March 05, 2021
Today on the Wilderness Survival ECS, we all traveled up to Divide and began to dig camp out from under the snow and push the remaining cars out of the lot they were still stuck in from the storm the day before. After we finally recovered camp, we all went into the forest and began cutting down trees to find dry firewood. Next, we spent the better part of an hour splitting logs and trying to find dry kindling while the rest of our group began making tripods we could use to melt snow into water. Each of us was surprised to find that starting a fire when all of our materials were still cold and wet was substantially more challenging than it had been just the day before. Once we finally had our fires going, we started to set up our mini-camps in groups, each of us constructing a fire, shelter, and tripods to melt water. At this point, it was finally time for lunch and each group rotated responsibility for maintaining the fire and getting food. That afternoon, each of us was able to sample the water we had melted as we were given a presentation on creating traps out of firewood and twine to catch rabbits, squirrels, and chipmunks. Overall, our day was spent reviewing everything we had learned and showed us how much more prepared we were for a possible survival situation. While I hope I am never stranded in the woods in the middle of winter, I now know how to create a shelter and collect enough food and water to sustain me for several days.
