Paracord Bracelet Survival Challenge

Description

A 24-hour survival challenge using only a paracord bracelet. Goal: secure food, shelter, water, and fire. Visit http://www.rewildu.com/paracord-bracelet-survival-challenge/ to learn more. This is a challenge I put before my survival students. It's not enough to just make it through the night -- the idea is to find or make a workable shelter, to find enough food to fill your belly, to make fire, and to safely purify water for drinking. I teach these skills, as well as martial arts, primal fitness, and wilderness awareness (mindfulness) skills. Visit the link above to learn about offerings.

This challenge was one day long, and was held in the northern driftless zone of Wisconsin on the ReWild University training grounds, a 500 acre natural area. A special thanks to Adam Unger, who ran this challenge a week or so before this was filmed. I basically re-ran through the same process he used in his challenge in order to show how he navigated his 24-hour survival experience.

I hope that this video shows that "survival" doesn't always have to be unpleasant. When we approach survival as man against nature, nature will usually rise up to kick our butts. But when we find our own inner wildness and blend with nature, our experience may be more pleasant than we imagine. I was actually quite warm and comfortable during the night.

I'd love to see others take on this same challenge and leave video replies. You, the wilderness, and a paracord bracelet. Or spoof it =)

Also, note that this was my first real self-shot project that included an overnight. Although it went well, I learned a lot and had to deal with numerous issues with my cheap-o camera, including losing footage when the batteries died during the bow drill portion. Aaagh! I re-created the scene the best I could a couple days later. I didn't like the idea of including footage that wasn't taken during the actual challenge, but did my best to re-create the footage that was lost. In full disclosure, I went out to re-shoot with more equipment than just the bracelet, including a pack with snacks, water, and a knife. I was being too lazy to re-cut the hole and notch with stone tools, and thought there was no way I would get a coal from the same hole, due to the thinness of the board. But . . . it worked! So the knife lay unused, and I had a successful re-film and a nice picnic out in the woods at the camp I had made a few nights before. Lesson -- watch my battery indicator!

Thanks for watching, and I hope you have a great time out in the woods!

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Video Transcription

hello today I'm embarking on a PSK or personal survival kit challenge and I'd like to invite you to come along with me my PSK will consist of paracord bracelet and the clothes that I'm wearing my tank top pants underwear wedding ring of course I'm also going to be bringing along a video camera let's go that's going to be a perfect replacement for a Leatherman multi-tool look at that nice sharp edge right there and drill point right there and hold is actually one of the most difficult things to find this is nice and small just the right size and it's a hardwood perfect here's the spindle handhold bow and fire board along with the paracord bracelet that's going to make fire

I'm going to spend the night in an old pine plantation since it'll give me a little bit of shelter it looks like it might rain and we might get some wind tonight

there was also a recent storm that brought down a lot of limbs so this should give me plenty of material to make a shelter with next I'm setting a crossbar then I'm going to start leaning all my branches up against

then comes the old dead stuff from the ground piling it on piling it on piling it on in the end I've got a nice deep lean to really low to the ground it's gonna conserve a little bit of my warmth especially when I have the hot rocks back there and I can just slide right in there

okay now that shelters secured let's go get dinner nature's bounty dinner nine ready to eat spring rolls of three different flavors basic green salad on the Left horseradish flavor with to thwart in the middle and sweet dessert ones with sweet sicily in there a little bit of a black licorice flavor as well as morels and wild leeks roast over the fire this isn't enough to sustain me calorically long term but it will definitely fill my belly and also be delicious next I'm going in search of stones you'll be looking for some stones for the fire circle some small ones that I can use for hot rock boiling to purify my water and then some large ones that I can use to cuddle at night give me one check this rock out this blade is incredible this is a power tool usually it takes me half hour an hour with my multi-tool to kind of yeah here we go to carve out a notch this I'll have a notch made in no time okay it's time to take all those materials that I gathered earlier and see if I can make fire with it here goes here's my fire board broke off the piece I'm not going to use I'm going to be using this section of wood so I'm going to drill a pilot hole with my multi-tool there's a hand hole this is a stronger wood so it's going to take me a lot longer to drill that hole my spindles also going to take some work I'm going to try to get this section out hopefully it'll break now I'm going to use a rock to start a braiding starting to get a very nice rounded spindle end the other end is looking nice too now to make the bowl I'm finally going to undo my bracelet this is a quick deploy bracelet and I have my paracord ready to go here's the finished ball ready to receive the spindle here's the complete set ready to go and we have fire and let this keep burning for well until nightfall it's going to warm up these rocks and I'll keep the fire going throughout the night I'll be able to cuddle with these rocks and that's how it'll keep me why one important point is to make sure they don't get too hot it's best to warm them slow a little bit away from the fire so they can get an internal heat it's not going to burn you there's going to be nice and warm and hold that warm for for a few hours I do this with my students and to be able to come out with just with a paracord bracelet to gather the natural materials and make fire is an incredible feeling gives you a great feeling of self-sufficiency and makes you feel very very at home in the woods last but certainly not least is water I can tell I'm thirsty so use the small rocks that I gathered earlier to boil the water but of course we need a container which means I'm going to have to Colburn a container here I have the hot rocks that I'm going to use to boil my water and purify it well sort of purify it make it safe to drink it's going to be pretty black and charred but still potable this brings up one of the most important wood skills which is learning to use chopsticks I've allowed this to cool down it's now cool enough to drink this little dip here actually isn't a mistake this makes it very convenient for drinking very charcoal flavor but not too bad so using our PSK or personal survival kit of just a paracord bracelet and the clothes that I'm wearing we secured shelter water food and Fire warming these up and they'll keep me nice and cozy tonight I'll be able to cuddle with them they're already getting nice and warm it rains hopefully this will keep the rain out it definitely is going to keep the wind away if we get any wind tonight and I should be cozy through the night good morning it was a pretty cozy night this one actually got me a little bit sweaty up against my chest last night it was so warm so it didn't rain so one way of looking at it is that the shelter wasn't actually necessary but shelter is always a good idea if it rains that seeps heat out of you really really quickly I've kept this fire going through the night for would have rain I would have been in the situation where I would have had to move it underneath the shelter you can see the fire danger so I would have been moving a few little coals and feeding it and keeping it until morning since there would have been pretty tough probably to get a bow-drill fire going under here again in the morning so I would have kept those coals alive in a small circle of stones

I'm just staying out for one night what if I would have been staying out longer I have a good base of a waterproof windproof shelter water food and fire so today I would have been trying to I on to the shelter and make it a little bit nicer and also to secure more protein dense more calorie dense source of food since all I had yesterday was plants survival can be really tough but I would like to dispel the myth that it's impossible or that it always has to be extremely difficult you can see here that it doesn't take a whole lot of specialized gear just take some knowledge and skill and it's some pretty basic knowledge and skill for whatever your environment is wherever you live whether it's desert or tropics learn the plants that you can eat learn how to secure other food sources learn how to build shelter make fire and get yourself water then you've got the base from there it's building and you get to be out here in nature and really enjoy the peacefulness and quiet that comes with that this concludes my PSK challenge thank you very much for watching subscribe to my youtube channel real wild University and be sure to visit my blog to rewilding you