Fire by hand drill

Fire by hand drill

Tuesday 26 April 2011

A few pics from my recent overnighter

My home for 2 days

There is a rising problem with teenagers buying a bargain tent and then leaving it in place when they are done. Good if you need a shelter in a hurry

Beech coming in to leaf and an opertunity for a bit of  food.

The small leaves are the ones to eat.

Typical forestry plantation of Sitka Spruce

A wind broken Spruce.

A place where water gathers is often indicated by wet loving species like golden Saxifrage (edible) A good place for a gypsy well

Hairy bitter cress. Tastes like normal cress and can be quite powerfull

A nice stream coming of the mountain. I still boiled my water though.

Tent pole bag left behind!!


Wool twine left behind

Can left behind. A cooking pot


Camp fire and grill left behind. Crazy. Why can't the lazy bastards just take it home again.


Spruce new rowth is excellent for tea or to eat straight of the tree. Takes resinous though. I think you can taste the Vit C which they are high in.

Protein or a little friend for the night.

My Leuku, which was an outstanding tool and very usefull indeed.

Feathersticks for the fire.


3 good feathersticks produce alot of heat and will release alot of energy, worth practising.

A bit of split willow and kindling  on top of the feathersticks and the fire was established in under a minute!

The cutting tools I brought.



Original post here

2 comments:

Gorges Smythe said...

Too many young people have never been taught responsibility.

Mark said...

Aint that the truth Gorges?, some of the woods i use are a total mess of beer cans, bottles and fire scars, although the Estate office does organise litter picking trips a couple of times a year to clear up the mess, although it normally only takes a couple of weeks or so for it to all reappear again.

Part of the problem is people shouting down at the youth when they see them and alienating them, what i and the Estate workers do is interact (well try to) with them and have a chat and try to show them the error of their ways, it's all about education, which is where i hopefully step in :-), the Esate did a similar thing with the mountaion bikers, they were ripping up sensative areas, so the estate gave them a section of the wods to use and where they could build ramps and jumps and have fun without harming ecologically sensative areas or being deemed to be a hazard to walkers, it solved the problem more or less overnight