Brett's Fire and Ice Challenge

Description

A long-term student faces the Fire and Ice Challenge -- going through ice, then trying to start a flint-and-steel fire. Brett shares the lessons he learned during his challenge.

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Video Transcription

Brett is a student who's been here for nine months now and spending he spent almost the whole time up on the ridge and primitive camp and finally we had some winter and today he's going to do one of the challenges that I like to put in front of long-term students that are here a true love you and the challenge is to go through the ice he's not going to be able to do a self rescue today because the ice is just it's too thick so I cut a hole with a hatchet and um he's going to just let himself in get wet over his head whole thing climb out and then he has a plastic bag with a flint and steel kit he's going to try to start a fire after coming out of the water and the purpose of this exercise is to allow us to find out what it's like to function in the first you know just touches of hyperthermia our hands aren't working really well so trying to figure out you know how we accomplish this goal as quickly as possible and efficiently as possible with our tools our hands our natural tools slowly failing us and let's see how it goes nice

what are you feeling my hands are colder than my body yeah I am yeah it's the cold shock seem to be leaving are you still feeling that you felt a little burst of it but not much I can breathe easily okay totally your call if you feel like you're not I / ventilating anymore you're not in Kolchak you're good so

haha okay all right fire feel your feet oh how your feet feel my toes just tip summer a little a little stinky butt okay my feet overall don't feel bad okay okay let's get this started

let's do this way alright

ah yes yes yes we're just going to skip a lot of intermediary stuff good night Wow look at that I don't know if these sticks are going to be drying up take on bluebird toes are starting to get a little okay you can get that wood burning you can warm them up over that fire a little bit gets it all in the drip on the fire Oh your fingers can still do that huh nice big chunk right on my eyeball you

lost it

like this grass is a bit wetter than half deep check in pretty pretty cold okay almost at a char cloth tried it out with those first you awesome

and just wish the back think you got it yeah this planet get those feet warming over there might be better off barefoot huh keep forgetting that my fires gonna get wet rat there's a fire you did it awesome it's great all right I'm kind of cold so maybe we can move over and I could warm myself up that's why I made a spar for you it would find out here I just look hugs and walking on the bed well i was actually you know I felt like once I got out of the water there was a brief period of time where I was a lot warmer than I expected to be in the situation mmm I guess it's just because you know you kind of got a little bit of adrenaline you know you've got to get to the fire and so that was that period of time where I was actually you know dextrous still my feet felt fine I was wet but I wasn't in pain or anything and I think if I had if I had to redo that I would have been more careful during that period and more like trying to make sure I'm going to get a good fire because having to redo it a second time especially after you know your first fire goes out and then that's when you're you know your fingers start getting numb and your your toes are starting to hurt and and now you have to do that whole thing again except for now you have to make sure you get it working or else you know there's not going to be a third time possibly so yeah I probably like you know I I knew that I could have gotten a bunch of intermediary six and stuff but I guess I was more intent on trying to trying to get a fire quickly than I was trying to get it make sure i get a fire oh sure so I feel like there was enough time that I could have been more cautious and i might have you know even benefited from being more you know slowing down a little at that point and just saying how you know let me make sure that I get this instead of you know I'm just gonna throw some sticks on like I was hoping I just had enough grass that it's gonna be hot and then I get the sticks on fire and but they didn't you know I didn't have enough grass first of all and then I just you know they go so fast that that was I was surprised how I mean that you wash it was gone is like where did all my that was supposed to be the thing that caught these pics on fire no they have a little more lasting pump yeah and I you know there were a couple small sticks that I gathered in there I was like okay those will catch and then they'll get hot and the other ones what you know I was hoping that there'd be sort of a bit of a progress there but but yeah that's that's probably the main thing that I would that I would change if I had to redo it it's just you know while you're still dexterous and while you're still capable of doing that sort of stuff make sure you get a good fire you know don't don't try to rush it just kind of I mean interesting advice because you're you have to go really fast in a way and yet it's almost best to slow down at that time when it feels like you've got a rush yeah take your stock and you know in tartar take stock of the situation and you know really make sure to you you make good decisions while you still can yeah this is going to be a point very soon after that where you stop making good decisions