98.6 Degrees: The Art of Keeping Your Ass Alive Read online

  Sweaty palms, hands, soles of the feet and armpits

  Dilated pupils

  “Butterflies in the stomach” (hollowness), faintness,

  and nausea

  Oversensitivity to noise

  Psychological symptoms of fear:

  Shock, numbness, denial, helplessness

  Confusion, forgetfulness, and the inability to concentrate

  Irritability, hostility or passivity, stupor

  Talkativeness leading to speechlessness

  Restlessness

  Panic, flight

  Feelings of unreality, social withdrawal, and

  depersonalization

  Sadness, crying, sighing

  Auditory and visual hallucinations

  Disrupted sleep and appetite

  Helpful Hints for Dealing with and Controlling Fear

  Reading other people’s true survival stories is all the proof you’ll need that when the going gets tough the tough get going. Throughout history, people have dealt with and surmounted virtually every possible fear imagined. For optimal results in the field or the city, work at cultivating the following tips until the behavior becomes a natural, automatic reaction.

  Controlling Fear in Yourself:

  1. Be prepared. Accept the fact that a survival situation could, in fact, happen to you, and plan accordingly. Aside from physical practice, being prepared involves advanced planning, mental and physical conditioning, discipline, and an intimate understanding of the emergency gear you propose to carry.

  2. Train! Accepting that a deadly scenario could happen is not enough. Learn all that you can about survival and what your body can endure, and recognize and understand what your reactions to fear will be. Practicing skills builds confidence and strengthens a “can-do” attitude regarding your ability to survive.

  3. Don’t run from fear. When you’re afraid, take a step back from the fear and just notice it. Ignore the urge to analyze, judge, criticize, evaluate, or try to figure it out. Stepping back provides emotional space and reduces much of the charge around the fear energy.

  4. Stay aware of your surroundings. Learn to recognize the early warning signs of dangerous situations. Gain knowledge to reduce the perceived threat of the unknown.

  5. Stay constructively busy. Conserving energy as a survivor is key, yet do all that you can to make your situation more comfortable, reducing difficulties that encourage fear. Staying busy keeps the mind off fearful circumstances and gives you a sense that you’re in control of your destiny.

  6. Keep your imagination in check. Stick to the known facts by separating the real from the imagined.

  7. Adapt to your surroundings. Prepare yourself to think and act like an animal without judgment over your actions. In a sense, if you can’t beat fear, join it. Formulate plans B, C, and D before they’re needed.

  8. Discipline yourself to think positively. Even when talking to yourself, strive to use positive, “I AM” statements such as, “I AM going to make it out of here” and “I AM going to be rescued.”

  9. Adopt a positive survival attitude. Keep things in perspective and focus your attention firmly upon the goal of getting rescued.

  10. Use proper breathing exercises to lower the heart rate and reduce stress. (See exercise on page 55)

  11. Ask for help. Whether you’re currently walking upon a spiritual path or not, it’s never too late to start.

  12. Use humor. Kind humor transforms crummy attitudes.

  13. In summary, Party On!

  Controlling Fear in Others:

  1. Be a positive example. Maintain a calm presence and keep control, even if you feel out of control; inspire courage, hope, and the willingness to keep trying.

  2. Maintain discipline. Work toward finding and maintaining order and harmony within the group in a gentle, yet firm manner. Search out people’s strengths and assign them focused tasks to assist the group. Giving people things to do lessens feelings of helplessness, and takes their mind away from the current situation, while giving them a sense of control regarding their destiny.

  3. Exercise positive leadership. Be firm, determined, confident, compassionate, decisive, honest, and humorous.

  4. Stay alert for early signs of fear in others, and, when recognized, deal with them immediately. Knowing how the people in your group react to and deal with stress is priceless. Be intuitive to the needs of others and offer whatever support you can. Remember that one rotten apple can spoil the bunch.

  5. Cultivate teamwork and mutual support early on. Perhaps no other experience on Earth will require such a tightly knit and supportive group for success than the survival situation. The group that initiates and maintains a positive mental and emotional outlook, putting all of its efforts and concerns into the welfare of the entire tribe, is an extremely powerful force for staying alive.

  6. In summary, Party On!

  5

  DEALING WITH THE SURVIVAL SCENARIO: ATTITUDE, ADAPTATION, AND AWARENESS

  “Those who gave up died.”

  —DANIEL FERNANDEZ,

  ONE OF 16 SURVIVORS FROM THE DOOMED,

  1972 URUGUAYAN FLIGHT THAT CRASHED IN THE

  ANDES MOUNTAINS. DANIEL AND OTHERS WERE

  FORCED TO EAT THE FLESH OF THEIR DEAD

  FRIENDS FOR 72 DAYS IN ORDER TO LIVE.

  Give up and die. Emergency scenarios from around the globe are rich with examples supporting this painfully simple statement. The following sacred words, borrowed from Desert Rat Dave Ganci, are vital to the survivor: attitude, adaptation, and awareness. Cultivating their attributes will allow you to face obstacles within a positive light. Remember, however, that there are no guarantees that you’ll live. Anyone who tells you differently, who guarantees your safety, especially if they stand to make some cash, should be treated either as untruthful or as someone who has forgotten (or has never known) how all-powerful Mother Nature can be.

  Attitude

  The king of them all is attitude. Maintaining a positive attitude or “will to live” is critical to your survival. If your attitude falls, you’ll fall with it. Cultivating a good attitude doesn’t mean you have to don flowers and sport a poop-eating grin seven days a week. However, inherent to a positive attitude is the willingness to try; and if there is failure, the willingness to try again and again. Researching real-life stories of survivors and the horrific ordeals they’ve gone through and defeated will put your backcountry crisis into its proper perspective. This knowledge supports a “Yes I Can” attitude essential to your well-being and the others in your group. As a bonus, maintaining a positive outlook is contagious and will cause life in general to become more pleasant. When challenges do arise, they can be dealt with more easily.

  Prior training in survival skills boosts confidence and improves your actions under stress. This prior training is proof in itself that you value life in general, especially yours and the ones you love. It’s proof that you’ve taken the time to gain what skills you could to help deal with a life-threatening crisis. It increases self-confidence and causes you to believe that you, in fact, can survive because you’ve consciously taken the time to acquire the tools to do so. Remember, your life is worth the fight. Of all the millions of people on this planet, only you can accomplish the special tasks you’ve been given by life. Only you have the power to give your gift back to life for the benefit of us all. Never give up. Although it’s important that you carry a positive attitude, it doesn’t replace the need for you to carry a well-designed survival kit.

  Cultivating Rational Insanity and

  the Art of “Party On”... Understanding

  the Psychological Dynamics Behind

  This Mystical, Magical Mantra

  I like to listen to loud heavy-metal music. At some point, headphones blaring, I was given a revelation about cultivating a survivor mind-set. The term that came to me was “rational insanity.”

  During a survival episode, you’ll be taxed to the limit on all levels. In order to prevail and miti
gate the panic factor, you’ll have to be as cool as a cucumber. You’ll need to approach your situation in a somewhat detached and rational manner, while gearing up your mind and body to accomplish the insane if necessary, thereby smashing all self-imposed limitations. Funneling the intense energy of insanity and uniting it with the sound coolness of rational decision making creates a potent force in emergency scenarios. Condensing this potency can best be summed up in one simple statement: the clarion call “Party On!” Remember it in your time of need or whenever you need a boost of courage or focus. Relish and relax in its splendor. It is the most optimistic statement in the world, one in which there is no opposite, no opposing force. It is the ultimate attitude adjuster and contains great power if used with conviction.

  “Holy smoke! We lost our last match and there’s a storm coming!”

  Party On!

  “A flash flood swept away all our gear and we’re twenty miles

  from the trail head!”

  Party On!

  “My femur bone’s sticking through my skin and I’ve gotta cross

  that river!“

  Party On!

  The hard core may wish to tattoo this statement on their foreheads, backwards, so it can be read in the mirror as a reminder.

  The Essence of “Party On”

  Most everyone is familiar with the plight of the Donner Party, a truly epic story. I highly recommend the documentary video The Donner Party, a PBS home video production that may be available at your local library. The Donner Party consisted of dozens of families traveling together with many women and children. Of the 88 people who began the 2,500-mile trek, 46 survived, two-thirds of whom were women and children.

  On April 16, 1846, a caravan of nine covered wagons rolled out of Springfield, Illinois. It was the beginning of what would become a very cruel journey lasting several months on the Oregon Trail.

  Months later, and less than 150 miles from their destination, the party missed crossing the Sierra Nevada Mountains by a few hours due to a snowstorm and were ultimately trapped by the worst winter on record. The weeks passed and the weather worsened. Their supplies dwindled, forcing most into eating the flesh of their dead comrades. The party sent out groups to locate help but most failed. Finally, after weeks trapped by many feet of snow, one of several rescue parties arrived. The going was rough and they could take only a few people out at a time while leaving virtually no supplies for the rest of the starving group. Those left behind had no choice but to wait until the party returned. In this case, due to the technology of the day, the waits involved several painful weeks, culminating in an overall rescue time of an unbelievable four months!

  Through it all, one eight-year-old girl stands out amidst the carnage. Her name was Patty Reed. When the Donner Party trip began, her grandmother, who died less than two weeks out, had given her a little toy doll, which was her constant companion. Throughout her travels, Patty and the doll witnessed many hard times, including the banishment of her father for stabbing a man in self-defense during the heat of an argument. At this time morale was low and the group was unraveling fast as many had nearly died while crossing the Great Salt Lake desert.

  Months later in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, Patty passed up the opportunity to hike out with the first group of rescuers. One of her brothers, Thomas, was three years old and too small to walk in the deep snow. Patty opted instead to stay with him and told her distraught mother, who left with the first rescue party, “Well, ma, if you never see me again, do the best that you can.” She stayed among the dead and dying, now apart from most of her family, for several more bitter cold weeks until she, too, finally walked out to freedom.

  The documentary showed a picture of Patty decades later. She had lived to be an old woman, dying at the age of 93. The photograph shows her smiling broadly, proudly displaying the same little doll her grandmother had given her so many years before.

  This story is the essence of “Party On.” It is hard to imagine an ordeal you could get yourself into that would eclipse her experience. While others died all around her, she met challenge after challenge and succeeded, all at the tender young age of eight. Patty Reed’s journey was and always will be a testament to the power of attitude.

  Adaptation

  Begin to cultivate an appreciation for doing more with less. Practice the ability to squeak out whatever you can from the resources presented to you. Traveling south of the border from my beloved state of Arizona, you’ll come to a land where doing more with less isn’t just a cute concept—it’s a way of life. Many cash-poor communities in Mexico are used to improvising and adapting to their surroundings because they have to, while Americans head for the nearest discount store for a refund or exchange. The power of adaptation allows you to discover multiple uses for each item carried in your kit. It enables you to think like the critters that live in the very environment that threatens to take your life.

  Animals are instinctual. They have little bias about meeting their needs by whatever means work. You cannot afford to be choosy when caught in a jam. In order to live, you have to recognize and exploit every resource and option available. Talking about survival scenarios is hypothetical at best, because each situation will be different and every person will react differently to his or her particular situation, adapting or not adapting. In addition, essential survival gear can be lost or damaged, requiring the former owner to improvise.

  Awareness

  You must become like the master adapter, the coyote, all senses alert for whatever might be of use. Without proper awareness, it’s easy to walk by the water-filled cattle tank or miss the Jeep traveling the next ridge over. It’s similar to walking down a seedy big-city street. If you insist on watching your feet instead of the road ahead with all its interesting characters, your chances of being mugged increase dramatically. Awareness also includes having the foresight to properly prepare for your journey. Pay attention to your surroundings! Your life may depend on this in the wilderness or the wilds of our cities.

  6

  REDUCING THE THREAT OF THE SURVIVAL SITUATION: THE SEVEN Ps

  There’s an old military saying called “the Seven Ps” that, if adhered to, can prevent many survival situations from occurring. The Seven Ps stand for Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance. They boil down to the ol’ Boy Scout motto, “Be Prepared”! Careful planning is the foundation for creating a safer wilderness experience and is easily obtained in the information age in which we live. It involves taking the time to thoroughly research as many aspects as possible pertaining to your wilderness activity and destination, including current weather patterns, trail conditions, travel times, closures, fauna issues, detours, and so forth. Proper planning allows you to identify and understand potential dangers for your particular excursion and helps you develop a detailed equipment list, a healthy and realistic activity time line, alternate plans, and an emergency back-up plan(s).

  At the very least, indigenous peoples living the world over always had with them some semblance of a survival kit. One of the reasons native peoples revered their elders was the fact that there were so damn few of them. To rely on nature to provide all of your needs all of the time is a gamble. Don’t be fooled by instructors who perpetuate the myths that you can effortlessly “live off the fat of the land” or that survival is easy. Presenting information in such a fashion is extremely irresponsible, not to mention a lie, and produces arrogant, cocky students with little understanding of the power of nature and her infinite variables. There is a big difference between confident and cocky. The beauty of natural selection is that in time, it eventually weeds out the latter. A survival circumstance has a direct effect upon your life and those you love. It’s not a game. Stack the deck in your favor using a complement of modern gear, common sense, humility, and good training.

  The Preparation Game: Check Off All Five for a Rewarding Backcountry Experience!

  1. Physical Preparation: Outdoor activities are synonymous with ph
ysical stress and unique sanitary conditions. Maintaining a proper level of physical fitness, health, and hygiene is strongly recommended.

  2. Mental and Emotional Preparation: Self-confidence is the key and is the result of proper prior planning, skills practice, personal belief systems, and your overall backcountry experience.

  3. Materials Preparation: Pack the right equipment for the job (maintained and in proper working order) and know how to use it. Having back-up equipment for critical goods is wise in case of loss or failure.

  4. Dangerous Scenario Preparation: Weird stuff happens. Play out possible nightmare scenarios with others in your party, including travel routes, leadership roles, and relevant environmental emergencies.

  5. Spiritual Preparation: A strong grounding in a presence larger than oneself is an extremely powerful force and imparts the gift of a positive, holistic eagle’s-eye view of the current situation and life in general. I have been fortunate enough to witness “atheists” praying during a compromised wilderness scenario, and it is a profound sight indeed.