News / Survival

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.

Survival Starts at Home, Shelter; when we are talking “survival” we love to jump right into the worst case and learn the cool skills (which are important) but the true mark of a backcountry pro is not having to use those skills because of things that they can control.

Exploring nature and the backcountry should be a fun experience for everyone. San Diego and Southern California offer a wide variety of opportunities for every one of all abilities.  One of the most important aspects of enjoying your self is a strong base of backcountry skills and a drive to constantly learn new things and then practice and reinforce the basics.

Wet Winter Hiking, don’t do it. The fact is that when it rains many of our popular trails pay the price when we hike them, muddy trails mean deep ruts from hiking through puddles or wearing down and unnaturally.

So if you are reading this there is a good chance you follow us on social media and there is a good chance you have seen us Getting The Fox Out There, and the most popular way for us to do that is either on a hat or a water bottle.

But what I think is even cooler bang for your buck wise is the Esbit Pocket Stove. They are around twelve dollars come with six solid fuel tabs.

The recent earthquake in California got me thinking of a couple of things and as with any natural disaster or major emergency it never hurts to take a look and asses your level of preparedness.

A couple months ago I had the opportunity to take a wild edibles/ medicinal plants class from Jeromie Jackson of South West Outdoor Travelers (SWOT) in Lake Side California. It was an awesome class and I really enjoyed the opportunity to walk along the river and learn about the abundance of resources available to us.