Test: 1 year in the desert alone. What to bring...

reply to post by TV_Nation


I am with tv nation here, Having lived for a bit in AZ, I can tell you that even though the sonoran desert has the most plants and wildlife, it is not a forgiving place.

I just don't hink you can carry enough water to survive. And you need far more there then anywhere else.

Study the local flora till your a professional. You can't necessarily eat cactus, with the exception of prickly pear.

the teddy bear cactus is an evil vile plant. I have had a run in, and it is not pretty.
they can all burn as far as I am concerned.

So you will need a comb, to pull the plant ouf out your body, and antiseptic. Make sure you have decent first aid.


Learn about africanized bees.

You will need protection incase you run across border crossers.

You will need maps so you don't get lost, It all starts to look the same and is very easy to do.

Lots of plastic bags to wrap your shoes and stuff in so scorpions don't crawl in.

A mirror so if you have an emergency you can signal.

reply to post by nixie_nox


eeewww. and reality rears it's ugly head. maybe a good spot to escape would be the cajun swamps in Louisianna or the Everglades. i have heard of people escaping in these places for years. at least you can fish; and, the weather is forgiving.

Eric Rudolph lasted 6 years in the North Carolina mountains, while a huge manhunt was underway for him. I understand, he had dug a hole in the top of a hill. Of course they caught him while he was dumpster diving.

on another note. does anybody know why my avatar is not working anymore? i think i have the size, pixel width and height correct. just stopped working???

Please do not do this.

Very few people survive more than three days in the desert during the summer months. There are also flash floods, poisonous snakes and insects, illegal aliens, skin cancer. . .look up gila monster for some sobering information and then decide if you want to be 50 miles from medical care.

You'll notice NOBODY camps in the desert in the summertime. It's just not a good idea because a small problem can turn into a serious survival situation in moments. You're not going to be communing with nature, you're going to be placing your life in danger and living on the edge. You won't be doing ANYTHING during the day at all, except finding shade and drinking water.

You simply cannot bring enough water, unless you have someone trucking it in to you every few days. By "trucking" I mean like 100 gallons, not five gallon containers.

This is a bad, bad idea.

double post.

[edit on 12-4-2009 by VelmaLu]

Not to sound like a downer,but in all honesty the one thing you should do is give someone an accurate map of where you will be so they can gather whats left of your remains..

jumping into a year in the desert will most likely leave you dead with out proper training..reading books and watching videos is great,but be realistic..Christ people on Survivor cant go 39 days without whitling down to nothing eating rice and water..365 days without eating 2000 calories a day with about 2-3 gallons of water a Day will leave you dead..
Remember when you sweat you need to take in twice the amount of water and SALt to replenish your system..

good luck..Try the bunny slopes first..

You might want to consider trying this out in a more favorable environment. One that you can also deal with all 4 seasons and gain experience for all types of weather conditions. I would choose somewhere in the Midwest. Here in Missouri perhaps. A nice secluded place in say Lake of the Ozarks. Before thinking of what you should bring the first thing I would do is pick a place(other than the desert), learn everything I can about the area such as flora, fauna, and climate. Learn what animals, plants, and insects are dangerous and which ones are edible and medicinal.

Once you have all that done then figuring out what you need to take will be the easy part. Just my two cents.

This has me thinking now. I have two spots picked for what I call B.O.D.(Bug Out Day). I checked out both areas after choosing them to make sure they would work. There is another spot that I looked at on a map that I haven't had the opportunity to check out. Maybe I can use that as an excuse for a 1 week test run with only my bug out bag.

lol, better take something to keep your sanity.

thats the biggest thing, alone in the desert, no human contact for a year.

i'd suggest taking a laptop with one of those cellphone-functional-modems so that you could perhaps dial in to the net at 56k during your yearlong stay in the desert to keep your sanity. or maybe use one of those 3g wireless cards, dont they work via satellite or some such? anyways .. find a way to get internet and take your laptop. take a back up laptop incase that one breaks.

umm .. that and food / water . and shelter and clothing. toilet paper?

reply to post by runetang


my impression is that the point of a year in the desert is to get away from humanity and all of its rituals and vices and try and come to some unadulterated understanding of how things are.

The person who makes a decision to do this, of their own volition, is probably not going to have too much problem with insanity. On the contrary they are probably well equipped to grapple with this challenge.

The accidental isolationist - one who finds himself in that situation by accident, well they would have a serious problem.

reply to post by runetang

lol, better take something to keep your sanity. thats the biggest thing, alone in the desert, no human contact for a year.

yeah but im more along the lines of, if losing one's sanity comes with the territory, so be it. I think me being able to meditate is the safe guard against that. I know being in the wilderness by yourself for 14-18 days, you come back to civilization and think every else is crazy with their pettiness and arguing about stupid small things, and all the "crap" on tv.

This whole thing is going to require much more planning than I thought, i nearby water source (lake, river, stream) as well as multiple sources of shade.

Thanks for everyone's input. I still think it can be done ....especially some of the more mountainous regions, one can climb into a higher elevation in the summer, where its much cooler.

The Sonorran Desert is more than livable even in the dead of summer as compared to the Mojave(CA) or Chihuahuan(TX,NM). It's higher and wetter than you think especially towards Tuscon. The tent will do fine but you really should think about build a hogan or jacal if your going to be out there for a year.

You should/can also shrink the distance that you intend to live from town to no more than 20 miles. Unless you've just won the lottery, there's no way you can bring enough food and water for a year, so you'll have to make some infrequent trips into town. I've lived in AZ and if you're not near one of the big cities, you could be less than a mile from the paved road and if you can't be seen from the road, chances are no one will ever know you're there unless you tell them. Take a quality mountain bike and you can ride to and from town from 5-10 miles away fairly easily even in high summer. A motorized bike or motorcycle can double or triple your load carrying capacity.

You'll need to do some rainwater harvesting, so bring either a plastic tarp or sheathing to create a larger water repellent surface area. I'd bring at least 3 55 gallon food grade plastic drums for water storage. You also need a Berkey water filter or some other reusable type water filter.

If your desert retreat is near any sort of water way, you can grow much of your food there along the waterway, so bring seeds and gardening tools. Corn, beans and squash are your best bets. Another excellent source of food that's fairly abundant in the AZ desert regions is mesquite bean pods.

Ground squirrels, jack and cottontails rabbits are also abundant for meat and you should bring an air rifle and pellets. Hunt during early morning and just before dark when these staples of the survival diet. European rock and wood pigeons are invasive species to AZ, so you can take them out any time you see them.

During high summer, you'll spend most of the day from 11am til 5pm in the shade sleeping or doing light chores. You'll be awake for most of the night, so I'd bring a good battery powered radio and some sort of rechargeable lamp. Another excellent idea for whiling away the night hours is stargazing, so bring binoculars or a small telescope. From late Sept to April,May you'll have to concentrate on your gardening and food production and shelter building.

Having done that, albeit in the high desert mountains, you need a cave to stay in. By yourself, you cannot carry or find enough to eat and drink, period. Nobody survives in the wild alone for any length of time. I had a cave and ate almost everything I could catch with my bare hands and would have starved if I had tried to stay the winter.

I was there studying how people thought before there was technology, so I didn't even use fire or wear clothing, other than a loincloth. You need a cave because it will provide shelter from the heat. Inside, the temperature will remain the same year around.

Be prepared to eat insects. Grasshoppers kept me alive, along with the odd mouse and lizard. Mice and lizards were too hard to catch most of the time and rabbits... well, I caught one once, that is all. But I didn't use snares. With snares you can probably catch several a month at least.

I had a stream flowing year around with snow melt, so I could cool off when necessary and it was not polluted so I could drink it.

I did go into town a few times. I needed to have my presance known, in case I got sick and needed help to survive. also, ranchers around there might shoot me if I didn't wear the loinclolth, which is why I wore it.

And the stars are your TV/movie/entertainment out there. They were incredable!

Humans have a social instinct. you need to talk to others from time to time. If you don't, you will get really nutty. I had friends who climbed up to visit me from time to time, a couple of times a week, to make sure I was alive, and I talked to them, as well as the occasional rancher I came across.

Planting a garden is a good idea as long as you realize you will have to sleep in that garden and guard it constantly. It will become the diner for the local creatures. I didn't do that however. And remember that you won't be able to eat the food until time to harvest... four to ten months according to what kind of food it is. Siberian kale is what I suggest, for the vitamins, and the fact it grows in snow and cold and withstands dry heat better than other greens.

If you get an infection, your chances of survival are almost nil... which is why it's better to be with other people in hostile environments.

Try it for a month or so first. Going out 'cold turkey' is an ignorant and almost unsurvivable act.

I had several high intensity Green Beret survival training courses in the army, and they were good data for survival in my cave. Without them, I would not have survived.

Good luck,
Worldmind

reply to post by dominicus


Look at how hunter/gatherers live in the same conditions. That will be imo the best way, plus a bit of modern technology. But carry as little as possible and eat what the surroundings offer you, whether that is insects or cacti. And sunblock, best to wear clothes that cover totally like the I think Berbers wear.

Anyway, good luck! If indeed the shtf than I will be at home watching the world go down

Oh you had me going there for a while....
See I live here in the southwest and what you said sounded like you were marching off to commit suicide!

Here I was all set to rant about how anyone who needed to ask "What to bring"? had no damn business out in the desert alone... but then I snapped no ones that stupid... not even a tenderfoot

Hi five buddy you really got me good...

Originally posted by DaddyBare
Oh you had me going there for a while....
See I live here in the southwest and what you said sounded like you were marching off to commit suicide!

Here I was all set to rant about how anyone who needed to ask "What to bring"? had no damn business out in the desert alone... but then I snapped no ones that stupid... not even a tenderfoot

Hi five buddy you really got me good...

My thoughts kindof

I'll give him 24 hours before he says "wtf am I doin here"

reply to post by Seany


Well if he is serious then I have a real suggestion... take a job working the Semi-truck loading docks down in Phoenix if you can do that over the course of a summer your tough enough to give it a fair shot... but I will also add when I worked the loading docks the only thing I wanted after work was a cold beer and a soft woman.

reply to post by dominicus


Pack a Disco - ball .

You body will be easier to find that way .

----------------------------------------------------

Just kidding !.

----------------------------------------------------

The incremental approach sounds best , lofty notions of " meditating " in the dessert evaporate in such an environment.
Don`t try and run before you know how to crawl .

If you plan on living in the desert, then solar survival is the way to go. A plethora of devices would suit your needs, namely: -

1. A parabolic solar cooker to cook food and boil water (no need for a gas stove)
   
2. Solar charger for use with any electronics you decide to take with you
   
3. Solar torch
   
4. Solar powered radio
   

These are just some of the things which could help your journey.

The less you take with you, the more chance you will have of survival. In that, the more you learn about the land, the more you will learn how to live off the land.

In essence, a good knife or machete, and an encyclopaedia's worth of desert survival knowledge stored in the old grey matter will put you in good stead for your perilous passage of self-discovery.

I wish you the very best of luck, you are an inspiration to mankind. If more people were like you, then we wouldn't be so shackled to the plutocratic corpocracies of this world.

If you would like a free parabolic solar cooker kit to learn more about solar cooking, then please get in touch, I would be more than happy to send you one.

All the best
Sol

For those concerned, thank you so much and proving to me that there is actually humanity that still cares for stranger. I think that's awesome. Now to put those at rest.

I have do solo survival experience for up to 20 days of wilderness living mostly in forested regions of the midwest (spring, summer, and fall) winter sucks here. I have eaten bugs, caught animals (tho I like the whole vegetarian, beans approach), built makeshift shelters from trees/branches, speared fish, etc.

I do know for the most part what to bring and my approach to this whole scenario. I would also like to bring perhaps a small camera/video for recoding all of this and having it posted here on ats.

My purpose in posting this, was to bring out of the woodworks others who have done some similar things and get their advice. The chap a few posts above who lived in a cave for example, he has given me good wisdom.

I am also looking into getting a helping hand the first month or two by locals, perhaps tribe members from reservations, or other survivalists in the nearby area for a helping hand.

The cave idea sounds great. However I would have to resolve that with the rancher, who's land it sits on or the rangers, who would kick me out and give me trouble, if its on federal land.

Either way this has to be done. I have already invested in some supplies, talked to my boss for flexibility in the future, several books, gear, etc

I want to get out of it as much survivalist experience as I can, but also as much spiritual growth as I can. Self inquiry, meditation, keep a journal. So this is a dualistic approach at the whole matter. I do want to make out of there alive, but also I do want to bring myself to a brink of surviving through fasting some here and there.

This is not a good bye letter and suicide note. I will come back out and post my experience and what I learned on here. Perhaps turn it into a documentary if its not too much trouble dealing with the cameras, battery, power, and editing.

Also, if you never heard of the subject, called sungazing, I do want try much of that. See what happens and if its true that you can be "nutrified" and fed by the suns energy needing no food or water.

Dude,
Seriously.........the desert is a nonforgiving place. Trained Marines can die there. You should train for this and then learn from the training.....i.e.
1. learn an area have a good map and then learn the area because you may get lost and your map get destroyed or lost. you should let friends/family know where you are and check back at specific times also let them know your apx grid coordinates.
2. Water. without you are dead. Training in the desert is NOT like the rest of the U.S. I have trained in both..........you get lost in virginia there is a water source w/i walking distance. In the desert.......you may not get water for days......
3. The sun will bake you and when you try to find shelter....the "critters" will try to find it too and unfortunately they can kill you. Scorpions and snakes want relief from the sun and will bite you. you will stay dehydrated unless you have a water source that is protected from contamination.....your thoughts will get hazy and you will have sunburn. Your body will be pushed to its limits. Hey man, even Jesus only did 40 days in the desert and he was near a water source. Seriously, without water you are a dead man.
4. Cold, it is cold at night. the critters get cold too.......they will bite you ...does this sound vaguely familiar? You can't shed your clothes for sunburn and you can't be too careful. Cover all the boots and things that critters want to crawl in well because you will take the boots off.....sleep and wha........aaaam, ouch ....biten by a scorpion. You are done.....most only make you sick but this small thing may put you over the edge. Some scorpions are deadly and you won't make it for help......you are buzzard bait.
Man seriously.........train a few days at a time......then make it a week, then make it a month. Maybe then you can make it a few months.....the conditions change each time. Water, weapons......silence......sanity....take a friend or keep them informed. finally.......move to a part of the U.S. that is more hospitable to training. If the shtf.......move to Kentucky or Canada........these are livable places. They freeze and kill a lot of the bad "critters" that bite you. Even then ............ticks can kill, snakes too. My suggestion.....move to a better climate, train there..........pray the shtf scenio does NOT happen.
Good Luck .......but bad idea in my humble opinion. Move.