February 14, 2025 • 39 mins
Coming to you from 4,200 feet in the hills of Oregon, Sam Wilson, the voice of Chaitown, is back with another episode of the MOA Broadcast. In this episode, Sam announces the launch of the video version of the show on Patreon, providing supporters with exclusive content while keeping the audio free for everyone.
We dive into the latest survival news, including the dangers of exposure in the wild. Hear the tragic stories of hikers caught unprepared in the White Mountains, and the lessons we can all learn about proper gear, fire-starting, and planning for worst-case scenarios. Sam breaks down the essential tools for fire-starting, from Bic lighters to ferro rods, and explains why preparation and practice are key to survival.
Plus, a look at bizarre headlines, including a Florida woman's misguided call to police and a standoff over the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico.
This is MOA Broadcast—because if you don’t make it out alive, you don’t make it out at all.
📢 Support the show and access exclusive content: [Patreon - Gear Convoy / Sam Wilson] 🎧 Listen for free on GearConvoy.com, Spotify, Amazon Music, and Apple Podcasts.
#Survival #FireStarting #MOABroadcast #Preparedness #WildernessSkills
Tune in, stay sharp, and remember: If you don’t make it out alive, you won’t make it at all.
Want to be ready for anything? Check out Sam’s 100% Made in the USA survival gear at GearConvoy.com.
Tune in. Get prepared. Stay alive.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Okay, coming to you from 40-200 feet in the hills of Oregon.
(00:29):
It is the voice of Chaitown, the reddest beard in the high desert.
Your host of the MOA broadcast, Sam Wilson.
That's me.
All right, we're going to get right into it today.
We've got all kinds of good information.
Starting with today's show, now so far this has been a radio broadcast that we also put
(00:51):
out as a podcast once it goes out over the radio.
And today we're going to have the video version available as well at our Patreon page.
So if you are unfamiliar with Patreon, it's basically a subscription service where you
can go and pay a monthly subscription fee to access things like extra content or exclusives
or things like that.
(01:11):
So if you go to Patreon, that's P-A-T-R-E-O-N and look up Gear Convoy or Sam Wilson, the
MOA broadcast, you'll find us.
There you can access the video version of the broadcast as well.
We appreciate your support for that.
Otherwise, the audio version will still be free for everyone.
You can access that at the www.gearconvoy.com website.
(01:34):
There's a player there.
Or you can get it from Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcast, and whatever your favorite
podcast supplier is, you can get it there for free.
So we don't want to take away the content, but we do want to incentivize some extra support.
And that also helps us to cover the time and everything of setting up the video and everything.
(01:57):
All right, we're going to be doing this since I usually do this broadcast from the sound
booth.
We're out in the shop today in the knife shop.
So give it a little bit more ambiance and a little bit more room to move around, frankly.
So the acoustics may not be quite what we're used to.
We may have a little bit of background noise occasionally.
We got a train station or train tracks not far from here.
(02:17):
So I'll try and cut any of that out in post.
But if it remains, you'll have to just think of it as giving character to the show.
All right, let's get into our first story.
Now we're going to introduce some news stories occasionally, things that I find interesting
and want to share.
The issue that we face today is everything has become political.
(02:38):
And we're not going to bring politics into the MOA broadcast.
So we make cover things that involve a, you know, whatever current event and maybe a political
event or a news event.
But we're not going to inject our politics into it everywhere you go.
Every show, every podcast, almost everything has a, you know, a big injection of politics
(02:59):
into it.
I don't want to do that.
This is going to be a place we just do with the news used to do years ago, which is give
you the information, the facts, the who, what, where, when, why and all that.
And you draw your own conclusions.
So we'll just be reporting on the actual events that we happen to find interesting.
So let me get a sip of this coffee here.
(03:23):
That is some good coffee.
Okay.
Nice and hot.
We are currently being belted by snowstorms again.
So the fun just continues.
Let's get into our story though.
Coming to you from New York, the White House blocked an Associated Press, it's AP, an Associated
Press reporter from an event in the Oval Office on Tuesday of this week after demanding
(03:48):
the news agency alter its style on the Gulf of Mexico.
This will make sense in a moment.
If you haven't heard about the, you know, the scandal, if you will, the kerfuffle about
the Gulf of Mexico and Gulf of America, we'll get to that here.
The reporter whom the AP would not identify tried to enter the White House event as usual
(04:10):
Tuesday afternoon was turned away.
Later, a second AP reporter was barred from a late evening event in the White House's
diplomatic reception room.
Now all this comes from before the inauguration, President Donald Trump announced plans to
change the Gulf of Mexico's name to the Gulf of America, which he does have the legal right
(04:32):
and ability to do.
He signed an executive order to do so as soon as he was in office.
Now the AP said last month, three days before Trump's inauguration, before he made the change
to, called the Gulf of America, they said that it would continue to refer to the Gulf
of Mexico as the Gulf of Mexico, even though they say that they were aware of Trump's
(04:56):
decision to rename it.
Their reasoning was as a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the
AP says it must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences.
Now I don't know what exactly they're actually saying or really saying here, but it looks
(05:18):
to me like this is either an ego or a pride thing or some type of battle of wills.
I don't know why they would want to dig their heels in.
Let's get into this.
This week, Google Maps began using Gulf of America along with Apple Maps and other leading
online map providers began referring to it as the Gulf of America saying it had a longstanding
(05:40):
practice of following the US government's lead on such matters.
As of Tuesday by early morning, both Apple and Google Maps along with other online maps
providers had changed it to Gulf of America.
So the AP refuses to, I don't even know why this would come up that often, like how often
do you hear them referred to it, but it seemed like they're making a point of, well, we're
(06:03):
not going to call it the Gulf of America.
As a result, the White House or Trump probably is the one that said, okay, well then you're
not going to come in for press briefings here in the White House as long as you're
referring to it as the Gulf of Mexico.
So I guess those two will have their battle of wills and we'll see what happens.
But since there was an executive order signed, that is the actual current and accurate name
(06:27):
here in America.
As far as what people around the world are doing, I don't know, I don't really talk to
many people around the world about the Gulf of America or Gulf of Mexico.
So I can't imagine it really being that big of a deal to most people, but I guess the
AP wants to dig their heels in and we'll see what happens.
All right.
That's taken care of the AP.
Moving on, a Florida woman, speaking of intelligent moves, a Florida woman was arrested this week
(06:56):
when she made the decision to call police to report a friend had stolen her marijuana.
Not only did she have marijuana with her when cops arrived, they also found that she had
two active outstanding warrants.
For those of you that don't see the video broadcast, this is me staring at the camera
(07:19):
with a face of how did, how and where do these people come from?
Anyway, according to the police report obtained and that documented the woman's ordeal, Stuart
police responded to a call about stolen property at a best Western hotel.
Let me tell you, if your story starts at the best Western hotel, chances are it's only
going to go downhill from there.
(07:44):
During the time, let's see what happened at the best Western, they found the, well, won't
use her name, it doesn't matter.
They found the lady or woman, whatever, who gave them the play by play of how the theft
went down.
She was quote unquote hanging out with her quote unquote friend Carlos, whom she had
known for all of a week at the best Western that night.
(08:04):
During the time they hung out, she had approximately $30 worth of weed with her.
After Carlos left, she looked in her container and believed about half a gram was missing.
The only thing she could think to do was to call the police.
The police asked her for identification only find out she was one of them two outstanding
(08:26):
warrants, one for missing a court hearing and the other for not appearing to a probation
violation for a DUI earlier this year.
So yeah, if someone steals your weed, apparently it's not legal for her to possess there.
Do you really think calling the cops is a good idea?
You know, we always hear about the Florida man.
(08:48):
This was a Florida woman.
I don't know what in the world goes on.
I've spent a good amount of time in Florida, especially in the Fort Walton Beach, Pensacola
areas.
Absolutely beautiful.
Several good steak houses went to there.
Went to a three dog night reunion concert there.
That was a pretty interesting.
I didn't really see a lot of this crazy behavior, but these are stories that pop up regularly
(09:11):
with the Florida man and the Florida woman deal.
So she was taken to the Martin County Jail and held with no bond.
Well, I guess she lost the rest of her weed, too.
This reminds me of an episode of cops.
So for those of you that are that are young, you may not be aware of the show cops before
(09:32):
we had social media and tick tock and Instagram and X or Twitter and only the different things
where anybody could just put, you know, live or unfiltered uncensored at a content online.
The only place you could really see these wild police chases and takedowns was on a
show called cops.
And when you heard that that theme song bad boys by inner circle come on, you knew you
(09:55):
were in for a good time because these were, you know, this was it was the wild, wild West.
And this is before, you know, people started getting overly sensitive to, let's just say
the use of force and police applications.
So things got pretty wild and wooly sometimes.
And this reminds me.
Hmm.
Sorry, I don't want my coffee to get cold.
(10:16):
This reminds me of an episode I saw once where you see these two women in a pretty rough
looking part of town.
Okay.
The cops show up and they go over to the first woman and she's the one that called the police
and the cop says to her, he goes, okay, you called him and he called us.
What's going on?
And she goes, well, I gave this lady over here, uh, $20 for something and she won't
(10:38):
give my money back.
You can tell by the, the part of town that they're in and the way these folks are dressed
and looking and acting and talking, you can look this up on YouTube, by the way, it's
an easy clip to find that, you know, the cop knows what's going on.
And so he asked her, he goes, well, what's the money for?
And she says, uh, it could be for anything.
(10:59):
It doesn't matter what the money's for.
She goes, she won't give him my $20 back and the cop asked her, he says, well, did you
come down here to buy drugs?
And she goes, yes, I came down to buy crack rock.
So don't wait, don't worry, it gets better.
The cops are, well, wait here for a minute.
He goes over and talks to the other woman who of course immediately, you know, begins
(11:20):
denying the story.
I don't know what you're talking about.
She came over, disrespecting me, asking this and that.
And I don't know whatever her problem was and the cop says, well, did you, did you
give her any, anything for $20?
Because the lady told the cop when she gave her the 20 bucks, she gave her what she found
out later was plaster.
It was supposed to be crack rock and she gave her some plaster.
(11:41):
So the cop says, did you give her anything?
Did you sell her anything?
And the guy, the lady goes, no, without missing a beat.
She goes, no, I don't even sell drugs.
I'm a prostitute.
So that ends our foray into the news for the moment and our Florida adventures.
All right.
What are we here to talk about today?
(12:02):
Though we know this is supposed to be a show about survival, about make it out alive, about
getting by about preparedness.
What are we talking about?
Well, one of everybody's favorite topics when it comes to the outdoors, fire.
Let's go to New Hampshire's white mountains.
New Hampshire fishing game says game says a man, he didn't make it.
(12:23):
Unfortunately, we're going to leave names out of this one too.
A man 53 was attempting a hike in Presidential Ridge Saturday when the weather deteriorated
to winter like conditions.
The Massachusetts man was rescued Saturday night.
Rescuers carried him over a mile up the summit of Mount Washington where he was placed on
(12:44):
a truck and driven down the mountains road to a hospital.
If saving efforts were attempted for several hours, but he suffered from severe hypothermia
and was unable to be revived.
Authorities tell them that the man's wife who had received text messages from him saying
he was cold and wet and couldn't continue and that he felt he would die without a rescue.
(13:07):
Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened.
When they got to him, he was alive, but he had already suffered from such extensive damage
from the cold that hypothermia went up taking his life.
So very unfortunate.
So what went wrong?
Number one, there was it says that they knew the storm was coming in and I don't know.
(13:28):
It seemed like this guy was not prepared for the weather.
I don't know about his clothing and other things, how well he's prepared, but the bottom
line is he failed to regulate his body temperature one way or another.
He didn't have the tools or he didn't have the ability to start a fire because there
are a lot of different cause.
If you look up the number one reason or the top reasons why people die in the outdoors
(13:49):
frequently, it comes down to falls, get a lot of people actually in the National Park
System, but exposure is what gets a lot of these stories and I look up hundreds of these
things or dozens of week, hundreds a month or a year easily.
And unfortunately, there's a steady stream of supply of them coming because people continually
(14:11):
go out into the wilderness and they're not equipped.
And again, that's what the show is about.
So he didn't have the tools or the training to start a fire.
Now, if he did have both the tools and the training, it could be that the wood or whatever
was where he was to burn, had to burn.
If he was above the tree line, it would start getting difficult very quickly to find things
to burn anyway.
(14:33):
But he wasn't able to get a fire going for whatever reason.
Now that's another thing that comes into being prepared beforehand.
You have to know your terrain, your area of operations as they call it, because as we
talked about in last week, the week before, whenever I would go hiking in the Columbia
River Gorge, which by the way, right now they are just getting hammered with a massive snow
(14:55):
storm.
The highway, I think it's 84, is shut down, bunch of wrecks.
The highway is either closed or in serious trouble right now, which is near the Multnomah
Falls area.
It's about 35, 45 minutes outside of the city of Portland in Oregon.
But when you go hiking in that area, there is so much because it's a temperate rainforest,
(15:16):
there's so much moisture everywhere.
If you pick up what they call deadfall, you know, branches, things off the ground, a lot
of times you can take branches that are wrist thick and just snap them in half or crush
them with your hand because there's so much moisture.
Now, if this guy was in a mountainous area, which he was, the White Mountains of New Hampshire,
clearly there's a lot of moisture, there's a lot of snow.
(15:38):
Even if he had matches or other fire starting devices, he may not have been able to get
a fire going because the wood was just too damp.
And if he didn't bring tender or other things along with him to facilitate that fire, then
things get even worse for him.
So sad story, but that really is the crux of the matter today.
(16:01):
It's not just a matter of having, okay, like let's say you got a lighter.
Here we go.
Even if you have a lot, this is a beck disposable, good tool to use in the backwoods.
These are actually very reliable for the most part.
You got to be careful when you get them really cold or wet, they may have issues, but usually
a packed couple along and that's, you know, takes care of that.
But if you had a lighter like this and you didn't have good tender or the experience
(16:23):
to actually get a fire going properly in wet conditions, it's not going to matter.
And so unfortunately that gentleman lost his life.
We hope the best for his family.
All right.
We're going to take a break.
We get back.
We're going to discuss fire starting methods and tools and their pros and cons and their
particular applications.
(16:44):
So the question is, what's your favorite method for getting a fire going?
What is the one thing you always have on you?
If you're going to be in the backwoods and you know, you may need to have a fire going
whether for recreation or for an emergency.
Let us know at info.
I NFO at gearconvoy.com that's info at gearconvoy.com and we'll mention you on air.
(17:06):
We'll be back.
More make it out alive with Sam Wilson after this.
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(17:27):
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(17:52):
Gold Country Radio, your message heard locally and beyond.
You're listening to the MOA broadcast with Sam Wilson.
Will you make it out alive?
All right, we are back and we are ready to get to it.
Now before the break, we were talking about different types of fire starters.
(18:16):
One of everybody's favorite topics for discussion about the backwoods starting a fire, not the
illegal kind.
I'll bring it up in a future episode, but there was recently a hiker, I think it was
in Arizona or somewhere in the Southwest, that they got lost for several days and they
were able to start a fire to signal for their rescue, but they wound up burning down a chunk
(18:39):
of the forest as well and they actually caught charges over it.
That was a pretty big mess, but we'll do that on the time.
This is for controlled legal safe fires while you're camping, backpacking, or for survival.
There are some different types of tools.
Well, if you've got the, if you're able to use the video version, the video version of
this broadcast, again, that'll be available through a Patreon page, P-A-T-R-E-O-N.
(19:01):
If you look us up there, Sam Wilson or Gear Convoy, you can get the video there.
You can find the link for it on our website at www.gearconvoy.com and you can get all
kinds of information about what we're doing there and see the demonstrations here.
Up first, probably the most common form of starting a fire.
Let's see that I bring out the, here we go.
(19:23):
Here we go.
Just a regular old BIC lighter.
Nothing fancy here.
The thing is BIC lighters are, and there are other brands, I don't get paid or endorsed
by BIC, let me tell you that, but I have had the best success along with a lot of other
people over the years.
Many have had the best success with the regular old BIC.
These are nice because you can get them at gas stations, really cheap.
(19:44):
You can get the full size.
You can get the smaller size.
If you're going to use one of these little butane lighters as your primary method of
starting a fire in the backwoods, do yourself a favor and get a couple of them.
It's best to just put one or two or three in various parts of your gear, one on your
backpack, one or two on your person.
(20:05):
And I usually keep a small one, a spare one in a Ziploc bag somewhere in my fire kit,
which is a separate kit all its own in my backpacking and hiking gear.
Fire is very important.
As we talked about, exposure gets a lot of people.
All it takes is deviating your core temperature a little bit and it's lights out.
(20:25):
So anyway, the other good thing about a BIC is even after they run out of fuel, they
still will spark.
And if you have properly prepared tender, you can still get a fire going that way.
We also sell and provide really good tender at GearConvoy.com.
You can get them elsewhere as well.
The tender quick tabs.
Here we go.
It looks like this.
(20:46):
It's a small, I don't know exactly if it's cotton or some similar type of fiber and it's
impregnated with some sort of chemical, probably a petroleum distillate or some sort of petroleum
product that makes it more flammable.
But the bottom line is if we take a lighter here and boom, just like that, you get yourself
a fire going.
Well, that'll burn pretty good for about, I don't know, one and a half to three minutes,
(21:12):
depending on your environment.
Sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less.
What I usually do is I take and I cut them in half because a half of one is more than
you really need.
In most cases, if you've prepared your tender.
Okay.
And just while we're on that subject, what is properly prepared tender look like?
If you've never made a feather stick, this is one of the easiest and most common ways
(21:34):
to produce good tender in the backwoods.
Okay.
This is a piece of wood here.
Again, if you watch in the video version, you can see if you're not, and you're experiencing
the backwoods, you probably know what a feather stick looks like.
But you can see the wood has been shaved with a knife.
All you really do.
This is one of our knives, a pack light, small hollow handle survival knife made in the US,
(21:57):
very proud of these.
And you just shave the wood like that and you make these curls.
Okay.
So for the curls we go in that way, I would have been cutting like this.
I've eventually cut the top off of that piece of wood.
What happened is I'm not going to light it on fire because I'm going to use this for
demonstration purposes and other videos, but a BIC or a match or even a ferrule rod will
easily catch tender that's like this on fire.
(22:19):
The other reason this is particularly valuable is you will strip off the bark or even take
a piece of wood and split it down the middle or into quarters so that you can access the
drier wood on the inside.
Again, if you're in a place like the Columbia River Gorge, like we've been talking about
all week or in several episodes, you're not going to find any dry wood on the outside.
(22:40):
Even if you peel off the bark in a lot of cases, it's going to be wet.
So you got to get something off the ground and then usually split it one or two times
and then shave down to get the dry wood.
So that again goes, we had dovetails with that story earlier about the man that died
in the wild in the white, whatever it was, the mountains, white mountains of New Hampshire.
(23:01):
You got to be prepared to start a fire and have, you may not find good tenders.
You may have to provide your own.
That's what knowing your AO, your area of operations is all about.
So that is the theme of this show of make it out alive, be prepared.
You know, being forewarned is forearmed.
So don't wait until you're in the bad situation to realize, great, all I've got is two matches.
(23:22):
If you're in the Columbia River Gorge or where that guy is on the white mountains, chances
are two matches are not going to do it unless you really, really know what you're doing.
So all right, that's put this up for it.
Hurt myself.
Get a sip of this coffee.
All right, what's next?
(23:46):
Matches.
Another product that we, that I designed and built, although this was a preexisting type
of product of match safe, these are also made in the US.
We have them on gearconvoy.com.
This is our match safe.
Okay.
So those of you that are younger and haven't really been around matches or match safes
that much, this is a waterproof aluminum tube.
(24:06):
And we take and screw open the cap on this bad boy.
This happens to have a hard anodized OD green finish.
We have been OD green and black.
We got a small compass there in the top for rudimentary navigation.
I wouldn't want to rely primarily on a button compass for navigation, but in a pinch, it's
better than nothing.
So we take that out and you've got strike anywhere matches.
(24:30):
Now you can put whatever you want there for the purposes of this demonstration I put in
matches.
You're going to want a handful of those.
There's also enough room to easily put in a handful of matches, a couple of those.
If I can hold on to it here, the quick tender tabs that way you've got a fire kit all in
one spot.
And yes, the knurling on here is sharp enough to strike a match.
(24:51):
You can strike a, if you have a strike anywhere match.
If it's not a strike anywhere match, you're going to need to include a striker strip.
Otherwise you're going to be in serious trouble.
So make sure again, you want to take all your game.
We're going to get to that momentarily and rehearse what you're going to do with it while
you're out there because that's the only way you're really going to find any holes in your
game.
(25:11):
If you, you know, if you do all this based on a checklist or a book or an article you
got from somebody else, you're going to miss some things.
Everything really replaces the experience of doing it live as O'Reilly would say.
So you need to get out there and actually practice it.
And that's the problem that we were having this, this culture problem here, especially
(25:32):
in America right now, people don't want to put in what they call the dirt time.
They just want to go to Amazon, you know, another phone, go to Amazon, get me one of
those, whatever, what's going to make me the best fire starter?
Give me one of them.
What's going to make me the best woodsman?
Get me one of them.
What's going to make me Rambo?
Give me one of those, put it in their cart and check out.
And then it comes and they just stick it in a backpack or a box somewhere and they don't
(25:54):
even use it.
I was, I was at a, I had occasion to be at a meeting a while back several years ago
about preparedness and it was in a city, I'm a country boy, nothing again, city people,
we just have very different backgrounds and perspectives on things.
That being said, it was about going over go bags and your, you know, your emergency supplies.
(26:15):
I cannot tell you as everyone started pulling out their gear, we're going through it and
looking at it, you know, okay, this is a good idea.
That is not so much of this gear had never even been open.
Some of it was still in the packaging.
And I'm thinking to myself, if you've never even taken it out of the package, how are
you going to be proficient with it?
Whenever the chips are down, if you're like that, that guy on the mountain, what if you're
(26:37):
getting pelted with rain and snow?
It said there were 50 mile an hour wins.
If you've never used your gear, that is not the time to learn.
So the far more important thing than just going and getting what has the most five star ratings
on, you know, online or Amazon or wherever you do your shopping, make sure you're experienced
(27:00):
with it.
Okay.
That brings us to one of our other products that is a fantastic product.
There we go.
This is what's called a ferrule rod.
So for those of you who are, some people will call it a flint and steel.
That's not entirely accurate.
It's a ferrule rod short for ferro cerium, which is this rod right here.
This is a product that we offer that I designed and sell.
(27:20):
Others have done similar things.
So I'm not trying to take too much credit there, but I have great faith in this one.
We've got a five sixteenths diameter ferrule rod here.
Those are good for, for thousands of strikes.
You may not be able to start thousands of fires, but thousands of strikes.
Same kind of thing as a match safe.
If we screw the top off here, we've got a compass and a water type container where you
(27:42):
can put some tender, like the tender, quicks or whatever is important to you.
Whenever we take like the match safe and the other products and we make many survival
kits, you want to tailor them to where you're going to be.
If you're in the city, having strike anywhere matches to start a fire may not really be
crucial for you and your day to day, you know, activities.
(28:03):
It may be more important to have a $20 bill in case of emergency to get home or to make
a call or get something, you know, whatever it may be, and your daily medication because
it's a waterproof container.
If you drop it, they're not going to be damaged.
You're not going to lose it's cut, you know, however you want to do it, but you need to
be prepared with those things.
So if you're not with me with a ferrule rod, let me share this work.
This is a used one here.
(28:24):
This is my personal one.
Let me get my coffee out of the way.
I'm trying to set anything on fire here.
We have a striker that you can get or you can use the blade of the spine of your knife
and you don't have to buy these from me.
You can get these similar products anywhere.
I'm not just trying to shove my stuff down your throat.
The point is whatever you have, practice with it.
(28:46):
But here for those of you that have never seen a ferrule rod, you take it and it just,
it throws a shower of sparks.
If you properly prepared your tender, like if you have a tender quick tab like this here,
or if you've prepared a feather stick like this within a couple of strikes, sometimes
one or two, if you're, if you're practiced enough, you can easily get a fire going.
So why would you want a product like this as opposed to matches or a lighter?
(29:11):
Well the downfall, I don't think I got into it earlier, but the downfall with the, the
lighter is not just Bix, but any of the small disposable butane lighters is sometimes when
they get really cold for whatever reason, they don't work, probably do the pressurization
of the butane tank inside, but they just don't seem to work as well.
Sometimes I've had several of them fail me in not even sub zero, but sub freezing temperatures
(29:33):
15, 16 degrees.
They start flicking it and it just doesn't work anymore.
The other thing is they are susceptible to water moisture.
That's why I keep one in a Ziploc bag so that if I go into the, into the water Creek River,
whatever, or my gear does that light is going to stay dry.
But I've had a number of these over the years get, you know, mildly wet and they just don't
(29:55):
work anymore.
So that is a problem.
Now you can still strike with them, but you're going to have to have very good tender.
The strikes, the sparks out of a lighter that's out of fluid will not be as good as say a
ferrule rod.
So that's, we have the ferrule rod.
I carry this in addition to the lighter and usually a match.
Some matches and other things to get me going because again, fire can be very critical once
(30:16):
your body temperature starts dropping.
It goes too far and it's lights out.
These you can take them straight.
In fact, I've got videos on my YouTube channel.
I take this straight out of a five gallon bucket of water and strike some tender and
start a fire.
Okay.
And you know exactly how much life you have left in one of these rods because you can see
it.
I usually have two or three Bix with me whenever I go because you never know which one of them
(30:40):
is running low on fuel.
So you know, again, it's about knowing your gear and being prepared, not just saying,
okay, I got the best rated one off of Amazon.
So you can get ferrule rods, very cheap all over the place.
Remember though, there are different types of alloys they use to make these for the rods
itself.
The cheaper ones don't work nearly as well as the better ones on average.
(31:02):
So whatever you get, make sure you try it out.
That's the main thing.
It's about being prepared.
Again, we've talked about that.
It's just the same thing with knives.
If you go on any, my goodness, if you go on any bushcraft or knife forum or social media
site, guys will sit there and talk endlessly about what's the best knife for this, what
(31:24):
knife would you take if you were going to do that?
What would be your dream knife scenario in this and that?
Because it's fun, I guess, to go and buy a knife and to collect them and to look at them
and admire them.
I get all that.
But the bottom line is people were surviving for thousands of years before we had stainless
steel or even carbon steel knives just fine because they may do with what they had.
(31:45):
I would rather have or be someone who was very thoroughly experienced with the knife
or fire or other skills and have a cheap piece of junk knife than be the person who had the
best knife in the world, whatever that would be and have no skill or experience with it.
So that's the underlying theme of all of this.
(32:07):
Don't just go out and say, oh, I got Wilson's, Sam Wilson's gear.
It's the best.
I'm set or so and so gear.
It's the best.
I'm set.
That's not what we're trying to get to.
It's really get the gear that is best for you that fits your style of doing things, but
then practice with it.
Some people don't like, you know, hollow handle knives.
I happen to like them quite a bit.
These are made very well.
(32:28):
They have exceeded every test that I've ever thrown at them and I've beat them to death.
But for some people that's fine.
Then don't buy a hollow handle knife by the one that suits you.
But the main thing is again, use it, have an idea of its limitations, what the edge retention
is like, what does it take to get it?
You know, how rust resistant is a corrosion resistant?
(32:48):
And you know, what point does it start feeling uncomfortable?
How should I hold it?
And so forth, because those skills that experience will be far more valuable than just having
the quote unquote best knife on the internet.
So that's what I have to say about that.
We have one more story we have to get into here.
Again, unfortunately, this is a sad one.
(33:09):
So we're not going to use names.
Let me get a cup of coffee here, a sip of coffee.
Okay.
This takes us to Franconia Notch State Park, November 23 of a year or two ago.
The fate of a Massachusetts woman who died alone in the White Mountains.
(33:31):
Again, just like the man earlier was in the White Mountains.
Very treacherous weather there, man.
Got to be very careful.
Died while trying to accomplish a hiking goal is a sad reminder of one of the biggest dangers
in the back country, sometimes called summit fever.
I would argue that exposure is far more dangerous, but summit fever is whenever in this particular
(33:51):
area of New Hampshire, there is a large group of 4000 foot or so mountains.
And it's a common thing for people in New England to want to summit all of them because
that's like a day hike.
We live at 4,200 feet here in Oregon.
That's as tall as the whole mountain there.
So these are not huge hills.
(34:12):
Okay.
According to officials, we'll just call her Nancy.
Nancy of Westford, Massachusetts was trying to reach the summit of all 48 of New Hampshire's
4000 footers before she turned 20 on Wednesday.
She set out alone before dawn on Sunday morning from the Lafayette Place campground with the
(34:32):
goal of summiting several of the peaks along the Franconia Ridge, then getting picked up
by her mother at the flume Gorge parking lot by 3.30 p.m.
So she started out before dawn, let's say, let's guesstimate here five o'clock.
So 0500, she starts out.
That's what about 10, 8, 10, 11 hours.
(34:53):
If she gets there by 2.30, 3.30.
That's a pretty big day.
She wanted to summit apparently one, two, three, at least four of these hills before
she got picked up by her mother.
Unfortunately, Nancy never made it to the parking lot, which triggered an extensive search by
numerous rescue crews.
So they did that right.
She had someone there waiting to pick her up and was told to call the cavalry if she
(35:15):
doesn't make it on time.
Her route she was using is a popular day hike in good weather, but winter conditions had
arrived in the White Mountains, making the trail icy, snowy and much more treacherous.
Rescue officials said that she is an experienced hiker in good weather, but was not prepared
(35:35):
for winter in the North County Mountains.
This is where she really messed up big time.
Her attire and the gear she had, she was wearing just a jacket and athletic pants with sneakers
on her feet.
So a jacket, yoga pants and tennis shoes.
Though that is not the gear, the apparel to be wearing when you're going to be in the
(35:57):
White Mountains and there's snow.
She was carrying a small amount of food in a backpack and a water bladder.
She did not have any means of starting a fire and apparently carried little if any further
protection such as extra clothing and her only source of light was her smartphone.
Officials said so.
(36:17):
Unfortunately, she made some very grave errors before she ever took off on the trail that
day.
This is again, like we talked about before, with some of these remote areas being so close.
I'm guessing there was a big sitting nearby or she was from a big Westford mass.
When you are that accessible or the outdoors are that accessible, sometimes people forget
(36:40):
that they can be just as dangerous and deadly.
I saw that a lot when I was living in the Portland area.
People would be out on the trail.
It was unreal with their address to open toe shoes whenever it cold temperatures, mud,
going up hills, gravel, trying to climb any kind of terrain and open toed shoes and shorts
(37:01):
or yoga pants were very popular where on the trail for usually for women, you got to know
Portland, but very dangerous attire and she had tennis shoes.
So she didn't have a way to start a fire.
You should always be prepared at a minimum to have to spend the night if it comes up
and becomes necessary anytime you go out in the woods, especially if you're going to be
(37:22):
alone.
She didn't have a flashlight, no fire starting method, no shelter, no extra clothing and
very little food and water.
This was a bad situation all around.
Unfortunately, they comb the region after she was reported missing.
They encountered waste deep snow and faced heavy winds and blowing stuff.
You never walked in waste deep snow.
(37:45):
That is brutal.
Right now we have we have almost knee high.
What's actually over knee deep snow.
Walking through that to go walk my dog or go get the groceries or mail or whatever is
a mess.
Waste deep snow will take the energy right out of you.
And this lady was wearing yoga pants and tennis shoes.
That is not the proper attire for that sort of adventure.
(38:07):
Unfortunately her body was located 1130 Wednesday on the northwest side of Mount Lafayette,
indicating she had made it up just the first of the peaks.
So she hadn't even come to her first one when she succumbed to exposure, I guess.
So unfortunate sad story, but you got to be prepared and that's going to bring us to
a topic we'll get into next week that unfortunately she was not ready with the 10 C's of survival.
(38:31):
You haven't heard of this look it up.
Good information on the things you should always have with you whenever you're out there
in the woods.
The 10 C's as in Charlie of survival.
Okay, that's going to do it for today's show folks.
Thanks for your support.
Remember, don't wait for an emergency to get your gear ready for warm is for armed.
(38:52):
Because if you don't make it out alive, you don't make it out at all.
Stay safe out there folks.
Okay, coming to you from 40-200 feet in the hills of Oregon.
(00:29):
It is the voice of Chaitown, the reddest beard in the high desert.
Your host of the MOA broadcast, Sam Wilson.
That's me.
All right, we're going to get right into it today.
We've got all kinds of good information.
Starting with today's show, now so far this has been a radio broadcast that we also put
(00:51):
out as a podcast once it goes out over the radio.
And today we're going to have the video version available as well at our Patreon page.
So if you are unfamiliar with Patreon, it's basically a subscription service where you
can go and pay a monthly subscription fee to access things like extra content or exclusives
or things like that.
(01:11):
So if you go to Patreon, that's P-A-T-R-E-O-N and look up Gear Convoy or Sam Wilson, the
MOA broadcast, you'll find us.
There you can access the video version of the broadcast as well.
We appreciate your support for that.
Otherwise, the audio version will still be free for everyone.
You can access that at the www.gearconvoy.com website.
(01:34):
There's a player there.
Or you can get it from Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcast, and whatever your favorite
podcast supplier is, you can get it there for free.
So we don't want to take away the content, but we do want to incentivize some extra support.
And that also helps us to cover the time and everything of setting up the video and everything.
(01:57):
All right, we're going to be doing this since I usually do this broadcast from the sound
booth.
We're out in the shop today in the knife shop.
So give it a little bit more ambiance and a little bit more room to move around, frankly.
So the acoustics may not be quite what we're used to.
We may have a little bit of background noise occasionally.
We got a train station or train tracks not far from here.
(02:17):
So I'll try and cut any of that out in post.
But if it remains, you'll have to just think of it as giving character to the show.
All right, let's get into our first story.
Now we're going to introduce some news stories occasionally, things that I find interesting
and want to share.
The issue that we face today is everything has become political.
(02:38):
And we're not going to bring politics into the MOA broadcast.
So we make cover things that involve a, you know, whatever current event and maybe a political
event or a news event.
But we're not going to inject our politics into it everywhere you go.
Every show, every podcast, almost everything has a, you know, a big injection of politics
(02:59):
into it.
I don't want to do that.
This is going to be a place we just do with the news used to do years ago, which is give
you the information, the facts, the who, what, where, when, why and all that.
And you draw your own conclusions.
So we'll just be reporting on the actual events that we happen to find interesting.
So let me get a sip of this coffee here.
(03:23):
That is some good coffee.
Okay.
Nice and hot.
We are currently being belted by snowstorms again.
So the fun just continues.
Let's get into our story though.
Coming to you from New York, the White House blocked an Associated Press, it's AP, an Associated
Press reporter from an event in the Oval Office on Tuesday of this week after demanding
(03:48):
the news agency alter its style on the Gulf of Mexico.
This will make sense in a moment.
If you haven't heard about the, you know, the scandal, if you will, the kerfuffle about
the Gulf of Mexico and Gulf of America, we'll get to that here.
The reporter whom the AP would not identify tried to enter the White House event as usual
(04:10):
Tuesday afternoon was turned away.
Later, a second AP reporter was barred from a late evening event in the White House's
diplomatic reception room.
Now all this comes from before the inauguration, President Donald Trump announced plans to
change the Gulf of Mexico's name to the Gulf of America, which he does have the legal right
(04:32):
and ability to do.
He signed an executive order to do so as soon as he was in office.
Now the AP said last month, three days before Trump's inauguration, before he made the change
to, called the Gulf of America, they said that it would continue to refer to the Gulf
of Mexico as the Gulf of Mexico, even though they say that they were aware of Trump's
(04:56):
decision to rename it.
Their reasoning was as a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the
AP says it must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences.
Now I don't know what exactly they're actually saying or really saying here, but it looks
(05:18):
to me like this is either an ego or a pride thing or some type of battle of wills.
I don't know why they would want to dig their heels in.
Let's get into this.
This week, Google Maps began using Gulf of America along with Apple Maps and other leading
online map providers began referring to it as the Gulf of America saying it had a longstanding
(05:40):
practice of following the US government's lead on such matters.
As of Tuesday by early morning, both Apple and Google Maps along with other online maps
providers had changed it to Gulf of America.
So the AP refuses to, I don't even know why this would come up that often, like how often
do you hear them referred to it, but it seemed like they're making a point of, well, we're
(06:03):
not going to call it the Gulf of America.
As a result, the White House or Trump probably is the one that said, okay, well then you're
not going to come in for press briefings here in the White House as long as you're
referring to it as the Gulf of Mexico.
So I guess those two will have their battle of wills and we'll see what happens.
But since there was an executive order signed, that is the actual current and accurate name
(06:27):
here in America.
As far as what people around the world are doing, I don't know, I don't really talk to
many people around the world about the Gulf of America or Gulf of Mexico.
So I can't imagine it really being that big of a deal to most people, but I guess the
AP wants to dig their heels in and we'll see what happens.
All right.
That's taken care of the AP.
Moving on, a Florida woman, speaking of intelligent moves, a Florida woman was arrested this week
(06:56):
when she made the decision to call police to report a friend had stolen her marijuana.
Not only did she have marijuana with her when cops arrived, they also found that she had
two active outstanding warrants.
For those of you that don't see the video broadcast, this is me staring at the camera
(07:19):
with a face of how did, how and where do these people come from?
Anyway, according to the police report obtained and that documented the woman's ordeal, Stuart
police responded to a call about stolen property at a best Western hotel.
Let me tell you, if your story starts at the best Western hotel, chances are it's only
going to go downhill from there.
(07:44):
During the time, let's see what happened at the best Western, they found the, well, won't
use her name, it doesn't matter.
They found the lady or woman, whatever, who gave them the play by play of how the theft
went down.
She was quote unquote hanging out with her quote unquote friend Carlos, whom she had
known for all of a week at the best Western that night.
(08:04):
During the time they hung out, she had approximately $30 worth of weed with her.
After Carlos left, she looked in her container and believed about half a gram was missing.
The only thing she could think to do was to call the police.
The police asked her for identification only find out she was one of them two outstanding
(08:26):
warrants, one for missing a court hearing and the other for not appearing to a probation
violation for a DUI earlier this year.
So yeah, if someone steals your weed, apparently it's not legal for her to possess there.
Do you really think calling the cops is a good idea?
You know, we always hear about the Florida man.
(08:48):
This was a Florida woman.
I don't know what in the world goes on.
I've spent a good amount of time in Florida, especially in the Fort Walton Beach, Pensacola
areas.
Absolutely beautiful.
Several good steak houses went to there.
Went to a three dog night reunion concert there.
That was a pretty interesting.
I didn't really see a lot of this crazy behavior, but these are stories that pop up regularly
(09:11):
with the Florida man and the Florida woman deal.
So she was taken to the Martin County Jail and held with no bond.
Well, I guess she lost the rest of her weed, too.
This reminds me of an episode of cops.
So for those of you that are that are young, you may not be aware of the show cops before
(09:32):
we had social media and tick tock and Instagram and X or Twitter and only the different things
where anybody could just put, you know, live or unfiltered uncensored at a content online.
The only place you could really see these wild police chases and takedowns was on a
show called cops.
And when you heard that that theme song bad boys by inner circle come on, you knew you
(09:55):
were in for a good time because these were, you know, this was it was the wild, wild West.
And this is before, you know, people started getting overly sensitive to, let's just say
the use of force and police applications.
So things got pretty wild and wooly sometimes.
And this reminds me.
Hmm.
Sorry, I don't want my coffee to get cold.
(10:16):
This reminds me of an episode I saw once where you see these two women in a pretty rough
looking part of town.
Okay.
The cops show up and they go over to the first woman and she's the one that called the police
and the cop says to her, he goes, okay, you called him and he called us.
What's going on?
And she goes, well, I gave this lady over here, uh, $20 for something and she won't
(10:38):
give my money back.
You can tell by the, the part of town that they're in and the way these folks are dressed
and looking and acting and talking, you can look this up on YouTube, by the way, it's
an easy clip to find that, you know, the cop knows what's going on.
And so he asked her, he goes, well, what's the money for?
And she says, uh, it could be for anything.
(10:59):
It doesn't matter what the money's for.
She goes, she won't give him my $20 back and the cop asked her, he says, well, did you
come down here to buy drugs?
And she goes, yes, I came down to buy crack rock.
So don't wait, don't worry, it gets better.
The cops are, well, wait here for a minute.
He goes over and talks to the other woman who of course immediately, you know, begins
(11:20):
denying the story.
I don't know what you're talking about.
She came over, disrespecting me, asking this and that.
And I don't know whatever her problem was and the cop says, well, did you, did you
give her any, anything for $20?
Because the lady told the cop when she gave her the 20 bucks, she gave her what she found
out later was plaster.
It was supposed to be crack rock and she gave her some plaster.
(11:41):
So the cop says, did you give her anything?
Did you sell her anything?
And the guy, the lady goes, no, without missing a beat.
She goes, no, I don't even sell drugs.
I'm a prostitute.
So that ends our foray into the news for the moment and our Florida adventures.
All right.
What are we here to talk about today?
(12:02):
Though we know this is supposed to be a show about survival, about make it out alive, about
getting by about preparedness.
What are we talking about?
Well, one of everybody's favorite topics when it comes to the outdoors, fire.
Let's go to New Hampshire's white mountains.
New Hampshire fishing game says game says a man, he didn't make it.
(12:23):
Unfortunately, we're going to leave names out of this one too.
A man 53 was attempting a hike in Presidential Ridge Saturday when the weather deteriorated
to winter like conditions.
The Massachusetts man was rescued Saturday night.
Rescuers carried him over a mile up the summit of Mount Washington where he was placed on
(12:44):
a truck and driven down the mountains road to a hospital.
If saving efforts were attempted for several hours, but he suffered from severe hypothermia
and was unable to be revived.
Authorities tell them that the man's wife who had received text messages from him saying
he was cold and wet and couldn't continue and that he felt he would die without a rescue.
(13:07):
Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened.
When they got to him, he was alive, but he had already suffered from such extensive damage
from the cold that hypothermia went up taking his life.
So very unfortunate.
So what went wrong?
Number one, there was it says that they knew the storm was coming in and I don't know.
(13:28):
It seemed like this guy was not prepared for the weather.
I don't know about his clothing and other things, how well he's prepared, but the bottom
line is he failed to regulate his body temperature one way or another.
He didn't have the tools or he didn't have the ability to start a fire because there
are a lot of different cause.
If you look up the number one reason or the top reasons why people die in the outdoors
(13:49):
frequently, it comes down to falls, get a lot of people actually in the National Park
System, but exposure is what gets a lot of these stories and I look up hundreds of these
things or dozens of week, hundreds a month or a year easily.
And unfortunately, there's a steady stream of supply of them coming because people continually
(14:11):
go out into the wilderness and they're not equipped.
And again, that's what the show is about.
So he didn't have the tools or the training to start a fire.
Now, if he did have both the tools and the training, it could be that the wood or whatever
was where he was to burn, had to burn.
If he was above the tree line, it would start getting difficult very quickly to find things
to burn anyway.
(14:33):
But he wasn't able to get a fire going for whatever reason.
Now that's another thing that comes into being prepared beforehand.
You have to know your terrain, your area of operations as they call it, because as we
talked about in last week, the week before, whenever I would go hiking in the Columbia
River Gorge, which by the way, right now they are just getting hammered with a massive snow
(14:55):
storm.
The highway, I think it's 84, is shut down, bunch of wrecks.
The highway is either closed or in serious trouble right now, which is near the Multnomah
Falls area.
It's about 35, 45 minutes outside of the city of Portland in Oregon.
But when you go hiking in that area, there is so much because it's a temperate rainforest,
(15:16):
there's so much moisture everywhere.
If you pick up what they call deadfall, you know, branches, things off the ground, a lot
of times you can take branches that are wrist thick and just snap them in half or crush
them with your hand because there's so much moisture.
Now, if this guy was in a mountainous area, which he was, the White Mountains of New Hampshire,
clearly there's a lot of moisture, there's a lot of snow.
(15:38):
Even if he had matches or other fire starting devices, he may not have been able to get
a fire going because the wood was just too damp.
And if he didn't bring tender or other things along with him to facilitate that fire, then
things get even worse for him.
So sad story, but that really is the crux of the matter today.
(16:01):
It's not just a matter of having, okay, like let's say you got a lighter.
Here we go.
Even if you have a lot, this is a beck disposable, good tool to use in the backwoods.
These are actually very reliable for the most part.
You got to be careful when you get them really cold or wet, they may have issues, but usually
a packed couple along and that's, you know, takes care of that.
But if you had a lighter like this and you didn't have good tender or the experience
(16:23):
to actually get a fire going properly in wet conditions, it's not going to matter.
And so unfortunately that gentleman lost his life.
We hope the best for his family.
All right.
We're going to take a break.
We get back.
We're going to discuss fire starting methods and tools and their pros and cons and their
particular applications.
(16:44):
So the question is, what's your favorite method for getting a fire going?
What is the one thing you always have on you?
If you're going to be in the backwoods and you know, you may need to have a fire going
whether for recreation or for an emergency.
Let us know at info.
I NFO at gearconvoy.com that's info at gearconvoy.com and we'll mention you on air.
(17:06):
We'll be back.
More make it out alive with Sam Wilson after this.
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(17:27):
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(17:52):
Gold Country Radio, your message heard locally and beyond.
You're listening to the MOA broadcast with Sam Wilson.
Will you make it out alive?
All right, we are back and we are ready to get to it.
Now before the break, we were talking about different types of fire starters.
(18:16):
One of everybody's favorite topics for discussion about the backwoods starting a fire, not the
illegal kind.
I'll bring it up in a future episode, but there was recently a hiker, I think it was
in Arizona or somewhere in the Southwest, that they got lost for several days and they
were able to start a fire to signal for their rescue, but they wound up burning down a chunk
(18:39):
of the forest as well and they actually caught charges over it.
That was a pretty big mess, but we'll do that on the time.
This is for controlled legal safe fires while you're camping, backpacking, or for survival.
There are some different types of tools.
Well, if you've got the, if you're able to use the video version, the video version of
this broadcast, again, that'll be available through a Patreon page, P-A-T-R-E-O-N.
(19:01):
If you look us up there, Sam Wilson or Gear Convoy, you can get the video there.
You can find the link for it on our website at www.gearconvoy.com and you can get all
kinds of information about what we're doing there and see the demonstrations here.
Up first, probably the most common form of starting a fire.
Let's see that I bring out the, here we go.
(19:23):
Here we go.
Just a regular old BIC lighter.
Nothing fancy here.
The thing is BIC lighters are, and there are other brands, I don't get paid or endorsed
by BIC, let me tell you that, but I have had the best success along with a lot of other
people over the years.
Many have had the best success with the regular old BIC.
These are nice because you can get them at gas stations, really cheap.
(19:44):
You can get the full size.
You can get the smaller size.
If you're going to use one of these little butane lighters as your primary method of
starting a fire in the backwoods, do yourself a favor and get a couple of them.
It's best to just put one or two or three in various parts of your gear, one on your
backpack, one or two on your person.
(20:05):
And I usually keep a small one, a spare one in a Ziploc bag somewhere in my fire kit,
which is a separate kit all its own in my backpacking and hiking gear.
Fire is very important.
As we talked about, exposure gets a lot of people.
All it takes is deviating your core temperature a little bit and it's lights out.
(20:25):
So anyway, the other good thing about a BIC is even after they run out of fuel, they
still will spark.
And if you have properly prepared tender, you can still get a fire going that way.
We also sell and provide really good tender at GearConvoy.com.
You can get them elsewhere as well.
The tender quick tabs.
Here we go.
It looks like this.
(20:46):
It's a small, I don't know exactly if it's cotton or some similar type of fiber and it's
impregnated with some sort of chemical, probably a petroleum distillate or some sort of petroleum
product that makes it more flammable.
But the bottom line is if we take a lighter here and boom, just like that, you get yourself
a fire going.
Well, that'll burn pretty good for about, I don't know, one and a half to three minutes,
(21:12):
depending on your environment.
Sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less.
What I usually do is I take and I cut them in half because a half of one is more than
you really need.
In most cases, if you've prepared your tender.
Okay.
And just while we're on that subject, what is properly prepared tender look like?
If you've never made a feather stick, this is one of the easiest and most common ways
(21:34):
to produce good tender in the backwoods.
Okay.
This is a piece of wood here.
Again, if you watch in the video version, you can see if you're not, and you're experiencing
the backwoods, you probably know what a feather stick looks like.
But you can see the wood has been shaved with a knife.
All you really do.
This is one of our knives, a pack light, small hollow handle survival knife made in the US,
(21:57):
very proud of these.
And you just shave the wood like that and you make these curls.
Okay.
So for the curls we go in that way, I would have been cutting like this.
I've eventually cut the top off of that piece of wood.
What happened is I'm not going to light it on fire because I'm going to use this for
demonstration purposes and other videos, but a BIC or a match or even a ferrule rod will
easily catch tender that's like this on fire.
(22:19):
The other reason this is particularly valuable is you will strip off the bark or even take
a piece of wood and split it down the middle or into quarters so that you can access the
drier wood on the inside.
Again, if you're in a place like the Columbia River Gorge, like we've been talking about
all week or in several episodes, you're not going to find any dry wood on the outside.
(22:40):
Even if you peel off the bark in a lot of cases, it's going to be wet.
So you got to get something off the ground and then usually split it one or two times
and then shave down to get the dry wood.
So that again goes, we had dovetails with that story earlier about the man that died
in the wild in the white, whatever it was, the mountains, white mountains of New Hampshire.
(23:01):
You got to be prepared to start a fire and have, you may not find good tenders.
You may have to provide your own.
That's what knowing your AO, your area of operations is all about.
So that is the theme of this show of make it out alive, be prepared.
You know, being forewarned is forearmed.
So don't wait until you're in the bad situation to realize, great, all I've got is two matches.
(23:22):
If you're in the Columbia River Gorge or where that guy is on the white mountains, chances
are two matches are not going to do it unless you really, really know what you're doing.
So all right, that's put this up for it.
Hurt myself.
Get a sip of this coffee.
All right, what's next?
(23:46):
Matches.
Another product that we, that I designed and built, although this was a preexisting type
of product of match safe, these are also made in the US.
We have them on gearconvoy.com.
This is our match safe.
Okay.
So those of you that are younger and haven't really been around matches or match safes
that much, this is a waterproof aluminum tube.
(24:06):
And we take and screw open the cap on this bad boy.
This happens to have a hard anodized OD green finish.
We have been OD green and black.
We got a small compass there in the top for rudimentary navigation.
I wouldn't want to rely primarily on a button compass for navigation, but in a pinch, it's
better than nothing.
So we take that out and you've got strike anywhere matches.
(24:30):
Now you can put whatever you want there for the purposes of this demonstration I put in
matches.
You're going to want a handful of those.
There's also enough room to easily put in a handful of matches, a couple of those.
If I can hold on to it here, the quick tender tabs that way you've got a fire kit all in
one spot.
And yes, the knurling on here is sharp enough to strike a match.
(24:51):
You can strike a, if you have a strike anywhere match.
If it's not a strike anywhere match, you're going to need to include a striker strip.
Otherwise you're going to be in serious trouble.
So make sure again, you want to take all your game.
We're going to get to that momentarily and rehearse what you're going to do with it while
you're out there because that's the only way you're really going to find any holes in your
game.
(25:11):
If you, you know, if you do all this based on a checklist or a book or an article you
got from somebody else, you're going to miss some things.
Everything really replaces the experience of doing it live as O'Reilly would say.
So you need to get out there and actually practice it.
And that's the problem that we were having this, this culture problem here, especially
(25:32):
in America right now, people don't want to put in what they call the dirt time.
They just want to go to Amazon, you know, another phone, go to Amazon, get me one of
those, whatever, what's going to make me the best fire starter?
Give me one of them.
What's going to make me the best woodsman?
Get me one of them.
What's going to make me Rambo?
Give me one of those, put it in their cart and check out.
And then it comes and they just stick it in a backpack or a box somewhere and they don't
(25:54):
even use it.
I was, I was at a, I had occasion to be at a meeting a while back several years ago
about preparedness and it was in a city, I'm a country boy, nothing again, city people,
we just have very different backgrounds and perspectives on things.
That being said, it was about going over go bags and your, you know, your emergency supplies.
(26:15):
I cannot tell you as everyone started pulling out their gear, we're going through it and
looking at it, you know, okay, this is a good idea.
That is not so much of this gear had never even been open.
Some of it was still in the packaging.
And I'm thinking to myself, if you've never even taken it out of the package, how are
you going to be proficient with it?
Whenever the chips are down, if you're like that, that guy on the mountain, what if you're
(26:37):
getting pelted with rain and snow?
It said there were 50 mile an hour wins.
If you've never used your gear, that is not the time to learn.
So the far more important thing than just going and getting what has the most five star ratings
on, you know, online or Amazon or wherever you do your shopping, make sure you're experienced
(27:00):
with it.
Okay.
That brings us to one of our other products that is a fantastic product.
There we go.
This is what's called a ferrule rod.
So for those of you who are, some people will call it a flint and steel.
That's not entirely accurate.
It's a ferrule rod short for ferro cerium, which is this rod right here.
This is a product that we offer that I designed and sell.
(27:20):
Others have done similar things.
So I'm not trying to take too much credit there, but I have great faith in this one.
We've got a five sixteenths diameter ferrule rod here.
Those are good for, for thousands of strikes.
You may not be able to start thousands of fires, but thousands of strikes.
Same kind of thing as a match safe.
If we screw the top off here, we've got a compass and a water type container where you
(27:42):
can put some tender, like the tender, quicks or whatever is important to you.
Whenever we take like the match safe and the other products and we make many survival
kits, you want to tailor them to where you're going to be.
If you're in the city, having strike anywhere matches to start a fire may not really be
crucial for you and your day to day, you know, activities.
(28:03):
It may be more important to have a $20 bill in case of emergency to get home or to make
a call or get something, you know, whatever it may be, and your daily medication because
it's a waterproof container.
If you drop it, they're not going to be damaged.
You're not going to lose it's cut, you know, however you want to do it, but you need to
be prepared with those things.
So if you're not with me with a ferrule rod, let me share this work.
This is a used one here.
(28:24):
This is my personal one.
Let me get my coffee out of the way.
I'm trying to set anything on fire here.
We have a striker that you can get or you can use the blade of the spine of your knife
and you don't have to buy these from me.
You can get these similar products anywhere.
I'm not just trying to shove my stuff down your throat.
The point is whatever you have, practice with it.
(28:46):
But here for those of you that have never seen a ferrule rod, you take it and it just,
it throws a shower of sparks.
If you properly prepared your tender, like if you have a tender quick tab like this here,
or if you've prepared a feather stick like this within a couple of strikes, sometimes
one or two, if you're, if you're practiced enough, you can easily get a fire going.
So why would you want a product like this as opposed to matches or a lighter?
(29:11):
Well the downfall, I don't think I got into it earlier, but the downfall with the, the
lighter is not just Bix, but any of the small disposable butane lighters is sometimes when
they get really cold for whatever reason, they don't work, probably do the pressurization
of the butane tank inside, but they just don't seem to work as well.
Sometimes I've had several of them fail me in not even sub zero, but sub freezing temperatures
(29:33):
15, 16 degrees.
They start flicking it and it just doesn't work anymore.
The other thing is they are susceptible to water moisture.
That's why I keep one in a Ziploc bag so that if I go into the, into the water Creek River,
whatever, or my gear does that light is going to stay dry.
But I've had a number of these over the years get, you know, mildly wet and they just don't
(29:55):
work anymore.
So that is a problem.
Now you can still strike with them, but you're going to have to have very good tender.
The strikes, the sparks out of a lighter that's out of fluid will not be as good as say a
ferrule rod.
So that's, we have the ferrule rod.
I carry this in addition to the lighter and usually a match.
Some matches and other things to get me going because again, fire can be very critical once
(30:16):
your body temperature starts dropping.
It goes too far and it's lights out.
These you can take them straight.
In fact, I've got videos on my YouTube channel.
I take this straight out of a five gallon bucket of water and strike some tender and
start a fire.
Okay.
And you know exactly how much life you have left in one of these rods because you can see
it.
I usually have two or three Bix with me whenever I go because you never know which one of them
(30:40):
is running low on fuel.
So you know, again, it's about knowing your gear and being prepared, not just saying,
okay, I got the best rated one off of Amazon.
So you can get ferrule rods, very cheap all over the place.
Remember though, there are different types of alloys they use to make these for the rods
itself.
The cheaper ones don't work nearly as well as the better ones on average.
(31:02):
So whatever you get, make sure you try it out.
That's the main thing.
It's about being prepared.
Again, we've talked about that.
It's just the same thing with knives.
If you go on any, my goodness, if you go on any bushcraft or knife forum or social media
site, guys will sit there and talk endlessly about what's the best knife for this, what
(31:24):
knife would you take if you were going to do that?
What would be your dream knife scenario in this and that?
Because it's fun, I guess, to go and buy a knife and to collect them and to look at them
and admire them.
I get all that.
But the bottom line is people were surviving for thousands of years before we had stainless
steel or even carbon steel knives just fine because they may do with what they had.
(31:45):
I would rather have or be someone who was very thoroughly experienced with the knife
or fire or other skills and have a cheap piece of junk knife than be the person who had the
best knife in the world, whatever that would be and have no skill or experience with it.
So that's the underlying theme of all of this.
(32:07):
Don't just go out and say, oh, I got Wilson's, Sam Wilson's gear.
It's the best.
I'm set or so and so gear.
It's the best.
I'm set.
That's not what we're trying to get to.
It's really get the gear that is best for you that fits your style of doing things, but
then practice with it.
Some people don't like, you know, hollow handle knives.
I happen to like them quite a bit.
These are made very well.
(32:28):
They have exceeded every test that I've ever thrown at them and I've beat them to death.
But for some people that's fine.
Then don't buy a hollow handle knife by the one that suits you.
But the main thing is again, use it, have an idea of its limitations, what the edge retention
is like, what does it take to get it?
You know, how rust resistant is a corrosion resistant?
(32:48):
And you know, what point does it start feeling uncomfortable?
How should I hold it?
And so forth, because those skills that experience will be far more valuable than just having
the quote unquote best knife on the internet.
So that's what I have to say about that.
We have one more story we have to get into here.
Again, unfortunately, this is a sad one.
(33:09):
So we're not going to use names.
Let me get a cup of coffee here, a sip of coffee.
Okay.
This takes us to Franconia Notch State Park, November 23 of a year or two ago.
The fate of a Massachusetts woman who died alone in the White Mountains.
(33:31):
Again, just like the man earlier was in the White Mountains.
Very treacherous weather there, man.
Got to be very careful.
Died while trying to accomplish a hiking goal is a sad reminder of one of the biggest dangers
in the back country, sometimes called summit fever.
I would argue that exposure is far more dangerous, but summit fever is whenever in this particular
(33:51):
area of New Hampshire, there is a large group of 4000 foot or so mountains.
And it's a common thing for people in New England to want to summit all of them because
that's like a day hike.
We live at 4,200 feet here in Oregon.
That's as tall as the whole mountain there.
So these are not huge hills.
(34:12):
Okay.
According to officials, we'll just call her Nancy.
Nancy of Westford, Massachusetts was trying to reach the summit of all 48 of New Hampshire's
4000 footers before she turned 20 on Wednesday.
She set out alone before dawn on Sunday morning from the Lafayette Place campground with the
(34:32):
goal of summiting several of the peaks along the Franconia Ridge, then getting picked up
by her mother at the flume Gorge parking lot by 3.30 p.m.
So she started out before dawn, let's say, let's guesstimate here five o'clock.
So 0500, she starts out.
That's what about 10, 8, 10, 11 hours.
(34:53):
If she gets there by 2.30, 3.30.
That's a pretty big day.
She wanted to summit apparently one, two, three, at least four of these hills before
she got picked up by her mother.
Unfortunately, Nancy never made it to the parking lot, which triggered an extensive search by
numerous rescue crews.
So they did that right.
She had someone there waiting to pick her up and was told to call the cavalry if she
(35:15):
doesn't make it on time.
Her route she was using is a popular day hike in good weather, but winter conditions had
arrived in the White Mountains, making the trail icy, snowy and much more treacherous.
Rescue officials said that she is an experienced hiker in good weather, but was not prepared
(35:35):
for winter in the North County Mountains.
This is where she really messed up big time.
Her attire and the gear she had, she was wearing just a jacket and athletic pants with sneakers
on her feet.
So a jacket, yoga pants and tennis shoes.
Though that is not the gear, the apparel to be wearing when you're going to be in the
(35:57):
White Mountains and there's snow.
She was carrying a small amount of food in a backpack and a water bladder.
She did not have any means of starting a fire and apparently carried little if any further
protection such as extra clothing and her only source of light was her smartphone.
Officials said so.
(36:17):
Unfortunately, she made some very grave errors before she ever took off on the trail that
day.
This is again, like we talked about before, with some of these remote areas being so close.
I'm guessing there was a big sitting nearby or she was from a big Westford mass.
When you are that accessible or the outdoors are that accessible, sometimes people forget
(36:40):
that they can be just as dangerous and deadly.
I saw that a lot when I was living in the Portland area.
People would be out on the trail.
It was unreal with their address to open toe shoes whenever it cold temperatures, mud,
going up hills, gravel, trying to climb any kind of terrain and open toed shoes and shorts
(37:01):
or yoga pants were very popular where on the trail for usually for women, you got to know
Portland, but very dangerous attire and she had tennis shoes.
So she didn't have a way to start a fire.
You should always be prepared at a minimum to have to spend the night if it comes up
and becomes necessary anytime you go out in the woods, especially if you're going to be
(37:22):
alone.
She didn't have a flashlight, no fire starting method, no shelter, no extra clothing and
very little food and water.
This was a bad situation all around.
Unfortunately, they comb the region after she was reported missing.
They encountered waste deep snow and faced heavy winds and blowing stuff.
You never walked in waste deep snow.
(37:45):
That is brutal.
Right now we have we have almost knee high.
What's actually over knee deep snow.
Walking through that to go walk my dog or go get the groceries or mail or whatever is
a mess.
Waste deep snow will take the energy right out of you.
And this lady was wearing yoga pants and tennis shoes.
That is not the proper attire for that sort of adventure.
(38:07):
Unfortunately her body was located 1130 Wednesday on the northwest side of Mount Lafayette,
indicating she had made it up just the first of the peaks.
So she hadn't even come to her first one when she succumbed to exposure, I guess.
So unfortunate sad story, but you got to be prepared and that's going to bring us to
a topic we'll get into next week that unfortunately she was not ready with the 10 C's of survival.
(38:31):
You haven't heard of this look it up.
Good information on the things you should always have with you whenever you're out there
in the woods.
The 10 C's as in Charlie of survival.
Okay, that's going to do it for today's show folks.
Thanks for your support.
Remember, don't wait for an emergency to get your gear ready for warm is for armed.
(38:52):
Because if you don't make it out alive, you don't make it out at all.
Stay safe out there folks.
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