News / prepare

We had an amazing trip to Santa Rosa Island which is a part of the Channel Islands National Park for a weekend of camping, hiking and relaxation. After seeing a lot of the pictures, a lot of people I have talked to didn’t know that you can camp and explore there, well until recently I didn’t know you could either. So, one of the major parts of adventuring on this island is getting there…

“This patch is used an emergency call book. Reference it to hail assistance on emergency  radio frequencies and channels. 4 helpful contact telephone numbers are included in the event of an emergency. The lower half of the patch contains a fill-in-the-blank ICE (In-Case-of-Emergency) Card. This information is referred to by first responders in the event of an accident so that family can be contacted. It will also provide medical services with your blood type and known allergies”. – Super ESSE

Last weekend I completed a hike I have been wanting to do for a while across Anza Borrego Desert State Park in eastern San Diego County. This two-day hike took me across thirty-three miles of diverse desert landscape and was challenging and rewarding with some great solo hiking and amazing views.

So, it has been a couple weeks since the last blog post and for a good reason, I was up in Colma California getting my Wilderness First Responder (WFR) with Sierra Rescue International.

Survival Starts at Home: Tools, well there are a million and one ways to address this and I will start off with this one, make sure your tools are in good repair and ready to go. So much of what we do in the outdoors is seasonal and because of that a third of our gear can be shelved for the season at any given time. So, we should be aware that what we need to make sure we might need to keep our backcountry adventures safe and fun might need some periodic maintenance and a check out before we grab it and go.

Survival Starts at Home: Fire, well, well, well, fire is a touchy subject as I sit here writing this and California has some major wildfires going on. So, first off, its summer here its hot you probably don’t need a campfire, you might want one, but you probably don’t need one, it’s like me and my relationship with snickers bars.

Survival Starts at Home: Signaling, one of the more underused, carried and understood concepts of backcountry travel is signaling. Like what am I talking about when I even bring it up, who are we trying to signal and how are we doing it. Well like we say Survival Starts at Home with planning, training and communicating a plan.