Resourcing Starts Now

[Matt In Oklahoma]

Resourcing Starts Now
This is something I encounter time and time again so I'm gonna throw it out there as food for thought.
People go out hiking, trail riding, off roading etc and then that evening they get to camp and start looking for things to build a fire.
This is wrong. A chess player is not looking at the next move but 3-4 moves ahead. A tactician is looking the same at moves after moves and so should your journey be. You should be focused not only on what you are doing but what you will do. When we are at home we don't plan dinner 10 minutes before. We know we are going to eat dinner so you plan it earlier in the day and in fact perhaps earlier in the month or week as you think of the groceries needed. Why do people change when they go outside?
If you know you will be making camp that minute is when you start resourcing. As you go about the daily activities you should be looking for tender, spark, food, water, shelter material etc. and if possible collecting it. It takes little effort to pick a thistle head for sparking and drop it into the cargo pocket, slide a top of a sumac head in the saddlebag for flavor and vitamins or to pick up some dried deadfall on a break and toss it in the cargo area of the 4x4 for the fire that night. As someone into survival this will be key on a journey, patrol or any movement away from the living area because thats where some resources will come from is away from camp.
It is even more important for those who camp in those public area because many times the immediate resources are stripped by those who came before.
You will find that if you follow this forward thinking and collecting you will not only survive but you will be more comfortable in the daily camp.

[seraphima]

Well said. Prepping, short term, and long term, is a habit that needs to be cultivated. You gave good examples of outdoor daily preps when camping. Putting beans to soak in the morning or overnight, collecting bits of birch bark for tinder, watching your hiking 'handrails', even leaving a planned route with a friend or ranger are in the same category.

[WiseOwl]

One of my golden rules of camp is when we arrive, fire gets going. I will spend an hour and walk good distances to find wood.
Even when we backpack in, I always look for wood stashes along the trail just incase I camp close by.
When I car camp, which is always primitive, before I unload the gear, fire is going. Even in the hot summer.

My camping buddies always get interested when its fire time because I havent used a lighter to start a fire in 5+ years. The cell phone battery and steel wool was cool one year.

[xdpatriot]

This is a good post and in my opinion should be practiced in everyday life. It is similar to situational awareness. Or as i like to explain it, ooking when you're not looking.

Resourcing Starts Now
This is something I encounter time and time again so I'm gonna throw it out there as food for thought.
People go out hiking, trail riding, off roading etc and then that evening they get to camp and start looking for things to build a fire.
This is wrong. A chess player is not looking at the next move but 3-4 moves ahead. A tactician is looking the same at moves after moves and so should your journey be. You should be focused not only on what you are doing but what you will do. When we are at home we don't plan dinner 10 minutes before. We know we are going to eat dinner so you plan it earlier in the day and in fact perhaps earlier in the month or week as you think of the groceries needed. Why do people change when they go outside?
If you know you will be making camp that minute is when you start resourcing. As you go about the daily activities you should be looking for tender, spark, food, water, shelter material etc. and if possible collecting it. It takes little effort to pick a thistle head for sparking and drop it into the cargo pocket, slide a top of a sumac head in the saddlebag for flavor and vitamins or to pick up some dried deadfall on a break and toss it in the cargo area of the 4x4 for the fire that night. As someone into survival this will be key on a journey, patrol or any movement away from the living area because thats where some resources will come from is away from camp.
It is even more important for those who camp in those public area because many times the immediate resources are stripped by those who came before.
You will find that if you follow this forward thinking and collecting you will not only survive but you will be more comfortable in the daily camp.

[EX121]

Great post. along the same lines you should be looking along the trail for useable items. what happens if you or someone else is injured along the trail and you need to bivouac out. Or leave the injured party while you go for help. If you 'noticed' a natural shelter just back down the trail then it's much easier to take care of the problem, than if you had to flounder around and look for one.

[Bearman202]

If I can throw out an obvious extension of this concept, how many of us have plans for what to do if our current source of income goes away? How long could you survive until you found another one? It's not just when camping that you need to think a couple of moves ahead. With the economic news coming down right now, it might become very important pretty soon to be able to support yourself and your family in a different way than you've been doing. Do you have a plan?