Mirwood Ranger Handbook: Wilderness Survival

Introduction
(WIP) =Your Pack=

When staying alone in the wilderness, you must be a self-contained unit and carry all you need on your back and on your person - everything necessary to sustain you.

The Five Cs
You can organize your essentials based on the Five Cs of Survivability. These items are the hardest to reproduce (but not impossible!) from natural material, take the most amount of skill to reproduce, and control conditions that directly affect body core temperature. These items, along with your knowledge of the landscape and your survival know-how, make it easy to pack a light kit:

Cutting tools - for manufacturing needed items and processing food.

Cover elements - for protection from the elements.

Combustion devices - for creating fires, making medicines, and providing warmth.

Containers - for water, food, and storage.

Cordages - for bindings and lashings.

These five essential categories will be the core of what you pack and carry. You can then add things for first aid, navigation, and repair to make your stay in the wilderness a little easier. However, be careful! Don’t carry so much as to make it cumbersome. Be careful to choose the right elements for your kit and ensure that these items are of a good quality to last you some time. Additionally, make sure that they can perform many needed tasks well.

Bedrolls
You will need two wool blankets - one large and one smaller. Fold the larger blanket in half with the smaller one folded in half on top of this. To this you should add elements of your kits that you don't immediately need, as they will be confined to this roll until you set up camp. Spare clothing and dry tinder are great things to put inside for safe keeping!

Once the roll is laid out, fold a 12 feet piece of rope in half and place it at the end of the roll. Roll the rope up into the bedroll. A loop will extend from one side, and the two tails of the rope will extend from the other side. Fee these tails through the loop and tie them off. Fold your tarp around the roll, strap the roll together with two pieces of rope around the outside, and knot them off. Now your bedroll is ready to attach to a pack frame!

Pack Frames
Pack frames can be used as a standalone item or combined with other items. An improvised frame can be constructed in minutes from easily-obtained materials while lasting many years if the lashings are strong and the wood selection is sound. To create a pack frame, first find and cut three components from a single hardwood sapling, and lash them together as such: To pack this frame, lash your “bedroll” to the frame using rope in an X fashion, and tie it off with a knot before adding the straps and wearing the pack.
 * Split a piece of hardwood about 2 inches wider than the length of your armpit to your wrist. This will be the lumbar slat.
 * Cut 2 pieces 1-1½ times the length of your arm, from your armpit to your outstretched fingertips.
 * Lash the longer components about 1 inch from the ends of the lumbar slat, then cross and diagonal lash them about 4 inches from the top to create a triangle.
 * Make 7 or so toggle points for tying gear to the frame.
 * Create a strap for the frame with a long single piece of rope by making a knot passing through the top X of the frame. Then wrap the rope around the “ears” of the lumbar piece. Tie around your waist to secure.

Pack Basket
Pack baskets are generally made from woven wood and drain well if you put anything in it that is wet. In these packs you can carry metal traps, trap tools, and other gear without puncturing your canvas or other pack materials. If you combine a canvas pack, an inner bag, and a pack basket, you can have three different carrying options as one unit. You can set camp, remove the inner bag containing camp gear, remove the trap basket and put it on a line while camped, and have the empty canvas pack to carry resources for short scouts.

Haversack

A haversack is a small bag carried on one side of the body. The sizes vary and are a matter of personal preference. They are usually made of cloth, leather, oilcloth, or canvas. This bag should be used to carry items that are of immediate importance or for items collected along the journey. Do not overstuff this bag! You need room to store material you find on the trail - like quick tinder sources.

Belt Pouches

Belt pouches are usually made of leather and is where you keep your main fire kit and a spare carving knife. Carry the most important items you need in these pouches, especially if you left everything behind at camp or lose your supplies.

Belt

 * Sheath knife
 * Waterskin
 * Small hatchet

Belt Pouch(es)

 * Flint and steel
 * Carving knife
 * Gnomish army knife
 * 10 feet of thin rope or line

Haversack

 * Kerchief
 * Cordage
 * Spare flint and steel
 * Leather gloves

Pack

 * Canvas or oilcloth tarp
 * Large foldable bag
 * Large wool blanket
 * Small wool blanket
 * Hunter’s axe
 * Thin rope
 * Bow saw
 * Pot
 * Skillet
 * 3 candles and 6 sticks of fatwood
 * Rope and cord
 * Repair kits
 * Whetstone

=Tools=

Belt Knife
A belt knife is one of the most important tools a woodsman can own. Because of this, you should always keep this tool directly attached to you to keep it from becoming lost. With a belt knife, you can recreate all other items you need in an emergency. What’s the perfect knife? Let’s examine the qualities of a knife that will be most useful to you!

A blade that is too small will make it difficult to process firewood, especially if you don’t have an axe or one isn’t available. A blade that’s too big will make finer cuts and carving tasks more difficult. The happy medium is about 4 ½ - 6 inches in length.

Any knife you carry as a belt knife should be of full tang design. This means the entire knife is one piece of metal with the handles attached to the outside. This is very important because knives are used so often and take a lot of abuse!

Gnomish Army Knife
A Gnomish Army Knife is a known as a multi-tool, developed and engineered by gnomes. These contraptions are handy and multi-functional - some not only have different types of knives, but tools for skinning, clippers for collecting herbs, and a pick for terraforming. If you can afford one of these tools, they are very compact and useful to have. Saws

Axes

=Rope, Cordage, and Knots=

Making Cordage

Lashings, Bindings, and Toggles

Tips and Tricks for Rope and Cordage

=Sheltering=

The Three Ws

Establishing a Base Camp

Permanent Shelter Options

Camp Amenities