Aram von Benedikt - The Ultimate Backcountry Survival Manual: 294 Tips for Roughing It

THE ULTIMATE
BACKCOUNTRY
SURVIVAL MANUAL

ARAM VON BENEDIKT
AND THE EDITORS OF OUTDOOR LIFE

It might be said of modern humans that we like the idea of wilderness better than we like the reality of it.

Our literature swells with praises singing the benefits of wild placesas a restorative for the psychically bruised, as a quiet balm for the sensorily overloaded, and as a place of reconnection and meaning for the morally bankrupt.

But plop a backcountry poet down in Montanas Bob Marshall Wilderness, or Utahs high and craggy Uinta Mountains, or almost anywhere north of Edmonton, Alberta, or in rural Africa, and their praises of the wild turn into wide-eyed fear and worry. Wilderness sounds grand on paper (and in lower-case letters), but real Wilderness (in caps) is a place that bites. It is, by definition, remote, hard, and lonesome. There are few resources at your disposal, or comforts that you dont pack on your own back.

You need a guide to experience its larger lessons, but also to get you out of it healthy and alive so that you can continue to extol its virtues.

Your guide to these wild places is Aram von Benedikt, the author of this useful, practical, and occasionally transcendent primer on backcountry survival.

You are in capable hands. Aram is one of the most experienced and authentic backcounty wanderers I know. He accumulated his knowledge the right and hard way: by spending time in places that reward self-sufficiency and punish the unprepared. He is a receptive and good student, and a wonderfully patient and expressive teacher. It speaks volumes about Arams mettle and his priorities that he still lives very close to the backcountry, in remote southern Utah.

Its there where he is raising a family and horses, where he hikes and hunts and hones the skills that he dispenses in this book. If I were to enter the backcountry with anyone, it would be with Aram, knowing that has the right perspectives, skills, and gear to allow me to enjoy the experience, and come out the other side with a renewed sense of vigor and appreciation for wild places.

Who knows, I might even pen a poem about the restorative powers of the wilderness. Thats sort of what Aram has done here, only its disguised in very practical and understandable lessons for anyone who enters, and exits, the wild and wonderful backcountry of North America.

Come along with him, and youll emerge from the backcountry happy, healthy, and wiser for the lessons that Aram, and the wilderness he loves, have taught you.

ANDREW MCKEAN

Editor-in-Cheif, Outdoor Life

You havent truly lived until you have slept beneath the stars, eaten fresh meat roasted over an open backcountry fire, or had a brush with death.

I still remember the first time my brother and I headed into the backcountry to camp. We hiked all of three-quarters of a mile out behind our house, set up a little spring-bar tent, ate some ramen noodles, and bedded down for the night. Then, a few minutes later, an angus bull began growling in the distance, letting all the world know that he was the biggest, baddest thing in the woods, and very willing to prove it. Chills ran up and down our preteen spines, and we thought of home. And then another bull tuned in; the pair made a duet of bone-chilling growls which echoed through the black night. We packed our bags and scampered home.

Nearly three decades have passed since that first excursion. Ive spent a good number of those years in backcountry settings; Im much more comfortable in the wilderness than I am in a cityI find heavy traffic and fancy suits far more fearful than bears or bad trails.

I have my father to thank for instilling basic skills in me, as well as a great desire for self-sufficiency. He encouraged me to learn woodsmanship, horsemanship, farming, and blacksmithing. He arranged for me to study saddlemaking, horsepacking, cowboying, and bootmaking. I got to hold a lasso-rope, traditional bow, and rifle in my hands before I was knee-high to a short frog. I worked in the garden, kept honeybees, and drove a team of Belgian draft horses.

When I was 14, I helped an old lady pack for a move to another town. When I dragged several water-stained boxes from the musty crawlspace under her singlewide I discovered pure gold: years worth of old Outdoor Life magazines. She directed me to throw them out; somehow I stammered my way through a request to keep them. It was granted, and I spent many winter hours poring over those old issues, the fire inside me fueled by every story. Thus began my infatuation with one of the greatest magazines ever printed. When Editor-in-Chief Andrew McKean asked me to write this book, I was purely honored.

This book contains the most important tips and techniques on gear choice, backcountry skills, and wilderness survival that I personally know. Its just the tip of the iceberg, which is enchanting and dismaying at the same time. There are scenarios and environments that we simply didnt have the room for. Furthermore, there are skills that I dont know, experiences I havent had. Im far from perfect, or expert, or perfectly expert. The wilderness is a capable teacher, and I strive to be an apt studentand so should you.

My hope is that you will benefit from the ramblings of my pen, and perhaps catch a little of the backcountry fire, too. In this age of smartphones, the internet, and instant gratification, weve gotten separated from the heartstrings of the earththe smell of wood smoke, meat sizzling over an open fire, thirst and hunger, dried blood on our hands, and hard work. We need to return, every so often, and reconnect. To the feel of the wind on our faces, a horse between our knees, the pain of pack straps biting into our shoulders. To the earth. To the wilderness. To God.

May you load your gear, shrug into your pack or swing aboard your horse, and turn your face to the wind. Luck willing, you and I will meet each other someday, out there in the backcountry.

ARAM VON BENEDIKT

Author

All photos courtesy of Aram von Benedikt unless otherwise noted.

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