Improvise
I was watching an old episode of Longmire. Walt (the Sheriff and main character) rappelled down a cliff to rescue a “damsel in distress” using improvised carabiners - his handcuffs. I was reminded of the many times I’d improvised in the wilderness. No matter how carefully you plan or how much gear you have, there’ll be times when you don’t have what you need to get the job done. In my experience, it’s always at the most inopportune time.
In the Longmire episode he used handcuffs to hook to his belt and then tied a Munter hitch as his friction knot on the rope and handcuffs to rappel. Makes perfect sense to me. A carabiner is nothing more than a means to connect two things, a rope to webbing, or in this case, to a belt. He could’ve used any device that would hold his weight and didn’t have sharp edges such as a clevis ring from his vehicle, the screw links found on many trailer-hitch chains or a steel tool box handle. As safety backup he could’ve made Prusik loops out of his boot laces (of course, not if wearing cowboy boots) or seatbelt straps.
When I was a teenager, my friends and I’d pretend to be in survival situations when we were backpacking and improvised for the fun of it. To cook fish without a pan, we’d form a layer of coals, cover the coals with a thin layer of dry dirt, then a layer of mud. A cleaned fish with the skin was placed on leaves both below and above the fish, then more mud, dry dirt and more coals. We’d let it cook all night and had it for breakfast. The mud was baked into a hard shell that when split open, presented a great tasting cooked fish. We used broad leaves such as Sycamore or Cottonwood to keep the mud off the fish.
Green willow branches are flexible and can be fashioned into many useful things, for example snowshoes, cooking utensils, baskets and backpacks. I have a backpack basket made from bent willow branches tied with leather thongs that I got from Tarahumara Indians while working in Mexico. Now they know how to improvise! I learned a lot from them.
Cordage is important but what if you don’t have any? The leaves of the yucca have tough fibers and the point can be used as a sewing needle, if you leave the fibers attached.
A vehicle is a great source of material to improvise. There are many websites on how to make snow boots out of car floormats and trunk insulation, using seatbelt straps to tie them. I’ve found the receiver hitch to be a third hand. I can insert whatever I’m trying to bend or break into the receiver and snap or bend it. It can be used as a vise to hold something I’m working on. I’ve even thought of fabricating receiver hitch furniture for when I go 4 wheeling. My first fabrication will be a toilet seat for my wife. She’ll love me for that and won’t mind going 4 wheeling anymore. My next creation will be a table for when we stop for lunch, am even thinking of a hammock holder but that’s in the future as my welding skills improve.
Once I made a lantern out of an aluminum can and coat hanger. I cut away one side of the can with my pocket knife, fashioned a holder with the coat hanger and put a candle in the can. The inside of the can reflected the candlelight in one direction and I could see where I was going and even used it to signal a helicopter during a night rescue.
Improvised candle holder made from soda pop can. The holder can be hung from the pop top ring.
When using a winch with a metal cable, you must use a weight in the middle of the cable to stop it should it break or come unhooked. The stored energy a metal cable has when under pressure can cause severe injury to anyone standing in its way, if it breaks. I never seem to remember the weights so I use a cloth sample bag filled with gravel and tie it to the middle of the cable. I realize not everyone takes geologic samples like I do, so if you don’t have a sample bag use a jacket, tool bag, or any other object that has weight or can be filled with something to add weight.
These are just a few examples of improvising. There are many things that can be used to improvise what you need to get things done. Be a scrounger, don’t let something like not having carabiners keep YOU from rescuing a damsel in distress.
