30 Days Alone in the Wilderness

Less than a week to go and I head off into the wilderness. For 30 days, no less. I have spent time in the wilderness, but nothing that came close to this long. Shorter durations are easier. They tend to get over before full scale boredom sets in. Also, resources are at hand. If one spends four or five days, maybe a week out in the wilderness, food can be carried. Not three wholesome meals a day maybe, but enough to keep the hunger pangs away. But there is no way one can carry enough food to last for 30 days. Ultimately the transition has to be made to living off the land. And there is enough food out there. Not necessarily big game like deer or pigs or goats or such like, but enough small creatures to feed you for the day. Animals like rabbits or squirrels or even creatures like earthworms. The problem lies in catching rabbits or even birds. Trapping and snaring is an art that needs to be mastered and to be honest I am yet to reach that goal. Sure, I know some traps and some snares, but these 30 days will put that knowledge to the test. I am sure to get hungry and I want to see how my mind and body copes in such situations.

My more immediate concern is water. Or rather, potable water. During the 30 Days in Uttarakhand, my proposed campsite is next to a mountain stream. There is enough rains happening in the region now and the stream should be flowing with water. So the source is not a problem, and neither is the quantity. The worry is germs and bacteria and viruses and other nasties that come along with it. There are villages upstream and there are animals. With no sanitation to speak of, the river becomes the source of washing and cleaning. The water is mixed with human and animal faeces, a sure formula to contract stuff like diarrhoea, e-coli, etc. Stuff that can make me sick for a very long time. I will lose whatever fluids the body has and then lose energy, strength and the will to carry on. Good, clean drinking water is what my focus will be. One way to make dirty water drinkable is by boiling it. And that has been proven across the world, for centuries. The worry is the faeces will boil along with the water. Sure, a lot of them will get killed, but am I willing to take the chance to some of them braving the heat? Maybe I will. And then maybe I will distil the water in addition to boiling it, just to be doubly sure. Distilling takes time, but then out there, all I have is time.

I expect the days to be quite busy really. Wake up in the morning, gather some pine needles and brew some tea. Walk down to the river and clean up, maybe take a dip if the water is not freezing cold. Then go out replenishing the stock of firewood. It takes a lot of firewood to keep you warm on a cold night and it is no fun running out of wood in the middle of the night. Foraging for firewood can be extremely taxing work, physically and emotionally. But with a raging fire in front of the tent with your dinner sizzling over it makes the effort all worthwhile. It does get tiring after the first few days, but then what has to be done, has to be done.

After firewood collection is done, it is time to go foraging for food. Either plucked off the trees or checking the snares and traps laid the previous evening. Trapping and snaring is a game of chance, it is a game of luck and it is a game of numbers. First identify animal trails and then multiple traps on the trail in the hope that something will catch. I am not very good at deadfall traps, and these are the go-to traps for small game. I guess over thirty days I will become a lot more proficient in setting traps and snares. I do hope to make a meal out of pine bark though. Fortunately the campsite is in the middle of a pine forest and there will be a lot of pine bark around. And if there are dead and fallen trees around, chances are there might be the tasty wood grub treats. Of course, the campsite is next to a river and that provides an opportunity for fish. But then fishing in the stream will not be nearly as easy as walking in to the store and picking up the choicest. Without a fishing rod, hook, line or sinker as part of the kit, one will have to improvise.

Another apprehension is the weather. Though monsoons are still a couple of months away, the region is being hammered by incessant rain, hail and thunderstorms almost every day. The weather forecast predicts rain and thundershowers for almost the entire thirty day duration of my trip. All I have in terms of shelter material I am carrying is a small bivy tent and a tarp sheet. No sleeping bag, no blanket, nothing. The temperature is in the low teens and if the fire does not do its job, the nights will be quite uncomfortable. Cold from the earth, wind through the netting that makes up one side of my bivy tent and convection from all around. Being a minimalist effort, I am tempted to dump the bivy tent too to be able to make a good windproof and waterproof debris shelter, but I think I will take it along. Like I said, thirty days in the wilderness is a first for me and I like to have the fallback of the tent with me. I think I will be ok.

My body clock is completely out of whack. I am a night owl and generally go to bed when I hear the birds starting to chirp and a faint glow of pink colour the sky. In the wilderness, except for the campfire and a small torch, there will be no illumination. No books to read, no television to watch, no internet to browse, no mails to respond to. Come sundown, everything will go dark pretty soon. Dinner will be frugal at best and chances are that one will have to try and get to sleep around seven in the evening. Not something that I am used to. So sleep will be hard to come by. And once it does come, one will wake up in the middle of the night, after a full quota of sleep time one is used to. And then stay up waiting for dawn. That should make for an interesting experience.

The other thing that will take up some quality time will be practicing some necessary back country skills. Some that I am good at and then getting to refine them. Others that I suck at and trying to get better at it. There is also a friend who will be with me for the thirty days, hoping to pick up some tips and tricks.

Moreover, I am filming the entire experience. That should be fun. Tiring and frustrating, but fun. Go set the camera, walk back to position, film the clip, walk back to camera to shut it off. This is fine when the task being filmed is close to the camera. It just sucks when one has to capture a walk up or down the hill, for instance. Imagine having to walk down the hill to set the camera, then walk up again to the start point and then walk down again for the benefit of the camera. When you are fatigued, this really can suck. Wonder how I will react to this situation when the time comes to face it. Compromise on the shot or suck up and bear it? Only time will tell.

All this is daily living. But why am I out there in the middle of nowhere, without contact with the ‘civilised’ world? It is for a little bit of “me” time. I am going off to be alone, to introspect, to question myself, hopefully to find some answers. I am hoping that some of the onion skins will get peeled off over the thirty days and I will be able to find some relevant questions, if not the answers to those questions.

I am basically a person who likes to be cocooned within his own solitary world. I do not really look forward to human company. I am me and I am my best friend. Living in society does not always take kindly to this facet of an individual. That is one reason I am heading off for some alone time. Clean the mind, cleanse the soul, hopefully be able to discard external frills and luxuries. That is probably what this is all about. Primitive living. Living without the luxuries, comforts and necessities that we take for granted. Food from the stores, the grid for electricity, air conditioner for comfort, a vehicle for travel, the oven to cook food. When it really comes down to it, how much of the creature comforts are really required and how little do we actually need? Can we make the transition from the need and greed that epitomises our materialistic society to a life that transcends that?

There will be some food that will be a part of my kit. Basically some rice and some dal. But that will run out one day. If one were to make a long term stay possible, one would have to necessarily live off the land. Plants and animals for food. Will I be able to make that transition? That is one question I am seeking the answer to. Will I miss watching soaps on television? Will I miss social media, the updates, the postings, the Likes and the Shares and the Comments? Will I miss watching movies? Will I miss that crazy old dude who cuts me off on the road? The chatter of the marketplace? The cacophony of city life? Or will I become habituated to the slow pace of life? Get used to listening to the birds? Take comfort in the sound of the gurgling stream? Sleep when I want to. Eat what I can find. Have the fire to talk to. Will I welcome visitors during the 30 days or will I view it as an infringement on my private space? I do not have the answers. I have some idea about how I want to react and feel, but not having been exposed to that reality yet, I do not really know which way the fork in the road will take me. I know one thing for sure, I am looking forward to the next thirty days, if nothing else but the alone time I hope to get.

By the way, the next sojourn into the wilderness is scheduled for September 2015, in the jungles of Arunachal Pradesh. I am looking forward to that one too. Truly speaking I want to spend thirty days in the wilderness every couple of months or so. The planning has already started. Arunachal Pradesh is the next. Maybe Sunderbans after that. Maybe a deserted island in the Andaman next year some time. The target is to do one thirty day wilderness experience in the Yukon towards the summer of 2016. Yukon, that’s in northwest Canada and I will be in the middle of some 70,000 grizzlies, a thousands of moose, wolves, wolverines and a whole lot more. For some reason, I have a feeling that the Yukon will be a very rewarding experience.

Anyway, so much for gazing into the future. The first one starts a few hours from now. I hope that turns out to be as exciting and pleasant as I hope it will be. Stay tuned, pictures and videos will come up soon.

Oh yeah, and do wish me Godspeed.