Decided to head out for a hike this morning and practice some survival skills. Temp was about 18 degrees, with 15 mph shifting winds.
Items that I brought.
Folding Buck Knife (Typical)
5 Feet of Cordage (Typical, wrapped around the knife)
Compass (Typical for a longer hike, not typical for the 2 miler today)
Flint & Old Knife (Not typical, but I wanted back up)
I hiked up almost 700 ft. of altitude and about 1.5 miles (the AT runs behind my house) and then bushwacked another quarter mile off trail to a sunny spot.
I carry this compass, http://us.st12.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.c..._2032_22573918
and was planning on using the small magnifying lens to start a fire after building a small shelter.
After about an hour of shelter building, I wasn't having much luck, and was disappointed with how it was turning out so I switched to fire making.
Built a tinder-bundle and set it up with the compass stuck in the snow, so the mag lens was focused on a particular spot. Watched it for about 10 minutes, but my feet were getting cold so I left it and continued collecting and processing more wood. (god, batoning with a little folding knife sucks). Checked on it every 5 or so minutes, but NO luck, not even a burnt spot or smoke.
Switched to flint and steel, but the wind really picked up at this time and after 2 or 3 minutes, I finally got a spark to flame and we were off to the races. Because of the wind, I was working really fast. In my rushing, I put my flint and steel down (I thought, I was being careful about where I put it). After 10 minutes of effort to get the fire going, I had a few minutes to collect myself and by that time, I couldn't find the flint and steel!
Stupid.
