Lodestone: (definition) a variety of magnetite that possesses magnetic polarity and attracts iron.
In days gone by ships would carry a lodestone as part of their navigation equipment. Should the ship’s compass needle become depolarised the magnetite could be used to repolarise it back again. This is the same principle the school child learns when they magnetise a needle and float it on a cork in water to create a basic compass.
This suggests that problems with compasses not pointing in the direction they should (i.e. magnetic North) is not a new one. There are many factors that can affect a compass and change its polarity – the most obvious being to store it anywhere near a magnet. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that some of the things we carry have magnets in them – for example the case of your iPhone or iPad probably uses a magnet – or, for example, to accidentally leave a compass next to a speaker.
So – as with any piece of equipment you may need to rely on in an emergency – it’s a very good idea to check it every now and again and make sure it is still working properly…
…the last thing you want is to be lost in the jungle and then start doubting your compass.
In the video below I show you some of the compasses I’ve had problems with – how you can navigate even with a faulty compass and how to repair one so that it points in the right direction again.
It is often the case that the simpler the piece of kit the more useful and dependable it is: a compass is more reliable than a GPS, the simplicity and cutting ability of a parang makes it superior to the less suited multifunctionality of a Leatherman, a basic hammock is better suited to the jungle than the most luxurious of tents…
One piece of kit I carry on my EDC (Every Day Carry) belt is such a simple and basic item and yet it is something that solves that important problem of how to carry more water when you have a cut-down EDC setup that doesn’t include large water bladders or extra water bottles.
This item is the Maxpedition Rollypolly dump bag and, in the video below, is a quick review of it and a demonstration of how it can be used to carry an extra 3 litres of water.
Choosing a parang can be a bit bewildering for someone new to the jungle as there is a wide range of different types of parangs out there, and then there are the large bladed knives as well. Ideally one should test a parang first to see how it feels, whether it fits your hand and is the right weight and length, however many of us order on-line where the only reference is a picture and the testimonials of previous customers.
So in this video I try to give some guidelines of what I look for in a parang and answer some of the FAQs that have been sent to me about parangs, particularly how they perform vs large bladed, Bowie style knives and where to source a good Malaysian parang.
The other point I am trying to reinforce is that the type of parang you need is dependent on both how you treat it and and what you use it for. This confuses a lot of people who are persuaded to by overly heavy duty and weighty combat style machetes when they really don’t need such a heavy and cumbersome piece of kit.
The trick is to learn to use the parang so that it takes as little effort as possible and to always try to find easier ways to do difficult tasks. At the end of the video I demonstrate an example of this but there are many more: e.g. processing large logs of wood for the fire doesn’t have to be done by lots of parang chopping, there are easier ways; the most obvious being to simply burn through the middle of log, which takes no effort on your part whatsoever.
For those interested in buying the Malaysian parang (called ‘MY Parang’) that Outdoordynamics are producing. here are the links to both their website and Ray Mears’ site where you can purchase one. I’m not affiliated with either company and I paid for the MY Parang I tested myself.
Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes….and you’ll get blisters.
I remember reading about the Glastonbury music festival that takes place in the UK over three days and being astonished to read that, during a particularly wet festival, around 100 people a day were being treated for Immersion Foot (aka trench foot). It seemed incredible to me that anyone could damage their feet so quickly, and carelessly, in what is hardly a wilderness scenario…and yet all these people did.
The fact is our feet don’t appreciate prolonged periods of being damp/cold/sweaty and can demonstrate their displeasure if we abuse them for too long by swelling up and becoming painful to walk on.
In the jungle looking after your feet is a high priority as unless you are in a group of remarkably accommodating friends who are prepared (and able) to carry you, then the only way out of the jungle is to walk out….although if there was a deep enough river you could possibly float out (but I wouldn’t bank on being able to do that!)
Swollen feet, skin deterioration, leech bites, fungal infections and blisters can all cause problems for the jungle trekker and even if you do manage to hobble out the experience is not a pleasant one. So, in the video below I look at some simple precautions you can take to ensure your feet stay in good shape. None of it is rocket science and the fact is that I have never had a problem with my feet in all the years I’ve been jungle trekking so, as long as you apply some discipline, there is no reason why you should either.
The key to keeping your feet in shape is to pamper them as soon as you set up camp and have washed yourself. Pampering them is simple: keep them clean, keep them dry, keep them warm (but not so much that they sweat) and keep them aired. I also like to put in some intensive hammock time to take the weight and strain off my feet.
As a result from say 3pm to 7am the next day (i.e. for 16 hours) my feet are treated very well and given the chance to recover for the stress of walking in wet shoes all day and ready to go again. I am careful to keep the dry socks I use in the evening bone dry and if there’s even a chance they’ll get wet (e.g. when collecting water) I take them off and leave them in the hammock.
I have just returned from a four day border walk in Taman Negara with MyCat. Some of the other participants I’d been trekking with before, but there were a few newcomers as well who, as is almost always the case, had the heaviest rucksacks. I was exactly the same when I first started trekking and I think it is natural evolution that our bags get lighter as we refine our kit and leave behind stuff that we can do without.
Anyway, I thought it would be useful for me to list out all the items I take in with me, firstly because then I have a list to refer to for the next trip and secondly because it might help newcomers to jungle trekking to lighten their own load.
One particular item that can really weigh down your rucksack is, of course, water. A useful tip is to drink a litre or more of water just before leaving camp (rather than carrying it along). Another thing to bear in mind is where you are going – if you are following a river then there isn’t the need to carry more than a litre of water as you can fill up as you go along, whereas if you’re up on a ridge then you might need to carry 4 litres of water. The point is you shouldn’t be carrying the same amount of water throughout the trip but rather gauge how much you need depending on where you’re going.
In the video below I go through all the items I take in with me apart from first aid (which I’ll cover separately) and food. What food you take in is going to boil down to personal preference but most people tend to carry too much, I eat the same thing each day and I keep all my food in a separate DRY BAG 1:
Breakfast (per day)
2 x 3-in-1 Nescafe
1 x 3-in-1 Milo
3 slices of buttery/currant bread (this is a heavy item but I like it!)
Lunch (per day)
Power bar
Cup of soup (with lots of salt)
Dinner (per day)
Tin of sardines in tomato sauce
1 x onion
3 x chillies
Rice (take enough to fill yourself up)
I take in the onions and chillies fresh which, although it means a bit of extra weight, the taste is worth it for me. The problem with vegetables is that they sweat in plastic bags and tend to rot quickly and a good tip is to wrap them up in newspaper before putting them in a bag which will help keep them dry and fresh.
KIT LIST:
Wet Clothes
Trekking boots
Wool socks
Leech socks
Gators
Long cotton trousers (breathable and loose)
Cycling shorts (as underwear)
Cotton T-shirt (breathable and loose)
Sweat Rag
Glove (for left hand only)
(In DRY BAG 2)
Dry Clothes
Long sleeved shirt (can be synthetic as you won’t be sweating)
Long trousers (can be synthetic as you won’t be sweating)
Cotton underpants
Wool socks
Crocs (or other sandals…but Crocs are best)
Buff
Shelter
Hammock
Tarp (not in the dry bag)
Suspension system (not in the dry bag)
Mozzi net (I don’t take one in but most people do)
Clothes line
Camp chair
Small ground sheet (not in dry bag)
Anti-Mozzi stuff
2 x Mozzi coils
A small amount of anti mozzi gel
Bedding
Blanket
Underquilt
Blow up pillow (with pillow case)
Wash Kit
Small Tec Towel
Toothpaste/touthbrush
Soap
Tissues
Ear plugs (some people snore very loudly!)
Small first aid kit
(in small DRY BAG 3)
Electronics
Mobile phone
Ipod
Camera
Headphones
Battery pack
Adaptors
Torch (with diffuser and 1 spare battery)
The rest of the stuff I carry (below) is not in a dry bag but I usually keep in separate plastic bags for convenience and to keep relatively dry:
Water:
2x 1 Litre SIGG bottles
2x Platypus collapsible 1 Litre bottles
Sawyer mini filter and adpators
Plastic bags
Hydration powders (2 per day)
Fire and cooking
2 x Cricket lighters (with cap)
1 x fire steel (with fatwood handle)
Inner tube
Stove (gas or alcohol) with fuel
Titanium plate/frying pan with detachable handle
Titanium MSR kettle
Titanium Spork
Small plastic bottle of olive oil.
Salt & pepper
Collapsable mug
Tools
Parang
Very small knife
Sharpening stone
Navigation
Compass
GPS
Map
Other items
Flask of whisky
Cordage (not much)
Rubber bands/pencil/waterproof paper
Whistle
With my pack fully loaded (but excluding water and food) the weight comes in at 7.8KG.
“What do you actually need? Food, clothing, shelter. Everything else is entertainment” (Aloe Blacc)
Aloe Blacc (in the quote above) seems to have neglected to include water – which I suspect he would find he needed sooner than the other items listed, but nevertheless I get his point.
In this video I look at how to repair a tarp that’s been ripped in two and, to make life a little more challenging, I am using a mylar space blanket (which is my survival kit shelter item) rather than a normal every day use tarp. However, this method can be done with any sort of tarp or any cloth material you need to joint together.
The method I’m using is also the way I attach the guy lines to the space blanket.
As with shelter building in general, there is a balance between what materials you have available, how long you have to build your shelter and how effective you need it to be. In the case of a field repair of a tarp there is no point in relying on a method that requires materials you don’t normally carry, nor is it helpful to only know a method that takes so long that night (and/or rain!) falls before you’ve finished the repair.
With that in mind the method I use is quick and requires nothing more than a stick, plastic bag, some thin cordage and a tiny bit of a knowledge (how to tie a constrictor knot on the bight).
“The only thing I can’t stand is discomfort” (Gloria Steinem)
The key to enjoying yourself in the wilderness is to get comfortable there and that can mean different things in different parts of the world. If you’re up at the North pole then keeping warm is the main factor, if you’re in the desert it’s about staying cool and finding shade, but in the tropical jungles there are a number of factors that will determine whether you can stay comfortable of not.
Most of the discomforts in the jungle are not going to kill you directly (whereas at the North pole hypothermia can, as can dehydration in the desert) but over the last decade or so I’ve come across a number of people who have simply become so overwhelmingly uncomfortable on a jungle trek that they stop thinking straight and effectively start to panic…and that can kill you.
A key factor that influences whether you get this sort of ‘jungle-overload’ or not is your own attitude towards the discomforts that are there – by that I don’t mean being ridiculously positive about everything but rather accepting the odd period of discomfort with good humour. Nor do I mean being stubbornly stoic about discomfort and doing nothing about it – whenever possible you should do what you can to reduce that discomfort as everyone has a breaking point and if you get too hot, or too cold or get one too many insect bites or too tired then it’ll happen to you too. This just doesn’t only apply to camping but also emergency situations too.
Endurance isn’t a skill, survival is.
On bad days in the jungle when the going has been a bit rough the thing that helps me to shrug it off is the thought that by late afternoon I’ll have my hammock and tarp up and I will be dry and comfortable. In other words the discomfort is only temporary.
Which brings me to the the topic of this post which was to develop a hyper-light blanket / emergency blanket for use in the jungle. You might think it is unnecessary to have a blanket in the jungle but people are often surprised by how chilly it can get at night and it’s hard to sleep well when you’re feeling cold. Also our bodies don’t react well to the sudden drop in temperature from the heat of the day to the chill of the night and we can fall ill as a result.
But that’s not the only benefit of a blanket. It also functions as a cover between you and the insects that may have decided to irritate you to the point of distraction or who are intent on sucking your blood.
Space blankets aren’t ideal for this purpose: they’re made from Mylar and it doesn’t breathe which means that if you start sweating that sweat has nowhere to go. It’s also difficult to keep yourself fully covered by one of these blankets if you’re in a hammock as it keeps riding up or shifting out of position…and if you do manage to fully wrap yourself up it in then you’re going to sweat.
You might think that that you could simply use leaves and certainly if there are large leaves around (like banana leaves) you could use them and you could also weave yourself a blanket with palm fronds. But it’s more likely than the leaves you’ll find are the ones on the forest floor – normal sized tree leaves – and how do you get those to form a blanket?
The emergency blanket I’ve made for jungle use tries to get round some of these issues – for hot nights the parachute material will be enough to keep me warm on it’s own, if it’s a bit cooler I can insert the squares of Mylar into a quilt like section that covers my upper body (your legs are fine without extra warmth) and if it’s really chilly I can fill the entire upper section of the blanket with leaves to make it really warm. It’s also small and light (just 150 grams).
So this design of emergency blanket has the benefit of being flexible and adjustable depending on the conditions, and being flexible is another key factor in the jungle as it’s such a variable place both in terms of climate and terrain. Another example is the hammock vs tent debate, in the jungle at least the hammock is the more flexible of the two allowing you to camp anywhere where there are two trees (and there are plenty of trees in the jungle) whereas tents need flat ground, preferably without uncomfortable roots beneath and require you to clear the area where you’re going to pitch it.
Being flexible in the wilderness also applies to planning your trip – do you really need to cover 30 km in three days? That’s going to mean you’re really pushing it and any unforeseen obstacles are going to mess up your timings and force you to rush…and being in a rush in never a good idea in the jungle. Why not just cover half the distance instead? Or take a day to two extra to do the full distance? Either way you’re be less rushed and you’ll be able to be more flexible about when and where you camp.
Another example is pack weight – do you really need to take in a 25 kg pack for a two night trip when others can manage just as well with a 10 kg pack? Flexibility can mean making do with less and allow you to travel lighter.
Being flexible, putting up with periods of discomfort with good humour and doing everything you can to make yourself as comfortable as possible are key to enjoying your trip into the jungle.
“A hero is a man who is afraid to run away” (English Proverb)
I bought a GoPro (hero 2) a few years ago as I wanted a small, robust and waterproof camera with a wide field-of-view for filming in the notoriously wet and damp jungle environment. As with any piece of kit designed with an emphasis on a particular set of benefits (compact/waterproof/lightweight/wide FOV) there is an associated downside, and with the GoPro Hero 2 those downsides came in the form of lousy sound quality, poor video quality in low light and an annoying fisheye effect. I own a standard camcorder (a Panasonic SD 700) which is far superior in terms of audio quality, video quality and ease of use…however, the problem is that it doesn’t like being in the humid jungle for too long and would break if it was dropped or got wet,
With the GoPro Hero 2 there were other problems: there was no built in LCD screen (so you were never fully sure of what was in shot or not) and no way to playback what you just filmed (to check that you’d got the shot you wanted).
It took me a while to get around these problems and it was only with the addition of the the WiFi backpack that the camera really started to work for me.
Back when I bought the GoPro there weren’t many alternatives in the action camera market – these days there are a growing number of competitor brands and, judging by the reviews I’ve read, the GoPros are under pressure to justify the premium price they currently command. If you’re in the market for an action camera I would do a Google search on ‘GoPro alternatives’ before you buy into the GoPro brand….that’s not to say that the GoPro is a bad choice, but rather that there are cheaper alternatives out there that might suit your needs just as well.
Nevertheless, a GoPro is what I bought and it does have the benefit of being able to cope with the jungle environment which is, in itself, is a major plus for me as it means that I can now film on trips where in the past I could not.
In the video below I show the ways I’ve got around the problems I encountered with the GoPro and, now that they are no longer an issue, the camera is performing well enough and the only outstanding issue is the poor video quality in low light situations.
“Backpacking: an extended form of hiking in which people carry double the amount of gear they need for half the distance they planned to go in twice the time it should take”
Recently I commissioned Ben from Garrison Packs to make a lumbar pack designed for the jungle and to own my particular specifications. Ben is producing packs to the same quality as the top backpack brands (some of which go for, frankly, ridiculously high prices) at a more affordable price and, best of all, he will customise packs to your own design – so, even though I already owned two lumbar packs, I couldn’t resist the chance to design one for myself.
For me lumbar packs are well suited to the jungle because:
The lowered centre of gravity makes you more balanced on your feet.
They snag less on overhead branches as you duck under them.
Your upper body is unencumbered making it easier to twist and turn and to use a parang.
Your back is left exposed so you don’t overheat as much.
Rather than doing a straightforward review of the pack I thought it would be more helpful to look at the key differences between the traditional (Orang Asal) jungle backpack and the modern equivalent and try and draw out some general themes that might be of use when trying to select your own gear.
“I’ve seen a look in dogs’ eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts” (John Steinbeck)
Camping with a dog in the jungle is new territory for me and I thought it would be interesting to document the process. There are number of potential problems: wild animals are all around so the dog needs to be on a leash and may spend the whole night barking manically and also the rain and bugs can make your canine friend miserable.
In a good camp spot with fair weather, shelter for the dog is not an issue – he can simply sleep beneath your hammock – but, as anyone who has spent time in the jungle will know – when it rains it pours and the ground beneath your hammock can quickly transform into a large puddle, possibly riddled with leeches that will turn your dogs’ paws into a bloody mess.
Sometime ago I saw the idea of a double decker hammock – this has the advantage that two people share the same tarp (thereby saving weight) and rig their two hammocks one beneath the other; with both attached to the same trees. This gave me the idea of making a hammock for the dog and I dusted off the sewing machine and got to work, the video shows the first prototype:
This concept of a double decker hammock could also be used if you have a young child you want to take in camping and don’t feel confident with them sleeping too far away from you.
The other thought in my mind was that this process – of gradually getting the dog accustomed to jungle camping and taking it step-by-step – is also a good approach for a newbie to the jungle to take. Rather than starting off your jungle experience by signing up for a hard-core, two week expedition deep into the heart of the jungle, it is a far better idea to start off with a single nights camping (maybe not far from your car) so that you can get used to your equipment and find out what works and what doesn’t.
