Video: Include a stocking cap in your survival gear

About 10 percent of your body heat exits through your head. Conversely, sun beating down on an unprotected head can cause sunstroke, headaches and severe sunburn. A stocking cap may be what you need to handle both of these circumstances.
by Leon Pantenburg

Check out this light!

Balding, middle-aged men like me develop a real affection for hats that work well. I always wear some sort of head covering outdoors, and generally it will be some sort of broad-brimmed type.
But I also carry a stocking cap in my survival gear. A stocking hat, by way of (my) definition, is a loose knit, form-fitting cap, made of natural or synthetic fibers. The proper stocking hat can handle two vastly different scenarios.
Check out the video below!

The correct style and material can determine if your stocking cap will be useful in specific situations. From left is a beanie, heavy wool/thinsulite winter cap, and a full-face knit reversible selection. (Pantenburg photo)

Heat:
Mississippi has got to be one of the most hot, humid places anywhere during the summer months. At least it is, when you're wearing a wool uniform.
One summer, I was a Volunteer in the Park at Vicksburg National Military Park. I dressed in authentic Civil War clothing, and was part of a cannon crew that fired a 12-pound Napoleon for tourists. Also, as a Vicksburg Post staff reporter, I was drafted and "embedded" into a Confederate infantry unit at a couple of local re-enactments. (I protested vigorously, in the tradition of all conscripts, and pointed out the perfidy of the southern cause. At one point, I refused to stand and sing "Dixie" along with the other re-enactors. For this transgression, I was tied to a cannon in front of the Old Court House Museum as an example to other malcontents.)
At one of these living history events, I noticed a soldier wearing a stocking cap, drilling in the hot Mississippi sun. He claimed it kept him cool.
"It's cotton, and hand-knit by my sister," he told me. "I soak it in water before we hit the field, and the evaporation keeps me cool."
For improved sun protection, he sometimes wore a broad-brimmed straw planter's hat over the wet cap. The stocking cap provided insulation from the tropical sun and a source of water for evaporation. The straw hat shaded his head, face and neck. All his modern sun protection needs were taken care of very effectively by old-time technology.
This is a technique that can be adapted to your desert or hot weather hiking with a cotton stocking cap. The cap will be warm at night until it gets wet. In the daytime, soak it in water to help cool your head. This cap (unless it's a beanie) can also be pulled down over your eyes, ears, nose and neck for sun protection. A cotton bandana can also be put into service in a similar manner.
Cold: People think of thick, wool caps when they think of winter wear. I do.
One of my favorite hunting caps is a reversible camouflage/blaze orange synthetic ski-mask. I seldom pull the cap down over my face, but I know the option is there. When big game hunting, I wear the orange side out. When after waterfowl, the camo is used. In those instances, the face covering may be used to help hide my face.
A stocking cap is great to wear for stalking through deep woods, or when there is a lot of bush to go through.

I prefer a broad-brimmed wood hat for most of my outdoors wear, but also carry a stocking hat as a backup.

My collection of stocking caps range from light to heavy. I may start out wearing a stocking cap, and then layer another on top if weather conditions call for it.
Despite the versatility of this head covering, there are a few things to consider before buying one.

• Material: Don't buy a cotton cap for cold weather or a wool one for heat. The material of the cap will help determine when it should be used, and you don't want to get them mixed up. Wool stays warm when wet, which makes it a bad choice for dealing with the heat.
• Weave: A tight-knit hat will tend to be warm, and a loose construction will allow heat to dissipate quicker. Don't get a loose weave cap for warmth.
• Size: A beanie is typically not large enough to cover your face and nose if needed. Conversely, a large hat may be bulky and too hot.

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Paracord: You can't get along without it

Among the many survival tips I have learned from Peter Kummerfeldt is to always carry paracord as part of my emergency gear. I have used it for everything imaginable, and you will too!

by Peter Kummerfeldt

550 cord, paraline, paracord, parachute line, call it what you will, 150 feet of mil-spec parachute line should be a part of your gear. (Peter Kummerfeldt photos)

As I think back over nearly 46 years of teaching survival skills and about the same amount of time beating about the bush, I don't think I have ever been without some parachute cord. I have used to to build shelters, catch fish, weave nets, make stronger rope, for emergency dental floss, as sewing thread, to retrieve water when I was cliff-bound and yes, parachute line has lowered me to the ground when I jumped out of an airplane while I was in the Air Force. Simply put it can truly be a life saver!

Paracord is made of several nylon fibers, which gives it a strong tensile strength.

What is parachute line? Parachute line is made up of a tubular case containing seven pieces of thinner, nylon threads each of which can be further separated into three even finer threads.

Each fiber has about 35 pounds of strength.

The tensile strength of a piece of line is 550 lbs. The tensile strength of one piece of the inner thread is about 35 lbs. I don't know what the tensile strength of the very smallest fibers is - probably around 8 or 9 lbs. At this point the material is useful as a dental floss substitute, sewing thread, fishing line and even suture material.

Make sure you can see your paracord.

You can buy parachute line in just about any color from many internet vendors or sporting goods stores. Or you can go to your local military surplus store where the predominant colors are white or OD green.
I recommend buying white cord and then dying it bright red or orange so that you can find it if you drop the line on the ground or worse still, on snow.
 RIT fabric dye works well. Make a concentrated solution and then drop your parachute line into it and leave it there until you are happy with the color. Before you remove it from the dye pour in a cup of vinegar to set the dye and let it sit some more - a couple of days. If you don't do this, since nylon doesn't take up dye very well, the dye will come off in your hands.

Twisted paracord makes a stronger rope.

Stronger rope can be made from parachute line by either twisting two ropes together or by braiding three or more pieces together.

As I said in the beginning, 150 feet in 25 foot lengths, should be included in your gear. There's no way to improvise a line from natural resources that comes close to the strength, utility and usefulness of parachute line. Check out this paracord.


Peter Kummerfeldt has walked the talk in the wilderness survival field for decades.
Peter grew up in Kenya, East Africa and came to America in 1965 and joined the U.S. Air Force. He is a graduate of the Air Force Survival Instructor Training School and has served as an instructor at the Basic Survival School, Spokane, Washington; the Arctic Survival School, Fairbanks, Alaska, and the Jungle Survival School, Republic of the Philippines.

Peter Kummerfeldt

For twelve years, Peter was the Survival Training Director at the United States Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colorado. He retired from the Air Force in 1995 after 30 years of service.
In 1992, concerned with the number of accidents that were occurring in the outdoors annually and the number of tourists traveling overseas who were involved in unpleasant and sometimes life-threatening incidents Peter created
He is the author of “Surviving a Wilderness Emergency” and has addressed over 20,000 people as the featured speaker at numerous seminars, conferences and national conventions.
Check out Peter’s blog at: OutdoorSafe.blogspot.com

‘Don’t Die Out There!’ wilderness survival playing cards

These playing cards with wilderness survival information on them can be a useful and valuable emergency preparedness tool.

A deck of playing cards can be a great way to deal with down time and can provide entertainment in camp. These cards, with survival information on them, may also fill a survival need.
by Leon Pantenburg
People try to send me junk. Often, manufacturers want me to do a free, favorable review in return for some piece of merchandise they want promoted. Generally, I don't waste my time. I have all the free stuff I'll ever need, with the exception of custom Mora-style rigid bladed knives.

Check out this knife!

So when my hiking partner of over 40 years, John Nerness, of Los Gatos, CA, sent me a deck of wilderness survival playing cards, I figured it to be a joke.
John and I, by way of introduction, started hiking and canoeing together as teenagers. Our latest trip was a dayhike to the Cascades' Green Lakes area in 2011. On excursions as varied at hiking Death Valley, CA, to a canoe voyage through the Okeefenokee Swamp in Georgia, we refined our outdoor gear. A deck of cards always went along, and we have a decades-old Four Point Pitch game ongoing.
This game has been played under a tarp in the rain, while we waited for a mountain pass to clear; inside a tent while it snowed outside; around a campfire; in a Death Valley ghost town; on a sleety, windy day with a canoe providing a windbreak, and on numerous campground picnic tables and flat rocks.
And until I chatted with John recently, I hadn't though about the fact that some entertainment items could be considered survival items. Here are some thoughts:

• Because we didn't get bored, we didn't attempt to push up over that mountain pass in hazardous weather. We could sit out long periods of in climate weather.
• Nobody got cabin fever sitting in the tent in the rain.
• There is inevitable down time in the wilderness sometimes, and a fun game can make the experience better.

The first thing I did was spread out the cards and check out the information. Produced by the Mountaineers Books in Seattle, I was favorably impressed by several categories. Diamonds are survival essentials; Spades are assessing your situation, water, fire and food; Hearts are basic first aid and Clubs are CPR, head and spine injuries and evacuating the injured.
The first aid was excellent, and there were several fine diagrams on splinting limbs. Firemaking was good, and the rest of the deck is composed of sound information. The cards would make good reading if you didn't want to play them.
The only complaint I had was about the two cards dedicated to building a solar still.
Solar stills don't work. Don't waste time with them. I am incredulous that the Mountaineers let that one slip by. I drew a large "X" across the face of the solar still cards, which doesn't affect their playability.
So do you need a wilderness survival card deck in your preparedness gear? Maybe.

• If you're lost, staying put is the first order of business. Take care of whatever survival chores need to be done. Then just wait. If you're alone, play solitaire. If you're with others, get some game going that will keep them from being bored and take their minds off the situation. You may have to wait a long time to be rescued, and anything that can make that wait easier is a good thing.

• The cards are a valuable source of information: Know what you're doing before heading off-pavement, and don't plan on using a manual for on-the-job training. But what if you are the person injured, and you only have newcomers to assist you? It would be easy to pull out the signalling card, and direct them to make some aircraft attractors in the nearby clearing. Likewise, you probably don't want to walk someone through all the steps of splinting your broken ankle!
• Morale is an important part of any activity. If you have a deck of cards, a tournament can be organized among a group of disaster survivors that will encourage bonding and interaction.

Since John and I usually have cards along, we'll probably include a deck of Wilderness Survival cards next outing. The cards would make a great gift for the outdoorsman. (To order your deck, contact the Mountaineers Books.)

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