Kitchen table survival skills are survival skills you can put into practice from your kitchen table. I humbly submit my set of tried and tested (and at times learned from bitter experience) non-glamorous, but effective, kitchen table survival skills:

There's not always a choice, but having a good handle on the weather (know your clouds) can mean the difference between a nice day out and a disaster.

As Alistair Humphrey's writes in his book Local, "Unfolding a map is the ritual that launches all good journeys." There's art and science in route planning—considering the needs and abilities of your party, the terrain, the effect of the weather or altitude, availability of water, interest and views, access, timing, trail condition and more. So many varied aspects go into it. When planning a family hike now, we weigh up a very different set of factors than we did for two fit twenty-somethings happy to endure a little hardship.

If you're going to the wilderness, go with somebody if you can, and leave your intended plan with friends or family back home. If you're not back when expected, at least you'll have someone looking out for you, and a rescue party will know where to start looking.

OK, so it doesn't seem like a survival skill exactly, but going with a local guide will work wonders for your survival. You might not need one for a walk in the local woods, but if you fancy hiking on a glacier or venturing down a river, and it's not something you do too often, then hiring a guide will be the best survival decision you make.

Sure, you can head out and figure it out when you're out there, but mountains, and wilderness generally, are capricious places. There's so much a good hiking book, or a recent trip report can teach you before you set out. Is a river crossable? Is there still snow on a pass? Are the mosquitoes out in force? How long is it likely to take? How much up and down will there be? Where can you camp? And on and on.

Whenever I've been on semi-serious expeditions, I've been very impressed with the kit lists provided by our guides. Every item is carefully chosen—like, say, bringing the 10 essentials—and lists are refined and revisited after each trip. It's rarely exciting assembling your kit and running through lists, but if it means you remembered spare batteries, the water filter, mosquito repellent, or a fire lighter it may prove your saving grace in the wild.

More mundane perhaps, but still helpful, is packing your gear in the right places and order in which you'll use it. You're much more likely to stop and put on sun lotion or a warm hat if it isn't stuffed under your sleeping bag in the depths of your backpack.

When we're tired, it's easy to make poor decisions. The best defence I know for this is to plan trips within your limits so you aren't trying to find a camp spot in the dark, feeling too tired to filter the water, or too tired to keep track of where you're going. After a long day, it's easy to start skipping the things that keep us safe, like putting on an extra layer or stopping for water. A guide once told me, "don't be too lazy to be comfortable."

A small, but very useful practice, I've adopted is having a good awareness of time on your excursions. Plan in advance and estimate how long different sections may take. Making a mental note of when you set off from the trailhead or from a rest stop gives you a sense of your progress, lets you know what it might take to get back if you need to, and teaches you how far you might get ahead of you. If your pace is changing, you'll have a good idea of how strong everyone is still feeling. Knowing when the sun rises and sets and how much daylight you have left means you're less likely to find yourselves in the dark without a headlamp.

I'm sure you might have more to add to the list.

This set came from reflecting on our survival skills before a brilliant chat with Brendan Leonard of the excellent Semi-rad about all things Ultra on the Sketchplanations podcast (episode out in Autumn 2024). Growing up in the 80s, for me survival skills were things Crocodile Dundee had, or perhaps MacGyver. More recently, Bear Grylls would demonstrate making a shelter in the jungle, starting fires, or catching salmon to survive in the wild. However, I realised that my survival skills were much less glamorous, but still rather effective, and most of them are used before I head out on a trip. In other words, my survival skills are ones that mean (touch wood) I don't get into a scrape that need the traditional survival skills most of us think of.

As with so much in life, it's often the unglamorous stuff that makes the difference, like showing up every day, replicating before innovating, writing a rubbish first draft, or re-writing.

I hope this set may keep your expeditions Type I or Type II fun, rather than Type III.

Don't make important decisions on an empty stomach

Perhaps you were really expecting something about a kitchen table: how to set a table

Kitchen table survival skills

There’s something about being out in Nature for 3 days or more that resets us and improves our mood, our wellbeing, and how well our brain is working. Observed by river rafting guide Ken Sanders who used to see a marked change in the groups he led on the 3rd day of being out on the river, it’s known as the 3-day effect. Since then, David Strayer and his group at the University of Utah have conducted studies that measured a real change in our calmness and even our creative problem solving after 3 or more days in Nature.

“I think it takes the first two days and nights to wash away whatever veneer of civilization you have brought with you. The new reality begins on that third day.”

More about the 3 day effect at National Geograhic: This is your brain on Nature and REI: The Nature Fix.

No doubt similar things at work to the magic of forest bathing.

The 3-day effect

The fun scale acknowledges that not all fun is created equal and includes the different types of fun, including Type 1, Type 2 and Type 3 fun.

I assumed fun is all the same. Fun is fun. But then, when I first heard about Type I and Type II fun, I had to admit there was some validity in there being different types of fun.

Type 1 fun is like eating ice cream, or skiing with ski lifts to whisk you back up to the top — you love it while you’re doing it, and when you think back on it you remember how good it was. Straightforward— sounds like fun.

Type 2 fun, on the other hand, is the sort of enjoyment you get from something like running a marathon or climibing a mountain. You often have to admit that it wasn’t necessarily all fun at the time. In fact, it could have been quite hard and might have hurt a bit. But when you look back on it, you think of it as often more fun and fulfilling than the Type I fun.

Type 3 fun is usually type 1 or 2 fun that went wrong. Though it was supposed to be fun, things actually got a little hairy – like you got lost, or it got dark, and it got cold, or you had to be rescued — but…it sure makes a great story when you make it back.

The fun scale is probably my favourite sketch that didn't make it into my new book. If you like this one, you'll love the book Big Ideas Little Pictures.

HT: my brother shared this with me having learned it from his mountain guide doing classic Type II fun.

I updated this sketch in 2023. Here is the original fun scale sketch

The fun scale

I was taught this originally for backpacking but it really always makes sense once you think about it. Pouring onto a hand keeps dirty hands out of the rest of the snacks in much the same way as a drinking fountain manages to be hygienic by shooting out the water.

Some alternative sides to sharing: compliments are gifts and give gifts others can give. And two more about germs: sneezes and coughs, and the Dracula sneeze.

Pour, don’t dip when sharing snacks.

What should you make sure you have with you when you head out to the wilderness? A lot of stuff may prove handy, but perhaps the best checklist to start from for stuff that may get you out of a fix is the 10 Essentials by the Seattle-based Mountaineers group. 

This is a version of their systems list which focuses on what the objects need to do rather than specifically which objects you should bring. So, for example, insulation may be warm clothes but could be a wind breaker or waterproofs for snow or rain rather than cold.

Check out Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills

PS
I modified it very slightly for space and simplicity. Don’t blame me if you are stuck in the wilderness without the right kit.

The 10 Essentials

It’s the general sage backcountry camping advice - don’t camp right on the edge of water, but so often people are tempted to camp right on the edge. But there are excellent reasons not to: there are more bugs, it gets much colder and damper overnight, and you’re likely to disturb animals coming for a drink which is not good for your sleep, your camp, or good for them. Instead, camp 50 yards, or more, away, and go watch the sunset by the edge of the lake - preferably with a dip.

Why camp 50 yards from water

In temperate latitudes and around the Summer. 12 minutes per finger. 1 hour for your fist. (hat tip to Joel Wilson)

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Category: backpacking