Daily Journal
Day 1: Adventure! I dropped off stuff, cut down time stick. Scouted.
Day 2: Explored south, found water.
Day 3: Explored north.
Day 4: First day with “forest eyes”. Noticed a lot of animal tracks, subtle changes with the forest.
Day 5: Saw elk herd two arms lengths away!
Day 6: Officially tired of rice.
Day 7: One week! Talked with car.
Day 8: Fishing, first day that felt long.
Day 9: Fishing under natural bridge, first day all natural fire.
Day 10: Big rain storm! Something followed me.
Day 11: Peanut butter mind expansion. Found chipmunks, turkeys laid eggs!? Removed empty fish traps and nets.
Day 12: Read, feeling confident with fire. Feeling lonely. Anxious for half way point.
Day 13: Realized long walks made time go faster and made me tired which meant more sleep which used more time!
Day 14: Great mood today! Made it half way! I think I also finally understand general relativity. [I was reading Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time]
Day 15: More plant identification studying. Big breakthrough with next chapter of life. Early retirement (financial independence) and focus on cultivating relationships (2017)
Day 16: Very excited about Life List deadline event. Barely slept. Saw first trout today!
Day 17: Was hunted by a bow hunter today. Nice guy! Also part of my tooth fell out.
Day 18: Last night I saw “the eyes“. Today was a lot of reading, Walden. Thoreau is very long winded. [“The eyes” refer to 4 eyes I saw at night while I was peeing. I believed they were owned by wolves or coyotes. In the morning I inspected the tracks and learned that they were deer.]
Day 19: Stressed out about work contract. Annoyed that I can’t stop thinking about it.
Day 20: Irritable, lonely, missing girlfriend.
Day 21: Hard day, cabin fever, hallucinated.
Day 22: Made huge progress on plans. Freedom Money Project. Felt a little worn down because I miscounted days left but ended the day feeling happy and hopeful :-)
Day 23: Both a long and a short day (long day, short hours). I am anxious to get home.
Day 24: Missing friends (especially girlfriend) but feeling value of thinking time.
Day 25: Lonely but otherwise satiated.
Day 26: I heard a frog say “ribbit” exactly like a sarcastic teenage girl. It repeated 10x.
Day 27: I saw a plant get pulled into the ground by a mole-like animal!
Day 28: Very excited to be almost complete.
Day 29: I’m feeling a mood of reflection and appreciation.
Day 30: Back to civilization!
What Would I Do Differently Next Time?
1. Bring a Better Knife
The knife I brought was decent but not ideal. After about a week it lost its sharpness and even after sharpening it, it never returned to an ideal tool. While I was still able to carry out my tasks, my subpar knife slowed me down and in some cases wore me out.
2. Bring a Firearm
I intentionally did not bring a firearm with me on this experience. My rationale was that since I didn’t plan on hunting (only trapping), a gun had more cons than pros.
This turned out to be idiotic logic!
A gun would have been tremendously valuable from both a safety and practical perspective. Had I brought a gun, I not only would have been able to improve my firearm skills, I also would have felt much more confident in the woods.
3. Be Strict on Not Prematurely Releasing “My Parachute”
Twenty days into the experience, I made the mistake of prematurely releasing “my parachute“. By this I mean, I started mentally checking out well before it was logical to do so. This resulted in me having the longest 10 days of my life. After prematurely starting the check-out process I found it hard to start ambitious projects and felt my loneliness grow. Each day dragged on longer than the previous day.
4. Crutch Cabin
I want to be fully transparent that I had a cabin while on the land! My intention was to use it as an emergency shelter. During my training programs before the expedition, the instructors emphasized the point that I should not go without each of the five pillars of survival on my first long-term solo expedition. While I think their logic was sound and improved my survival chances, I think having access to a cabin provided me with a crutch that weakened my efforts. I used it extensively on a rainy day and in hindsight I don’t feel good about that. Important note: While cabin had some modern amenities, I elected not to use them.
5. Fix Broken Notification Signal Timing
One of the first things I did every day was use my SPOT one-way personal signaling device to signal to my girlfriend and family that I was still alive. (They received a predetermined message that said I was okay and were provided with my GPS coordinates) I gave my girlfriend strict instructions that if she didn’t receive this message by 4:00 PM on any given day, that she should call search and rescue. My rationale was that I should do this first thing in the morning as I would have no way of knowing what time it was otherwise and by doing it first thing in the morning, I would never forget if I had done it for the day already.
This turned out to be unintentionally dangerous.
If I would have critically injured myself any time after sending the signal on a given day, my girlfriend would not have know I was in danger until 4:00 PM the FOLLOWING day (more than 24 hours later). This oversight could have killed me. If search and rescue started looking for me after 4:00 PM the following day they would have been at a great disadvantage as a full day might have passed and a nightfall would have started soon. While it is true that if I was critically injured after signaling for the day, I could have theoretically used the signaling device to signal for help, this was not a guaranteed option. Even the best technology breaks and if I was injured from a fall or as the result of water, the chance of the technology breaking increased dramatically.
To solve all of this, I should have used a system where I signaled at mid day or possibly multiple times a day (such as, waking up, eating lunch and going to sleep).