SURVIVE! The Ultimate How-To Guide
What to do when the you-know-what hits the fan.
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When Sir Ernest Shackleton crossed the icy glaciers of South Georgia Island in 1916—the final hurdle of his 16-month epic in Antarctica—he didn’t have crampons, so he twisted metal boat screws into the soles of his boots for traction. In a similarly brilliant stroke, John Wesley Powell, trapped on a cliff 400 feet above the Colorado River without a rope, had his men scramble up to nearby ledges and pin him to the wall with long oars so he could climb down. And John Muir crawled inside a hollow tree trunk to escape the flames of a Sierra wildfire. It seems H.G. Wells was right: “Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature’s inexorable imperative.” To learn how to grapple with life-or-death scenarios, improvise survival tools when key gear gets lost, and grade your own emergency skills, read on.
In The Wild with… Only a Knife
Lost with…Only a Bottle of Whiskey
Injured with…No First-Aid Kit
Need Fire But Have…No Tinder
Crossing an Icefield with No Crampons
Stuck in Powder With…No Snowshoes
Lost with…Only Some Junk Food
Off-Course With No Map or Compass
In the Cold with…No Body Heat
Famished but with…No Cooking Pots
In the Backcountry With a Missing Partner
Lost with Only a Trash Bag
In Dire Straits With Enough Battery Life for…Only One Call
Must Cross a Raging River With No Personal Flotation Device
Cliffed Out With No Climbing Gear
Survival: Stuck at a Remote Trailhead With… A Dead Car Battery
Deal with a Snagged Rope
