Don’t Be a Wilderness “Expert” Fanboy!

The subject of who should be called a wilderness skills expert, and what that entails has been a favorite topic of discussion/fights in forums for many, many years now, and the debate doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. In this post however, I want to address a similar, but different issue; the issue of being an expert fanboy.

Generally speaking, the term “fanboy” means “one who is an extremely or overly enthusiastic fan of someone or something”. This is by no means exclusive to wilderness skills or buschraft/survival, but I’ve been seeing a lot of it lately with respect to wilderness skills “experts”.

To be more precise, many people reject the term “expert” when it comes to themselves but instead place the label on another person of their choosing and then obsess over that person to the exclusion of all others. The person doing this seems to find some type of identity, community, and authentication by proxy, through ideological association with this “expert”, and will espouse their views without an ounce of critical thinking. We have all seen them on forums; they are the guys who seem incapable of accepting, let alone leveling criticism against their expert of choice, and will fight to the death in their honor, usually while dressed head to toe in the merchandize that “expert” is selling at the time.

What’s wrong with that you ask? Sometimes someone might indeed be the greatest expert ever, right? Why not follow him exclusively? Well, even if that was true, I strongly believe that this type of mentality leads to stagnation of knowledge and ultimately to people learning less about the wilderness. Even if a person is the greatest expert ever, they are still going to be wrong some of the time. Or maybe they are not wrong, but are simply not aware of something better that another person has come up with more recently. Or perhaps their ideology is interfering with the more practical aspects of the craft. By blindly following this “expert” and their teachings, valuable learning opportunities are lost.

Knowledge progresses when we think critically; when we challenge established beliefs. Trying to align yourself with anyone’s camp is contrary to the furthering of knowledge. Of course this is nothing new. We do it with sports teams, celebrities, etc. However, while defending to the death your team that hasn’t won a championship in decades and wearing their colors proudly while screaming at the opposing side is all in good fun, doing the same when it comes to wilderness experts actually has a negative impact on the learning of wilderness skills.

This all culminates in The Clone Wars, where Ray Mears clones fight Dave Canterbury clones while seeking an alliance with the Mors Kochanski clones; all of course happening online. Interestingly, I haven’t seen too many Matt Graham clones. I suppose the loin cloth look is yet to catch on. This approach of “my expert is better than your expert” certainly serves to create identity and community associations, but is quite detrimental to the actual learning of skills.

My advice is to not fall into anyone’s camp. Don’t establish an identity for yourself as someone who enjoys the wilderness through association with another person and their beliefs. Take each skill, each lesson, and think about what you are being told critically. Then listen to a bunch of other people, compare the information, and think about it critically again. Then repeat the same process for the next skill or piece of information. Nobody is right about everything all the time. No matter how much you like and trust a particular expert, part of the time they are not going to have the best advise for you.

Most importantly, don’t think of disagreement as disrespect. It is not the same thing. You can respect an expert and their skills and contributions while still disagreeing with them on specific issues or ideology. Disagreement and debate is how we expand knowledge. Blindly following any one person serves the opposite purpose.  

Trip Report: Willowemoc Wild Forest Long Pond 7/18/15 – 7/19/15

I know I haven’t written much the past month or two. I’ve been getting out consistently during that time because the woods are so close to my new place, but I just haven’t had time to write much about anything. Well, this past weekend I got the urge to go fishing, and I figured it’s about time I posted something about it.

I’ve been doing a bunch of fly fishing lately, and it’s been getting a bit tedious, so this weekend I wanted to do some spinning. I also wanted to go up to the Catskills and explore some areas I haven’t visited before. The challenge with that is that there are very few lakes in the Catskills. There are a few good locations, but they are overdeveloped. Access to them is pretty easy because people bring boats to the lakes, which makes them feel less secluded than I like.

So, I took out a map and started looking at bodies of water that were nowhere near any roads. The lake I settled on was a 15 acre body of water called Long Pond located in the Willowemoc Wild Forest in the Catskill Mountains. I knew nothing about it except that it was small, there was no road access anywhere near the area and that I would have to backpack a fair distance to get to it.

When I left in the morning it was raining heavily. I got all my rain gear ready, but by the time I arrived at the trail head, the rain had stopped and the sun was out. I headed up the mountain towards the lake.

I followed a trail most of the way up, cutting across the woods at the very end to reach the lake. The climb was steeper than I had anticipated, but it wasn’t anything challenging. The rain from earlier in the day had brought out some of the animal.

I reached the lake in good time. As I mentioned earlier, I really didn’t know what to expect. It quickly became clear why no one seemed to fish this lake. Not only was there no easy way to get to it, but there was virtually no shore access for easy fishing. The lake is a good size, but at least this time of year is surrounded by a bog with a few marshy areas. All the open greenery you see is not actually soil, it is just plants growing directly out of the water. 

Luckily, I was prepared. I suspected this might be the case, as it is with many of the small bodies on water around here, so I brought along my waders and DIY wading shoes. I also brought a heavier reel and move complete tackle than my usual portable kit because I was specifically coming to the area to fish.

There were a few location along the shore that weren’t overgrown with brush, so I picked the widest one and started making my way through the bog. It’s the most difficult time I’ve ever had getting into a lake, sinking significantly into the bog.

The bubbles you see all around me in the picture above are being released from the bog as I am pushing down on it. Right there my legs are at least a foot deep into the mud.

Anyway, I got the hang of moving around after a while and got to fishing. I was using a gummy weedless set up. I’m assuming it’s because there isn’t much pressure on the fish here, but I started getting hits right the way. They were all pickerel. The first few I caught were too small to keep, about a foot each. Around here they have to be at least 15 inches to keep. After a while I hooked one that was much bigger, and it snapped my line. I was surprised as I was using my bigger reel with 8lb line, but it snapped it.

I reset with the exact same set up and kept going. Eventually I hooked an 18 inch chain pickerel that I managed to get out of the water.

 

To top it off, I even found some blue berries in the area.

At that point I figured I would call it a day. I cleaned the fish, which was a pain because it is a slimy one, packed up and moved south along the lake.

In the late afternoon I stopped to eat dinner. When I am cooking something like fish that has a strong smell, I like to do it away from where I will be camping during the night. It is almost certain that a bear will come check out the smell, and having to chase away a bear in the middle of the night is not fun. So, I made a small fire and cooked the fish along with some other food I had brought along.

After dinner I moved on for about another half a mile. There were quite a few game trails in the area, so walking was easy. When the sun started going down I pulled out my pad and sleeping bag and went to sleep. The night was very warm.

The next day I packed up and headed home. Originally I was planning on doing some more fishing, but I just didn’t feel like trying to make my way into the lake again.

Following the trail down the mountain, I crossed a small creek, so I took the opportunity to wash up. I wasn’t able to reach the lake water after I took my waders off, so my hands were still covered in fish.

After that it was a short distance out of the forest. And that’s it. A little fishing, a little camping, and all around a good time.

Dual Survival Canceled by The Discovery Channel

Two days ago TMZ reported that the Discovery Channel had canceled Dual Survival. I first found out about it when it was published on Rocky Mountain Bushcraft. At the time Jason had contacted Discovery, so I figured I would wait for the confirmation before sharing the news. It has now been confirmed that the Discovery Channel has canceled Dual Survival.

It appears that the cancelation occurred at the completion of filming for this upcoming season. I imagine that the season will air, but that will be the end.

For me the interesting part of all this is the potential reason for the show’s cancelation. Shows get canceled all the time, but the circumstances surrounding the cancelation of Dual Survival are potentially very interesting. After all, it certainly wasn’t canceled because of the ratings. The show is a very strong performer for Discovery, and is one of the most popular survival shows on TV.

The reason is clearly something else. The question is “what”? TMZ originally reported that during filming of the last episode co-host Joe Teti injured a dog in an attempt to save a cat. According to Discovery that was not the reason for the cancelation, but that allegedly made the folks at Discovery even more comfortable about the cancelation. 

Dual Survival is no stranger to controversy. Its hosts seem to generate more drama than the Kardashians. For those who can remember back far enough, in 2011, after completion of Season 2, co-host Dave Canterbury was fired for falsifying his military record. Then in 2014, in the middle of Season 4, co-host Cody Lundin was fired due to disagreements with the show’s producers. It looks like Season 6, which I assume will air will be the last one. Neither of the previous cast changes prevented any of the episodes from being aired, so I assume that will be the case with the upcoming Season 6 as well. 

I am sure we will eventually find out what necessitated such a drastic measure on the part of Discovery. It may be related to documents Discovery may have seen during ongoing litigation involving Joe Teti and Mykel Hawke. Litigation is a double edged sword. The discovery process (excuse the pun) can reveal all sorts of information about the litigants. Of course, this is all just speculation at this pint. It could be anything.

I haven’t followed the show in a while. These days it is more of a TV soap opera than a survival show, so I have lost interest, but I would love to know what lead to the cancelation. If you guys have any information, please share it below.

Trekking Poles and Why I Use Them

For many many years I resisted the use of trekking poles. I had tried using poles a few times, and they always seemed like more of a nuisance than help. I had tried some cheap trekking poles, which I ended up carrying more than using; I also tried a staff because…well…bushcraft. I ended up leaving it in the woods.

About two years ago however I decided to give them a more serious try. My motivation was to use a set of trekking poles as the tent pole for my GoLite Shangri-La 3 tent. I figured, if they work as a tent pole, even if I don’t actually use them while walking, and simply keep them in the pack for shelter set up and river crossings, then it would be worth it, especially if I could find a lightweight set.

So, I did some research and ended up with an older 2012 model of the Black Diamond Alpine Carbon Cork, which I got at a discount.

They did indeed work well as a center pole for the SL3. What was surprising however was that I started using them a lot while walking as well.

 

Even now that I don’t usually use the SL3, and have a free standing tent with its own pole system, I still carry the trekking poles on most trips. There are two differences between my current attempt to use trekking poles and my previous ones where they didn’t work out.

The first reason is that I got good trekking poles. The weight of the poles makes a huge difference in how usable they are. The weight matters not just because you have to carry it in your hands all the time, but more importantly, because a lightweight set of poles can move without effort at your walking pace. Heavy poles require more effort to move, and you either get tired trying to force them to keep up with your pace, or they start to fall behind, which makes for a miserable experience. I find that a combined pole weight of about one pound or under works very well. The poles I have weight 16 oz. There are lighter poles out there, but these have some features that I like.

The second reason is that they make a big difference with my knee pain. Due to some childhood injuries, I have pretty bad knees. On many trips I would be in extreme pain, especially when going down hill. The trekking poles have greatly reduced the stress on my knees. It is not so much an issue of distributing the weight, as my pack is fairly light, but rather it’s an issue of stabilizing my knees. For me, just like with a lot of other people, knee pain while backpacking comes from lack of lateral support on the knee. When walking on rough terrain, the knees do experience a lot of stress from side to side, trying to stabilize the body. That lateral stress can cause severe pain. The trekking poles take away a lot of that stress by serving the role of stabilizers. For me, it has been a big change. There are trips on which I suffered years ago, that I have been able to repeat recently with no problem.

 

And of course, you have the usual benefits such as river crossings, walking in deep snow, and weight distribution when carrying a heavy load. They also easily attack to the side of a pack when not needed.

So, that’s why I started using trekking poles and why I have continued to use them. If you haven’t had success with them in the past, but are still interested in using trekking poles, try a light weight pair that can be adjusted to your desired height. It may make a difference for you.