98.6 Degrees: The Art of Keeping Your Ass Alive

by Cody Lundin

  Field Tested

  Your kit must be field-tested-use it or lose it. Ideally, you should completely wear out the contents by practicing how they’re used. Experiment with what you pack! Explore each item’s advantages and disadvantages now, long before the emergency arrives. Owning a survival kit that you haven’t used is like reading a book on how to swim when the boat’s going down. Practice on duplicate gear so the stuff you carry is 100 percent new and ready to go, not worn out and battered. Yes, it will cost you twice as much money, but aren’t you and your loved ones worth it?

  Simple

  The concept of keeping it simple is arguably the most important. It is the glue that holds everything together. It’s the master concept in which all things should be contained. Your trip planning, your gear, the survival kit you carry, the game plan you leave with your two trusted people—everything should be simple. Simplicity is the key to life and certainly to any panic situation. Don’t underestimate this powerful force; keep it simple!

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  SURVIVAL KIT COMPONENTS

  In general, general, I pack the following items in my kit, but as I mentioned earlier, people’s needs are different. I’m not you, and vice versa, and we won’t be there to sing “Kumbayah” to each other if the ship goes down. High grade what you want from my list, add what you want from yours, and scrap the rest. I modify kits as necessary, depending on geographical life zones, weather factors, the number of people in my group, terrain issues, the accessibility of the area to rescue teams, or whatever other factors I feel are important.

  Don’t let your kit become a static lump that never sees the light of day until it’s needed. I’m constantly dinking around, replacing this, repairing that, adding something here, or taking something out. Certain core items, however, have remained intact for several years. I won’t replace matches with something else anytime soon, if ever, and some elements are so basic to regulating body temperature or signaling for rescue that they have become crucial. Their importance in helping us survive will be around as long as the physical laws that govern this planet. Next to each item in the list, I’ve included its weight in ounces.

  My Kit Components List

  My Survival Kit Container

  Although this seems like a lot of gear, the italicized items fit into a pouch the size of an eyeglass case. I carry my survival kit in a large-capacity fanny pack. I’ve arranged items to take up as little space as possible, thereby using most of the pack for food, instructional materials for students, or extra clothes. I don’t like things hanging from my shoulders, so I rarely use backpacks. I take my fanny pack into the bush 90 percent of the time. Because of this, I need all the extra space I can get.

  Attached to my fanny pack’s waist belt, I carry two, one-quart water bottles, one on either side to evenly distribute the weight in my pack. Two bottles make disinfecting water with halogens easier and give me a second chance if I lose or break a bottle. Both bottles feature a wide mouth, making it easier to collect and disinfect water for drinking. This also makes it less of a hassle if the contents freeze.

  On the eighth day, the Lord created duct tape. This sticky stuff holds a special place in my heart because its uses are virtually limitless. Upon two areas of each bottle I’ve applied as much duct tape as possible while still allowing it to fit within its carrying pouch. One bottle has professional-grade duct tape from the hardware store that touts a 212°F (100°C) delamination rating. When purchasing tape, most larger hardware stores give you three choices in regard to quality. I’ve labeled them “I wish I were a man”, “I think I’m a man,” and “By God, I am a man.” (As thrifty as I can be, I buck up and gleefully fork over the extra dough to have within my presence this wonderfully sticky salvation.) My other bottle sports “100 mile-an-hour” military tape that incorporates a tensile strength of 45 pounds per inch and an adhesion rating of 55 ounces per inch with the bonus of a 10-percent stretch factor. The tape gets its name from the military, which once used it to temporarily repair bullet holes in airplanes. Its delamination rating, however, is only 150°F (65°C). Apply the tape carefully, wrapping it on top of itself until you reach the desired thickness. Take the old tape off and add new stuff every year to year and a half, depending on how beat up or delaminated it looks.

  One of my bottles has a short piece of parachute cord inserted under the tape. The top of the cord forms a loop that allows me to tie on cordage and lower the bottle into a crevice, wash, or windmill casing to retrieve water. The loop enables me to easily carry the bottle from a shoulder sling or other improvised method, thereby freeing up my hands to accomplish more important tasks. On extended desert trips, I carry more water or make caches in key areas before the journey.

  Attached to the outside of my fanny pack, I carry an extra flashlight and a multi-tool. Aaaauugghh! Yes, I said multi-tool. I’ve been carrying one for more than nine years, yet have used it only two or three times. The main reason I carry one at all is for the wire cutters; the world is full of old, rusty barbed-wire fencing, and real fencing tools are extremely heavy. If you’re a pilot or are into firearms or other technical doodads, multi-tools are nice, but be sure to purchase a quality pair.

  The external flashlight is my principal light because it’s easier to find than the one buried within my pack. I carry two since I work with students in the backcountry and frequently visit deserts where high temperatures require nighttime travel. My fanny pack, like most, sports an array of bungee cords and tie straps that are capable of anchoring other gear if needed.

  What you use as a kit container is up to you. It could be a coffee can, soap dish, fishing vest, belt pack, fanny pack, or whatever containment system fits your intention and lifestyle. Use something detachable from the bigger picture so you can carry it alone if necessary. In other words, if your kit’s located within a compartment of a large-capacity backpack, the odds of you being too lazy to put its contents into something more manageable for a short hike skyrocket.

  Survival Kit Priorities

  In your enthusiasm to escape to the nearest trailhead, don’t forget what your kit is supposed to accomplish. Its main focus is to regulate core body temperature and allow you to signal for rescue, while conserving what energy you have and improve your situation. In our three-day, 72-hour scenario, everything else carried is statistically fluff.

  Even a first-aid kit, while exceptional in its value, should take a backseat to the above. Although the art of pre-hospital emergency medicine began more than 30 years ago in the United States, many variables exist in the wilderness. To cover them all medically or otherwise would require a large-capacity backpack and more. Most people enjoying the backcountry are not physicians, and many lack basic first-aid and CPR training. In fact, 95 percent of all rescues are performed without the aid of a physician, relying instead on first responders, emergency medical technicians (EMTs), and paramedics who may or may not have training in wilderness medicine and rescue techniques. Everyone on the planet should receive at least basic first-aid and CPR instruction, especially those wishing to pursue quality time in the outdoors. Folks who practice wilderness medicine know that with the exception of certain drugs and neat techniques, all they’re hoping to do is stabilize the patient in order to transport them to a real medical facility. This same drama has been played out on wartime battlefields for decades.

  If you have a major problem in the field with the A, B, Cs (airway, breathing, and circulation), you’re in big trouble. If a medical emergency is going to take you out, you probably won’t have the training, help, or equipment on site to deal with it, especially if you’re the typical outdoor enthusiast. Am I saying blow off the first-aid kit? Absolutely not!

  Explaining My Kit Components

  I’ll explain each item starting at the top of the list, including where to find it or how to make it, why it’s carried, and a little on how it’s used. Truly knowing how to use the contents is your responsibility. This knowledge cannot be learned from a book, a video, or from
a lot of wishing. Cowboy up, get off your butt, and figure out how the gear you’re choosing to shluck around works. Again, don’t whip out the “how-to-swim” book when the boat’s going down.

  Two heavy-duty freezer bags

  (one gallon and one quart):

  Courageous, cheap containment

  for a plethora of precarious predicaments.

  Containers are incredibly valuable in the bush. They are an art form. In the woods, you need to know how to make pottery, weave a basket, use fire to hollow out wood, grow gourds, have access to animal parts, or be hip to some other method in order to achieve containment. Entire cultures evolved around container use; ask any hunter-gatherer tribe.

  Freezer bags are tough, cheap, commonly available containers, and their uses are only limited by your imagination. These are collapsible containers that can fit virtually anywhere. Conveniently enough, gallon-sized bags will hold a gallon of water while quart sizes hold a quart. Brand-name freezer bags have quality zipper seals that if treated gently, will support the water weight of a filled bag without popping open.

  Freezer bags have a very wide “mouth.” Compare it to the mouth of a traditional water bottle and the bag wins hands down. This mouth is wonderful for scooping up water, especially in road ruts, as it allows you to skim the top of a puddle while minimally disturbing the muddy bottom. Practice will enable you to achieve a surprising volume of water in one scoop.

  Many nooks and crannies in the backcountry hold water that can’t be reached using a regular-sized water bottle. If water has pooled between rocks or other unyielding surfaces, however, the freezer bag can be compressed in the hand, lowered into the crevice, and filled. If you can get your hand into an area, the baggie will follow.

  Use common sense when storing freezer bags and rotate them every year since plastic becomes brittle over time. Keep in mind that the more folds and creases you put into a bag, trying to make it as small as possible, the more weak spots you’re creating in the plastic. Last but not least, purchase brand-name freezer bags. Cheap store-name brands are just that—there is a difference in quality; spend the extra 65 cents—you’re worth it.

  Tincture of Iodine 2%:

  How not to barf up a lung from the faucet to the field.

  Water in the field can be contaminated by organic and inorganic substances from land erosion, the disintegration of minerals, rotting vegetation, earth- and water-borne biological cooties, industrial chemical pollutants, and microorganisms from animal and human waste. This last nasty is the biggest concern for most outdoor travelers.

  There are several ways to disinfect water. “Water disinfection” means killing or removing the pathogens or bugs that make us ill. While its usage is technically associated with chemical halogens such as iodine and chlorine, it can be applied to filtration and heat as well. “Water purification” involves the removal of organic and inorganic chemicals and particulate matter that deal with how water looks, tastes, and smells. It has nothing to do with the art of eliminating harmful microorganisms. For our purposes, how the wet stuff looks, tastes, and otherwise isn’t nearly as important as how not to barf up a lung while filling your pants with excrement. Severe diarrhea can increase fluid loss at a horrifying rate, up to 25 quarts in a 24-hour period! Water disinfection is a huge subject and can be somewhat complex, so I won’t go into the many other methods in this book.

  There are four families of critters that cause us grief: protozoa, parasites, bacteria, and viruses. Some of these creatures pack a serious punch and can make you dead if they are not dealt with. It’s estimated that 1.5 billion rural people and 200 million urban folks in our world suffer from poor sanitation and the lack of safe drinking water. Worldwide, 28,000 to 68,000 people die each day from diseases caused by contaminated water and unhealthy conditions. Iodine kills every one of the little bastards with the exception of the protozoa Cryptosporidium parvum, which infects many herd animals, including cows, goats, sheep, deer, and elk.

  Aside from heat, chemical disinfection is the primary method used for treating water in the backcountry. Iodine is a chemical halogen available in many forms, including 5 percent to 7 percent solution, 10 percent solution, tablets, crystals, and 2 percent tincture. Regardless of what form you choose, it must remain in contact with the water for a certain period of time in order for it to do its killing. The amount of contact time required varies in regard to the water’s temperature and pH, how strong the iodine solution was made, the type of microorganisms that are present, and the quantity of nitrogen compounds and particulate matter found within the water.

  The wilderness areas I travel in are subject to cattle, dogs, people, beaver, and plenty of other known carriers of various waterborne pathogens. In general, I use five drops of tincture of iodine 2 percent per quart of water, although as many as 10 drops may be used. For most of the water sources I frequent, I let the five drops sit for 30 minutes. If this is the case, then you can bet your butt the water I’ve treated was clear and temperate. This is important as water temperature and clarity affect how long iodine needs to sit before the water is safe to drink. Turbidity, or a water’s “cloudiness,” is caused by suspended particulate matter such as clay, silt, plankton, and other microscopic organisms, and is often the culprit behind water that tastes and smells crappy. Funky-looking surface water is a common occurrence in the backcountry and contains 10 times the organic carbon content of aquifer groundwater. Waterborne pathogens can absorb into or already be imbedded within the floating matter to such an extent that organisms in the center of the chunks are somewhat protected from disinfection methods. Iodine and chlorine are halogens. Both readily bond to nitrogen compounds, organic and inorganic, that are present within the water. These nitrogen compounds, commonly referred to as pond scum, mess with the halogen’s ability to kill, requiring either more sit time for the water to disinfect or increased amounts of halogen. In the case of sodium hypochlorite 5.25 percent, otherwise known as chlorine bleach, organic matter bonds with the chlorine itself, and actually changes its chemical makeup into something called chloramine, which doesn’t do jack to disinfect your water. This is just one reason why chlorine sucks for field-water disinfection.

  Filtering out water turbidity decreases the number of microorganisms present in the first place, which decreases the amount of iodine needed to disinfect the water, thus making the water look and smell a whole lot better. Water clarity can be improved by simply letting the water sit or by straining it through a piece of clothing, bandana, or grass filter.

  In general, iodine and halogens are very temperature sensitive and take longer to do their work when it’s cold. Thus, the colder the water, the longer the contact time is needed in order to successfully eliminate bad bugs. For extremely cold water, let the five drops sit for two to three hours, or longer, if possible. To cut down on the sit time, you can also add more iodine, up to 10 drops per quart, although the water will again taste like doo-doo. Packing two or more bottles helps, as it allows you to treat one bottle while you drink the other.

  Although impractical to execute in the field, water pH is also a factor. Halogens form several compounds, each with different disinfection rates, by oxidizing in water. How well each compound works is determined by pH. In general, the optimal pH for halogen disinfection is 6.5 to 7.5. The more alkaline the water, the greater the dose of iodine required. If water becomes extremely alkaline, as it does in some parts of my beloved desert, it’s usually too nasty to drink anyway.

  A word to the wise. If the water you score is pretty much funk city and difficult to filter, add more iodine rather than just prolonging the contact time. When dealing with extremely questionable liquid, both the color and the taste of iodine-treated water can be used as rough indicators for proper disinfection. In these circumstances, if the iodine taste created would gag a camel and the contents of your bottle appears yellow to light brown, you’ve successfully achieved 0.6 parts per million or greater, which is a good thing.

  To summari
ze, strain the water if necessary to get rid of organic and inorganic matter, and then add no more than 10 drops of iodine per U.S. quart. Give the bottle a little shake. If the water is fairly temperate, let the solution sit for 30 minutes. Before drinking, partially unscrew the lid and turn the bottle upside down, allowing the treated water to dribble down the threads, as it only takes a drop to get ill. By the way, if you flavor water to make it more palatable and the flavoring contains vitamin C (ascorbic acid), it will neutralize the iodine (and its nasty taste!) before it does its duty. Wait 30 minutes or longer before adding the flavoring! Zinc brushes are also available to rid the water of its iodine taste. I’m not about to carry around this one-trick pony, but to each his or her own.

  Another major advantage to carrying tincture of iodine 2 percent is its use as a topical wound disinfectant. When I was a kid, my skin was stained with iodine a good part of the time due to an assortment of scratches, cuts, abrasions, and punctures. This product allows you to disinfect your water and your wounds for less than a dollar—it’s a screaming deal!

  Tincture of iodine 2 percent has a much longer shelf life (up to several years longer) than compressed iodine tablets. It comes in its own unbreakable, one-ounce plastic bottle with a cohesion dropper and usually retails for under a buck. The bottle is typically tinted or opaque, giving the iodine greater protection from light sources. Circle the bottle with brightly colored tape for better visibility and write “Iodine” in permanent marker on its surface to minimize misunderstandings. It can be purchased at most discount pharmacies except Wal-Mart; the “Greeting Gestapo” will kick you out of the store if you’re barefoot. If the pharmacist doesn’t have any in stock, they’ll probably be able to order some. Make sure to purchase iodine that’s “colored,” since drops of the “denatured” or clear stuff are hard to see as they hit the water. This compact, lightweight, cheap, easily available, globally effective, multiuse, handy-to-use product with an extended shelf life is worth its weight in intestinal parasites for the outdoor enthusiast.