Getting lost in the wilderness, surrounded by wild animals and exposed to the elements while running out of food and water is pretty high on the list of things you’d naturally try to avoid, but it’s a real survival scenario that isn’t as uncommon as you might think.
If this does happen to you, possessing basic survival skills such as shelter-building, foraging, and navigating will make the difference between life and death.In this comprehensive guide, we’ll delve into a detailed step-by-step process of surviving in the woods and finding your way back home; covering the most important survival skills, such as securing shelter, water, and food, building a fire, signaling for help, navigating, and more!
Before focusing on long-term priorities like building a shelter, you need to ensure your immediate safety. Once you realize you’re lost, your mind might immediately go all ‘Bear Grylls’ and start preparing for a long-term survival scenario, but you should first ensure that you’re not in any sort of danger at the moment.
For example, if you’re caught in the midst of a storm, your first priority should be finding some sort of natural shelter to protect you from the rain and the wind. If, for another example, you were hiking and tumbled down a steep slope, your first priority should be first aid – performing a medical check and tending to any wounds that you perhaps sustained.
If you find yourself too close to a potentially dangerous animal, such as a cougar, bear, or a herd of wild boars, the priority is, obviously, to remove yourself from that situation.
Once you’re finally safe and you get past the initial shock of the “I have no idea where I am!” moment, the next thing you should always do is call emergency services. The most effective way of getting home safely is by letting mountain rescue services do their job, and in the vast majority of scenarios in which people get lost in the woods, the story usually ends with mountain rescue locating them and bringing them home very quickly.
However, as luck would have it, you forgot to charge your cell phone and it’s completely dead. This is where your story of surviving in the woods begins, and here’s how to make it through.
