wilderness_superhero
8:12 PM 8/17/2001

so today, while in the shower at 2pmish in the afternoon, i got my solution...

i had been idling on the problem of, in an ideal world of deer killing, how i could reconcile primitive techniques with modern technology... i.e., even if i went bow hunting with a traditional longbow, a) the longbow was made with modern construction techniques, including fiberglass, and, also, it was not made by my own hand... therefor, the weapon was somewhat "tainted" from the start. worse than the bow situation was that of the arrow. basically, it appeared at that any ef

anyways, today i came up with the ultimate solution... no compromise, no quarter would be necessary, aside from that of patience. i had reconciled the paradox.

the bottom line is, when going into the wilderness alone from here forward, i will take nothing... except the knowledge i have in my head, and any trappings i have collected / gathered / hunted / built from previous such journeys. every journey needs a starting point, and this one, by logical extraction, would be nothing more than my naked body. no clothing, no tools, no knife, no matches, no food, NOTHING! very soon, i will make my inaugural journey, and from there, the rules hold.

i still have not ruled on the acceptability of practice sessions in the backyard, though at this point, it seems logical that this will be allowable.

some other guidelines might help:

initially,
- be near a source of water
- NEVER go on established human trails
- walk into the woods and THEN store your clothing
- study the local terrain map BEFORE leaving

- LEARN SOLAR / LUNAR NAVIGATION TECHNIQUES, ASAP!

in the end, the goal is to stalk and kill a trophy buck, using ONLY objects and tools that i myself created, FROM SCRATCH, from the wilderness, WITH NO AID OR HELP EXCEPT MY OWN BODY, MIND, AND SPIRIT.

THEN, EVERY piece of the kit will be a sacred item, untouched by man or machine, straight from nature into my raw hands.

WORKING TITLE:
evolution in a nutshell

naked into the wilderness
prologue: august 30, 2001

well, this isn't how a romantic would've imagined this adventure beginning. but this is how it happened.

one rainy thursday afternoon, i parked our black chevy suburban by a picnic table, emptied all the contents of my pockets, save a swiss army knife, and walked off into the woods.

i had selected this place because first, it was relatively convenient on my 800 mile drive from bethany beach to atlanta, and second, according to the park rangers, it was the least "inhabited" area of the park.

and so i set off.

FIRST LESSON: humans are pigs. they would roll in thier own trash if it wouldn't gash and cut them. this picnic area is absolutely a garbage dump. after you get past the picnic tables and barbeque pits piled with plastic, tin, and paper, then you walk further into the outskirts, not 30 feet, and find the used toilet paper and human feces. finally, 300 yards or so into the wild woods, by the creek, we find the truly adventurous souls, who simplify their waste (and baggage) by simply discarding an empty six pack. well, this is why i was doing it. to get away from this crap. but its amazing just how deep you have to go into the woods to escape it.

so once i was comfortable that i had gone in far enough to pass the human waste threshold, i went into stage 2 of the plan. that is, i disrobed. completely. let me back up a second here. this was not a spontaneous act, it was a planned act. however, upon actually being there, standing in front of the tree where i had decided to stash my clothing, it became a genuinely scary experience.

i realised, all at once, that despite all my extensive backpacking experience, despite being an eagle scout, well, basically, i learned

LESSON #2: you've never been truly naked until you are naked, lost in the wilderness, far from any trail, far from any other human, with NOTHING on and NOTHING on you. the second definition of naked, after "without clothes", is "exposed"... and being EXPOSED to the elements is, to me, the most naked one can get.

so, after a few minutes of hemming and hawing, i gritted my teeth and removed my shirt, then my shoes, then my shirt. i then took off my two most precious pieces of jewelry, and, along with my knife and car keys, secured them in the zipper pocket of my shorts. i neatly folded my clothes, placed them atop my shoes snuggled tight against the tree trunk, took a deep breath, and began to walk, naked, into the wilderness.

it felt good to be barefoot. barefoot is alot quieter than shoes. it felt NAKED to be naked. all of the sudden, i felt every branch, every leaf, every spider web, every bug bite. of course, i had felt all these things before. the novelty was, this time, i felt them +all over my body+. i slowed down my pace considerably. i tried to walk quietly, but this proved far more difficult than i had imagined. the rain had dampened the ground, and that helped. the ground was covered with inches of fallen leaves and rotting twigs, and that did not help. i quickly decided that i would learn the skill of quiet stalking at a later time.

my first stop was at a creek i had noted from the map (which was now stowed safely aboard the locked car), about 1/2 mile away from my entry point. it was a wonderful little brook, about 3 feet across, and an inch deep. and, not too many bugs.

i had decided well prior to departing that my first two creations would be 1) a cutting stone, and 2) a bag to hold things in. i had read that a good place to find raw cutting stones was streambeds. and how do you make cutting stones? by smashing rocks, of course. having no earthly idea what i was doing, i set to smashing stones, trying to judge by the grain whether they looked even remotely like the crude black and white photos and verbose descriptions i had studied.

i determined my first rock to be a hardish sort of sandstone. not great for cutting. my second rock, i seemed to get some luck, and upon smashing, it fractured into a small blade, and a larger axe. in fact, these terms could only be applied by the crudest of primitives. in fact, that is what i had become.

though probably not flint, quartzite, jasper, or chert (the stones i had read were ideal for blades), my implement proved adequate for chopping through vine. and as my second creation was to be a basket, thats exactly what i started doing. i found some extremely long prickerbush vine hanging from the trees, and set to stripping it of stickers and cutting it to length for the warps of the basket. in a short amount of time, i had 7 warps, and one very long weave. hah! i thought. who needs willow when you can use vine!?

i found out that answer in short order. first, we humans take a lot for granted. i had practiced making a primitive basket in the comfort of our home, using a table for a working surface. now, naked, on a 45 degree slope, rotten undergrowth and beetles squirming beneath my feet, i did not have what one might call an ideal working surface. i finally bit the bullet, and sat my rump in the detritus. scrotum and foreskin made contact too. its fairly unpleasant, but after a quick moment of trepidation, i got used to it.

so, with a little trouble on the slope, i finally got my warps arranged, 3 vertical, 3 horizontal, 1 straggler to make it an odd number. i had tested them and they clearly had the pliability to fit the contours of my intended basket. what i hadn't tested was whether the vine had the pliability to make a one inch interwoven spiral around the warps. as it turned out, the sturdy vine snapped one the first turn. and the second. and the third. thus ended the experiment of the stickerbush basket. but not to be deterred, i went off foraging, discarding the broken weave vine, holding my cutting stone in one hand, using my bundled warps as a spider stick, in search of good weave material.

it astounded me how much more secure i felt with something in my hands. at least now i had +something+. allthough, without a basket, 7 short vine pieces and one cutting rock was about my maximum carrying capacity.

though i felt more secure with a hefty rock and whipping sticks in my hand, that is a completely relative term. in fact, i was determined to spend the night, without clothing, food, fire, blanket or shelter. without, i soon realized, even flat ground. the rain was coming down, and though i didn't mind it during the temperate afternoon, i dreaded a midnight thunderstorm, racking my exposed flesh with torrents of rain and falling twigs. the deeper i went into the woods, the more concerned i became. in fact, my trepidation was so strong that i ceased enjoying the experience. resigned to my plan to spend the night, i almost slipped into a kind of depression.

it was when i realised my depression that i started seriously considering heading back out of the woods before sunset. i sat and pondered. what would that mean? would it make me a failure? certainly, only a mile from my car, and the paved road, i would not +die+. at most, i would suffer a sleepless night, and some ephemeral, if severe, discomfort. +and this was my initiation rite, into the wilderness!+ +i could not fail+

well, after an hour or so of meditation along those lines, i decided, in fact, that i +could+ go back to the car, my integrity intact. and that is what i decided to do, right there and then.

once my decision was made, it was like a huge weight lifting off my conscience. instead of worry and fear, in the same place i was before, i now felt relaxed and at peace. and so, now with the comfort of a matress and warm blankets in my thoughts, i decided to go deeper into the woods. but now, i was having fun. i stopped to study every mushroom. i carefully walked around or under each and every spider web (and that, my friends, is the simplest definition of "not walking a straight line from point a to point b"). i began to notice the deer tracks in the dried creekbeds. after a while, i could make out the deer tracks (actually, deer indentations) in the leafy underbrush, as well.

i also thought more about what my decision to not stay the night meant. and after a few more hours of walking, exposed, i came to the conclusion that i had a lot to learn first. my initial premise was that my teacher would be books, and i would memorize that knowledge and come to the wilderness to apply it. the only time i would apply it was in my "naked state", and thus, all my experience would be pure. but today, i realized, that was a very arrogant approach, and, while it probably +would+ bear fruit over a 50 year period, it would take a +lot+ of trial and error, and a +lot+ of discomfort to accomplish. along the way, i also felt that for a large part of that trial and error and discomfort, i would not be a happy camper. Thus I learned...

LESSON #3: don't be shy. ask +people+ who have experience to +teach+ you beyond the +books+. also, +practice+. it's OK if you start your first bow and drill fire while dressed and in your backyard. it will +still be pure+ when you start your first fire naked and in the wilderness.

so, that is my plan. learn and practice. and when i get comfortable enough, get naked again. and when i get +really+ comfortable, stay the night naked.

next step: talk to friends i know who have some skills, go camping with them (clothed), contact the authors of the wilderness survival books i have, go and attend their training courses, find out about "mountain man" conferences, go attend some. practice in the backyard. practice more. get comfortable. get +really+ comfortable. +then+ go naked. stay tuned...

i did make it out of the woods, though it took me about an hour longer than i thought it would. i have a pretty good sense of direction, and in fact emerged from the woods exactly where my truck was parked. however, that didn't give me back my clothes or my car +keys+. so, though i thought i had memorized the site well enough, it took me quite some time wandering around, to find my clothes. it didn't help that the shirt, which was on top of the stack, was a nice forest green color.

all in all, a very positive experience. i even found an exquisite hawk feather to show for it. and now, to that warm bed and matress. :)

Let me flesh out the essence of this project a bit more, if you are confused.

The end goals are:

• get a complete comfort level with being alone, naked in the wilderness
• exit the wilderness with warm clothing and belly full
• be able to enter the wilderness (+any+ wilderness) at any time in the future, under any conditions (assuming i have 4 limbs and a head still attached, that is), and stay there indefinitely without extrenal support of any kind.

• This is a non-contiguous experience. in other words, i am not doing a "deep immersion" for 90 days, make or break. instead, i am taking the adventure in small doses. the continuity is achieved through observation of one simple law:
• The first time in, i take nothing
• On subsequent adventures, I can only carry in what posessions i exited with the last adventure
• There will be no "inventory" at home for different terrains / conditions. Everything I own I will carry on my person, in containers fashioned by my own hands. Thus, though temporal continuity is absent, the experience retains its purity and essence.

• cutting tool,
• container,
• fire kit,
• edible food identification,
• trap making,
• skinning,
• clothing