located at the above link.

Also, if you enjoy what you read here, click the ads. At worst, you waste a second looking at how to help victims of Hurricane Katrina, at best, you help them. Either way, I get a dime and get to find out if adsense is working. It hasn't been so easy to help so many people since I wrote Nancy Peolsi's phone number in a bathroom stall the set fire to the impeachment circus bigtop.

Thanks again everybody for the generous support. 4th of July invitations are coming soon. If you never got a postcard or letter from me, I probably got yours back in the mail, please send me your address again.

Woot!

Edison's Medicine

2007-05-15T01:17:00.000-07:00

After sundown, the silence is dense and heavy. The weight of the star filled sky comes down on the cabin like a lead shroud, and the daytime sounds of lizards, frantic tow-truck bugs and overhead hawks fade away, leaving nothing but the vague hints of distant animals. On moonless nights the silence is accompanied by an impenetrable darkness. Huddled around the campfire in our front yard we see nothing.

Click.

"Then pull this forward… and yank…"

Gruuuunk!

Chug…

"Then just slide the choke back to here.."

ere…ere…ere…ere….REEEEEEEEEEER!

As the generator steadied into a consistent roar, Edison's medicine surged through fifty feet of cable and the ten year old halogen lights in the shop fluttered to brilliance, eclipsing the stars and luring every moth in twenty miles to our doors.

We spent a long time living in a tent with solar charged batteries providing our light though small LED headlamps, and standing there in front of the cabin, bathed in the bleach white glow of the lamp I was struck by how far we had come. The campfire, only fifteen feet away seemed ancient and the shattered silence, obnoxious in its volume, spoke of futures of civilization, of finished walls and conveniences.

We barbequed burgers on a cheap grill as I sautéed mushrooms on our faithful campstove. We chased the burgers down with beer, joking about how we no longer needed to go to town for cold beer and hot burgers.

"How far have we surpassed car camping?" I laughed, looking sideways at our bags sitting in the middle of the shop, bags that less than a year ago had carried our lives' possessions to the spot where we now stood, bathed for the first time in artificial light, surrounded by the sparking promise of electricity.

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER……

Ere… ere… ere… ere…er….

Err…

Cast back into darkness the forest was alive. Moths battered themselves against our battery powered lanterns, forcing me to ponder what Darwinian trick had lured their kind to ancient lights; provided only by fire assuring a scorching and immediate death to their ancestors. Instead, their shadows played at the edges of the tent, alluding to monstrous fifteen pound moths, with foot long wingspans.

Our noise, our light and our cooking changed the place subtly, and that night we would listen to moths bat gently against the tent, as packrats looted our trash can.

Civilization had come to the mountain.

Coming up for air. [repost from gnn.tv]

2007-05-08T00:00:00.000-07:00

haven’t blogged in a while. At first, this was due to a severe lack of internet. But now, I have a raging 3mbs connection, and I’m still not blogging much. Oh, I’m online, jumping around the permaculture and primitivism forums, but I haven’t had much to blog about, since most of the news seems remote and absurd from where I’m standing. Monday morning, I awoke to the first traces of sun rippling across the top of our tent and stepped out to watch the first slow sunrise on our property. The bugs, hawks and snakes were still asleep and a few hyperactive alligator lizards darted along the dirt hunting ants. Next to the tent, the grass was matted and spiraled, looking to me like a deer bed. I doubt we had a deer sleeping two feet away from the tent, but up there, anything seems possible.

Not wanting to wake my fiance, I spent an hour or so pulling out coyote brush and making plans to clear the area housing the animal pens. The prior residents left the place a fabulous disaster, with trash ranging from a Volkswagen clutch to three camper shells in various states of dissolution. I flipped one camper shell onto it’s side, revealing an intricate network of tunnels dug out by carpenter ants, along with two ringneck snakes and a garter snake. The ringnecks are gorgeous snakes, dark emerald green with a crimson stomach and a slender serpentine grace. Talking to neighbors up on the hill, they are apparently quite rare, though my boss has video shot at our property of three of them in an intricate intertwined mating.

So far, I have done lots of road clearing and trimming. In two months, the well goes in. Yesterday, we got our first generator a 4500 watt screamer that will serve to run our tools as I finish reinforcing the foundation. I’ve sorted out maps, resources, and a list of likely materials I will need to start getting the cabin up to modern living standards.

Coming down the hill, Venezuela has privatized the last of its oil fields, bush is vetoing the war spending bill, more static is coming up about the Virginia shootings and the overpass in San Francisco is likely to suffer delays to rebuilding caused by steel shortages. I shrug. None of it seems to effect me anymore. It’s not laziness of apathy, more a creeping sense of “I told you so.” that plays on my conscience. I tried to change the world, now I try to make my own; far enough down a dirt road that none of this will bother me, though the only broadcast entertainment that comes in clearly at the cabin is NPR. The sea level would have to rise about 2000 feet to give me beachfront property, the bees, wasps and butterflies are voluminous and the other wild animals leave hints to their presence, bear scat, a deer antler, the soft gobble of wild turkeys shaking through the trees. No, politics is someone else’s game now. I have to worry about water, power and heat before winter arrives. Worrying about winter before summer officially arrives gives you a sense of perspective you seldom have living in the city. I don’t have to worry about heating bills, just limbing trees to stop forest fires and getting this old woodstove fixed up. I don’t have to worry about a facist crackdown, the paddywagon would never make it down my road, and if it did, I doubt it would make it past my neighbors.

No, there is nothing for me to be angry about anymore. I know the world has problems, and I might still try to fix them, but for now, they are yours. I’ve got my own. Simpler, easier to fix, easy to understand, hard to figure out why we left such simple living behind, no matter how hard the work may be.

Anyways, I have to go, I have design work to do before heading back up the mountain and the soundtrack I’m working on is about rendered and therefore ready to send. Yeah, some mountain man. ;)

Guerrilla Camping 101.1 Revisted - The Red Pack

2007-04-27T13:03:00.000-07:00

Guerrilla Camping 101.1 Revisited – The Red Pack

Ah gear. At no time do I enjoy the materialistic and consumerist routine of cataloging my possessions like when I make a pack list. But it is an obligatory post. It determines what kind of pack one carries and shows where one is coming from.

Since writing the first GC blog nearly two years ago, my pack has refined itself into a more professional rig as I prepared to start walking hundreds of miles rather than dozens. The pack below is not a small financial commitment and is overkill for most pedestrian adventures. It is a pack that can be carried alone, but which was prepared for two person trips with certain items dispersed. (One person carries the kitchen, the other carries the bedroom.) It is also, as described below, capable of supporting me comfortably in desert heat, or winter snow. Much of this gear gets boxed or left behind for normal climates. If you are looking for a cheap single person bug-out-bag, see my previous blog.

Yes, I carry a heavy pack. I like the exercise, and except for that foot injury that happened when I had the entire thing confined to one pack while walking down a rocky mountain road in the dark in old shoes, it has done well for me. If I could run with the old pack, I can sprint with this one when it is properly adjusted, and has taught me why molly replaced alice in the military.

This is not a complete list, instead it is for comparison to the original blackpack I wrote about two years ago. Eventually, I will do another packlist, but right now, it would be immense as I start to set up a permanent camp. (Uh, where do I pack the picnic bench?)

The Red Pack:

His: Gregory Palisades (5100 cubic inches)

Hers: Gregory Forester (4000 cubic inces)

Kitchen

MSR Whisperlite International with stainless pot, screen cleaning kit and diffuser
(2) 1 liter SIGG fuel bottles
Titanium Fork and Spoon
Titanium lid Lifter
Assorted baggies and nalgenes for spices. (I never use film canisters any more. TAP plastics sells VERY cheep small plastic bottles which DO NOT SHOOT PEPPER IN YOUR FACE!)

Water

MSR Mini-Works Pump
Platypus 3 liter hydration bag
1 Litre Nalgene
3 gallon sil-nylon water bag (Collapses to size of tennis ball)
Portable Aqua tablets, no PA plus

Bedroom

Sierra Designs Omega (4 season convertible with fast pack ultra-light option
MAC Donner 20 degree rated bag (How do you give up on a sleeping bag called the donner?)
Thermarest Pro-Lite 3

Clothing

2 dickies over shirts
2 duo-fold inners.
1 pair transformer shorts/pants
1 Pair jeans
1 Pair rain pants
1 pair light long johns.
1 Polar Fleece sweat shirt
1 Ultra-Light shell coat
1 long sleeve t-shirt
1 pair polar fleece liner gloves
1 pair thinsulate lined leather gloves (fire proof, very important for me)

Tools

Compass
Map / Journal bag with mechanical pencil, leads, and pen.
First Aid Kit in a small canvas pouch. Includes splinting and suture materials.
First Aid Kit (provided by Red Cross on shoulder strap)
Gerber Camp Hatchet (Fiskars makes a lighter one I wish I had though)
Leatherman Blast multi-tool.
Sewing Kit with fish line, hooks and lures
100 Feet of 550 parachute cord in various lengths
The 100 feet of 3000lb test climbing rope w/ two carabiners and 8 foot section for Swiss seat usually stays at the cabin.

I've probably left a few things out as I typed this without turning around to look at it, but is is still packed by the door from my office, ready to head to the hills at the slightest whim...

Looking Back...

2007-04-27T12:23:00.000-07:00

I wrote the following in October 2005, it was the first entry that truly qualified as a Guerrilla Camping entry, and looking back at it, I still laugh at how much the pack evolved as I threw money at better equipment. This was a rig assembled from thrift stores and e-bay for a couple hundred dollars over a span of a few months. It worked exceptionally to get me out of town, but my current rig is lighter, more balanced and the pack alone cost nearly as much as the entire outfit below.

It's just a bit of nostalgia.

I promised Guerilla Backpacking 101. Here is my first blog to that effect. Below is a semi-complete pack list I wrote up this weekend while I was out in the woods.

I have spoken to a number of long distance hikers who consider my pack immature, meaning I haven’t spent the time nor money paring my pack down a laughable 20lbs. If the ribbing gets too much, I simply challenge them to a race. “You carry that 20lbs maybe 4-8 weeks a year. I carry my 45lbs 52 weeks a year.” Yes, I can run five or six miles straight with this thing on. That always shuts them up.

As a caveat emptor, this pack is something I have been carrying and evolving for 9 years now. If you go out and buy or make all this stuff, throw it in a pack and expect to be happy as you bounce along the trail; think again. Start minimally during the late spring and summer, and gradually add gear and weight to your pack. During the summer, I have gone out with a blanket, a boat tarp, a bag of fruit and a pocket knife and had a great time.

May I present:

The Blackpack

Home:
(1)15 degree rated Synthetic Fill Sleeping Bag
(1)Thermarest Matress Pad (Sleeping on really cold ground CAN kill you and it makes the hammock sleep flatter)
(1)Silk Sleeping Bag Liner (This was expensive, but lets me sleep comfortably even in the snow, even with my 15 degree bag)
(1)Guatemalan Jungle Hammock. (Good enough for Che, good enough for me)
(2) US Army camouflage Ponchos (tents, hammock cocoons, snow cave roofs, bivy sacks, River Rafts (I’m not joking) these things do it all.)
(12) tent stakes (3 inch long aluminum gutter nails)
(12) 1 foot lengths of 550lb parachute cord.
(2 each) 12, 25, 50 foot lengths of parachute cord

Cooking:
(1)Homemade Can Stove
(1)Thrift Store Aluminum Pot
(1)Coat Hanger Pot Holder
(1)Aluminum Foil Windscreen
(1)Hatchet
(1)Butane lighter
(1)Flint and Steel Striker (You’ll run out of matches in a month)
(1)240z metal energy drink bottle filled with denatured alcohol

The Food Bag: (canvas laundry bag with steel sack trash bag liner and 50 feet of nylon cord for hanging away from the coons)
Usually, 1lb of rye, whole wheat, or a blend of flours
1-2lbs of corn pasta (Way more filling)
.5lb instant rice
2oz plastic bottles of Salt, Pepper, Garlic and Baking Soda
4oz plastic bottles of Chicken Bullion, Mustard and Oregano
8oz plastic bottle of olive oil
2 yards 300tc silk screen with plastic grommets to use for drying food or making bread
(In addition to this, I often carry things like bollion cubes, couscous, etc. The stuff listed above is just my core stuff I always keep packed.)

The Clothing
(1) used adidas (All Day I Distress About Socialists) polyester sport shirt. (You can wash it out in cold water and it dries in minutes, I love this shirt)
(1) pairs light brown khaki cargo pants (Denim is way to heavy to lug around)
(1) T-Shirt from a band I used to be in.
(1) pair of cutoff shorts.
(1) set polypro long johns.
(1) pair wool socks
(1) pair of women’s knee high nylons (If you need to cover 30 miles in a day, these can keep you from getting blisters doing it, wear them inside your wool socks and wrap the top around the outside of the sock and boot to hold it in place.)
(1) set army surplus gortex park and shell pants (Rain and show gear)
(1) pair of lightweight mountaineering boots (Fuck combat boots or jungle boots)

The Electronics
(4) 1”x4” solar panels attached to a 6”x6” piece of canvas, wired to a multi-adapter with a 4AA/AAA charger.
(6) NiMH rechargeable Batteries (4aaa, 2aa)
(1) Sony Sports MP3 Minidisc Recorder (sorry, I hate branding, but 7 hours of recording per disc, runs off 1aa battery and I dropped it off a cliff. And mini discs don’t scratch)
(1) really small watch battery condenser mic.
(1) aaa powered headlamp/flashlight.
(I want to get a digital camera, but can’t decide if I want the extra batteries, or if I want a real film camera.)

Ephemera:
1 oz backpackers first aid kit w/ added suture kit and space blanket.
(1)Firestarting kit: Flint and Steel, Matches, 4 Birthday Candles.
(1)Leatherman Multitool
(1)MSR porcelain filter water filtration pump.
(1)Iodine Tablets
(100 ft) (Now about 30) of 550 cord braided with a grommeted dispenser
(1)3qt hydration bladder
(2) lexan plastic water bottles
About 50 yards of duct tape, wrapped around every bottle I carry.
(1) small spool of fishing line and a few hooks and sinkers.
(1) Small Spool of Black Thread and 2 needles.
(1 each)Lexan Plastic Fork and Spoon (Hard as metal, lighter than paper)
Notebook, pen, pencil.
Local Map and Compass if possible.
(1) bar of soap and a small hand towel.
(1) A little travel thing of deodorant.

The Wallet and Passport:
Keep $40, an ATM card, a Drivers License, a library card and a passport. If you have the chance, get business cards made that allow you to show a means of support. I spent nearly a week in jail on vagrancy charges while walking through Texas, and since then, while I have been stopped many times, a reasonable cover story that I’m simply a businessman taking a vacation to walk someplace has kept me out of the poke. And no matter how bad the mosquitoes may be out there, the bailiff is probably a lot more annoying.

The Moving Box:
If I’m moving from one city to another or living without a door to lock my stuff for any period of time, I also have a plastic tool chest I strap to the bottom of my bag to carry my laptop and a few precious don’t-breakables. Generally, rather than taking all my stuff with me when I move I set aside 40 dollars to buy new city clothes, sheets and toiletries from thrift stores when I get there, but I do have a few favorite shirts that I keep. My Moving Pack is probably closer to 65 lbs but the extra stuff can be mailed if need be.

Guerrilla Camping 101. . .

2007-04-26T22:40:00.000-07:00

It's been nearly three years since I dedicated myself to the walk. Here I am only 300 miles later trying to make it work. And here you are to hear all about it.

If you aren't in the know, I wrote fourteen blogs between September 2005 and March 2006 entitled Guerrilla Camping 101. The series was a guide to nomadic survival, from experience gained in the military, endurance racing, section hiking the length of Korea, hitchhiking through the American south, or years just spent wandering the mountains near my hometown.

It all started with Hurricane Katrina. Reading the news that the innercity residents without cars were unable to evacuate, I was horrified. At the time, I lived beneath sixth and market streets in San Francisco, literally a foot below the heart of the inner city. And sitting next to my door was a big black backpack with everything I needed to spend five days walking in any direction. Not because I was a survivalist, but because I was prone to take spontaneous trips to the woods and it was always easier if I just stayed packed.

Over a few months, I wrote blogs covering everything I could think of. As I realized how much my readership had grown, I started taking it a bit more seriously and putting alot of time into the entries.

Anyways, there's your first post. . .

Guerrilla Camping 101.12 - Railroad Tracks

2006-01-07T20:52:00.000-08:00

Draft originally posted at The Guerrilla News Network. Included here with GNN commentary courtesy of the GNN Archive.

sisyphus R183856 4 years ago	nice to see you stopping by

OriginalG R184064 4 years ago	I agree. Nice to read a new entry, BP. ......... - Ø®£Z –

MaxBooze R184105 4 years ago	I was wondering when you were gonna start this up again…

glacialimprint R184107 4 years ago	ive had some fun walking around the railroad tracks here in michigan. just day treks. But fun, seeing different rivers, no people, and lots of interesting animals and animal parts along the tracks.. nice meadows and property too. sounds amazing out west..

manyhues R184235 4 years ago	excellent! do not let your guard down, but i agree with your assesment of the general friendliness of people found while walking in nor cal.

BlackPacker R185207 4 years ago	Thanks everybody, I’ll be trying to get one or two more up before I leave here. After this, the computer gets shiped down south and I’ll be incommunicado until october…

BlackPacker R185208 4 years ago	Thanks everybody, I’ll be trying to get one or two more up before I leave here. After this, the computer gets shiped down south and I’ll be incommunicado until october…

So Fresh and So Clean - Guerrilla Camping 101.11

2005-12-17T21:29:00.000-08:00

Draft originally posted at The Guerrilla News Network. Included here with GNN commentary courtesy of the GNN Archive.

So Fresh and So Clean - Guerrilla Camping 101.11

Asset B11422 Posted By BlackPacker

*To keep up to date on my current writing and articles, please visit my page at GuerrillaCamping.Blogspot.com*

So Fresh and So Clean – Guerrilla Camping 101.11

Somebody asked me for a hygiene blog. I’m not a neat freak by any means, but I do try to keep my fingernails clean when cooking. I’m not really as anal retentive as this blog implies. I was going to include a bit on foot hygiene, but it realized the subject to be worthy of an entry of its own, especially so I can tell the trench foot story…

Thanks for all the feedback I’ve gotten. I am trying to collect these into a pamphlet or book of some form, so if you get any questions wile reading it, please ask them in the comments, I have mentioned that I am often guilty of skipping important parts by thinking faster than I type, leaving stuff out in the process.

— — –

Wash That Ass

Please, don’t stink. It doesn’t just bother me, it bothers everyone. I don’t care if you’re keepin’ it real, you don’t even need to keep it clean if you don’t want to, but for the love of everything good, don’t make me everyone else bask in your putridness. Dogs sniff each others asses to say hello, not guerrillas.

Where to wash: You should NEVER EVER EVER wash in a stream or water source. This leads to the spreading of the waterborne diseases discussed in the Dying of Thirst blog. Like cooking, washing should be done 200 feet from any ground water. I like to find groves of trees that offer privacy. Gnarled out hollow oaks make amazing shower stalls and wind breaks. In suburbs, grocery store bathrooms are still great places to wash up, just go up to the customer service desk and ask them to hold your pack, then find another employee and ask where the bathroom is. In most places, however, asking with a pack on is asking to get hassled. Please, don’t leave a mess and if you splash water all over the place wipe up a bit. I’d hate for them to start locking them up like they have in coffee shops and gas stations. Keep in mind also that Grocery store workers are one of the last strong labor groups in America before you go making some poor worker clean up your muddy drippings. In rural areas, I tend to take cat baths or hustle barn space.

Cat Baths and Guerrilla Showers:

I carry a wash basin with me. It’s made from the bottom of a gallon milk container and straps against the bottom of a cookpot to keep it from getting wrecked. It’s about three inches deep, and stands up well with warm water in it, allowing you to wash without fumbling around with a bottle to rinse off. Before putting my dinner on to cook, I heat a pot full of water to a comfortable temperature and fill the basin. I then put my water on to boil for dinner as I wash. I wash my armpits and face with small amounts of liquid castile soap, and rinse off. I then wash my arms and hands with enough soap to make a lather. I dig at my finger nails a bit while doing this and scratch the palm of my hands to loosen dirt. I then wipe the soap off from the elbow to the hand with flicking motions, instead of getting my rise water all soapy. I then rinse the remaining soap off in the warm water, finally pouring the water down each arm for a final rinse and to rinse away any suds that might leave residue on the ground. I use micro-fiber towels I got at a restaurant supply store for a dollar a piece. These same towels sell at outfitter shops for 3-7 dollars. By the time my hands are dry, my water is just starting to boil and I can sit down to prepare dinner, assured that I won’t contaminate my food with dirty fingers. After dinner, I boil water to wash my cookware, and use the opportunity to wash my armpits and crotch with a towel soaked in warm, lightly soapy water. The dry corner of the towel suffices for a rinse.

There seem to be a few common drives in any group of men living outdoors, one of which is the drive to create wilderness showers. While in the 101st, the motorpool in my company constructed a six man, gravity fed shower using recycled pallets and old immersion heaters. A guy I met once had rigged up a water bag on two ropes allowing him to turn his shower on and off by pulling or releasing a rope. I’ve painted five gallon water containers black and melted holes in the cap to make a simple solar shower I could hang off the top of a truck. The easiest method I’ve found is to take a junked plastic bottle and punch small holes in the cap. You can often find HUGE water bottles in the recycling bins at developed campsites, and if you can’t find a two liter bottle in the city or suburbs, you aren’t looking. Don’t forget that you can also buy plastic bottles from urban scavengers, many of whom will take the time to dig through a dirty pile of bottles and cans to find that three gallon water bottle they scored at the nearby park only to ask for the five or ten cents they would get at a recycling depot.

The hardest part of making a bottle shower is getting the hot water into the bottle. The simplest way to do this is to create a cord funnel. Take a foot or so of cord and tie one end to a rock, and the other to a stick. Feed the stick into the bottle and once the water is warm enough for your shower, drop the rock in the cook pot. Lift the cook pot high enough that the cord falls straight into the bottle and slowly pour the water into the bottle. If there is enough tension on the cord, it should guide the water into the mouth of the bottle with very little spilling. The trick is to pour just slow enough that the water doesn’t spill over the lip and just fast enough that it doesn’t run down the side of the pot.

The Bug Check

When I change into my sleeping clothes, I take the time to check my body for ticks. I quick once over is enough, especially if you’ve gotten a few ticks in your time, they are obvious. I gently check my back by running my hand down each side of my back. I figure that if I have a tick in that spot I can’t scratch, he’s brilliant, and deserves to live. A better alternative though, is walk up to a buddy and say, “hey, I got ticks?” then turn around and lift your shirt. It separates the men from the boys, especially if you do it in church.

Deodorant

If you need to “freshen up” before walking into town, putting a bit of rubbing alcohol on your fingers and wiping it into your pits is enough to kill odors since it kills stinky bacteria. I always carry a fair amount of rubbing alcohol for first aid and hygienic use. I get the strongest concentration I can, figuring value to weight is worth something, and in a worse case scenario, 90% isopropyl is a decent fire starter. Don’t use denatured alcohol unless you have burn proof skin, the stuff does cause irritation.

Use that Ass

There is a common discussion the first time a soldier is out in the field and looks at the five neatly folded pieces of toilet paper that come with an MRE. “What are we supposed to do with five sheets of paper?” The common response? “Use it to wipe your hand”.

A lot of people are freaked out their first few times shitting in the woods. A friend of mine, dropping a squat in the Kentucky wilderness was so jumpy that he shot at a wild dog running by in the night. His reasoning was simple. “My pants were down!” But after a while, it becomes old hat and returning to toilets seems a bit difficult.

The human body, by design or the honing process of evolution is a finely tuned machine, attuned to use tools, but also to exist without them. The toilet is one of those tools that many feel we could do without, claiming that the undue stress on stomach and glutinous muscles leads to abdominal distress. I choose to disagree, in my case, the most common source of abdominal pains while sitting on the porcelain throne is reading the New Republic. But even I concede that squatting is a much more natural position. So it’s time to shit AND get off the pot.

Picking a place to poo is perplexing in places. You should do it 200 meters away from ground water. Yes, meters. This isn’t hand cooties, this is it, the real honest stinking deal, and there’s no way that should run into anybody’s canteen downstream. You should dig a hole, between 6 and eight inches deep. Any deeper and it won’t decompose, if it’s too shallow it will get dug up by animals. Often you will find places too rocky of waterlogged to dig. In these cases the proper course of action is to pack it out, although I will admit to never doing this. It’s true that human shit contains many contaminants not present in animal equivalents, but truth be told, it’s still poo, and if every other animal can do it under a bush, I figure mine should be okay there too.

To dig a hole, you will need a digging stick or a trowel. I opt to carry a trowel, since it was a gift. Amy entrenching tools are too heavy and usually useless to carry. There are smaller flding varieties to look neat and include a pick, but the model I carry is a U Dig It. It’s constructed out of stainless steel, and has a five year guarantee against torking the handle or rust. It’s pretty heavy duty and only slightly heavier than the small folding shovels. There are also the standard bright orange plastic trowels, which many of my friends have complain about being weak and bending. Prior to receiving the stainless shovel, I always just used digging sticks, sharpened quickly with a pocket knife. Pop the stick into the ground at an angle less than 45 degrees, then push down. Repeat until you have a decent sized toilet. Then, when done, break it up a bit to speed decomposition, cover it and go.

TP is another matter. The arguments for and against toilet paper are endless. You shouldn’t burn it, it doesn’t decompose (Actually, there are toilet papers that claim to biodegrade), it’s unsightly, and if you wish to be traceless you have to pack it out.

Regardless, I carry a roll with me always. By yanking the cardboard tube out of the middle, you can cram a roll of toilet paper into a ziplock baggie. DO NOT use regular sandwich bags. When (Not if) your pack gets soaked, a sandwich bag will let water in, the toilet paper will turn to pulp and you’ll be wearing and sleeping in pulp covered gear. Some people advocate carrying it in a cookpot or coffee can so it stays soft, but since my cookpot contains my stove, and a coffee can is as heavy as the roll of paper, I opt for mushed toilet paper in a baggie.

For years burning TP was the accepted method to dispose of toilet paper. Unfortunately, the destructiveness of campfires on public lands led to the adoption of fire regulations that prohibited this method. The official word came to pack it out. I don’t. I pack it to the next fire or trash can and dump it immediately. The biggest issue with burning toilet paper is the occasion when burning embers start blowing around, igniting everything around you. Toilet paper is as safe to burn as wood if done properly. I generally push wads of it under burning logs, and watch the fire for any drifting bits. Since prevailing winds will always deter me from starting a fire, I am usually able to avoid shit flares.

I carry another ziplock baggie to carry the TP out in, if I have no way to dispose of it. I keep both baggies in a plastic grocery bag with the trowel, tied shut to keep it from “getting out”.

Going without is quite simple, although it requires a bit of experimentation and if you can’t recognize poison oak, poison ivy, sumac or stinging nettle stick to rocks and bark, I’ve had a thousand cases of stinging nettle and one run in with poison oak, and can’t imagine the agony that either would inflict if used as toilet paper. Fortunately, stinging nettle’s effects are immediate, so if you’re dumb enough to use it on your butt, it’s not my problem.

My favorite TP substitute is the hanging moss you find draped from trees. It’s soft, clumps well and being natural, it’s safe to bury with the poop. You can also use tree bark, leaves, stones and seashells. Avoid grass and sharp edged foliage, since they can cause cuts and be sure to check the leaves before you use them, they can be sticky, thorny or otherwise unsuited to your derriere.

Washing your rags

A small kitchen trash bag is a sufficient washing machine. Put about two gallons of water in it, then add your clothing and about 2 teaspoons of castile soap. Tie a knot in the top of the bag then shake it and flip it over in your hands for a few minutes then let it rest and soak for a while. While it sits, find two trees and tie a length of cord between them to serve as a clothesline. Repeat the agitation again, and let it rest a short amount of time. At least 200 yards from any water, dump the soapy water in an inconspicuous place, spreading it out avoid flooding any plants. Shake your clothes out a bit to release excess soap then drape them over the clothes line and put a small bit of water into the trash bag. Use a water bottle for this to avoid polluting the stream with dirty wash water. Squeeze the neck of the bag shut and shake it to loosen dirt and soap. Pour the rinse water out of the bag then turn it inside out and flap it around to get rid of any remaining soap.

Once again, you’re going to collect two more gallons of water in the trash bag then put your clothes back in. I shake them off a bit first to get rid of as much soap as I can. This time, let the bag sit for about five minutes to loosen soap and dirt, then shake the hell out time to shake them out, since this allows you to get more dirt off them than if you dumped out the water.

Truth be told, washing your clothes is easy. Drying them, on the other hand is a bit more difficult. Most clothing, especially cotton and wool take notoriously long times to dry. Care must therefore be taken to make sure your clothes dry. Tie your clothesline so it faces south, and has the most amount of sun exposure. Since you will have to drape your clothes over the clothes line, and won’t have hangers or clothes pins, you will need to flip them a few times to make sure they dry evenly. I try to do laundry right after breakfast, using left over hot water to warm the initial wash water, and assuring that I have a full day of sun to make sure the clothes dry.

If you clothes fail to dry before it is time to move on, put them back in the trash bag to keep from wetting your other gear. You will need to be diligent to remove them from the bag as soon as possible, re-hanging the clothes at the earliest opportunity. Otherwise they will mildew and stink, defeating the entire purpose of washing them in the first place.

Shaving

I love to shave as much as I hate to shave. The steam from a basin of hot water warming my face as I lean towards a mirror in a nicely tiled bathroom takes on an air of ritual when done in anticipation of your first shower in three weeks. The slow strokes revealing fresh clean skin beneath road grime, so imbedded to have become a simple part of your complexion. Watching your face reappear, young and rejuvenated makes this a sublime moment, where I find myself naturally predisposed towards introspect. Socrates once said that a man does his best thinking in the bath. If this is so, then the best subjects are discovered while shaving.

That said, trying to splash cold water on your face from a hep-c ridden sink in the Jacksonville greyhound station while some junkie is puking in the next bathroom over is something one should only do in the spirit of adventure. That’s why I don’t use a razor. And why I don’t shave often, unless necessary. Instead, I use a battery operated electric shaver. It uses two AA batteries, which I pilfer from my flashlight when I need to shave, and can be recharged using a solar battery charger. (If you want to go ghetto, you can get a cheap solar powered garden lamp and pilfer its guts to improvise one. There are instructions floating all over the web on how to do the modification, which simply involves cutting a few wires. I will do a blog on this later and remove this non-sequitor)

I picked up the razor at a truck stop a few years back, having originally used one bought at a PX while in the army. The casing broke a few months ago, and is held together with a wrap of duct tape, but it still works fine. The blade cover contains a mirror, which is usually the only one I have with me. It has two rotary blades and does not shave very close. This is a benefit when you are in the woods, getting dirty as it reduces ingrown hairs. When the batteries aren’t charged, it slows down and starts pulling hair, but all in all it works okay, and allows you to dry shave as you sit at the side of the road waiting for a ride.

Before shaving I rough up my beard, to lift the hairs from the surface of my face. All I do is rub my hands against the grain of the hair for a minute, occasionally lightly running my finger nails along my face to dislodge any ingrown hairs. The razor works easily, and I o a once over blindly, before knocking out the cut hairs and using the mirror to touch up the rough spots. It’s quite embarrassing to find out that you have a neck mohawk five minutes after getting flirty with the Australian girl working the desk at the hostile.

If you do manage to pull a hair or cut yourself with a razor, use some of that rubbing alcohol on it. You can mix a bit of water and a bit of alcohol to make a primitive aftershave if you have a recurring issue with ingrown hairs or infected follicles, but I never bother, opting instead to wash my face with light soapy water afterwards.

Girl Trouble?

Tampons and pads are difficult to dispose of. Burning them is ineffective, since it requires a very hot fire to completely consume them and they are plagued with even more decomposition issues than toilet paper, so burying them is defiantly out. They can be packed out in ziplock bags, or alternatives can be used. The keeper cup, available at keeper.com is used by a number of women I know. It is a reusable device that looks a bit like a long stemmed acorn. It works kind of like a tampon, but is washable and reusable for up to ten years. Reusable cotton pads are a good alternative, since if you have to pack it out anyways, you might as well be able to wash and re-use it, although the difficulties of washing them by hand are obvious.

Etcetera:

Many places offer coin showers. Most notoriously, truck stops and some overdeveloped camp sites in the more populous states. The trick to a fifty cent shower is to use one quarter to soak yourself, soap and lather without, then use another quarter to wash. Some truck stops have shower tokens you buy for a few dollars that are good for a five or ten minute shower. For information on fake tokens, check out Abbie Hoffman’s masterpiece Steal this Book.

If you carry a water bag or hydration bladder, buying a replacement cap to turn into a shower head is an obvious choice. Choosing a dark color water bag will allow you to heat it with the sun. Solar water heaters are nifty, but redundant if you use a water bag or hydration pack.

Ocassionally in big cities, you will find exhaust vents beside high rise buildings, that spew warm air out of the sidewalk. Setting up a simple tarp tent over a grate like this makes a great place to take a late night scrub on cold night, almost like deep urban hot springs. If you use construction warning signs to hold up the edges and use a utility tarp, you should be invisible to police.

BlackPacker R107394 4 years ago	Dirty hippies. lol.

Joe R107396 4 years ago	“especially so I can tell the trench foot story…” Looking forward to it! “A lot of people are freaked out their first few times shitting in the woods.” Special note for the winter – be careful when you try to relieve yourself when you’re wearing a snow suit. A girl I knew accidentally peed in her hood, then promptly stood up and pulled it over her head. Post Modified: 12/17/05 21:32:04

BlackPacker R107401 4 years ago	The funniest shit in the woods I ever saw was during bay to breakers in San Francisco, a guy wandered up a hill in golden gate, in sight of the procession and dropped his drawers to relieve himself. A bit drunker than he thought, he rolled down the hill in mid push, of course, only a few seconds after evryone had noticed him and started cheering him on. Another note for winter pooping. Some people saw to use snow. This is fine, but your nuts may not un-shrink til summer.

Getting there is All The Fun - Guerrilla Camping 101.10

2005-12-13T21:26:00.000-08:00

Draft originally posted at The Guerrilla News Network. Included here with GNN commentary courtesy of the GNN Archive.

Getting there is All The Fun - Guerrilla Camping 101.10

Asset B11249 Posted By BlackPacker

This should actually be 101.11, 101.10 on Navigation is killing me. Map reading is really hard to write about and I’m not used to working with illustrations. If you’re interested, I did the photos for the tent and stove articles, but textile is intimidating me at the moment, since it is hard for me to sit in front of machine.

Getting there is all the fun

While many professional hikers have written about through hikes, very little has been written about simply walking long distances. The Appalachian trail is gorgeous and challenging, but if you simply want to walk from Clarksville to Nashville, much more consideration is required. Walking along sidewalks and trails is easy but often you will find yourself walking along railroad tracks, highways and winding mountain roads with shoulders narrower than your pack. Beyond walking, there are a great many other ways to travel without owning a car, although depending on where you live, some may be illegal, dangerous or downright foolhardy.

Off-Trail Hiking:

Pedestrians rush in where fools fear to tread. I have had some very close vehicular encounters in my time, and all of us know somebody who has been whacked by a wayward car. Unfortunately, deciding to walk any considerable distance places you in a number of dubious situations as you come down off the trails and sidewalks and follow the same byways the less motivated use to travel.

Railroad Tracks:

Railroad routes cross the country in every direction and are often plainly labeled on topographical maps. Train tracks can range from abandoned turn of the century mining routes, now a simple trail of dry earth with an occasional rail or tie protruding from the ground to commuter train routes with lengthy undergrounds and inner city elevated rail. Some, obviously, are more suitable for hiking than others.

Freight and long distance passenger rails are the easiest to hike. Often they cut clean through forest, farm, town and metropolis with a clear right of way suitable for hiking and assuring few encounters with wayward motorists. When passing through urban areas, abandon the tracks, as cops will often hassle you for being on the rail’s right of way. The most difficult parts of “rail trails” is the prevalence of tunnels and bridges. I don’t do either on foot. Occasional fifteen foot rail bridges I’ll risk. But anything longer, I’ll find a foot path to the other side. This is not paranoia as much as it is about safety. If the odds are slim that you could outrun a train that came across you even without a backpack on. DO not even consider it. On all accounts, avoid tunnels. Noxious gasses and a lack of places to duck away in the event of an oncoming train make them death traps.

Freeways:

The elevated ten lane monster is usually only found in gigantic cities, which thankfully means a huge amount of surface streets to walk upon instead. Sometimes however, you will need to follow embankments through areas which would require a detour of a mile or more if you choose to follow surface streets. On freeways, STAY off the blacktop. Not only is it unsafe, it is also illegal and will assure you of meeting every highway patrolman, policeman or sheriff who passes you by.

Aside from poor planning of parallel pedestrian route, the biggest difficulty presented by freeways is the huge gashes they slice through your right away, occasionally necessitating a one or two mile detour to cross them. On rare occasions it is possible to cross freeways, but it is often better to go over or under them, be it through pedestrian walkways or underpasses.

Highways:

Highways range from suburban three lanes with wide dirt shoulders to rural two lanes cut through hillsides with no shoulder to speak of. Often they are pleasant to walk along and have wooded embankments that allow you to almost pretend to be taking a woodland hike.

However, If the thought of traveling down a railroad tunnel gave you shivers, wait until you walk along a shoulder-less two lane highway. If you think you’re biggest fear on the roads is bears or crazy people picking you up hitching you’re wrong. Your greatest danger is a distracted cell-phone wielding soccer mom driving the girl scout troop back from the national park in her SUV at the same time you are forced onto the road by a rock slide piled on the shoulder. As the type of road or highway you are following varies, so does your proximity to automobiles who may or may not notice you on the shoulder

There are a few basic precautions when following highways. The first one I use is strapping two empty blaze-orange nylon stuff-sacks onto the top of my pack. The nylon is moderately reflective and the blaze orange is absolutely visible. After dusk I wear my headlamp, facing traffic, which has a blinking mode useful for getting motorists attention. If you don’t have a head lamp, just keep your flash light in hand and keep it moving so it doesn’t get lost in the glare of oncoming headlights. Wear your blaze and your lamp facing traffic and if possible, walk against the flow to allow you to see oncoming cars, diving for cover where applicable. Better yet, only hike during the day.

When traveling mountainous cutbacks, you will often encounter narrow shoulders with little or no place to walk. When you must walk around blind curves, stay on the inside. While it limits your visibility it puts centrifugal force on your side, along with every driver’s fear of doing a rail slide with their passenger door.

At a certain hour of dusk and dawn, the sun will be blazing into your eyes no matter how low you drape your hat as it rises or sinks below the horizon. During this period, motorists are blinded by the glare on their windshields making any sharing of the road ill advised, stay on sidewalks.

Suburban Streets:

For a place which is supposedly designed to be residential, some suburban areas are distinctly anti pedestrian. Usually it seems to be the more affluent areas where fences and shrubs push right to the roadside, forcing you into traffic to bypass them and the meticulously coiffed lawns they protect. Usually it is not for any extensive distance, but the intermittent weaving in and out of traffic can make every mile seem like two.

More imposing than affluent suburbs are gated communities, multi-acre compounds walled off from the rest of civilization. Their castle walls can have the same effect as freeways in breaking up your path. Fortunately, the communities’ gates are often easy to get through or over and the communities are rarely overdeveloped, leaving lots of woodland for you to QUIETLY walk through. While it is trespassing, I have seldom been stopped. If I encounter a resident out watering his lawn, I simply say Hello and smile. They usually say hello and smile back. I have only been stopped by security guards and often they are cool enough to drive me off the property in the direction I’m heading. Their only job is keeping you off the property, if your friendly and make it easy, they’re usually alright. Tell them you’d be happy to leave, if they would just let you leave out the other gate. Jerks may make you walk and the ultra frustrated control freak will drive you back to the main gate, but I’ve never heard of them calling the police.

Rural Routes:
Other than the occasional three or four hundred mile stretch of wheat fields assaulting your eyes, rural routes are often the easiest to hike, the easiest to find hidden nooks to camp in and also the most common road you’ll encounter. Often your only problem on rural routes will be local police who are simply looking out for their neighbors and if you seem alright, they will let you go unmolested and maybe warning you of local rules. I have been offered rides by police, but always politely decline, for fear that they will then arrest me for hitchhiking. I have never been driven to the county line by a sheriff, that stuff only happens in movies.

Trails:
I follow a lot of trails. Nothing beats being away from cars altogether. Park trails are nice, maintained and well marked but non-park trails can be a little bit sketchier. Trails that appear in bold in a map from the 80s might be nearly invisible scars now. Trails washout, erode and are constantly overgrown.

And sometimes they lead you right smack into trouble. I’ve heard more stories of guys getting shotguns pulled on them for accidentally discovering somebody’s marijuana crop than for camping on a cornfield. If possible, obey no trespassing signs. If you must, walk lightly and stay very focused on your surroundings. Surprising a bunch of paranoid stoned guys with shotguns is not a good idea. You should have the general goal that you will see somebody before they see you. Once you spot somebody, size them up. Your best bet is to make yourself known. If they are unfriendly, claim to have not seen any no trespassing signs, then ask them how to get back to good trails. I’ve never encountered anything shady, but I do know there are places out there where people don’t want you to see what they’re doing.

Animal Trail:
In some places it is possible to walk from town to town using animal trails. While it is never the fastest route, it often is the one that exposes you to the most unsullied wilderness and it is on animal trails where I have discovered the most magical places in all my travels. If you are not carrying a map and compass or do not know how to use them proficiently, I would recommend against animal trails. They weave wildly, disappear suddenly and can often require ample dexterity to traverse. It is easy to get lost and you should consider the fact that you might be the last person for a few months or even years to walk along the trails you find, especially in non-developed areas. Also, do not use animal trails in national parks. Due to the high traffic in parks, foot prints on animal trails can lead to the creation of new human trails, destroying habitat and disturbing the lairs and nests of the animals who made the trail. Yes, I know how to walk on the trails without leaving footprints and NO, I still do not walk on animal trails by developed land.

*Traveling without Walking:

Freights:*

There are a number of skills that are seldom written about because anyone who knows anything about them knows that trying to learn them from a book will get you killed. Just as I declined to discuss foraging earlier, I will not discuss freights here because honestly, I don’t know enough about it to write about it without getting you killed. I will instead refer you to the book “Hopping Freight Trains in America” by Duffy Littlejohn. Follow his advice on finding a mentor before you follow his advice on catching a hot rail.

Hitchhiking:

Hitching is one of those things that I never originally intended to do. My first hitched ride was during the first of many attempts to walk from Clarksville to Nashville. An older man, recognizing me as a soldier because of my pack and haircut pulled over and asked where I was headed. He about laughed his head off when I said Nashville, but he drove me all the way. I never actually hitchhiked on the 24, but never failed to catch a ride, simply due to the fact that I was a soldier near an Army base, and people would stop and ask if I needed help when they saw me walking down the road. Prior to this, I thought hitchhiking was a thing of the past, relegated to Kerouac novels and impossible due to the fearful nature of our times. Trust me, Hitching still works.

Hitching is simple. Stay on the pedestrian right of way, 30 feet ahead of the “no pedestrians” sign, making sure there is a safe place for rides to pull to a shoulder. Don’t stick your thumb out, instead make a sign. Have large letters proclaiming your destination, and look clean. If you have a razor, shave before trying to catch a ride. Smile, but don’t be a goon. If a cop tells you to move, move. Often the worst you will get is a lecture.

Truck stops are the best place to catch rides if you are cool and discrete. Truck drivers are plagued by loneliness and a rider can often make the task of staying awake much less daunting. As drivers fuel up ask where they are headed and if they could give you a ride. If they are friendly and not going in the right direction ask them if they can do a call out for you on their radio to see if anybody is heading your way. I’ve heard it works, but have never bother to ask, since there are usually so many drivers to ask. I often find early evening the best time to hitch rides as the number of trucks doing over-nighters will raise your chances.

Another safer way to catch rides is through ride sharing services. Many community centers offer ride share bulletin boards and the number of online sites is countless. If you are lucky enough to find yourself in one of the areas where it is popular, craigslist.org is a great place to find rides. If you are able to follow a flexible schedule and aren’t freaked out by strangers this can be a great way to not only get to a new place, but also offer you the opportunity to start making new friends the moment you arrive there.

Often the best rides are not hitched, but simply offered. For a while, I carried a white pack cover to be more visible on the road sides. When passing through dry regions, I would write the words, “Got Water?” in duct tape on the cover. I rarely had two cars pass before somebody would offer a ride. They usually freaked out when I said “no thanks, got any water though?” Which is an excellent way to decline if you get the creeps from the driver.

Do not get in the car if you feel any apprehension. You’ve got eons of intuition built into you; trust it. Even if you have no apprehension, there are a few things to do anyways.

As you approach the vehicle, give it a once over, checking all windows into the vehicle (especially back seats) for anything suspicious, such as blankets that could be covering a hidden second passenger.

Take a mental inventory of the car, noticing any dents, the color, year and make. Notice where the car is from by looking at the plates and take notice of the plate number, repeating it once or twice in your head.

Before you get in the vehicle, make eye contact with the driver and talk to them. Asking where they are headed is a great first question. Look for any suspicious ticks or signs of intoxication. A friend of mine once had a ride offered from a guy who was clearly drunk. My friend pointed this out to the man, and offered to drive instead. The man happily agreed, and allowed him to dive an extra hundred miles towards his destination to give him change to sober up a bit. Never get in the car with a drunk driver, be it hitchhiking or cruising with friends.

No matter how careful you are, things can get sketchy. I carry a small container of pepper spray in my right hand coat pocket. This way if something goes down, it’s safely on the other side of the driver where it can’t be grabbed. Do not carry a knife for protection. Knives are among the most useful tools but rank as the most foolish weapon and most people who pull knives for protection wind up loosing them and getting injured by them instead. If you get frightened by your ride, tell them firmly that you would like to be dropped off at the next off ramp. If you are truly freaked out, it might be better to wait until you come to a fairly populated area before asking.

I have described a number of worse case scenarios in this section. Truth be told, the road is a kind place for most of my experiences and the only reason to go all horror show is to encourage safety. Even if you are a fully competent daredevil (I consider myself one), you must accept the fact that not everyone else is and act accordingly. So go take a walk.

hagcel R106161 4 years ago	Pepper Spray? Bear Mace!

Derek R106446 4 years ago	“You’ve got eons of intuition built into you; trust it.” Well put, Sir.

Snark R106479 4 years ago	Awesome blog, as is becoming tediously usual from you :D Can you put one out that sucks just so the rest of us feel better?

fennec R106549 4 years ago	Fantastic.

BlackPacker R106919 4 years ago	Snark, it’s getting tedious doing these so well. Believe it or not, from start to finish this one took longer than any of the others. I had hoped to put it up after the one I’ve written on navigation, but that one is stuck until I overcome my fear of putting images in here. (My formatting experiments have been less than good) That one has taken nearly four weeks thus far. Thanks for all the feedback, everybody. I’m going to try and drop a guerrilla bomb tonight and get another one up, and update the tent and stove articles to include images. Lets see if I can do it…. One hygiene blog coming up!

fennec R106922 4 years ago	Just resize the pictures to less than 400px wide (and any length), then post them. ! url ! without spaces and you should be fine

Namaste_Rich R106927 4 years ago	but that one is stuck until I overcome my fear of putting images in here. (My formatting experiments have been less than good) Having trouble getting pics posted right? To just post the image: ! http://www.natureworkspress.com/CritterGuides/BearInTent.gif ! —— no spaces For bigger pictures that don’t fit into a blog or forum thread: Make the pic clickable to see the full picture This one is easy… ! http://www.natureworkspress.com/CritterGuides/BearInTent.gif ! :http://www.natureworkspress.com/CritterGuides/BearInTent.gif —- no spaces just add a colan : right after the exclamation point, then repeat the link address. Using that same method, you can make pic a direct link to another site, just by adding the address after the colan. There is even a way to make a “mouse over” custom caption appear over the pic, but I forgot that one…

Namaste_Rich R106929 4 years ago	yeah, what fen said. :-P

Number5Toad R106932 4 years ago	great work man. one minor objection… Knives are among the most useful tools but rank as the most foolish weapon only for people who assume they’re easy to use. still, the pepper spray suggestion is excellent, far easier to use, especially in a panic situation.

Namaste_Rich R106933 4 years ago	only for people who assume they’re easy to use. still, the pepper spray suggestion is excellent, far easier to use, especially in a panic situation. Not everyone is a Kung Fu Master, Toad. ;-)

fennec R106935 4 years ago	Oh, for that one you do this: ! http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y97/fennecs/100_0023.jpg (tegu vs husky round 1) ! Without spaces Then for those skilled in super duper sekrit advanced textilationatory masturbationelation you can have it link to a site and have the mouse over caption: ! http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y97/fennecs/100_0023.jpg (tegu vs husky round 1) !: http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y97/fennecs/100_0025.jpg Not for the faint of heart. Again, without spaces.

Namaste_Rich R106939 4 years ago	Nice!

Number5Toad R106947 4 years ago	i’m sure i don’t know what you’re talking about. ;^D the biggest problem you’ll face in any physical confrontation is fear, which can result in anything from physical paralysis to involuntary urination. it could make almost any weapon, including your own hands, nearly impossible to use. pepper spray is safer than a knife by far, but not without it’s dangers. i don’t say this for comedy’s sake, but make sure you’re pointing the nozzle at your target!! if you’re keeping it in your pocket, as BP recommends, and you can discreetly feel for the opening before you pull it out of your pocket, do so – and try to remember not to bring that finger into contact with your face after the confrontation. if you choose to use a knife, i personally prefer a backhand technique (holding it so the blade protrudes from the “bottom” of a closed fist). this way the blade is harder to redirect back into your vital areas. it’s only really useful for slashing attacks, but the slashing motion with this grip imitates the kinds of punches most people are used to throwing, as opposed to a “front” grip, which requires different motions to effectively slash. slashes are a better deterrant than stabs, because they connect much more easily and produce a lot more blood with less chance of mortal injury. the most important guideline for handling any weapon is, if you’re gonna pull it out, USE IT. don’t just threaten, use it as quickly and devastatingly as possible, and then get as far away from the situation as possible. having said that, it’s also extremely important to mind your surroundings. if the target in question is currently driving the car, which is speeding down the highway, that might not be the best time to attack – unless you feel your life is in imminent enough danger that attacking immediately is worth the risk. however, most likely, you’ll be able to wait until the car has stopped before attacking.

sisyphus R106958 4 years ago	what toad said.

BlackPacker R106973 4 years ago	Toad, true. In the hands of a skilled knife fighter, a knife is a great weapon. The problem lies in legality. A knife is considered a deadly weapon. If used in self defense, it is excusable, but the rub lies therein. In most situations, I do great with my hands and feet. I’m not a martial arts master, but have yet to be bested on the street. Even though I carry a knife at all times, and I have been in situations I would have been justified in using it, I never have. By the time the use of a knife becomes needed, it’s often too late to pull. I’m not going to pull a knife for a shouting match, and once it’s no longer a shouting match, the knife doesn’t matter, since getting it out would expose me too much. Now, on the other hand, if I guy is screaming and putting his face in mine, trying to start a fight, I will gladly shove a can of pepper spray in his mouth. It’s like white-out for mistakes that masquarade as people. And if it doesn’t stop a situation, it certianly gives me an upperhand, not to mention that in a pinch, most pepper spray cans are the perfect size for a fist pack. I may not be a pacifist, but I certainly prefer non-lethal weaponry. And Hagcel, on the bearmace idea, I’ve joked that putting an Air Horn head on one of those hair-spray sized cans of bear mace would take defense sprays out of the realm of self defense and into the realm of entertainment. HONK!

BlackPacker R106974 4 years ago	Oh, and Rich, you rock! I’m going to play with pictures now… Thanks a billion. That makes much more sense than the textile link on the add new entry page.

BlackPacker R106989 4 years ago	Third comment in a row. . . I’m a retard. That was easy. Now I need to write captions. You’ll notice that the tent blog is missing. It’s back in draft status as I finish getting the pictures up. I will hopefully have it up tomorrow. Thank you for the help.

Playing with Petrol - Guerrilla Camping 101.9

2005-11-20T20:23:00.000-08:00

Draft originally posted at The Guerrilla News Network. Included here with GNN commentary courtesy of the GNN Archive.

Playing with Petrol - Guerrilla Camping 101.9

Asset B10715 Posted By BlackPacker

Stoves – Guerrilla Camping 101.9

Often, like when staying in cities, campfires are not possible and walking across America leaving a trail of burn scars is not the best way to go undetected. Hence making stoves is of particular interest to the guerrilla camper.

Fortunately, the days when freshly chopped wood was needed to cook a meal are over. Camp stoves now exist that burn everything from pine cones to biodiesel in every size and shape imaginable. Stoves can be built using recycled cans or they can be computer designed pocket blast furnaces.

Types of Stoves:

Canister Stoves:

Canister stoves are virtually worthless to the guerrilla camper, using disposable fuel canisters containing propane, butane or a blend of the two. The stoves are amazingly light, easy to start and are remarkably simple to setup. They even have the highest fuel efficiency per weight of any type of stove and are the only camp stoves that reliably simmer. However, the fuel canisters can be difficult to find on long journeys, can’t be taken on airplanes and are not refillable or even suitable for recycling in most cases. They are great for weekend trips, but their inability to be refueled or re-supplied in the field makes the useless to anyone considering weeks or months of living out of their pack. They are also useless if the weather drops below freezing.

Liquid Fuel Stoves:

There are seven primary fuels for liquid fuel stoves. Most cheap consumer liquid fuel stoves use only kerosene or white fuel. Both are frequently available though usually only in outdoor, hardware or sporting goods stores. White fuel is most commonly found in America as Coleman fuel and sold in gallon tins, which are difficult to carry since there is enough to fill most stove’s fuel bottles ten of fifteen times. A variety of stove manufacturers also market stove fuel in smaller quantities that are more useful to the through hiker, as always you can expect to pay a markup for the brand name.

Multi-fuel stoves are worth investing the extra money in. Most will burn kerosene, white fuel and unleaded gasoline and some of the more expensive ones will even burn diesel and jet fuel. These stoves will not burn alcohol, as the alcohol is caustic to the plastic in the pump, fuel lines, etc. Don’t try it unless you want o replace a whole bunch of parts.

I cannot emphasize enough the importance of buying a stove at least capable of burning gasoline. It is by far the most prevalently available fuel, and should you run out in the middle of nowhere a few inches of plastic tubing can allow you to “forage” from “sleeping” cars. Although gasoline causes wear to parts and causes clogged jets, most multi-fuel stoves are able to be cleaned out in the woods, and some feature shaker-jet cleaners making the jet self cleaning or even magnetic jet cleaners able to be clean the jet while the stove is in use.

Although no stoves are presently marketed as using biodiesel, any stove which burns automobile diesel should be theoretically able to use Biodiesel. The major stoves available today which burn Diesel are the MSR XGK-EX ($160), the Optimus Nova($130) and the Primus Omnifuel, which also can utilize canisters. MSR reports that users of the XGK stove have been able to use biodiesel in their stoves by using the X jet and only opening the control valve half way. Using biodiesel in any stove will require a separate primer They are in the process of doing hard testing before they add biodiesel as a supported fuel.

Alcohol stoves are in a league of their own. Ranging from simple homebuilt can stoves to expensive historical recreations, alcohol stoves are possibly the most popular stoves with the DIY scene and the ultra-light hiking fanatics. Alcohol stoves will burn nothing but alcohol, which strangely enough; even the best multi-fuel stoves won’t. They are also one of the only stoves with a hobbyist following since simple alcohol stoves can be built from as little as two soda cans. (See below)

Types of Liquid Fuels:

Fuels vary widely. Some fuels burn clean, some gel in the cold, some are inefficient. However, the guerrilla must take what he comes across, and it helps to know a bit about every type of fuel your stove can burn even if you never plan on using them. Fuel efficiency is measured by the number British Thermal Units(BTUs) per pound. It’s simple, The higher the BTU/lb rating, the less fuel you need to carry for the same amount of heat.

Gasoline: Gasoline is the cursed blessing of multi-fuel stoves. Although is is the most widely available fuel in the world, auto grade gasoline contains additives meant to protect the internal workings of engines, including bezine and lubricants which can cause cancer and slowly destroy the rubber parts of the stove and pump. Additionally, avoid winterized or oxygenated gasoline sold in northern states during the winter to keep it from gelling. The additives will cause rapid decay of rubber gaskets. For all the dangers of unleaded fuel, it is easy to find anywhere and a few inches of plastic tubing curled up in your pack can allow you to “forage” from sleeping cars. Gasoline is considered a dirty fuel and will require more frequent cleaning. @18720 BTU/Lb.

Kerosene: Available almost everywhere around the world. Avoid using lantern or charcoal lighter fluid, as these are often dirtier and can clog jets. While being the next most reliable alternative to whitefuel, kerosene is very susceptible to the cold, taking longer to prime than white fuel and gelling in extreme weather, making stoves that only burn kerosene impractical for year round use. Kerosene is also a very sooty fuel, and you can expect to blacken your stove and pots quickly, with frequent of clogging. @18540 BTU/lb.

Jetfuel: Most closely related to kerosene and will burn in any stove with a kerosene jet. Unfortunately it contains even more additives than gasoline and is therefore even dirtier than kerosene. Fortunately, it also not very common, so if you are in a position where you can find jet fuel you can probably just fly someplace to buy white fuel. @18540 BTU/lb

Diesel: Stove makers seem to consider diesel the fuel of last resort. Although it is just as available as auto fuel and often cheaper, it is dirty and causes a ridiculous amount of clogging and requires frequent stove cleaning. It is less volatile than gasoline and therefore safer, but this also makes it more difficult to prime, requiring you to use a separate fuel, like alcohol, to pre-heat your stove. I would agree to use diesel only if nothing else is available. @18,400 BTU/Lb

Biodiesel: Ah, Biodiesel. Homebrewed fuel; free at last of the chains of petroleum consumption. When I first put on the blackpack, it was an attempt to live a simpler life. As such, I found it ironic that most commercial camp stoves require petroleum based fuels. With advances in diesel stoves, there is a wide amount of discussion on the subject of using biodiesel in camp stoves, and several major manufacturers already have stoves that will function with it. @18300 BTU/Lb

White fuel: Also known by it’s proper name, Naphtha, White fuel is a chemically clean petroleum. While it shares the same chemistry as auto-fuel, it contains none of the additives and burns much cleaner. It is sold as Coleman fuel, or other specialty brands like MSR or Camplite and is infrequently available as cleaning gasoline in hardware and paint stores. The most volatile of liquid camp fuels, it is still very safe if used with caution. And is often the most recommended fuel for camp stoves. @18200 BTU/lb

Rape Seed Oil: A renewable alternative to diesel available in some countries, it will burn in most diesel stoves but has the distinction of being the only fuel by which diesel can seem clean and by most accounts you can expect to spend as much time cleaning your stove as cooking. I have never seen rape seed fuel in the United States. @18000 BTU/Lb.

Alcohol: Although Alcohol is one of the only renewable liquid fuels commercially available to backpackers it suffers from having the lowest fuel economy. However, alcohol stoves are among both the lightest and cheapest stoves on the market and simple alcohol burners can be constructed for next to nothing (See below). Alcohol is the fuel with the lowest efficiency, 8419- 12960 BTU/Lb.

Solid Fuel Stoves:

Solid fuel stoves are interesting and varied. The simplest is the hobo stove constructed from an old coffee cans (see below) while the Sierra Zip stove utilizes a battery and a fan to produce 18,000 BTUs using pine cones, wood chips, tree bark, charcoal or any other solid fuel. In between these are esbit burners, which burn small waxy solid fuel tablets. Although solid fuel is in truth more readily available than any liquid fuel, these stoves are illegal in any campground where campfires or wood gathering are prohibited, making their use of little value to the guerrilla camper. I do believe is it imperative to know how to make a simple wood burning stove or alcohol stove in the event of stove failures, so I have placed instructions below.

Cheetos: The ubiquitous solid fuel tablet

Sold as Cheetos Puffs or a thousand other off-brands, the unique chemical makeup of preservatives, oil and chemical cheese powder make cheese puff snacks an excellent improvised fuel source, producing a bright, long lasting flame and ten poofs can boil a beer can full of water. They can be burned in any empty can or a small wood stove and reduce to dust and a suspicious looking residue on the bottom of your pan. Probably carcinogenic, I would suspect Cheetos to be the most poisonous of camp fuels. If you should accidentally ingest one, contact a ranger station immediately. I’m not joking, try burning cheesy poofs. It has to be the poofy kind, the mini cheese walking sticks won’t cut it. @5500 BTU/Lb

Deciding upon a stove:

Deciding upon a stove depends on a number of factors. While many of us can get by using cook fires and alcohol stoves, colder climates require more elaborate stoves. Alcohol stoves are great for reconstituted food, but for any cooking that requires cook times of over twenty minutes they are impractical. It can just as easily be argued that twenty minutes of burn for a meal is impractical when the average fuel bottle holds only 90 minutes worth of fuel. If you are planning on weekend outings in your region and you are not plagued by extremely cold winters, try working with alcohol stoves and cook fires first. If, on the other hand, you are planning on months of aimless wandering, a multi-fuel stove is the option for you. If you are a survivalist looking to build an Armageddon pack that will let you stay alive long after anyone else would want to, drop the change on a diesel stove and get to work on making your own fuel.

Stove Usage:

Read your manual to learn how to use your stove. In fact, read the manual before you even try to fill your stove. You are working with fuel, pressure and fire, all the makings of a bomb. Not knowing how to recognize a fuel leak, or how to properly prime a stove can lead to uncontrolled blazes and exploding fuel canisters. Every stove is different. RTFM!

However, there ARE things you can’t learn from a stove manual.

Simmering: You can simmer on liquid fuel stoves through use of a stovetop heat diffuser. You can find them in the kitchen sections of discount stores for a dollar, and the handles usually fold for easy storage. A lesser effect can be had by taking a coffee can lid and carefully crimping the edges to hold the pot away from the flame. I usually just lift my pot off the stove, or sit there and ride the dial, keeping the stove constantly on the edge of dying.

Heat Exchangers: Some brands of camping cookware are compatible with heat diffusers. They vent the heat of the stove directly up against the side of the pans allowing you to boil water faster and giving more even heat to a pot for less fuel. If you plan to be four and five days between fuel sources, this can get an extra two or three meals out of your fuel bottle.

Cozys: Sweaters for your pot. By insulating the side of your pot against heat loss, it is possible to keep a covered pot of water at near boiling heat even when removed from the flame. It works well for the five or six minutes needed to reconstitute instant rice, dried soups or ramen. Some have created elaborate foam affairs for their cookpots, but I found that by cooking in a ziplock bag wrapped up in pack towel I could simply bring the water to a boil, pour it in the bag and use nearly no fuel for actually cooking. This is a common trick among users of alcohol stoves.

Baking: If you are using a high tech nesting cook set with two different sized pots and a frying pan “lid” you have a simple dutch oven in which you can bake cornbread, cakes, or even regular bread. Make your batter slightly dry to make sure it doesn’t come out runny. Butter the entire inside of your small pot and pour in the batter. Cover the top tightly with aluminum foil and tie it on tight with hemp or cotton cord. (Do not use parachute cord. It will melt and weld your pots together.) Put about half an inch of water in the bottom of the larger pot and put the smaller pot inside. The water should be about three-quarters of an inch from the lip of the small pot. Put the lid on top and set it carefully on your stove. Set a moderately sized rock on top of the lid to keep it from jumping and let it go at full blast. Use the same cook time as called for using a 9 inch pan for recipes. They say this takes a lot of practice, but I’ve never botched it up, except by putting the water too high and making a runny blueberry cake for a friends birthday. You can even use this method with campfires, although fueling a cook fire for 18 minutes can get arduous. PS, if you learn to do this on barbecues, you can become a rockstar for BBQ cornbread.

Making Your Own Stoves:

Making a simple alcohol stove:

You’ll need:

Two empty 12 ounce cans
A Utility Knife
Needle Nose Pliers (Or multitool)
Scissors (Again, see multitool)
A thumb tack
A book, around 150-200 pages.

Making the Stovetop

Take the first can and flip it over. Look at the lip of the concave bottom. Just at the top of the parabola there is an almost imperceptible corner before the lip. By carefully holding the tip of a utility knife against that corner and spinning the can you can gradually scratch around the lip, eventually scoring it enough so it can be punched out, leaving a neat round hole.

This takes practice. Be very careful and wear gloves until you know what you’re doing. (Unless you collect hand scars with pride, like me) If you are not used to working with blades this can be tricky.

Making the Jets

Now you will use that thumb tack to punch a series of holes around the outer lip of the stove top.

I usually punch 16 holes, starting by doing them on opposite sides in a cross for the first four, then equidistant between other holes for the next 12. You can also trace the lip on a piece of paper, cut it out and fold it in half three times to create a template, although I never bother. Using a jewlers hammer, or the side of the multitool makes punching the holes easier.

Cutting the Can

Find a book you can put the utility knife on top of to make the blade ait about an inch from the bottom of the can.

Holding the knife steady with one hand, spin the can in circles against the blade, careful not to wrinkle it. After a while of this, you will have scored the can enough that it will pull apart with a clean cut.

Set aside the bottom of the can. This will be the top of the stove.

Making the Inner Wall

Using Scissors, cut up the side of the remainder of the first can, then cut the top of the can off to create an aluminum sheet from the side of the can.

Next, use the book as a staright edge and angle to make two parallel lines, about and inch apart don the middle fo this strip, then cut it out.

It should actaully be a little shorter than in this picture, but you can always trim it down to fit better. For now, set it aside as we make our stove bottom.

Making the Stove Bottom
Making the stove bottom is the same as making the stove top, minus the holes. Put the blade on the book, and spin the can against it until you score through the can.

Finishing the Inner Wall.
Take that strip of aluminum we made earlier, and curl it into a circle. so that it wraps around the groove in the stove bottom.

Mark the center of the overlap with a marker, at the same place on both sides. You will use this mark to cut flaps into the top and bottom of the strip allowing it to fold together. Turn the can back into the loop, and tuck the ends into the flaps. When done right it will resemble a circle, not a jesus fish.

You will now make three small weep holes in the bottom of the ring by clipping out three small triangles on one side of the ring, about ¼ inch wide each. It is easiest if you start opposite your flap, allowing you to place the other two farther away from the seam preventing leaks. These weep holes allow heated fuel to enter the outer ring of the stove to fuel your jets.

Step Five: Putting it together.

You will need to make the stove top’s circumfrence slightly smaller than the stove bottoms. This can be done by cutting very short slits in the cut edge of the can (about 1/16 of an inch) and bending the resulting flaps in, or it can be done by crimping the can with needle nose pliers, which I have had better results with.

Simply pinch about 3/8 of an inch down on the can and turn your pliers 45 degrees to the right. Repeat every half inch around the top of the can. You should have something that resembles crimped stove or drain pipes.

Put the inner wall, weep holes down, into your stove bottom.

Carefully fit the stove top into the stove bottom and slowly press it down until the inner wall is pinched between the two cans. You may need to coax the inner way into the groove around the large hole of the stove top. You should now have a small aluminum hockey puck looking thing.

Step Seven: Stoves are Go!

Pour in some alcohol. About an ounce of Bacardi 151, 70% or 90% rubbing alcohol, or preferably denatured alcohol and light it up. Be careful. The stove in the above photo is LIT, belive it or not(notice the distortion of the pot stand behind it) The flames can be invisible in direct sunlight. After the alcohol heats the stove, your jets should light up creating something not unlike what you see on a home gas stove. (Picture pending, the memory card filled up just as the battery died)

Building a Simple Wood Stove:

A very simple wood stove can be made out of a large coffee can or a one gallon paint can.

First, cut a series of holes about a quarter way around the bottom side of the can using an old style can opener. Repeat the process on top of the can on the opposite side. You’re done.

By placing the bottom hole facing into the wind, you create a convection current that allows this stove to burn much hotter than a simple cook fire. You can slow the burn by placing something in front of the bottom holes or turning the stove away from the wind. If your fire starts to die, lift your pot and throw more fuel in.
————————————————-

Aguirre R97783 4 years ago	Good work as always, but some pictures would come in mighty handy!

Snark R97799 4 years ago	Are you planning on doing anything on improvised fuels or non-traditional ones? You did mention the cheetoes (and that was righteous), but I’m wondering what your thoughts are on using cowflops or other “fuels of desperation” are. (‘Course, a Tibetan wouldn’t categorize it as such, but….)

Private R97809 4 years ago	Cheetos: The ubiquitous solid fuel tablet Who knew? Valuable fine work —again!

Suitcaseman R97813 4 years ago	A-Camping We Will Go (tune: Farmer in the Dell) A-camping we will go, A-camping we will go, Hi-ho and off we go, A-camping we will go. More Verses: First we pitch our tent Next we chop some wood We light the campfire now We cook our dinner now We tell fun stories now It’s time to go to sleep

Suitcaseman R97814 4 years ago	Resource Books to Help You Plan Post Modified: 11/20/05 09:40:28

BlackPacker R98344 4 years ago	UPDATE on this article: I just heard back from Primus regarding Biodiesel in their Omni Fuel stove. Their head of R&D e-mailed me, and it turns out that he has been driving a biodiesel vehicle for the last two years, and is quite familiar with the nuances of the fuel. He explains that while the Omni fuel will run off biodiesel, he recommends against it. Biodiesel has issues with brass that an lead to deposits and clogged lines, although he describes the issue as textbook, and says he has not encountered it. The materials used in the rings can suffer from swelling which ill reduce the life of the stove, as well as causing issues with reliable operation. Now, keep in mind that although he does not recomend it, it does work, although he sites flareups as an issue. In fact, they have donated a couple of their omni fuel stoves to earthrace, a renewable fuel powerboat race around the globe, so it must at least work, if not at peak performance. More info on the race can be had at www.earthrace.net. I will include this info in a later revision of this GC, once I hear back from the third stove manufacturer I contacted. And if Urban, the R&D guy from Primus is checking out this blog, thanks again for all the info.

BlackPacker R107400 4 years ago	More pictures on the way!

fennec R107464 4 years ago	rad, if I have a chance to camp during my winter “break” I will try this. thanks Post Modified: 12/18/05 12:51:14

Wolfe R125597 4 years ago	I made two of these two, It was fun! The first one I made exactly like the above, the second I made a few changes after testing. First, I didn’t cut out the bottom of the second one, I put a small hole in it instead, to allow me to fill it with fuel, and seal it with screw. Between the walls of the stove I stuff in cotton batter, so it would suck up the fuel. The holes around the rim are larger then the original so I could pull out tiny clumps of cotton, I mean real tiny. During testing, as the fuel heated up, it would leak out the bottom, in gas form, between the two tins that are stuck together, this was solved with a bit of muffler tape. The new one burns peanut oil, bought at a dollar store for $2, a whole litre of it. :) PS: Use a tin cup to put it out. Let cool, and place in a tiny tupper ware like container to save the unused fuel.

Home is where the rain ain’t - Guerrilla Camping 101.8

2005-11-11T21:52:00.000-08:00

Pulled from original text archive, without comments or images. Photos survived to the book though, just didn't survive on the web.

Home is where the rain ain’t - Guerrilla Camping 101.8

I like to joke that I am professionally homeless. But nothing can be further from the truth. The truth is, I am habitually at home. No matter where I find myself, I can usually make myself at home with little effort and with quite a bit of variety. The three basic principles in making a home, be it a straw-bale and cob palace or a simple tarp stretched between two trees, are always the same, environment, materials and design.

Tents:

There are several good reasons to choose a tent. I think one of the best reasons for a guerilla camper is the sense of legitimacy a tent brings. A plastic tarp, while being very useful and versatile, screams vagrant. A tent, on the other hand, calmly introduces yourself as a camper. Tents are more weatherproof than tarps, almost always provide better protection from bugs and are often more wind resistant than tarps. All things considered, I believe the most compelling reason to buy a tent is the sense of security they give you. I know that the first few times I slept under the stars I honestly expected a raccoon to bite my face off in my sleep and can only guess that many feel the same way for the first few times.

There are also several reasons to avoid a tent. Tents are the least versatile form of “mobile home”, except maybe actual mobile homes. If a pole breaks, in many cases you wind up with an enlarged bivy sack, since most modern tents don’t use straight pole design. While bent poles make for more stable tents, they are also an Achilles tendon. If a fiberglass pole breaks, duct tape will only do so much. If you buy a fiberglass pole tent, try to replace the poles with aluminum if possible. The slight added weight is worth the security. Older straight pole tents allow you to improvise with sticks and unless you know a lot more about bamboo than I do, improvising with a curved pole tent is impossible. When I do carry a tent, I also carry a small plastic tarp to use as a ground sheet. The ground sheet protects the floor of the tent from punctures and should the tent become unserviceable, the groundsheet can double as a tarp.

There are lots of types of tents.

Summer and “3 season” tents.

My first civilian tent was an ultra light 3 season hoop tent. You can recognize these tents because they will usually consist of a large amount of mosquito netting with an attached rain fly. Great for hot humid conditions, they can have serious drawbacks in even moderate showers if not constructed well and erected properly. The rain fly (A waterproof cape that extends over the mesh roof of the tent) should hang well above the netting and extend several inches below it on the sides, if not coming completely to the ground. If the rain fly will brush against the mesh in the wind, consider the tent useless. During a rain storm, condensation will collect inside the rain fly and when the rain fly is battered against the mesh, drops of water will fall into the tent. This is would not be that bad, except that your floor will be much more waterproof than your ceiling; leaving no place for the water to go. What feels like an intermittent drip can become a swimming pool by morning, and a wet sleeping bag, besides being dangerous in cold weather, can weigh ten to fifteen times what it weights dry when you carry it out the next day.

Mountaineering (winter) Tents.
Mountaineering tents are the SUVs of the tent world. Heavy, big and as totally enclosed as possible. Often not needed except in the dead of winter or when traveling to tundra, many four season tents are convertible, allowing you to leave a few poles out, leave parts at home or even erect the tent with only the rain fly and a footprint, making it remarkably similar to a tarp in it’s functionality and vulnerability to bugs. Fortunately they are often only needed late in the fall and early in the spring, in extreme northern and southern polar regions, or at high altitudes.

Family or Basecamp tents: These are of no importance to the guerilla camper. They are heavy, obvious and almost always too large to carry on an individual. Great for weekend outings with the guys from your frat and their favorite kegs, I will happily admit to knowing little about them besides how difficult it seemed for my parents to put ours up when I was a little kid. If you have little guerrillas running about, you might need to look into the, but there are four person backpacking tents that would seem to work great for two adults and two children. Basecamp tents belong in the realm of the military, and there is honestly little need for guerrillas to set up headquarters.

Beyond tents, there are a variety of other methods of keeping yourself sheltered in the great outdoors.

Tarps:

Tarps are the most versatile and lightest form of portable shelter. Able to be pitched at varying angles, in varying configurations or even used as a small portion of a larger natural shelter, tarps prove useful to carry even when toting a tent. They have no notable resistance to bugs, however and without solid experience in setting them up and campsite selection they can be the least weather resistant shelters around. The basic infantry shelter, carried in halves is a form of tarp and has served soldiers since the first world war with only the complaining one would expect from soldiers. Some modern light weight camping companies sell tarps made of silicon impregnated nylon or sil-nylon for short for upwards of a hundred dollars. While I appreciate the amazing lightness and durability of the material, I can’t exactly praise the company that makes it, so I have avoid them until I can find a manufacturer not licensed by Dupont. Simple 3 dollar hardware store tarps work just as well and if you can notice the extra pound you should be walking more.

Ponchos:

Poncho pitching is identical to tarps, however I place them in a separate category because there are vast differences in their design and versatility. Ponchos are issued to ever soldier in the army. As basic rain gear, it is useful since it covers the pack as well as the person though it does leave your legs to get soaked in monsoons or tropical storms. Given it’s design, which includes grommets and snaps, it can be used as a shelter by itself or snapped to other ponchos to create larger shelters. With proper training and proper equipment it is even possible to use two packs and two ponchos to create a field expedient raft. They come in camouflage, which is an added benefit since it is difficult to find either good tents or tarps in camouflage.

Hammocks:

From the simple Guatemalan jungle hammock to modern asymmetrical ultra-light cocoon hammocks, hammocks are a tried and true way to get your ass off the hard and wet ground. Hammock sleeping is not for everyone as it can lead to sore backs and numb limbs and can be much colder than a tent. Modern hammock manufacturers, such as Hennessy have made great strides in alleviating these burdens, creating what amounts to hanging tents, replete with gear bags, accessory hooks, and a very unique bottom entry method. Not able to afford anything so modern, I opted for a cheap jungle hammock which I am able to pitch using my ponchos as a cocoon and a mattress pad for support. I don’t bother using it in very cold weather, as the added issue of cold wind whipping below you makes the idea less inviting than sleeping on the cold ground.

Field Expedient Shelters:

From palm frond huts to native American long houses, there are a milliuon ways to use your natural environment to shelter yourself. I would say to learn how to construct a few of them in theory, but do not practice. If every sierra club member can hold the tenant to leave no trace, it is doubly imperative for the guerrilla camper to do so, especially if you are attempting to stealth camp. If you must construct expedient shelters, please take them down and disguise the site as best you can afterwards, allowing the next guerrilla to come along to feel like an intrepid explorer treading on the site for the first time.

With a little thought it is easy to stay comfortable on the road, no matter what mother nature might throw at you.

Pitching Ponchos:

Army surplus ponchos can be had for fifteen to twenty dollars in a vast array of colors. (if Olive Drab and Camouflage can be considered a vast selection, that is) Old school ones are made of vinyl with silicon sealant on the seams, while newer ones are silicon impregnated nylon. There are dozens of ways to put up a poncho as a tent, and if you have the presence of mind to carry two the options are even greater. Golite, the maker of very highly regarded lightweight shelters has introduced a lightweight poncho tarp for $45, which I presume to be similar.

The Single Poncho Shelter:

A single poncho can be used as shelter in three basic ways, the pup tent, the lean to and the bivy sack.

Lean-to:

For the basic lean-to pitch, you will need two sticks of the same length, usually between 24 and 36 inches. You begin by staking down one side of the poncho using the installed grommets. Tie a four foot length of parachute cord to the two corners not staked down then tie stake loops into the outer ends of the ropes. The easiest way to do this is by folding the rope back on itself and trying a granny knot to make a hoop. Take the first stick and stick the tip of it into the grommet. You may need to shave the tip down with a pocket knife to make it fit. Stand the stick up using the cord to put tension on the ridge and stake the cord out at a 45 degree angle to the opening of the tent. Repeat this procedure with the opposite corner and move the stakes away from the tent to increase tension.

The Pup Tent:

A pup tent is a simple ridge tent. You will need six stakes and a single length of cord about 8 feet longer than the length of your tarp or poncho.

Lie the cord lengthwise along the ground.

Lay the tarp or poncho lengthwise along the cord and stake down one side of it.

Lift the poncho to the desired height and stake down the corners to create tension. (You can readjust them later, don’t get too precise.)

Tie a stake loop into each end of the cord by folding the end over and tying a simple over hand knot into the fold.

Stake down one side about two to three feet from the middle of the poncho or tarp, and slide your pole up under the rope to hold it up.

Sight Unseen - Guerrilla Camping 101.7

2005-11-04T21:25:00.000-08:00

Draft originally posted at The Guerrilla News Network. Included here with GNN commentary courtesy of the GNN Archive.

Sight Unseen - Guerrilla Camping 101.7

Asset B10394 Posted By BlackPacker

Camouflage is one topic that is seldom covered in backpacking manuals, simply because hiking down the Appalachian Trail does not require you to sneak. However, if you are going to be walking any considerable distance without trails, you will find yourself crossing many right-of-ways and being forced to camp in locations where you are not wanted. Thus, camouflage is an essential task for any Guerilla Camper.

Camouflage is also a matter of courtesy and I wish more traditional hikers would begin to utilize it. While every hiking book talks about â€œleaving no traceâ€�, is seems no one has considered â€œhaving no traceâ€� of any importance to campers. It seems every tent out there is safety orange, fire engine red, sky blue or a combination of all three and few things bother me more than finding a hidden spot overlooking a gorgeous meadow, only to watch some guy set up his signal flag tent in the middle of the vista. Please, be inconspicuous, if only to not annoy me.

———————————

There are two parts to successful camouflage, equipment and action. Equipment is something best handled at home. Before â€œmovingâ€�, which often entails lots of sidewalk hiking and dubiously legal camping, I take the time to check all my gear. This allows me to inventory as well as check for damage and wear.

I begin with a small bottle of acrylic paint and a can of cheap, flat black spray paint and start by unpacking everything and laying it out as neatly as possible. I start with my pack, using the acrylic paint to paint buttons, slides, snaps on the pack and scratches on the frame. An excellent paint for this purpose is sold as surplus stores as M-Nu. If the frame is too scratched, I will take it outside and repaint it with the spray paint. I then repeat this with my ponchos, my hammock, my coats and my shoes. Eyelets, guy hooks and anything else shiny gets painted over. I then take my tent stakes and give them two coats of spray paint. This does not last long, but the only goal is to eliminate shine on the tops of the stakes. When they get shiny again, I cam always mud them over. In todayâ€™s littered America, no one notices anything shiny in the bushes anymore anyways.

Then I repack everything as it will be for the trip. I put on the pack and jump up and down, listening for the slapping of straps, jingling of loose catches. I wrap offenders in a single layer of electrical tape and repeat the process until the only sound is the occasional squeaking of my hip strap.

My equipment is now officially stealth.

—————————————————-

In practice, camouflage requires attention to 8 factors:

1: Shape and Outline â€“ Few things stick out like a straight line or a human silhouette in the woods. Tent and tarp ridgelines are obvious even if the tarp is of a camouflage pattern. To hide tarp ridgelines you can add sticks under the tarp to give the top of the ridgeline a crumpled, irregular outline. The best bet is usually to pitch the tarp as low as you are comfortable with. I have pitched tarps low enough that raising my head in the morning was impossible, requiring instead for me to slide out of my sleeping bag.

2: Color and Texture â€“ Remember that red tent? Nothing gives you away more than brightly colored gear. A red tent is an eviction notice. Even if you opt not to go with camouflage, choose tents and tarps in earth tones and neutral darks, which allow you to hide in. The same hold true with clothing, but try for darker colors. Camouflage clothing is often self defeating for the guerilla camper because it is conspicuous anywhere outside of hunting preserves. My only camouflage is my shell clothing and my ponchos. I wear khakis when hiking so I can spot ticks on my legs, but when trying to be inconspicuous in the woods, Iâ€™ll slip on my shell pants.

3: Shadow â€“ While natural shadows provide good hiding places, your shadow can give you away easily. The shadow of a shelter at dawn can stretch across an entire valley. You can avoid this by pitching your tarp to the west of natural cover such as trees, rocks, or ledges.

4: Shine â€“ This is mostly covered by preparing your equipment at home, so the sun doesnâ€™t cast reflections off brass or aluminum snaps and grommets. However this also takes into account your tent material. Unfortunately, most plastic tarps and waterproof fabrics are naturally shiny. This can be alleviated by scattering dry dirt along the ridge of the tent. The left behind dust will dull the reflectiveness of the fabric. DO NOT USE MUD. Mud is shiny, hard to clean off and once dry becomes obvious as it cracks and crumbles. The reflection of eyeglasses can also be diminished by sprinkling dust on them, but donâ€™t bother, youâ€™ll probably just wreck your glasses.

5: Movement – Movement has a distinct effect on human vision. Our nervous system is attuned in such a way that if something moves we will instinctively look at it. Itâ€™s the reason why you canâ€™t sit in a pub without constantly looking at a TV and its one reason a loose tarp flapping in the wind is painfully obvious even if it blends in perfectly.

6: Noise â€“ The other reason a flapping tarp is obvious is the rhythmic snapping of loose corners and slack ridgelines. Pitching the tarp lower often alleviates this as well as additionally hiding the shape and outline of the tarp.

7: Scent â€“ Scent is important no matter where you go, but usually not for human antagonists. Even in the middle of a national park you will find residents who it is best to avoid. The smells of campfires, food and cooking all attract wildlife. This can be fine if you are only expecting raccoons, but in area with bears you should keep all food at least 500 meters from camp and do all cooking at least 750-1000 meters away from camp. If you are doing stinky cooking (A hungry man can smell cooking bacon from two miles) donâ€™t do it where you arenâ€™t supposed to be. You can always cook a mile down the trail.

8: Light â€“Do not use flashlights after dark. If you must, diffuse the light through a dark colored sweater or t-shirt. If possible use a red lens filter, Maglites have an accessory pack with light filters, and Tikkaâ€™s Taktika headlamp has a switchable white/red filter. The same holds true with campfires and the telltale sparks of lighters and matches. On a cloudy moonless night, a cigarette can be seen from over a mile away, and the quickest way to get a ranger to your stealth site is a smoke trail.

By keeping these factors in mind, both while moving and while camping you will be much less likely to attract unneeded attention to yourself.

—————————————

Stalking:

Once in a while the daunting idea of backtracking two miles is too much when you encounter no trespassing signs. Often, I have encountered gated communities, golf courses and even public drives which the residents have chosen to close to the public. One must not forget train yards, either. At these times it is useful to move stealthily.

Sneaking into a train yard requires a different approach to making it through a gated community. Sometimes it is enough to simply be inconspicuous while at other times you will need to be nearly invisible.

Inconspicuous is easy. Shave and put on a clean shirt. Walk upright and smile a bit vacantly as if you live in the neighborhood and are just returning home from a nice hike with your gigantic homeless backpack. Often youâ€™ll never even see anybody. If somebody is out watering their lawn, smile and nod. Congratulations, youâ€™ve just joined middle America. If stopped, feign ignorance, nothing is as believable as an ignorant suburbanite.

Invisible is hard. Dark clothes, a dark pack and no jingling is imperative. If you sound like a herd of eight reindeers youâ€™re not making it far. Recheck for sounds, especially sloshing which is most common. If possible put all water in one container or top it off before moving on. Tape or pack anything that is jingling or slapping. You will seldom need anything as over the top as facial camouflage, a dark scarf or handkerchief around the face and mouth will work for this and then you donâ€™t look like rocky raccoon in your mug shot.

Moving is best done upright, unless your silhouette will give you away. Slowly place the ball of your lead foot on the ground. Listen closely for branches of leaves. If you hear it, move you foot a few inches and lower it again. Slowly place your weight down on that foot, and move your trail foot forward placing it on the ground in the same way. This is much easier done on gravel than through leaves. The trick to not dig as you place your foot. While moving, consciously consider noise, light, shadow, movement and silhouette. Do not climb fences, instead, look for gaps. Go over walls and obstacles with a low profile, by swinging your torso atop it then swinging your legs over as low as possible. If you must cross open areas, look for long shadows and move quickly and quietly, keeping as low a profile as possible. Move slowly and deliberately and resist the urge to run across open areas.

If you must crawl, the best way to move is by doing a modified push-up onto your hands and toes and crawling forward with one leg and arm at a time. The trick is to not shift your weight abruptly. I find it easiest to hover my body a few inches off the ground with my hands at chest breadth apart. Do not drag yourself as it leaves an obvious trail and makes too much noise.

I will be honest, I have seldom needed to become â€œinvisibleâ€� to go anywhere, but when hiking with friends a playful game of stalking can be fun, especially with people who have watched too many â€œmadman in the forestâ€� horror films. Be careful though, sneaking under the picnic table and grabbing an ankle can get you kicked in the face.

—————

When to be seen.

Just as it is occasionally important to go undetected, there are occasions when being obvious is life saving. If you are ever in hunting areas, on or off season, do not attempt to go undetected. I carry two â€œsafety orangeâ€� nylon pennants about a foot long. They weigh nothing, and I seldom think of them. If passing through hunting preserves, I always pitch my tarp in the middle of a clearing with the flags on either corner of my ridgeline. During turkey season Iâ€™ve seen guys blindly firing shotguns into bushes at the slightest scuttle. If there are guns around, do not go stealth. It is always better to be accosted for trespassing than shot for being a turkey.

BlackPacker R94457 4 years ago	I decided to skip mentioning camouflage makeup. I can’t imagine it being of use, and have never had reason to since the officers stopped making me do it. In my opinion, it’s gross. The leg is almost better, so I’ll probably get to leave town on monday. Might have one more by then. Thanks again for all the feedback everybody.

Wolfe R94462 4 years ago	You forgot lack of cotton. I play airsoft from time to time. It is sort of like paintball, but hurts like hell when you get hit. A few of the guys who play have taken it to an exstreme level and used night vision scopes, since my friends and I cann’t afford such nice equipment to take out the other team, we use camcorders. turns out that these camcorder’s work better, when the opposing team wears cotton fabric camoflage. Cotton Glows.

BlackPacker R94465 4 years ago	Interesting note. The only time I’ve used NVGs has been in military situations, and BDUs don’t glow. Does all cotton glow or only white? Do you know what causes it?

Babydoll59 R94472 4 years ago	That’s funny! Spray paint is also good if you’re required to wear gold shoes for work.

ShiftShapers R94490 4 years ago	Wilderness Survival Manuals > Survival, Evasion, and Recovery > Chapter I – Evasion > Camouflage a. Basic principles: (1) Disturb the area as little as possible. (2) Avoid activity that reveals movement to the enemy. (3) Apply personal camouflage. b. Camouflage patterns (Figure I-1): (1) Blotch pattern. [a] – Temperate deciduous (leaf shedding) areas. [b] – Desert areas (barren). [c] – Snow (barren). (2) Slash pattern. [a] – Coniferous areas (broad slashes). [b] – Jungle areas (broad slashes). [c] – Grass (narrow slashes). (3) Combination. May use blotched and slash together. Figure I-1. Camouflage Patterns c. Personal camouflage application follows: (1) Face. Use dark colors on high spots and light colors on any remaining exposed areas. Use a hat, netting, or mask if available. (2) Ears. The insides and the backs should have 2 colors to break up outlines. (3) Head, neck, hands, and the under chin. Use scarf, collar, vegetation, netting, or coloration methods. (4) Light colored hair. Give special attention to conceal with a scarf or mosquito head net. d. Camouflage patterns (Figure I-1): (1) Avoid unnecessary movement. (2) Take advantage of natural concealment: [a] – Cut foliage fades and wilts, change regularly [b] – Change camouflage depending on the surroundings. [c] – DO NOT select vegetation from same source. [d] – Use stains from grasses, berries, dirt, and charcoal. (3) DO NOT over camouflage. (4) Remember when using shadows, they shift with the sun. (5) Never expose shiny objects (like a watch, glasses, or pens) (6) Ensure watch alarms and hourly chimes are turned off. (7) Remove unit patches, name tags, rank insignia, etc. (8) Break up the outline of the body, “V” of crotch/armpits. (9) Conduct observation from a prone and concealed position Also See: Movement Post Modified: 11/05/05 00:26:19

ShiftShapers R94491 4 years ago	FM 20-3: Camouflage, Concealment, And Decoys FM 21-76-1: MCRP 3-02H: NWP 3-50.3: AFTTP (I) 3-2.26: Survival, Evasion, and Recovery Army Field Manuals [full list] Post Modified: 11/05/05 00:41:19

Snark R94531 4 years ago	Totally random thought. The other day, one of my students came to class with a camo t-shirt on, with the words “Ha! Now you can’t see me!” on the front. I laughed my ass off.

NoGodsNoMasters R94567 4 years ago	Man, I am so with you about the technicolor hiking gear. My brain cannot reconcile what is going on in people’s heads when they bring crap like that into pristine natural settings.

Snark R94570 4 years ago	I dunno, it seems that most of the clothing is earthtones…which is great. And it’s actually quite possible to find a backpack that’s not that funky- mine is sort of gray-green and olive. I think one of the worst offenders is actually outerwear and other waterproof stuff; jackets, gloves, hats, tents, bivi sacks, etc. I have yet to find a tent that’s not fucking iridescent; mine is charcoal and white, which is OK, but it’s got a yellow rain fly. It occurs to me that a lot of this stuff is so bright to increase visibility, such as to searchers looking for somebody lost.

BlackPacker R94587 4 years ago	That is the reason, Snark, to make sure you can be found. But some on. How many people who ‘need to be found’ are running around with tents? As for outerwear, I havn’t found much better than surplus gortex ECW (extreme cold weater) shell gear. It’s light, packs tight, and is camouflage. Still get wierd looks in the city though. We used to joke about being invisibile in the army. Flip our collars up and start acting up. “You can’t see me. I’m not here.” Then again, in the military position of rest, you are to keep your right foot planted. When placed at rest, most of my squad would start shuffling in circles, like our foot was nailed to the groud, so I guess we were all a little goofy.

BlackPacker R94597 4 years ago	Oh yeah, was just going to write someting and stumbled upon the first draft of this article. I felt I rambled too much in it so I didn;t use it. Camouflage is one of those things particular to a guerilla camper and not every kid with a backpack. If you are moving from place to place off established trails, Say, walking from Atlanta to Nashville, you will often have to impede on a variety of right of ways, camping in fields, under freeways, beside train tracks and in some of the most pristine wilderness you can imagine. There are a lot of people who donâ€™t want you sleeping in those places and the best way to convince them they do is by not letting them even know that youâ€™re there. Camouflage is about more than not being seen, itâ€™s about not being detected. Picking up your trash, hiding your scorch and burying your crap is camouflage. You do it so the next guy to come along can share in the feeling of being the first person on earth to see this undisturbed land (while setting his tent up on top of your cat hole). Camouflage is about not buying a BRIGHT RED tent and annoying the hell out of me by camping in a meadow my site overlooks, and making at least a moderate attempt to blend into the wilderness. Civil society is all about standing out. When I leave society, I donâ€™t want anything that advertises itself. No camping gear should be bright orange, except for a small nylon flag you use when camping in hunting preserves. Yes, sometimes you WANT people to know youâ€™re there. Disappearing: Camouflaging a campsite is not difficult if you choose the correct gear. Make or buy your gear out of earth-tone fabrics, brown, green, black and tan that occur naturally where you will be traveling. I donâ€™t own anything white because I donâ€™t do much snow camping, and when I have, Iâ€™ve always hoped to be found, cause it almost guarantees a ride to warmer environments. Yes, sometimes you really want people to know youâ€™re there. Now, as you walk through the evening, look for places the same color as your tent or tarp. Tan â€“ Scrub, dry grasses, summer meadows, sandy areas, concrete. Black â€“ Conniferous tree clutsters, ledge shadows, under freeways.(But why?) Green â€“ Grass, bushes, etc. If you canâ€™t find green in a forestâ€¦ Brown â€“ Fallen tree trunks, dirt. See green. Creating camouflage: You can always use materials around you to create natural camouflage, but it has its limits. Do not try to cover a two man tunnel tent in grass. This is just another reason to go with tarps or ponchos; you can pitch them in a variety of ways to work with your surroundings. The most important part of camouflage is hiding the outline. With tents and tarps this will always be the ridgeline, the straight strip along the top that works hardest to keep you dry. To break up the ridgeline, You can fold pleats in the fabric of a tarp, and tuck plant remnants into the folds. You can also pitch the tarp extremely low, allowing you to hide behind tall grass. Often you can find natural features, such as crevices that allow you to pitch the tarp almost flat. There is a place I found in California where two trees had grown in such a way next to a dry creek bed that it was actually possible to hang a hammock underground. If I hadnâ€™t found it at nine in the morning, I would have stayed. —————————- what do you think?

quellmywhelm R94756 4 years ago	I’m lovin’ these posts, people need this information. I know there’s tons of ‘survival’ manuals out there, but I’m just finishing up Bradford Angier’s ‘How to Stay Alive In the Woods’, and I’m wondering what books, (besides the obvious Army Wilderness Training Manuals), you’ve read, and can recommend. I need to go on a trip…a hell of a long one, and learning long forgotten skills would sure as hell help me out.

Grym R94835 4 years ago	Is the B.C. rollin’ through the barracks for inspection later or what? M-Nu’s a life-saver. haha. good stuff BP—all the guerrilla camping sections. I was an 11B, so I know what yer sayin’. Army issu ECW gortex gear works very well—I was stationed in Alaska, so I frequently put the gear to the test—expensive, but well worth it if you’re gonna be out in the cold or rain.

lxpk R95434 4 years ago	I’ve been a guerilla camper for over a year now too and I love the bit about fixing noisy gear and sloshing. I have been stalking so long that it becomes force of habit to stalk everywhere at all times making as little sound as possible. I started practicing stealth techniques playing Airsoft in Vancouver with Canadian Forces guys. When it comes to woodland camo, CADPAT all the way. Many times I have crawled past enemy snipers, had enemy almost step on me, or hidden in plain sight with CADPAT. It really is too bad that it is so conscpicuous in civilian life to wear all CADPAT. However, in the United States most people don’t recognize the pattern and its digital nature almost makes it fashionable as opposed to scary. A CADPAT Catalog My 100L+ CADPACK).aspx I wanted one third-line pack to pack them all and in the compression straps bind them. The LRPP swallows several smaller lighter sub-backpacks that compartmentalize second-line kits like my clothes and computing gear. And it has some military extras. Nice to know I can use the rapelling harness if I have to rapell off a building in a hurry carrying a 120L load. And the price isn’t as much as it seems because it is in Canadian dollars. By the way Wolfe, I recognize you. We always meant to get together foar an airsoft op some time but never managed to. IR camcorders would be an interesting hack. Night fighting is psychologically harrowing as it is, but against people with NVG it is like being up against the invisible Predator. With the exception of some wilderness trips I have stayed mostly urban and sought to maintain access to civilized staples like the convenience of a hot shower every morning. What I love about your guides Blackpacker is the amount of field-testing your words clearly reflect. You have been there and tried things on a long enough timeline to discover Mean Times Between Failure and what is worth carrying when you are traveling long distances. Thank you for sharing your experience and I do hope you produce a book. By the way, check out Patrolling, one of the shows my friend Sean Kennedy The Fucking Man has put together. Many of the episodes deal with guerilla camping survival techniques. Patrolling with Sean Kennedy

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On this rock I build my house

What is Guerrilla Camping?

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Edison's Medicine

Coming up for air. [repost from gnn.tv]

Guerrilla Camping 101.1 Revisted - The Red Pack

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Guerrilla Camping 101. . .

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