The Idiot's Guide to Wilderness Survival
by Nick Erickson

The Idiot’s Guide to Wilderness Survival

By The Idiot Himself    

“The Turkey Vulture is found throughout most of the Americas from southern Canada to the tip of South America. It inhabits open & semi-open areas, subtropical rain forests, shrub lands & deserts. It’s wingspan is between 68” – 72” & weighs around 3.1 lbs. It’s plumage is dark brown to black with a featherless head & neck, having a hooked ivory-colored beak. It’s a scavenger that feeds almost exclusively on carrion, using it’s sense of smell while flying low to the ground to detect the gasses produced at the beginning of decay…” 

This sucks, writing this book as I have no idea if anyone will ever read it. 

My name is… You know, it doesn’t really matter, they’ll just call me John Doe anyway. 

I thought returning to mother nature would be a good idea, you know, leave the city & get away. The problem with that plan – I’m a sucker. I’m a sucker for “do it yourself” books, found in the “self help” section of your local bookstore.  No internet shopping for me, I’m all about seeing what I’m buying. 

The local bookstore, called “The Dusty Tome,” carries everything from new books to old books, popular & obscure titles & even a little erotica if you knew where to look. Behind the curtains in the back. Three books went home with me: Surviving Alone in the Wilderness, Survival in the Wild, and Everything You Need to Know About Living Off the Land & Surviving to Tell About It. The one title I didn’t find: “The Idiot’s Guide to Wilderness Survival”, that’s why I’m writing it. 

If you noticed, “survival” is the theme of all three books. 

I read each book four times, memorizing, underlining, and highlighting every “important” note, quote and fact of survival.    

“Symptoms of dehydration may include headaches, similar to what is experienced during a hangover, muscle cramps, sudden episode of visual snow, hypotension and orthostatic hypotension. Untreated, dehydration generally results in delirium, unconsciousness, swelling of the tongue and in extreme cases – death.” 

By the time I finished reading those books, I was full of fatal knowledge, everything you need to know becoming a hypochondriac. Reading the books, lead to buying all the associated gear. Clothing for cold weather, hot weather, wet weather, mild weather and every type of weather in between. 

A year before my planned departure date, my backpack was packed with everything I’d need. The three memorized, highlighted and underlined books – inside zip-loc bags  and placed in an easily accessible pocket of the pack.  

The backpack sat by the front door for the next year, teasing me, every time I came and went. 

For that year, I scoured the internet, picking the perfect location to take off & get lost. I read & memorized more survival techniques & even bought two guns. A .38 magnum & a .12 gauge shotgun.     

“Catabolysis is the process of the body breaking down muscles and other tissues in order to keep vital systems working. This process begins when there are no usable sources of energy coming into the body.” 

One torturous year, daydreaming my way through the city each morning, ignoring my coworkers, continually running over all the wonderful survival facts I picked while perusing the internet and the three “survival” books. By the end of the year I’d quit my job, sold my homes in NYC and the Bahamas, terminated by cell phone, pager and internet connections and sold both my cars. 

One last luxury, one last little cheat. First class ticket from NYC to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Albuquerque, where planned on dropping off the map, hell, I planned on dropping off the face of the earth. I didn’t plan on where I’d end up, I just knew where I wanted to start hiking from.  

For the next six months I did just that, hike, the whole time using cool survival tricks I’d learned on the web and in my books to build cool looking shelters from branches, rocks & dirt. I even set a few traps & got a few rabbits. 

For six months all I thought about was having nothing to think about except discovering I liked grilled rattlesnake with cactus-fruit salad on the side. Just because I’m not in a city, doesn’t mean I can’t eat like a civilized man. 

Fast-forward six months, I’ve been on my own for a year, even burning all my identification in a fire one night, thinking I’d love nothing to do, but live out my life in the desert mountains. 

Damn it all though, if only I hadn’t seen this freakin’ apple tree. It was as old as Methuselah, it’s bark as dry & cracked as dirt, all of it’s fruit up high, out of reach from the ground. 

No problem – I thought. I’ve conquered mountains I can sure as hell climb an old apple tree. 

I cautiously climbed my way to the top, where the apples all tantalizingly hung from their branches & found a nice sturdy branch to rest my ass on while I enjoyed a rare treat. 

The bitch of it all – almost all the apples were rotten. I picked the 1^st one, it turned to dust. The 2^nd fared a little better, until a worm crawled out from the stem hole. The 3^rd  one I was able to take from the branch, but the thing tasted more like a nice fat turd than it did apple cider… or even a rotten apple for that matter. The 4^th apple ended up being the worst. It fact, it was juicy & full of apple flavor.  

I bit into the 4^th apple, my mouth watering in anticipation. I heard the crunch, as the skin of the apple gave way to my teeth, the delicious apple’s juices flooded past my teeth, over my starving taste buds and down my parched throat. A nanosecond later, before I had a chance to even swallow that first bite, I heard another crack as the branch I was using as a seat, broke, giving way underneath me. 

The apple flew from my hands as I flapped my arms like useless wings, my body falling with a thud to the ground about twenty-feet below.

The sound of the thud and sickening cracks brought tears to my eyes & I realized I was screwed. The sound of the cracks as I hit the ground was the sound of my right leg breaking and the right side of my ribs snapping. 

I woke up a while later, realizing I was in a serious predicament. I had a broken leg and ribs in the middle of a mountain desert that lay far from civilization. I was barely able to reach my pack, breathing very short, excruciatingly painful breaths as I did so. I got my books. 

Son of a bitch! – they don’t cover falling from apple trees or explain why the hell it’s even here in the middle of nowhere. 

Here now is my book on survival, the one I’ve been leading up to, explaining why I’m writing the thing in the first place. 

“The Idiot’s Guide to Wilderness Survival” 

Chapter 1 – page 1  : Don’t climb apple trees. 

Chapter 2 – page 2 : If you do, make damn sure you have a satellite phone. 

Chapter 3 – page 3 : If you climb the apple tree and don’t have a sat phone - The end. 

There is one good thing to come out of my predicament. I have someone to keep me company.

My new friends arrived after I had lain under this tree for six days, “& on the seventh day I created” notafuknthing – I simply ran out of water. 

I know, tasteless humor, but you’d laugh too if you were in my predicament. 

So, lucky me, here I lie in the dirt soaking in my own excrement with my friends sitting patiently above my head. 

Eight Turkey Vultures staring at me from this piece of shit apple tree. 

© Nick PuraVida - 2008