Here is a wonderful site to check out on Topo Maps!!!

By Blake Miller

I am currently teaching a Navigation Class (a three credit class) at my local community college.

While preparing for my class on topographic maps I came across this fine power point presentation from the “World of Teaching.”

The power point presentation is FREE and provides a nice overview on topographic maps.

Go here for the presentation; Maps.

Blake Miller has made a career out of staying found and knowing where he is at all times. His formal navigation training began when he joined the U.S. Navy in 1973. He served as an officer aboard several Navy ships over his

Blake Miller

twenty-year career; many of those tours included the duty of Navigator. Blake began working with satellite navigation systems at sea in 1976, culminating with the then-new satellite positioning systems aboard the Battleship WISCONSIN in early 1990.

In 1998 Blake started Outdoor Quest, a business dedicated to backcountry navigation and wilderness survival. Blake has taught classes to wild land firefighters, state agency staffs, Search and Rescue team members, hunters, hikers, skiers, fishermen and equestrians. He regularly teaches classes through the Community Education programs at Central Oregon (Bend) and Chemeketa (Salem, OR) Community Colleges.

As a volunteer, Blake teaches navigation and survival classes to students in the local school districts, and conservation groups. He is a member of a Search and Rescue team.

If you have any questions about land navigation or wilderness survival, you can contact Blake through SurvivalCommonSense.com@gmail.com, or you can go to his website or Blake’s blog.

Contact Information:

Phone: 541-280-0573

Email: outdrquest@aol.com

To hear a Blake Miller radio interview about choosing a magnetic compass and GPS on SurvivalCommonSense.com Radio, click here.

To learn more about land navigation, check out this affiliate blog!

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Let navigation expert Blake Miller answer any of your questions about staying found! (Blake Miller photo)

Check out this week’s update, which features a great jerky recipe and survival expert Peter Kummerfeldt’s gear for the backcountry  by clicking here.

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Blake Miller has made a career out of staying found and knowing where he is at all times. His formal navigation training began when he joined the U.S. Navy in 1973. He served as an officer aboard several Navy ships over his

Blake Miller

twenty-year career; many of those tours included the duty of Navigator. Blake began working with satellite navigation systems at sea in 1976, culminating with the then-new satellite positioning systems aboard the Battleship WISCONSIN in early 1990.

In 1998 Blake started Outdoor Quest, a business dedicated to backcountry navigation and wilderness survival. Blake has taught classes to wild land firefighters, state agency staffs, Search and Rescue team members, hunters, hikers, skiers, fishermen and equestrians. He regularly teaches classes through the Community Education programs at Central Oregon (Bend) and Chemeketa (Salem, OR) Community Colleges.

As a volunteer, Blake teaches navigation and survival classes to students in the local school districts, and conservation groups. He is a member of a Search and Rescue team.

If you have any questions about land navigation or wilderness survival, you can contact Blake through SurvivalCommonSense.com@gmail.com, or you can go to his website.

Contact Information:

Website: www.outdoorquest.biz

Blog: outdoorquest.blogspot.com

Phone: 541-280-0573

Email: outdrquest@aol.com

To hear the Blake Miller interview about choosing a magnetic compass and GPS on SurvivalCommonSense.com Radio, click here.

For more navigation information, click here

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One of the pervasive folk legends about finding directions  in the wilderness or woods, is that moss grows on a certain side of a tree or rock. Just find your way by observing where the moss is,  according to this theory, and you won’t get lost.

According to my compass, the moss was on the west side of this stump.

by Leon Pantenburg

According to this traditional old “wisdom” the moss is thickest on the north side of a tree in the northern hemisphere. In the southern hemisphere, the moss is thickest on the south side.

Subsequently, this survival tip will help you to find your way in a forest. Here’s one opinion about that: finding directions with moss

But the newspaper guy in me had to ask: What direction does the moss point? Is there a difference in the location of the forest and the way the moss points? What are the variations? Why? Where did this legend come from? (Check out this video!)

The basis for this directional moss idea may have come from general information about moss. Moss produces spores instead of seeds, and it needs a damp  environment to reproduce.  Moss spores don’t survive in dry areas.

The sun shines from the south in the northern hemisphere, so a tree’s north side is generally more shaded and damp.  It stands to reason that there would be more moss on the damp  – the north – side

The moss myth never got far with me. In the dense, deciduous forests of Mississippi where I used to hunt and ramble, I could never find any pattern for the moss. In any dense, thick forest – where the sun doesn’t penetrate as far – it seems like you’ll see mosses on all sides of the trees. In some of standing water swamp areas where I used to wader-hunt for ducks, the moss was everywhere. It sometimes varied because of the fluctuating water levels!

Moss grows everywhere in this temperate rain forest in Oregon.

As for rocks, well, mosses will grow on almost anything if conditions are favorable.  I suppose you might find more

The moss on these trees at Camp Makulla was also on the west side!

moss on the north side of rocks in an open area, but in a shaded forest, chances are good that the rocks will be completely covered.

There are apparently so many variables about where and when moss grows in a forest  that a firm rule can’t be established.

In July, 2010, I was at Camp Makualla Boy Scout camp in the Cascades with some of the scouts from Troop 18 in Bend. There was a lull in the action, so I took my compass and camera and went walking. The idea was to check out this directional moss theory. (And, I love to ramble through the woods, and never need much of an excuse! )

I couldn’t find a consistent pattern anywhere. In one area, the moss grew on the west side of the trees, because there had been some timbering going on that let in more sunlight. A short distance away, the trees and underbrush were so dense that moss was everywhere.

The lichen on this dead juniper tree in the desert grew on the top!

One of my requirements for a wilderness survival tip is consistency. The skill or technique must work every time, because there is no room for error when it comes to survival.

To me, the bottom line on the moss directional theory is this: Moss grows everywhere in the wilderness. There is not enough consistency, that I could find, to lend creditability to this “survival tip.”

Don’t depend on finding your way, based on directions gotten from the moss on trees. This idea is NOT something to promote or rely on.

Subsequently, I dub direction finding by observing  moss growth a myth. And I proclaim that myth busted!

Recommended Reading:
Surviving a Wilderness Emergency
Build the Perfect Survival Kit

GPS Made Easy (GPS Made Easy: Using Global Positioning Systems in the Outdoors)

Staying Found: The Complete Map and Compass Handbook

For more related SurvivalCommonSense.com tips and stories, click on the highlighted words:

• Dress with the right fabrics.
• Have a plan to make a tarp shelter.
• Carry lightweight, compact firestarter.
• Find the most effective fire ignition system.
• How to make charcloth, a material that can catch a spark from any source.
• Use charcloth as an effective method of catching a spark to make a fire.
• It can kill you: Hypothermia
• Hardtack: A great emergency food
• About Leon Pantenburg

http://www.survivalcommonsense.com

by Mark Henderson, science editor

“Times Online” Aug. 21, 2009

It has long been a staple of adventure stories: the hero, lost in the wilderness, painstakingly tries to find his way back to civilization only to stumble across his own tracks and discover that he has been walking in circles.

When nothing looks familiar, and every direction seems to be the same, STOP and think about what to do next!

Now the popular belief that people in unfamiliar surroundings tend to walk round in circles has been confirmed by scientists.

Experiments in a German forest and the Sahara desert in Tunisia have shown that lost people double back on themselves without meaning to unless they have a marker, such as the Sun or Moon, to guide their way.

“The stories about people who end up walking in circles when lost are true,” said Jan Souman, of the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany, who led the research.

“People cannot walk in a straight line if they do not have absolute references, such as a tower or a mountain in the distance, or the Sun or Moon, and often end up walking in circles.”

The scientists, whose work is published in the journal Current Biology, also debunked a popular explanation that has been advanced to explain walking in circles.

It has been suggested that people might veer in one direction because one leg is slightly longer or stronger than the other. Over time such small differences could cause somebody to walk in a circle.

The new research, however, in which people were blindfolded and asked to walk in a straight line, found that while they ultimately walked in circles, they did not do so reliably in any particular direction. The subjects sometimes veered left and sometimes right, which would not happen if differential stride length or power was a factor.

Dr. Souman said that it was more likely that circular walking patterns tended to emerge from increasing uncertainty about direction. “Small random errors in the various sensory signals that provide information about walking direction add up over time, making what a person perceives to be straight ahead drift away from the true straight ahead direction,” he said.

In the study the research team took six volunteers to the Bienwald forest, in southern Germany, and asked them to walk in as straight a line as they could while their progress was monitored using GPS devices. Four volunteers walked on a cloudy day when the Sun was hidden and two in bright sunshine.

The four who walked under clouds all moved in circles and three of them crossed their own paths repeatedly without noticing. The two volunteers who were able to see the Sun walked in straight lines, except for 15 minutes when it was obscured by cloud.

A similar pattern occurred when three other volunteers were tested in the Sahara desert in southern Tunisia.

Two volunteers, who walked during the day and could see the Sun, veered off course but did not walk in circles. The third, who walked at night, kept to a straight line when the Moon was visible but doubled back on himself when it disappeared behind clouds.

The team is planning to investigate the phenomenon further in the laboratory by asking volunteers to walk through a virtual-reality forest on a specially designed treadmill.

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This post was sent in from a reader in Los Gatos, CA. The hiker in the news story, Edward Rosenthal, 64, of  Los Angeles, went for a dayhike on Sept. 24 at Joshua Tree National Park, CA., was lost for six days and nearly died of thirst.

Edward Rosenthal shows the cap he wrote messages on during his lost in the desert ordeal. (AP Photo)

Rosenthal’s ordeal started after he became disoriented after making a wrong turn while returning to his car. After wandering some 25 miles, he eventually stopped in a small canyon.

In the days that followed, he wrote on his hat what he thought would be his last messages of love to his wife and daughter and to offer plans for his funeral.

Rosenthal had inadequate signaling tools, and no extra water, shelter materials or survival gear. By the time

Rosenthal was rescued, he was severely dehydrated and about to experience kidney failure.

While he did, eventually, stay put because of exhaustion, Rosenthal probably would have been rescued much earlier if he had followed some common sense guidelines.

To read the entire story, click here.

For more related SurvivalCommonSense.com tips and stories, click on the highlighted words:

• STOP: Use this exercise to reduce stress and focus your thoughts.
• The importance of water to survival.
• Make a practical hydration system part of your survival kit.
• Product test: the Sport Berkey Water bottle.
• Effective methods of  carrying water.
• Keep your water bladder storage system smelling and tasting great.
• Where to find water in the desert.
• Find water in vines.
• About Leon Pantenburg

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“The commonality we would find in most of our searches is that people are not necessarily properly equipped,”  – Lt. Scott Shelton, Deschutes County (Oregon) Sheriff’s Office in a Sept.17,2010 Bend Bulletin interview.

(Editor’s note: Support your local newspaper! They invest the time and money to cover stories such as this excellent piece by Eric Golden of the Bend (OR) Bulletin. Check out the Bulletin website for more Central Oregon news! )

The cost of the lost

Deschutes County search and rescue officials log a record number of hours

By Erin Golden / The Bulletin

If you got lost while hiking this summer in Central Oregon, you weren’t alone.

Not yet nine months into the year, Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office Search and Rescue volunteers have already logged more than 23,000 hours — more than in the full calendar year of 2009, when volunteers put in a total of 19,000 hours.

Missions completed this year include fire evacuations, body recoveries and rescues of people who were injured while enjoying the outdoors. The largest number of calls, however, were for hikers, snow-shoers and others who somehow ran into trouble and couldn’t find their way back to where they started.

Lt. Scott Shelton, special services coordinator for the Sheriff’s Office, said officials have reviewed this year’s incidents to look for trends. They found no clear profile of a person who gets lost. But it was easy to spot one growing problem: People who venture out without the right supplies or skills, but think they’ll be fine as long as they’ve packed some gadgets.

“Age-wise, it’s across the board, activity-wise, it’s across the board,” Shelton said. “The commonality we would find in most of our searches is that people are not necessarily properly equipped. They may have (Global Positioning System) devices or map and compass devices, but they don’t know how to use them or are inadequately trained.”

This year, Deschutes County search and rescue crews have participated in 34 searches, which take an average of nine hours. Some missions require a handful of volunteers and one or two full-time staff from the Sheriff’s Office, while others can require dozens of volunteers, deputies and assistance from other law enforcement agencies.

Shelton said search and rescue responds to any call that indicates that someone could be in trouble, even when there’s limited information to go on.

In March, more than 30 people were involved in a search on Paulina Peak, near La Pine, after officials got reports of several radio transmissions from a person who needed help. Teams searched the area for hours but never found anyone.

Most cases are a bit more clear-cut, though not necessarily quick and easy to handle. Often, hikers who venture off a marked trail or take a wrong turn will call to report that they’re lost. In other cases, someone else will call to report that a hiker or group hasn’t returned home when they’d planned.

Chris Sabo, the trails specialist with the Deschutes National Forest, said an increasing number of hikers who venture into the wilderness expect to see signs and clearly marked trails. When they find themselves in areas that are virtually untouched by development, they become confused about their location.

“Folks are expecting … maybe the Drake Park experience when they go up to Green Lakes or South Sister,” he said.

In some cases, Sabo said, people rely on guidebooks that are no longer accurate because the Forest Service has not maintained trails or because fires have changed the landscape.

But like Shelton, Sabo said the biggest problem lately seems to be hikers who leave home without the basics.

“With the advent of electronics, people are losing those basic skills of orientation, being about to read a simple map,” he said. “It’s almost scary to see how many folks first off don’t have a map, and if they do, they’re not well-oriented to it.”

Many people think they’ve covered their bases if they bring a GPS unit, but search and rescue teams frequently run into people who didn’t pack extra batteries — and didn’t bring a map as a backup.

And a large number of people haven’t taken time to learn to use the technology they assume will keep them safe.

At a recent gathering of search and rescue officials from around the state, Shelton said one team coordinator described rescuing the same person twice in the same year. The first time, the man had a GPS unit but didn’t know how to use it. After helping him find his way, volunteers showed him how to operate the device. Several months later, when he again called for help, he still didn’t know how to use the GPS.

Shelton said many people wrongly believe that cell phones will be able to help searchers find them in the event of an emergency.

“There are issues with (phone service) carriers, and it does not always guarantee you that because you have a phone and a phone signal that we’re going to be able to accurately, 100 percent of the time, pinpoint your location,” he said.

Sabo said cell phones should be low on the list after other essential supplies.

“If someone is relying on a cell phone to get them out of a pinch, right there that’s telling me they’re going out poorly equipped,” he said. “It’s not like calling up for a taxi ride.”

Another problem: People often wait until the sun is beginning to set before notifying anyone that they need help. That means searchers could have to hike in and do their work in the dark, which can come with a good deal of risk. Shelton said people should bring enough supplies and clothing to prepare to camp out overnight, because in some cases rescue crews have to wait for daylight.

“Ultimately, we have to take care of our own folks,” Shelton said. “If it’s an extremely hazardous situation, we have to evaluate before we can deploy.”

Officials expect the number of calls to drop off as temperatures cool off and fewer people venture outdoors. Hunting season and snowfall can cause those numbers to pick back up. By year’s end, Shelton said he expects search and rescue volunteers will have put in well over 26,000 hours of work.

Jim Ross, business manager at the Sheriff’s Office, said the increase in search and rescue calls hasn’t forced officials to dip into reserve funds — though they would if necessary. This year’s budget calls for $13,850 in training expenses, $30,000 for supplies and $23,900 for two new snowmobiles and a trailer. Expenses for fuel come out of the office’s general fuel budget.

Shelton said he expects the year to be one of the busiest ever — despite the anomaly of a summer without any major water-related incidents.

Last year, five people drowned in Central Oregon’s lakes and rivers. In addition, the body of a Bend man who went missing in Bend in August 2009 was recovered from the Deschutes River in June, and his cause of death was ruled to be drowning.

Erin Golden can be reached at 541-617-7837 or at egolden@bendbulletin.com.

lost hikers

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Great minds (apparently) think alike. I was working on a story about what maps to take into the wilderness to stay found, when Lucas from Survivalcache.com posted a related story.

The triad of staying found in the wilderness is the GPS, map and compass. Don't take a GPS without a map and compass, and make sure you have the right map along.

The circumstances we’re writing  about are a little different, and so are our map choices, but I’ll weigh in later. (I will put my two cents’ worth: A map is just one part of the staying-found equation. Also have a compass along, and a GPS with spare batteries. None of these tools are worth anything if you don’t know how to use them!)

Here’s Lucas with some great information for improving your Bug Out Bag:

If you stuck a state road map in your emergency survival gear backpack (or Bug Out Bag), and thought you were prepared, then you should reconsider. Here are three types of maps that should be included in your survival gear:

One of those maps should be a detailed topographical map of your area.

If you go to Digital-Topo-Maps.com you can get free topographical maps.

Just zoom in to your area, and click the “My Topo” button in the top right corner. You can print off any shots that you want for  free!

*Note: Sometimes it is difficult to get these maps to print correctly. You might want to get the image you want, save it to a flash drive, and take it to your local office supply store for a higher quality print.

http://www.survivalcommonsense.com

It’s really hard to think when there’s this awful, nauseating realization that you may be lost in the wilderness and you start to panic. Suppose you have a map and compass along, and a basic idea of how to use them. But maybe you didn’t think about using them…

The day may start out nice, but suddenly, the sky get cloudy, bad weather threatens and worst of all - you don't know where you are.

by Leon Pantenburg

After all, the sun was out, the day was nice, the trail is clear, the scenery beautiful and you stuck the map and compass in the pack somewhere. It was hard to get to, so you didn’t check it.

And, the point was to get out in the woods and relax, and who can unwind when you have to fool around with land navigation tasks? Besides, you’re well prepared, with survival knife, a survival kit, tarp  and…all that stuff.
But then it starts to get dark, or the weather changes, and you don’t remember which of the forks in the trail you took. At this point, many people will start to panic, and when that happens, you can’t reason.

But in this situation, remembering some common sense land navigation memory aides and acronyms will help calm you down. Once you can correctly orient the map, you can figure out where you are and where to go.

You can also decide if the smart option is to set up a shelter, build a fire and stay put while waiting to be rescued. Don’t try to make this kind of decision when you can’t think!

Humans are hard-wired to want an activity pattern. Creating a routine to fall back upon in this situation could help calm you down. It will hasten your ability to make good decisions.

Here’s a survival mindset exercise that uses simple, easy-to-remember map and compass memory aides. Memorize them, and the order they’re in, and you’ll have one more tool in your survival kit.

STOP: First and foremost, in any wilderness emergency is the need to focus on the situation. Stop (sit down while you’re doing this part), Think, Observe and Plan. Stay seated until you reach “P” and don’t get up until you have a plan. Then, get out the map and compass.

Red=N: Which end of the needle is north? Maybe you want to write this on the compass somewhere: Red = North.

These are basic navigation tools: compass, emergency whistle, map and GPS. Start with the basics: does the red compass needle point north?

Yeah – this is elementary stuff, but really important. Disorientation is a symptom of dehydration, fatigue, hypothermia and panic, and you can have all these problems at once. And maybe you also have to deal with  pain, because of an injury.

Also – and this sounds really elementary – make sure the needle actually does point north before you buy a compass. Twice, I have found name brand, quality compasses where the red needle pointed south. (I’m not the only one – wilderness expert Peter Kummerfeldt relates a similar story, with a different brand of compass.)

The other instance wasn’t funny, and could have lead to tragedy. I happened across a compass, with a red needle that pointed south, on the shelf of a local sporting goods store. An unsuspecting customer could have bought the compass, assumed the red needle pointed north and gotten really, really lost. The salesman was appalled, and checked out all the rest of the compass inventory on the spot.  Never, ever buy a compass that has anything whatsoever wrong with it!

Red in the shed: OK – you remember, and are positive, that red is north.

This compass needle is aligned with the orienting arrow. The "Red is in the shed."

But, next, aren’t you supposed to do something with the pointy do-hickey in the bottom?

It’s probably more dignified to say “Box the needle” or “Align the red, north-pointing needle with the orienting arrow figure on the bottom of the dial.” But you’ll remember “Red in the Shed,” because it rhymes and the alignment box resembles, with a little imagination, a tall, skinny shed.

Two norths? There are two norths on a topographic map: Magnetic north and True North and the difference could confuse an exhausted, cold person.

Magnetic north is where the needle points to the actual magnetic North Pole. In 2005, that was about 800 miles from the geographic north pole, near Ellef Ringes Island in the Canadian Arctic (Latitude: 82.7, Longitude: 114.4).

True north is the direction to the top of your map.  Since the earth is a pear-shaped object and a map is flat, inevitably, there will be some variations

True north really and truly does point to the top of the map; magnetic north is pointed to by the red magnetic needle.

So remember this acronym: MN to MN = Magnetic needle, magnetic north: The Magnetic needle on your compass points to magnetic north. MN-to-MN.

True north is always and truly at the top of your map.

But that’s not the only thing about true north and magnetic north you need to know.

The difference in angle between true north and magnetic north is called declination, and you’ll have to adjust your compass and map.

Which way to adjust for declination? How do you remember if you adjust for easterly or westerly declination?

In the continental U.S. , just look at the Mississippi River. If you have to go east to get to it, then you adjust for easterly declination. If you have to go west, it is westerly declination.  And, if you live in the zone along the big river, you probably don’t have to adjust for declination at all.

Anyone venturing out into the wilderness needs to have a good working knowledge of a map and compass.  Never rely on a GPS alone. Any electronic device can fail, and the best GPS in the world is only as good as its power source.

These tips are a very small piece of staying found. A critical tool in your survival kit is knowledge and skill. Invest the time and money to take a good land navigation class, then buy a quality compass.

Another good idea is to make your own topographic maps. I use the National Geographic Topo! Outdoor Recreation Mapping Software, and make a custom map whenever I go out. There are other fine mapping programs on the market also, and don’t forget google maps as a resource. 

Memorize these aids, and that potential panic attack will dissipate while you figure out where you are!

.

http://www.survivalcommonsense.com

If nobody knows you’ve gone, or where to look, or when you might be back, it could be a long wait  to be rescued! An detailed note, left behind before any outing, should be Standard Operating Procedure. The note could end up being a lifesaver!

These writing materials could be some of your most important survival items!

by Leon Pantenburg

Before writing anything, though, consider who the note will be entrusted to. It must be a reliable person who cares, and who can be relied upon to contact the proper authorities if you don’t show up as scheduled.

The standard style for an informative news story (which is what this note is) is based on the “Five Ws.” This model is taught in journalism schools, and the name refers to: Who, What, Where, Why and When.
Answer all these questions, and you will give the search and rescue folks a better chance of finding you quickly.

WHO: Start with your name and cell phone number. Also include the names of other people in the party and their cell phone numbers. The phone numbers can be critical: if one cell doesn’t get coverage, another might. Or one phone could be damaged or run out of battery power. All the numbers increase your chances of communication!
Include the make, model, year and license number of the vehicle you’re taking.

WHAT: The purpose of the outing is to do…Fill in the blank, and be specific. A mountaineering expedition to scale a peak differs tremendously from a fishing expedition to the lake at the base. Knowing the purpose of the trip helps narrow down where a lost person might be. It can also help emergency personnel prepare themselves more effectively for the search.

WHERE: I like to use GPS coordinates here. Put the coordinates (and the datum) down of where you intend to park your vehicle, waypoints of your route and your destination. Even if the weather gets nasty and your GPS won’t work, rescuers will have a good idea of where to look. A map left with the “Five Ws” note could be very helpful if you don’t use a GPS!

WHY: An important question, and one that will help rescuers know where to look. A wildflower photography or fishing trek may not cover a lot of ground. Rescuers will know to concentrate their efforts around the WHERE.

A 20-mile jaunt on the Pacific Crest Trail, though, means you’re ambitious, possibly lightly-clad and equipped and capable of covering a lot of ground. The search may have to be expanded. WHY also provides a clue as to how prepared the lost persons might be.

WHEN: You anticipate getting back at what time?  When should the person with the note contact rescuers?An additional insurance aspect is to take a piece of aluminum foil, step on it with the shoe you will be wearing to leave a footprint. Include the foil with the note. Searchers can then eliminate obviously bigger or smaller footprints with different tread patterns on the trail.Put the note, map and footprint in a gallon ziplock bag. Write the name of the missing person or party on the bag with a felt-tip pen, and hand the package over to rescuers.

Survival common sense is a combination of many small, inter-related skills and techniques. An informative note before leaving on your trek is a good place to start.

http://www.survivalcommonsense.com

Here’s the scenario: You walked further down that interesting-looking trail than originally planned and the sun is starting to set behind the mountains. An unsettled feeling in your stomach starts to get worse, and becomes a knot. The knot twists tighter as you realize you don’t have a clue where you are.  The thought sets it: I may be lost…

When everything looks the same: STOP. You may be lost!

by Leon Pantenburg

For many of us, the first reaction might be to take off, rapidly, in the direction we came from. Maybe jogging would be a good idea. Then, despite your best intentions, you start to panic…

But think: STOP! Say it out loud if you have to, then think what the acronym stands for: Stop, Think, Observe, Plan.

This well-used old acronym, probably mentioned in every survival manual, should be embedded in your psyche. STOP is a survival mind-set exercise. Here’s how to use it. Follow these steps.

Stop: Unless it’s dangerous, quit moving and sit down. Breathe. Take a drink of water. Eat a snack. Stay put – you can’t think until you can focus your thoughts. Time yourself – take at least 30 minutes to let the adrenaline wear off.

Think: Assess your choices and the tools available. Do you have your 10 essentials and the necessary survival gear along? Can you use them? Knowing you’re prepared for an unexpected night out can give you confidence and make you feel less afraid. This confidence could keep you from doing something stupid.

Observe: Take the surroundings into account, because this will affect what comes next. Is it getting dark? Is the temperature dropping or is the weather getting bad? These environmental factors must be considerations.

Plan: Based on your previous actions in this exercise, make an overall plan. Then make some immediate decisions and get going. Don’t expect anyone to help you, and don’t procrastinate.

For more information on making a survival kit, click here!

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