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Bushcraft Club thread
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Well we had our last gathering of the year last, last weekend. It was a cold one but very enjoyable. With the temperatures low and the skys quite dark this time of year, we generally do everything in and around the camp fire. It was a nice relaxing one with nothing particularly on the agenda.
In an effort to make the camp comfortable we together some chairs as we knew we would be in darkness for most of the evening. They were great and everyone had a seat
We had some guests coming down so we put on some lamb. We dont generally do this for visitors but these guys were hoping to do some filming. There was nothing left of this lamb by the end of the night. Delicious!
I love building smokers for making jerky, smoking hides or fish. They're pretty cool
It was quite cold but good old flint and steel is quite reliable for making fire
It was a nice weekend, quite relaxing and the craic around the fire was great. Our next outting will be in the new year0 -
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On returning to our camp after the month, the site had been destroyed by a 30m high, 1 metre wide monster. In fact the tree took another 5 to 6 trees with it. Chances of us being there are slim but it was food for thought given the tree size
This lady fell directly onto our camp.
This is where I normally sleep. The tree below me was taken down by the larger tree.
Tony stands beside where the fire usually is (stick in the ground). There was a bench directly underneath the tree in the background where we normally sat for the night.
Still we had a good laugh about it and may find some use for the tree0 -
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Another lovely weekend in the woods for us, as the weather was kind and it only got cold in the evenings. We had a good laugh and got a bit done too. I had a few things I wanted to try. One being the good old birch glue in the biscuit box which turned out ok.
The end result was still a bit tar-y. I tried rendering it down without setting it alight. I was thinking of adding a temper instead because I was afraid it would reduce to nothing. Any suggestions lads?
Second was to spit roast the rabbit which I shot last weekend. I knew this was a riskier method of cooking and indeed it re-enforced my love of the ground oven. The rabbit took several hours but it was nice when it was finished.
The last thing we tackled was a paddle. I always wanted to have a go at doing this so with a little help from the lads we got stuck in
Finally, photographic evidence that I am a tree hugger :-)
and that Tony is a viking :-)
He uses this yoke to crack heads but here he practices on a bench support
Maires split log for a kuksa
Andrew makes a spear to attack the Dubs with and defend Corks honor. Wait that was just the spit :-)
Maire attempted to make a willow whistle but found out it was too early in the year to peel the bark nicely
All in all, a lovely weekend and I got to test some of my gear before Sweden next week. We will be back out in March and I cant wait for the spring. Good to see people out0 -
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I didnt want to start a new thread for my little trip but I thought it would be nice to write about the trip in which I was looking for this jacket.
Our destination was a town called Sveg. Half way up Sweden and is proud to be the Bear capital of the country. Brown bears are the native species there. My aim for the trip was to get some cold weather experience and to test my gear, myself and my knowledge over the week. It wasnt a hardcore week of survival, rather a nice mix of learning new skills and enjoying the country.
Temperatures were -10 to -12 at max, so it wasnt exactly artic conditions. Although I was little disappointed, I was gonna make it count. My friend Pontus is a member of the Swedish survival guild and has experience in Canada, been to the tracker school in New Jersey, done a 3 month Residential program in Ireland and done Artic survival courses. So he is a bushcraft nut.
Out first challenge was to learn how to do a bit of Nordic (cross country) skiiing. We were using 1940s Swedish army ski's. For anyone who read 'Heroes of Telemark' this is the gear we were using.
We had to learn the basics of skiing as we intended to travel into Norway and back over a 2 day trip. This is us at the Norwegian border. Me on the far right.
We were accomodated in an amazing school for ancient skills called Bäckedals Folkhögskola. This school was dedicated to studying subjects such as blacksmithing, tanning, weaver, carving and ancient textiles. It was an incredible place to be.
We built a quinze and slept in one for a few nights before skiing into Norway. Reindeer hides instead of roll mats. It was great. Quinzes are very warm and a great bushcraft shelter
We also did the usual, fire lighting, water purification and edibles in the area.
All in all it was a fantastic trip. We learned lots of different skills from the students and also got out and about quite a bit. I would recommend Sweden to anyway. Beautiful country. So if you are interested in some of the things that I learned, here is a small list
- Wool, wool, wool and more wool. It is great stuff, there are alternatives but wool is great for these temperatures
- Attention to detail. When packing and having you kit ready. Make sure you have everything accessible to cold hands. Minimise the amount of bare skin that is exposed.
- You should be able to use most of your gear with gloves or mittens on
- Snow is a great insulator, as long as you dont touch it
- Drink lots of water as you expend more than normal in this kind of climate
- Give yourself plenty of time to set up as it gets dark early in winter
- A shovel is your home, bring one wherever you go. Dont sleep beside it if its metal.
- Layer up and down like a yoo-yoo to prevent getting too warm or too cold
- The inuit have a saying 'If you sweat, you die' so take care not sweat too much. Make sure you have spare clothes if you do
- Boots, hiking boots are crap for these conditions. The insulation allows water in which can freeze the boots at night. The Swedes have great boots for this climate that allows the inner boot to be removed and dried.
- When wearing wool socks, you still need to be able to wiggle your toes
- Leave your quinze to freeze before you dig it out. 1 hour at -20 was the figure I was given
- Learn how to spot hypothermia in yourself and others
Thats my 2 cents. Feel free to chip in with your experience.0 -
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For us forest dwellers who like our tea and shiney equipment, the idea of 'slumming it' is not in the bushcraft vocabularly. However as I challenge, we set out the idea of a days hike into an area, a camp and a hike out. Meaning, that all the nice equipment you just needed to walk out to the car for had to go. Shelter, water, food all had to suffer in order to get the 6km into the Muster hills and back out.
Each person had a personal challenge. The lads can come and say what they did but for me I wanted to make it harsh. As a hiker, I decided only to carry hiking equipment. My luxury item was a trangia pot. The only shelter equipment I was bringing was a 2 man bothy. I also had to last the 2 days on 1 litre of water with day hiker food, without building a shelter. So my challenge was more from a hikers perspective as I wanted to see how I did without the ability to purify water or scounge food. I wanted to experience the affects of de-hydration and fatigue on my ability to perform over a short period.
The Day itself was Gorgeous, 26 degree heat, clear blue skies and 7 enthusiastic bushcrafters ready to go. We hiked for about 4 hours in total to our wood. Most of us carrying less than half the usual weight. Our aim was to head towards a water source.
When we got there, our next step was to make a shelter. Indeed there were some impressive shelters made, with Kevins winning out and Andrews a close second for effectiveness. All made without axes or bow saws. Knives and leathermans were the only tool used.
Kevin in his shelter
Andrews shelter
After that we had to make fire and for once this was the easiest task given how dry the materials around were. In fact it was quite the opposite. We had to be careful where we were lighting it as bush fires are not unheard of in Ireland. A fire steel straight onto dry grass got it going in 10 seconds. Brilliant!
Personally I was in Bear Grylls mode and wanted to see how unpleasent a night out with nothing was and indeed. Take it from me, its ****. I froze my arse off in my bothy shelter and got about 45 minutes sleep in total. The clear night and northerly winds dropped the temperature down to below 5 degrees id say and we had cover from the forest. Still managed a smile though.
We were up at 5, mainly because none of us had a proper nights sleep and we were on the move by 7 and camp clean up. It was a fabulous weekend and definitely thought us all alot about roughing it.
Ill post some more photos when I get them off the GF's phone0 -
Nice one Donal,
My personal challenge on the weekend was slightly different to Donal but with similar results. The main thing to know about this weekend was that nobody had a sleeping bag, some had bivy bags and some had a tarp. This weekend was all about seeing what worked and didnt work and learning from it.
I carried 1 litre of water in a stainless bottle nested in a mug,(this gave me the potential to boil water for purification) a PET .5 litre juice bottle filled with water in my pocket for hydration on the move and a filter for when we found water.
In my pack I had the usual first aid kit, and a firesteel with a small amount of tinder, a bread roll and some cooked meat to make a sandwich and emergency snickers bars in the bottom of the pack.
I brought a poncho as raingear and potential shelter but I challenged myself to build a shelter on site using nothing more than a mora. I also packed a german army folding kipmat that I always have in my pack as a sit mat and a snugpak sleeka for the cool evening and of course the obligatory wooly hat.
I built my shelter in a natural hollow from deadfall around me and covered it with spruce boughs.
I insulated myself from the ground with more spruce boughs and slept on the kip mat in just the clothes I had on me. This mat is not by any means comfortable on its own as its made from a hard pvc type stuff a few mm thick but provided protection from prickly spruce boughs.
During the night it got nippy enough so I pulled the poncho over me to try and warm up, big mistake, the poncho being completely waterproof was trapping moisture and soaking the inside of the poncho and making me even colder. Lesson 1 learned...
We gathered water from a nearby stream which I filtered and then we all boiled in whatever containers we had. My stainless single walled bottle was ideal for this and left me with a full litre of purified water for the morning.
The point of this excercise was to see what we could learn from a night out with no gear and how it could teach us to pack in the future. We have read all the books and already know that you should pack just in case items in case something goes wrong but if you have to hike then volume and weight is an issue especially for an unfit fecker like me so what extra gear would I bring on a minimum kit basis the next time to ensure a more comfortable night.
1. A folding saw.... The mora did the job but I would have had a shelter up in no time if I had a saw. This will go back in the bag.
2. Gloves... During the night my hands were the coldest as they were exposed and gathering spruce boughs for the shelter would have been a hell of a lot more comfortable with gloves on. They go back in the bag.
3. Snugpack paratex bivi bag and thermalon liner... packs up small and doesnt weigh much. Worth the weight for a nights sleep. Back in the bag it goes.
Adding these three items to my bag will not weigh much but will make any night out a much more comfortable experience. In winter time extra clothing would be carried as well as waterproofs.
Obviously we could go the whole hog and pack the sleeping bag, tarp, axe etc., and we usually do, but this weekend was about learning and I think we all learnt something. A good weekend all round I would say.
Before we headed home we took time to "leave no trace" and return the site to the way we found it.
My shelter spot before we left....
The fire spot before we left.....
Andrew0 -
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Recently we had a few bushcraft mates from the club meet up for a day of forging. This wasnt an official club meet as we are not insured to do this. So unofficially, we as friends met up to give it a go. I had done this before but the lads as experienced bushcrafters were dying to give it a bash (get it?.... ill get me coat)
Anyway this skill is not for total beginners and requires some safety considerations but after that, its great to try your hand at. Our goal was to make some working flint strikers to light fires with
Our forge consisted of, a beer keg with legs attached. An electric matress pump and a garden hose. Thats it. Some charcoal as fuel and a set of Steel suspension springs and we were set. Again I stress if you are interested in forging, learn from the experts. We are not!
There is an association for Irish blacksmiths
http://www.irishblacksmiths.com/
but as bushcrafters, our ethos is to improvise.
Our Forge
Trusty matress pump
Strike while the Iron (Steel) is hot!!
Taking shape. What an amazing colour!
The finished product.
This is a skill from out not so distant past that is still in use today. Making something like this really makes you appreciate the craftsmanship of more complicated pieces of work.0 -
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Back in Jan 2007 a thread was started here that was the germination of what is now known as the Irish Bushcraft Club. While there are many people on here that have had some involvement in the formation of the club as we know it, and we thank them all, there would not have been any club without Donal Carroll. I know he won’t thank me for this but as he is heading to Canada on Tuesday I reckon I am safe...
Donal, as has been said before by others, is one of those rare people who actually does what he says he is going to do. There was a general consensus on here that our chosen hobby needed to be organised into a formal organisation so as to be accepted into mainstream outdoor pursuits. Through Donal’s persistence, the club became an official associate of Mountaineering Ireland in 2008. This has given us the ability to approach landowners and government bodies alike, with the legitimacy that Mountaineering Ireland gives us, so that we could pursue our hobby in areas that would have been inaccessible to us in the past. I think that it is fair to say that Bushcraft in Ireland would have remained an underground activity without Donal’s determination and persistence. An activity that may have once been regarded with some suspicion is now photographed and recorded on a public forum thanks to Donal (and Evil Phil
) and is generating more legitimate interest than ever. This is to Donals credit.
I think it was fitting that on Donal’s last Irish Bushcraft Club meet for now, in Cavan, over the weekend, that we had a particularly impressive turn out of experienced as well as potential new members to the club. At this meet Donal handed over the keys to the woods to our new President ... duly elected etc.
:D...Who I am sure will introduce himself over time::cool:;):D but this post is about saying thanks and farewell to Donal and Maire who will be missed by their friends.
I’m sure I won’t be alone in wishing ye both a safe journey and a great time away on your travels. Ye will both be missed and we look forward to seeing ye both again soon...
Take care
Andrew
PS its our club now:D:D:D0 -
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