The survival challenges to try out suggested below have just one purpose: equipping you for the great outdoor adventures. SHTF or wilderness survival gets discussed a lot & is sometimes even fantasized about equally, or even more than we practice it. As such, some of us are never really ready for the storm when it arrives. Trying out these challenges now will offer you the closest real-time experience you’ll ever have of disaster before it comes.
You can consider it too. I daresay that we never get the hang of something until we are actively practicing it. Practical experience is as valuable as knowledge.
However, be logical & safe when practicing these challenges. There may be the probability of suffering injuries associated with real catastrophes. Thus, these challenges should be organized in safe, controlled environments. Else, you may be thrusting yourself into a real, frightening survival situation.
5 Survival Challenges to Try Out
Turn Off the Power
Turning off the power is a very pertinent challenge to attempt, considering the continuous, aggressively persistent ingraining of technology in our daily lives. With our current way of life, ask yourself if you can survive a day without electricity. Can you?
There are two ways of attempting the “power turn-off’ challenge, and here they are:
- Go camping, and I’m not referring to the conventional trips that allow going with an RV or camper. This trip should be quite traditional in every sense of it, but I’m not asking that you avoid technology as that’s threatening to safety. So, go with your GPS, smartphone, flashlight, power bank, if you will. The suggestion instead is that you limit your use of technology to as little as you can. Doing so will help to identify the strengths & weaknesses of your abilities or skills.
- The other way to do this is to switch off your power at home. Note that you have to be prepared beforehand for this because of food storage & whatever. When everything has been settled, say the setting up or other storage sources, turn off the power. Just like the first way, you’ll be able to see where you’re lagging & areas you’re a master in.
Build a Fire
Building a fire is an essential piece of skill to possess in the wilderness. Have you built a fire from scratch before? How many methods of making fire are you aware of & can execute? Do you have the ability to when it is raining or snowing?
Here’s the challenge. First off, learn how to build a fire using the most common & more practical methods: matches, a lighter, magnifying glass, ferrocerium rod & a friction rod, and a bow drill. After learning these methods, get to building fire with each of them under the ideal conditions.
After these, you can now make things extra difficult. Make these fires in tough weather conditions, such as snowing, raining, or windy. If you can master the creation of fire in wet weather at home, you should have a much better chance of doing so when the chips are down.
Remember that you can complete this challenge in your backyard.
Construct a Shelter
You can go to the wild with a tent; there’s nothing bad about that. You can go with tarps too; that’s a good alternative considering its plenty of uses. However, the issue with this is that you can become overly dependent on these structures, and that’s the very thing we are shirking. You can find a particular setup style much easier & finer, and so stick to that one method. But what happens when these structures are unavailable?
Here’s what to do: construct as many outdoor shelters as possible in varying environments. Make it a point to use different materials, all of which should be sourced from the wild. Also, there should be timing for the procedures. You can’t afford to spend all day building a shelter when in real-life SHTF scenarios.
Build Natural Gear Substitutes
Using the appropriate gear is great, but what’s even greater is being able to replace these tools NATURALLY when the poop hits the fan. Gear can be broken, lost, or stolen, and even if it doesn’t, it wears out eventually. So, starting now, assess your gear to see if there are alternatives to them. If there are, get to the wild & gather natural materials that can be used to construct them.
Here is an instance: cordage is compact, lightweight & will fulfill a thousand and one purposes, and it is an excellent gear for the wild. However, let’s say you forget yours or lose it, what do you expect to do? If you’re familiar with the wild, getting a replacement will be a piece of cake. There are hundreds of grasses, trees & vines to source cordage from.
So, here’s the challenge: go through your gear collection and, starting with the construction you find easiest, collect materials from the wild to make replicas of them in looks & purpose, or in both. Progress through the difficulty levels until you make what you initially assume to be the most difficult.
Use a Physical Map & Compass
GPS has become a very prevalent method of finding roads & going to destinations, and for a good reason. You don’t have to care about whatever is in-between points A & B despite that you’re traveling from the former to the latter. This is very much easy & helpful, but what happens when you aren’t with a GPS device? Can you drive to a location within your city if you aren’t using a GPS? These are pertinent questions that need a YES, but it’s sad that few can give that answer.
You can see why it’s vital to know how to use these navigational tools when it matters.
Here’s what to do: start in your town with any location. It could be a restaurant you’ve never been to. Find such a place on the GPS, get its address & use a physical map to make your way to this location. It could also be a weekend trip, but you’ll be using a map & compass.
Concluding the Survival Challenges to Try Out
The essence of challenging yourself is to be more capable when SHTF. By completing these challenges, you will have more experience when it comes to handling them in an uncontrollable situation. Other survival challenges to try out are finding water in an unlikely environment, learning a skill, or acquiring without referring to any material. Let’s hear from: have you tried out any of these challenges before? Did you learn anything from the tasks?