Hammock Camping Overnighter in a Warbonnet Hammock System

everybody this is Joshua the great birdie green beret just wanted to share with you guys my hammock setup for an overnight here in the Ohio Eastern woodlands it is springtime so it's not quite as cold but I'm still going to show you my full setup so you can get an idea of what I'm usually using winter spring summer fall obviously in a warmer temperatures it's not gonna be with the under quilt and over quilt most of the time so but I do want to show you the full set up so you can see what I have available for for season use stick around now as far as shelter site selection there are five W's that you need to think about two of them you need to be near three of them you need to be away from alright so when I'm picking out a site I want a spot that is near a source of water which right here I've got a source of water from running through here I've also got plenty of wood around that I can use so those are the two w's that you want to be near you want to be near water and you want to be near wood that you can use for fuel or for construction projects now the final three w's - the five W's shelter site selection acronym are the things that I'm trying to stay away from the first thing that I'm trying to stay out of is the wind and I've got a lot of natural wind breaks with the vegetation that's around here with the trees but I also want to look at the terrain I don't want to be all the way up on the highest portion up here because that's where it's gonna experience the most wind I also don't want to be all the way down here and the lowest portion because at night all of that cold air is gonna sink down to that level that I'm going to be more cold probably more damp while I'm trying to sleep so that's not going to be a comfortable spot for me either so I want to go kind of somewhere in between when I'm setting those up I don't want to be all the way up on the high ground all the way down and want to go kind of somewhere in between to set up my system that's gonna be the best protection from the wind and the best protection from you know those kind of atmospherics that are causing colder temperatures to drop and sink to the lowest level the other one I want to stay away from is widow-makers and you look over here to my left this tree is probably still alive but it's got a heck of a lean going on it's really shallow root system where this Creek is starting to wash it away so I don't know when that gonna go but I'm pretty sure that as that water cuts that away it's eventually gonna go so I'm not gonna set my shelter up where something like this can fall that is a Widowmaker also at the same token I can look around at the top for any sort of dead branches that might in a high wind break off and fall on my shelter I want to stay away from those as well and the last W is wigglers or wigglies here in eastern woodlands we do have copperheads I've never seen one in this particular area but thirty miles from here where I grew up we had them pretty often so you want to stay away from that kind of habitat but as best you can so those are the things I'm looking for when I'm trying to find a good spot to set up a shelter five W's next to a water source plenty of wood you need to be away from wind widow-makers wigglers that's the five W's I like this area here I'm kind of on a flat spot here so I can take care of a lot of priorities that I need to take care over the next few days I've got some evenly spaced trees here they're going to be perfect for my hammock I'm still near all the wood sources that I need for construction projects and for fuel for my fire water source is probably I don't know probably 25 meters away and that low ground right there is where all the cold air is going to sink at night so this is probably a good spot don't see anything that I would consider a Widowmaker that have to worry about if a storm comes in the wind picks up don't have to worry about anything falling down and of course I'm not really worried about any wigglers around here and yeah natural windbreak with the trees so this is a good spot I'm gonna sit up right here alright before I get set up though I want to get my gear up off the ground one because I don't want it to sit down on the wet ground and absorb that moisture even though this is a you know waxed treated canvas I'm not so worried about that but I do want to get it up off the ground so I don't have to bend over all the time you know to get down to that pack so I'm gonna carve me a quick toggle just kind of crowning the ends off here real quick on both sides then I'm going to make just kind of a v-notch that goes all the way around on the center score that lying around come over about a quarter of an inch explore that line around I'm just gonna carve that out so I've got a recess from my cordage to sit in and it kind of keeps it on the middle of the toggle where I want it go around one way lift the toggle you go the other way and trim that off you probably saw that I got this new knife that I'm trying out this year you know this is a Becker cap part I believe it's the BK 62 this is a 1095 CV steel so it's kind of an improvement of a regular 1095 but it's still a 1095 which I love and it's got walnut handles a couple things I'm not crazy bout right off the bat is I don't really like the screw system that they have in here I'd rather have a pin but I think that's something that they do so that you can upgrade and replace the scales and you know I know that the original cap part blade was exactly like this one this one doesn't have a 90 degree spine for a Ferro rod which is something I like to have also for processing bark off tinder but it does have this flat spot before it starts profiling up that's probably about an inch to an inch and a half that I'll probably take a file to so that I can use it with a ferrule or a ferrocerium rod like I like to do I actually had a lot of you asked you know why don't use K bar style knives and I had actually I don't like coated knives I don't like painted knives I don't like tactical knives in the field all that much I've used several of them early on a few years ago when I first started out because it just made sense with my background so it is a sharp edge with a handle so you know there's that so it does do things that you needed to do but it doesn't do bushcraft tasks very well there's so many more knives out there that are well suited so I really started branching out and trying the other bushcraft style blades there's my toggle but I had actually met Ethan Becker at Georgia bushcraft their fall gathering last last fall and he actually showed me this knife and it was fairly new at the time and you know I really love the Kephart style blades so I really wanted to get one of these but what was also cool is mr. Becker he actually has one of the only one or two original Kephart knives known to exist I believe there's two ugly there's one in the museum and I'm probably in the Smoky Mountains and then you know he has the other one so he used that as a template as a model to create this knife which I instantly fell in love with I love the way it feels I love the way it looks I love the history behind it so I wanted one of these for a long time so anyway I'm glad to actually have one but the things that I like in in a knife you know back in Horace Kephart stay we're not a thing you know the 90-degree spine was not a thing but a simple utility knife and I love the simplicity of this so what I'll do though to kind of make it more suited to what I'm gonna use it for is I'll take about that first inch or so and I'll actually file a sharp spine on that so that I can use that with a Ferro rod so that I can use that to process tinder and this has a stone wash finish on it that rounds those edges off and you know to - Ethan backers credit you know this is a this is how the original Kephart blade was you know so I don't fault that at all I don't think it's a problem at all but outstanding knife really happy to have one and really going to enjoy testing this out in the field even though the designs kind of already proven by Horace Kephart just saying a little about this knife that I'm using and you probably ready heard that if you're in my following along in my You Tube community tab but anyway I'll put a link to this down in the description you can get these right on Amazon for the price that I paid for this I think I paid $109 with a leather sheath 295 steel walnut handles based on the original cap art design that's kind of hard for me to pass up so anyway that's what knife I'm using I said he'd give my gear up off the ground the first thing I'm gonna tie is a Marlin spike hitch and for the Marlin spike hitch I'm just gonna tie and end of the line bowline if you don't know how to tie that I'll direct you real quick to my 11 essential knots videos up here I recommend you watch that so you can really get a step-by-step on how to actually tie the end of the line bowline plus a bunch of other knots since we brought that up thanks for asking there are a number of different knots that you could use for a number of different purposes I simply choose a certain number of knots because there's hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of knots and a beginner doesn't know where to start so I've kind of narrowed it down to what's actually useful for everything that I do granted if you have your favorite not go ahead and use it these are just the knots that I use so end of the line bowline I'm going to create what's called a running baldon by coming around the tree and I'm going to take this long standing end and come through the loop of that bowline and I've just created a slipknot here with the loop of that bowline and the tail and that is called a running bowline and now with this piece of cordage that's hang it down I'm going to create my Marlin spike hitch so all I'm going to do is throw an overhand loop overhand loop if you can see that into the line then from there I'm going to flip this loop up onto the upper portion alright this loop gets flipped up it always climbs up the rope I'm going to flip that over and pull a bite from this side through all right kind of show you what I've got going on there hopefully you can see so now if you look at this knot what I've got is a knot is starting to form down here at the bottom that's what I call the dirty side and then up here at the top I've just got a slip where it goes over the bike comes through so that is beginning of my Marlin spike hitch now it's also the beginning of a bowline it's also the beginning of an overhand slip which we use on a ridge line so all of these work together so that you learned one knot you're actually learning several so the reason that I teach the ball and the way I teach it is because it leads right into this I've got a clean side all right sorry a clean side the dirty side you want the dirty side down where the actual tension is gonna be to actually catch it you don't want the slip side on the other side because it'll just slip on down the same thing with your ridge line if you've never seen that video I recommend you check the rapid ridge line video and the three quick tarp shelters video out and you'll see what I'm talking about if you end up with the slip side on the wrong side and your ridge line it won't work so very important they all work together once I've got that established take my toggle place it through there instead of my finger then I can tighten that down and that will hold securely right inside that notch there that I created alright now I'll show you that at what we used to call in the military at combat speed flip it pull the bite through toggle it pull it down walk away right actually hang your gear first hangar gear first then walk away all right so the tarp system in the hammock system I'm using kind of all three seasons I've got a war bonnet Superfly tarp and I've got the war bonnet Blackbird xlc double layer hammock with the straps that come with it so I'll set this up real quick and then we'll talk about a few things on each one first things first get my strap stuff and there's some other will be what Evers and ant bite me might be briar I'll get my straps up I like to get them about eye level or so on both sides just to give me kind of an even hang get my other set out I know this looks like poison ivy over here but it's actually a new creeper all right so that's poison ivy that's Virginia creeper but I'm not allergic to poison ivy so i'll get it closed up and show you those if you're allergic to poison ivy this is not the tree for you all right so check it out down here we've got a vine growing up the tree next to another vine each one of these you've got kind of this oily looking leaf there are three leaves right so that's kind of the old adage that leaves a three let it be but you know I don't really subscribe to that because like raspberries and blackberries and all those others have leaves or three there's a lot of good leaves of three but if that's what you need to remember it by that's what you need to remember it by leaves of three let it be so this is three leaves three leaves three leaves and then over here you've got some smaller ones now they're not always red they're not always kind of that oily looking they kind of change and I'll show you another poison ivy vine as well but you can see these little tendrils that grab onto the tree on the vine you may not be able to see them in this but you will be able to see it more pronounced there's one right over here I can show you but those are your leaves of three poison ivy right there right here on the same tree you can see I've got the leaves of three over here again all right so that's the poison ivy vine but then over here I've got leaves of five all right these leaves of five even though they still have that oily look to them and that reddish look to them that people associate with poison ivy leaves of five let it be is not a thing okay Virginia creeper is all this is no big deal it just happens to be growing right next to actual poison ivy and a couple of bugs that are doing something that's probably not pg-13 let's see if we can zoom in on that did you go little bugs I'm trying to hide I know you want your privacy so anyway long story short poison ivy Virginia Creeper leaves of three leaves of five they both kind of have that same oily look that same machine so I'm gonna show you real quick this is on one of my anchor trees and I know somebody out there is gonna be alarmed oh my god it's poison ivy and they think that I don't know what I'm doing in the woods I actually do know what I'm doing in the woods I just don't notice poison ivy because I'm not allergic to it I grew up around here I guess I've developed in him kind of an immunity to it I'm not sure the science behind that but I just don't get it but anyway poison ivy Virginia Creeper don't be alarmed I'm not allergic let me show you what one looks like with a lot of hair growing out of the big March mature hairy vine anyway it's all over Ohio all right here we've got a really really good example of a mature poison ivy vine has all this kind of hair like tendrils that really help it cling to things and climb things so this is still active during the winter but this is all you'll see is this hairy vine a lot of times so it is still active if you're allergic to poison ivy you can still get pretty messed up with it but like I said I'm not but this is what it looks like so another caution is don't use this as tinder as much as that looks like it's great tinder it's not you do not want to inhale poison ivy smoke because it'll get in your lungs and you'll have that that dermatological reaction inside your lungs and that's just a really really bad day all right so poison ivy in the winter that's what it looks like stay away from it if you're allergic but I'm not yeah poison ivy Virginia Creeper not worried about it there's about right these hammocks have a little red tag on here the other side is black I don't know if you can see that that little red tag but red is where's my head I remember red red for the head that's where the head of my hammock is I want to sleep with my hammock up that way run it through the d-rings here they're bringing her out my d-rings on the other side I just go ahead and leave the stuff sack right on there you can start kind of gauging where I want this hang good enough for me I'll throw a half hitch in there just because even though I think the d-rings are going to hold a good fine there's my hammock grab me a couple of steaks and what I think is cool about these is to give me some room and keep it off my face at night because it's got a built-in bug screen which is going to be extremely handy this time around matter of fact I'll zip that up to keep the skeeters out of it but I can pull this out stick it right down it same thing on the other side and there you go there's my blackbird system built-in bug net it's got a really good ridge line across the top asymmetrical cut so I can lay sideways in it I can get into it from both sides however this side is using the side that I get into first this other side actually has a built-in gear shelf then I take everything out of my pockets I usually take off my whether we'll fold it up use that for a pillow and I sleep asymmetrically in here with my feet going this way this foot box and my head going that way really comfortable really good for side sleepers highly recommend this system for sure so that is the Blackbird xlc another feature of this this is a double layer which I'll show you and you can zip the mosquito net off completely and get rid of that if you want it you can also flip these inside out and use it if you want to sleep the other way if you prefer to sleep on a particular side but this actually has a double layer at the bottom so and especially cold conditions I'll take a foam sleeping pad and I'll actually slide it inside there now protect me from conduction or sorry protect me from the convection underneath don't really need that right now because it's starting to warm up pretty well here in Ohio so that is the blackboard xlc so I think this is definitely going to be overkill for tonight but this is actually the Wookiee under quilt that goes to this and this is rated down to zero degrees so it's only supposed to get down to about 50 tonight but I have used this in temperatures in that range without a blanket on top and it actually predict protects you from convection really well so a lot of times I don't even need a blanket by the time we get the tarp over me to trap the body heat in and this underneath kind of wrapped around me to trap that he did a lot of times I'm comfortable in those temperatures with just this but in the interest of showing you what all this system looks like that I use for the Four Seasons I'm going to show you the wookie underquilt you know what's cool about this design as I've got that carabiner on one side keep it up out of them mess then on the other side I've got a simple cordage loop right here that just goes up around the knot right here that traps it in place bring it under and you can see on this only certain parts of it have insulation the rest of it just kind of wraps around and this sits at an angle the same way that I sit inside the actual hammock itself I'll bring that up underneath I like to snap it on up here just kind of bring it up around the sides so I've got my quilting starting basically where I'm laying there's not a lot of wasted quilting on here or extra quilting that you don't really need which makes this a lot more pack of a lot more lightweight so that is the wookie underquilt really really like this let me show you the top clip real quick and the top globe is a little bulkier over there but what I like about this top quilt is it's got a few times on the back here on the Untied that real quick this might take a minute all right we'll come back to that so it's got about a 1/4 sewn foot box in there and then the rest is open you know so once you're inside there and your feet are tucked in this just kind of drapes around you inside and you kind of tuck it up underneath you and then you're under quilt wraps up around the sides and you can tie this around here it's got a kind of a cinch strap so you can tighten it up around your shoulders and it does a pretty good job of staying on and without that extra bulk in the back like you would in a traditional sleeping bag which you're only you're gonna lay on that and smash that insulation anyway and it's not going to be all that efficient so what's a great advantage of the under quilt is it's underneath your hammock so you're not actually smashing that insulation and it does a lot better job of keeping you warm so I probably won't need this this is also rated to zero degrees I probably won't need this tonight but at a minimum I'll put it in there and tuck my feet in it so this system as is you know basically puts me down to a zero degrees and I have slept in it in temperatures that cold and it's a pretty true rating especially because you're not smashing any of the insulation that you're counting on to trap that body heat so it does really well of course I normally have the tarp over that but once I put that on you're not going to be able to see it it's only supposed to get down to about 50 degrees tonight but it is supposed to start raining tonight so I am going to put my tarp up so I'll set my superfly tarp up next but this is what it looks like right now now for the tarp system superfly tarp I've already got a preloaded with all the corners I want I've got for the main Ridgeline I've got some paracord some tightening Warriors forward I'm pretty sure it is and then the rest is number 36 Bank line but I've already got everything Hank just like I would a rapid reg line so when it comes to setup it doesn't take me very long at all pull that out set up one side and I usually take this where I've got coverage about two there and go off about six inches higher do a round turn a couple of half hitches however you want to tie your ridgeline up and go ahead and do so this is just the way I choose to do it there's one side I'll probably have to come back and adjust that the other side pull that out go back to my poison I victory full round say tie it off with a couple of half hitches leaving myself a little quick-release now go back to the other side and tighten that anteye that off nothing there I'm just going to stake out my corner so I've got kind of door flaps up here these are actually my corners and then I've got some polls that I can pull if I want to right there I typically don't end up using these all the times stake these off a lot of times this one if there's anything naturally growing that I can use to save a steak I will Oh little not Russ what is that Murphy's Law thing whatever can go wrong will go wrong will do to the bottom of this figure out what's hanging up on there all right yeah so this little trees already right where I kind of want it so I'm gonna go ahead and use that and save the steak or not that's pretty flimsy and you can use whatever knot you want on your steaks I typically use round turn and two half inches but you can use a taut line hitch your trucker's hitch or you know any number of hitches line of work I'll stake off the backside all right so at some point in that sequence my battery died so I didn't switch that out and I'm not sure where I lost you and I won't know until that in it so I think you get the idea there the ridgeline staked out the four corners now I'm going to deal with the door flaps and because it's gonna rain today I think that I'll go ahead and tie those off nice and secure so if the wind picks up it's not flapping all night keeping me awake and it won't get any water inside so I'm gonna stake that out real quick pick up right where we left off or wherever I lost you at this time on Christmas vacation where he pulls out that big ball of lights then it goes up a little knot there Russell you work on that real quick that's what I've got going on here except I don't have a Russ to hand it off to you so I'm getting as quick as I can pretty angry Breyers back next tell you that oh good there's more briars so like I was saying sometimes if the weather's hot and I want to take advantage of it come back to breeze I'll actually take this front side and put it up kind of like a well and lean-to kind of a scoop just scoop that Breeze in but it's going to rain tonight at least it's supposed to so I want to stay nice and dry in here so with my hammock in here my under quilt my top quilt and my Superfly tarp I'll be nice and high and dry and I won't have to worry about that at all so this is my war bonnet hammock system in all its glory buddy I probably this would be I think my 40th night this year sleeping in this extremely comfortable highly recommended it's one of those by once cry once you know because you're you kind of tear up at the sight of the bill whenever you go to pay for it but you know it's super high quality american-made in Colorado so you cry once but you don't cry ever again because you don't have to buy it again because these are extremely durable this thing has been with me for pushing two years now getting close to two years I would say 21 months and I put a lot a lot of time in these so highly recommend it if it's in your budget if not it's okay but it just happened to have been in mine and I spend a lot of time in it so I can tell you it's worth it for me so really the next thing that I need to do is go get me some water and I got a couple different options for water I've got you know I'm a typical stainless steel water bottle that I can use for thermal disinfection which I'm going to but I'm also testing out this new filter from Grail this one from my understanding is not available yet but I've been using it for a few weeks now this is the Geo press so basically you can read up on it for yourself but this is an extremely cool filter system all right so this is exactly what I'm looking for I need kind of a deep pool it's got an earthworm in it but it's a live earthworm so that's good things that's a good sign but the water is flowing and it's pretty clear right here and I haven't disturbed upstream there's nothing upstream I walked probably 100 yards nothing upstream that I know is laying dead in here contaminating this water but either way I've got a nice pool here that I can fill up my water without disturbing the bottom so this Grail is only 20 ounces but there's 20 ounces that I can get right now we go some raccoon tracks down here uh-huh so basically what I can do with this is take the inner sleeve off I've got this filter system in the outer container right the outer container has a line on it right here I can go ahead and fill this up and when you're filling up from a stream you don't fill up to where the openings upstream because all the crud is gonna flow right down into it you want to fill opposite of that without disturbing the bottom all right so I just kind of tuck that in there and granted this is a filter that'll get it all out but you're still clogging your filter I get a little more in there that's about to the line right there place my inner sleeve back on up at the top I've got a green and a red red means that it's closed I needed to be on green so that it'll Bend there we go place that down on the ground press that dude down in there and that's forcing the water through the filter and into the inner container which isn't contaminated and then it from there I can take this off I can drink it straight straight from there or I can actually take this top lid off as well and I've got the inside is full of clean water so that is a quick 15 to 20 second way to get drinkable water on the go this is only 20 ounces of water like I said and that won't get me through the night so I'm actually going to get some in my 32 ounce stainless steel and I'll thermally disinfect that so I don't have to take another trip down here put some ash on that I don't have to take another trip down here now I can use a cotton bandana to pre-filter this if I want but this isn't really all that nasty so I'm not going to bother with that looks like it's got some coffee in there still downstream now the same thing with the opening facing downstream I'll go ahead and top that off - the earthworm's and I can thermally disinfect that up back up a camp all right so I'm going to show you real quick how to make kind of one of my favorite fire lays and what I'll do is I'll place kind of a back log it'll make a triangle with a couple of good-sized sticks that are going to outlast the rest and I'll take one stick on the front and put it on the underside so I've created this triangle just like this resting on the backstop so it's kind of lean to it but it's kind of not but it's really important that that's on the bottom side then I'll take a couple piles of smalls put them right on the side one on that side and one on the other so I've created kind of this space in here for my tinder to go and then I'll achieve ignition scoot everything over the top and then I can use this to lift it up to aerate it and really get it going with this one I want to actually create I want to actually thermally disinfect that water that I got down at the creek and I'm also running low on char cloth that I made back at home and brought out that tin is almost empty so I'm going to replenish that with some charred natural material I've just got some punk wood in here if you don't know what that is Punk wood is decomposing wood that's kind of soft and spongy to the touch I'm gonna char that up in this fire as well once I get it going so I've got this kind of loosely packed with some char cloth or sari with some punk wood that I'm going to char put the lid on that dude don't worry that whole pin hole thing is false you don't need to worry about that this is going to be pushing gas out hot enough and then once it's done I'll flip it over and cut the oxygen off and it'll be good to go once it cooled alright so I'm going to char in this I'm gonna boil in this I'm gonna get this fire going with the couple of pieces of char cloth that I have left alright so I don't want my tinder on the ground I'll just put it on my haversack right here what I've got is some tulip poplar bark and you know probably don't need all this I need about four fair-weather probably about you know a softball size so I'll set the other to the side and use that for another day but why don't you do is process this down so I like to pull apart a little bit to have the really super process down kind of another pile that I can use for some more medium and then I'll go ahead and leave this course as my outer layer on my tinder bundle process this down a little further and the other good thing about putting something down as it catches all your little guys that you can use you know all this sticks out of there so your tinder bundle willie should take a few minutes you should take the time to process it down because the finer you get this the more combustible it's going to be the more surface area to have so I like to go ahead and break it down like this and take my time it's kind of one of those things you know you don't really have time to do it right but you always seem to have time to do it again when it doesn't work I process that down into kind of medium and this all started as the same tulip poplar bark it's just a matter of how fine I'm taking the time to process it take that medium material put it in the center of my course material and then I'll take this and I don't need much fine material but I do need enough to hold the heat long enough to pass it on to the medium to the course on to my kindling and finally my sustaining fuel really take this time to break this down nice and all this stuff that I'm catching just broken down even further so that's why I like to have something down to catch it as I'm processing and this stuff is nice and dry I shan't take long alright I've got kind of a fine consistency to this right here place that in the center of that but I can lightly scoop across this pile and you see I'm kind of only picking up the fine pieces now I've got some super fine powder go thread I don't need I've got some superfine shreds in here find almost powdery then I can place in the very center that should do it all right and I've got my striker piece of Flint shirt that I found here locally on the ground in Ohio it's got some good sharp edges so that'll work I'll use that with my fire steel and for me char cloth is a suburban thing suburban bushcraft thing nothing wrong with it but there's so much natural material that I can use the char that bringing cotton to the field or charring cloth or cotton in the field doesn't make a lot of sense to me I'll bring this out normally full down to one or two pieces in here so I'll go ahead and use that this is some charred cotton gauze looks like I've got two pieces but you know down to one piece so I'm gonna make some more natural material since I'm out here in the field now so what I'll do normally is I'll take this and I'll fold the charcloth to where I have as many gnarly frilly ends as possible towards where I'm actually going to strike and I'll place that right up on the block and now from here I'm just gonna use my fire steel and I'm using a 12-inch approach okay make sure you can see me I'm using a 12-inch approach I'm using the weight and the momentum on a glancing blow to remove pieces of steel off of this fire steel and that's going to shoot sparks up and towards the frilly ends of this char cloth that are going to catch it all right here that goes place that inside kind of gently scoop that around now make sure that you guys can see me here don't blow on it nice and easy until I start getting smoke rolling out the back what you don't want to do is cup your hands around the backside and trap that airflow when you have to make sure that the new tinder is in contact with the stuff that's burning so it will transfer you don't want to have a lot of space in there but you also don't want to choke it out so I'm going to keep blowing gently until the white smoke starts rolling out the back and I'm trying to stay on camera here for you and then once it's burning I'll place it inside scoop these up and over and then what I can do is I can use this to add air to the entire mix until that gets rolling that prevents me from having to that prevents me from snuffing it out and I don't have to sit here and place it in and place it in let it get going place it in and place it in if it starts to kind of look like it needs a little bit of air lift up the whole thing and you're in business alright so now I need to use this fire in order to char the what I want to do is place my char inside the fire light get it in there good a little air on there now I need to get my water in there so that it can boil now make sure that's nice and stable I'm going to add some fuel because over here I'm not getting a lot of heat so this heat is being transferred through this and back out the backside and I don't want that add some fuel to the backside here and with the char I want to completely cover it up do I want a good 10 to 15 minutes of heat on that the water bottle I don't necessarily want to cover it up but I want to make sure that it's completely surrounded by fire and then just to get some sustainable coals I put some thumb-sized stuff on there as well and with that particular fire lay that lift system I don't have to do a lot of blowing I can lift that whole thing up and allow air to get in there and make for a better fire quicker so gonna let this boil once it's brought to a boil I'll go ahead and and pull that out I'll show you real quick how I make a quick bottle toggle and the rest of the coals I'll pull up around that char so I can try the material alright let me show you this quick my water is already starting to boil I'm gonna need to get it out of there so what I do is just a simple bottle toggle so I've got a piece of Bank line just a little toggle that's that's roughly about the size of the shoulders you know beyond the neck of your water bottle take me a length of cordage and I'll just tie a clove hitch around and if you don't know the clove hitch that's in several of my videos with you come around cross the back over making a loop it's basically a half hitch now you're creating a second half hitch by coming around the inside and then you get your parallel wraps with your diagonal locking bar what's a good idea to do because you are going to put some weight on this when you put it in there is to do an overhand stop or not on the end of that to keep that clove hitch from pulling out when you put some weight on this and that's all there is to it now you would think that you want to put this in the center but you actually want to offset it to one side so that when you actually drop it down into a bottle like so as it catches on the lip it'll cam up and catch on the other lip and then you can take that pressure off and slide it back out okay but I think my water is already boiling I'm gonna show you how to do that real quick alright so my water is already boiling you can see it there I'm just going to take my bottle toggle drop it down in there catch a lip take it out of the fire set it down somewhere where it's nice and stable then I'll let it cool from there get my toggle out be careful don't touch the bottle don't spill it it's hot so that's a simple bottle toggle now I still want this heat to create this char so I'm going to consolidate that back around my charge container which in this case I'm just using my water bottle nesting cup all right so it looks like I'm getting about all the heat I'm gonna get off of that so I'm gonna take that off the fire and I'm gonna flip it upside down so that it cuts a lot of air off you get that to where it's sitting nice and flat so no air can get in there and I'm gonna let that and the water cool so uh yeah good morning here we are well started raining last night so I really didn't get a film the rest of me crawling inside here but you know I'm high and dry stayed warm all night but yeah raining this morning as well but I'll be out here for I don't know three or four three or four more nights so be teaching the class as well but I'll be able to put together some more stuff for this this hammock camping overnighter is technically about you know four overnighters so plenty more material coming I just wanted to give you a heads up on on the first night slept pretty well despite all the rain it's like my gear is mostly dry out there underneath the tarp underneath the hammock so anyway more to come all right guys I'm back had a weather come in for a couple of days actually but right now it's gotten a little bit nicer so I've actually opened everything up I took the tarp down cuz I'm getting ready to move camp for the night so I'm gonna move to another location might do some frog spearing I might catch some snapping turtles don't know we'll see what see what the day holds for us but so anyway storm came in that night so you missed me crawling into the lter and getting a decent night's sleep even though the rain was pounding I woke up the next morning still rain and been rain and fur you know on and off for a day and a half or so and of course right now I'm teaching an advanced class with corporal Kelly here at the Pathfinder School in Ohio but the weather kind of broke enough now to where I can finish up where we left off and I was able to kind of open the hammock up a little bit which is nice anytime I can do this I like to do this because this is this is kind of being a little more immersed in the forest without closing it all off but you know the weather can turn on a dime here so I've got to be ready to to put it up at a moment's notice so this is a rare opportunity sometimes in the spring for me in the Eastern woodlands to actually get it open this up and just enjoy being in the hammock so where we left off was I had boiled water and it made some char so I'm gonna prove that jar here real quickly so if the Sun cooperates in the cloud the clever goes away or I can find a sunny spot I'll show you how to do that char with solar but at a minimum I'll show you how to do it with flint and steel put him in a nice little tinder bundle blow to flame because who doesn't like that I guess who doesn't like to watch that but also who doesn't like to do that you know in general we just like to do that so I thought I'd take this opportunity to kind of show you some things answer some questions that I get on the channel just because this is kind of a different type video format for me so judging by the interest in the comments the lights and that sort of thing we'll see if this is something that you guys actually enjoy watching and I'll do some more of them but you know I've got my gear shelf here so there's a few things in the gear shift the shelf that I wanted to go over with you kind of talking about the food that I carry this is my backpackers pantry my woodsman's pantry alright this is a waxed canvas sleeve and I've got tins full of everything that I can need all right so it's kind of like it like it says it's kind of my pantry so I'll show you what's in that real quick I've got some smaller tins in here a handful of these and this one has pepper I've got one that has salt in it somewhere seasoned salt right here some motrin for the 43 year old muscles that tend to egg quite a bit these days we've got some baking powder which I use in my manic recipe so I've got that of course number 1 my my 12 to see my eleventh see is Copenhagen my 12 see is coffee so I've got my 10 of coffee in there and if I get a chance I'll show you how I make my coffee in the field on this one if not on this one it'll be on a future one but real simple coffee if you want to know the brand the brand of coffee I use this chock full of nuts it's super cheap but it's it's delicious in my opinion I like it so simple coffee that's the one I like I always keep a tin for trail mix and dried fruit and then as that depletes I'll top those off and so I've got my trail mix and dried fruit I've got trail mix this time got M&Ms in it which I like and I'm not afraid to say that I do like the M&Ms even though it's probably less healthy dried fruit this time I've got some dried mango which is a favorite of the entire and yard family for sure dried mangoes then I've got some flour and some cornmeal use these from a banach along with the baking powder that I showed you a bit ago but I can also use this to bread fish a number of things that I can use to actually prepare meals in the field with these so I like to have those this is what is known as fishy beef rub right and the story behind that I guess I should tell you whatever my wife and I had the long red braid whenever we met I was working a contract that particular contract we'd never used each other's real names we just called each other by our call signs Mike sign was catfished and that's a story in and of itself as well so catfish was what I was called because the team that I was on in seventh group was seven one five now called seven one one five there is a special on my boys there on one of the channels it's something like the Green Berets of seven one one five which is when my buddy Romy got shot through the neck on that particular operation and that was that was the deployment after I got out so I wasn't on that deployment I was on the deployment with those guys before so but a lot of those guys are the same guys great dudes one of the best teams ever assembled in my opinion but anyway it was a dive team so they all and it was seventh groups and we all spoke Spanish so you know everyone had these shark nicknames and call signs and you know I was the guy from the country up here in southern Ohio so you know they decided that sharks any shark whatsoever is not country enough to suit me so I was called catfish that became my nickname that became my callsign later on in the contracting world so anyway I'm telling you that tell you that's one of my wife and I met we were in a MT course in California and we were both going for EMTs so that we could we're both going to EMT class they're really intensive two-week course that was basically 16-hour days including weekends you know for 14 straight days great course highly recommend it but we met there she was she was going and I was going I was going for a contract she was going to get her EMT certification so that she could start knocking out prereqs for PA school for physician's assistant school so she did that and I met her that day and we've been together ever since but everybody that I went with because I was going for a particular contract to get that certification everybody that I was with you know my peer group I think there were four or five of us that were there for that everyone called me catfish so she knew me for the longest time his catfish and called me catfish all the time so then that got shortened to two fish you know because it was kind of became a term of endearment that I got shortened to fish and then eventually fishy you know so my wife still calls me fishy to this day so fishy beef Rob means mine my particular used to be secret beef rub until it got released on the TP smoker jerky video but I put this on every bit of beef every bit of bread meat actually I put on venison as well it's fantastic dust this on a couple sides of ribeye throw it on a grill let me know what you think it's it's outstanding yeah but this is my beef rub blend if you haven't seen that I don't want to give the secret out again go watch that video but that is for any red meat that I get out here or any meat red meat that I bring with me so anyway I digress fishy beef rub and yes I have a pork rub that I haven't shared with you guys yet brown sugar I like that for my oatmeal I like that for a number of things then I've got some Gatorade powder you know just adds flavor to some less flavorful water when you're out in the field as much as I am you drink a lot of water so sometimes it's nice to change it up and replace some electrolytes I of course do not makes it anywhere close to how you get it in the store you know where it's basically sugary and sweet syrup it makes it very very light which is how it really originally intended so just to add a little flavor and then all the way on the bottom because I don't use it is the white sugar I really just don't use a lot of white sugar I drink my coffee black but it's there for recipes if I wanted it so sugar some electrolyte powder which is empty remind me to fill that the brown sugar fishy beef rub cornmeal and dried fruit cornmeal flour so dried fruit some trail mix my 12th seed coffee and of course all my little little herbs spices and what we used to call vitamin M and the Ranger Battalion vitamin M for motrin that drinking water and apparently pulling security is all you really need for any injury that you ever sustained while in the military that all fits inside there slides right down in any pack that I have and then I've got my pantry with me and I can cook some vittles in the field so that's that all right so I thought I'd show you a couple of projects we left off on before it started raining I had to put all the camera gear away and of course the water is already disinfected no big deal there and then we've got the char and see how this char came out that looks pretty good right there nice and nice and light and fluffy all right so whenever you make char it's always a good idea to test that char to prove that char works because when I'm making this I still have a fire and for some reason it didn't cook long enough or if it got too much air in it actually burnt up then that's something I want to find out while I still have a fire to where I can correct it make new char what-have-you all right so what I like to do is kind of just like I'm starting a bow-drill fire what I'm using this technique I'm using the Flint or chert depending on what you have to actually take small bits of material off of this metal edge all right so I'm coming down at an angle like that and I want those sparks to end up in there but I don't want to follow through and knock the cup over so I need this to be stationary because this is what I'm removing material from so that all the movements coming from here you don't want to you know lose kind of that that that momentum by allowing this to so I'll lock it and just like I'm doing a bow-drill fire and I'm gonna throw sparks down into the cup let's see one going in there see if I can fissure out for you yeah I got several going in there see if you can see those all right so I'm positive that char works I'll put the lid on it so that can snuff it back out and because this has all these holes if you flip it over right there I'll just flip it over like this and that'll seal that off real quick and what I thought I'd do is while it's cooling I'll put the flint and steel away and just show you kind of the benefit of making char all the time especially in the field as I can use my Hudson Bay tobacco tin the sun's out right now it's behind a cloud but maybe by the time I get done talking about it I can show you this but the Hudson Bay tobacco gin has a magnifier in it so I can use that to actually light this char as well clean that off you see it's got this magnifying lens and I can use that for the char all right I've got a little Sun right here we've got a narrow window before it goes behind the clouds again I'm gonna try to hit that real quick all right so take my char and what I can do is put a little out on the lid here really gonna need one big chunk plenty there we go Sun intensifies I can do is get that going find my spot end up here in the channel you can see it focus that she's going already put that right in my tinder bundle what I like to do sometimes is if I'm worried about the amount of time I have here is I've got one piece of char going and because it's natural and I can replenish it out here it I can throw a few more pieces of char on that and just keep that going longer if I add a little char time a tinder bundle gently squeeze that get some of the new stuff touching the hot stuff make sure that you all can see and then when you're blowing I'm transferring the heat from the char to the new dry fluffy tinder all right so the winds going that way I'm going to turn a little bit I want to hold this kind of up so the heat can rise and right now I've got my char burning at the top I want it to burn at the bottom and go up through so I'll just flip that over and there's enough of a breeze to do most of this for me so I can talk but what I don't want to do is smash this together for one and I want to keep my fingers open in the back to allow the air to go through it okay that's actually working pretty well on its own there but if I want to speed up the process winds changing a little I just turned that over let that fire climb and I'm good if this starts to go out I could pick it up and a dare nothing to it let's see what else we got in this big old possum pouch in here ah forgot my other one in my pocket idea of course anyway got a lot of questions on the 10 best knives that I tested last year kind of quick review really more of a showcase and early review the knives just letting you know that I used them for years or at least a year last year and found them to be completely adequate and people wanted to know you know about folders what type of folders do I use for bushcraft etc so really my favorite - the kind of the two that I go for I should back up the reason that I haven't done a video on that yet is because there's just not enough of them that I test there are a couple that I have I have an open l have an Enzo that I've been testing for a while and I've got my couple of case I've got a case to case hunters one case trapper and of course my victory an ox Swiss Army knife this one is the trekker all right not so I have all those but the ones that always sort themselves to the top of the pile this one is probably the one that I carry EDC this has just got everything I need and I do need a number of the things on here all the time so I'm really thankful to have this so this is the one that normally sorts itself to the top of the pile for me then you know if I feel like I don't need those tools and put them in my pocket all day is it sometimes I'll carry the case this case I got a Smokey Mountain knife works last year and absolutely love it this is a case hunter it's carbon steel hunter with believe that's a rosewood scale not positive don't quote me on the Rosewood scales but really like this knife and it's great for everything from everything that I need you know that that main belt knife to do - a couple of things these don't lock the Trekker the the Swiss Army knife does lock so I love that so that's the reason this one doesn't get carried as much as that but those are the two knives that I carry these are great for you know the tasks that you want to save the edge on your knife for and that's just kind of the way I kind of go about things I'll use my pocket knife my folder I'll use that for a lot of different skills basically anything that I can do safely with one of these I'll do that and protect the edge on my fixed blade knife so for those of you that wanted to know that that sak that Swiss Army knife trekker is my number one pick all the time it's been the most useful in the field for the last couple of years and then my second choice would be this case hunter and probably third would be a case trapper out of all the folders that I've used but really really liked the case knives there's just something about them I've always been attracted to them always liked them so can't go wrong with either one of those choices it just depends on on what you need because I don't carry a Leatherman style tool like just carry that the victory Knox trekker for anything that I think I need tools for so answers that question whoever had it good question I got in here oh speaking of belton items so you probably saw it if you're in my community and I try to be active in there all the time maybe post in there once a week because I know a lot of people are not on Facebook or on Instagram or some of the other places that I'm at some of you are just on YouTube and that's okay so the night that I've been tested in the last few days and I'll continue testing for a while is the Becker BK 62 which is basically the Becker cat part and if you don't know when I was at Georgia Georgia bushcraft last fall at their fall gathering I met Ethan Becker and he actually showed me this knife and then he also gave me one of the or he didn't give it to me I wish he he handed me to touch to cradle to love the one of the original cat part blades from back in the day and you know the side-by-side comparison I think that he nailed it and I'm I'm not really familiar with a lot of Becker or k-bar knives under the original k-bar which contrary to popular belief the military did not issue to any of us not even corporal Kelly in the Marines if you wanted one you had to buy it but it is the iconic Marine Corps fighting knife for sure but they're not issued so you know it wasn't all that familiar with any of the other Becker or k-bar designs they've just never been one that's been really my style so I just haven't you know pulled the trigger on on buying one but that's BK 62 however Kephart design you know 1095 CB steel walnut handles you know that's I haven't met a cat part that I don't like but when I saw this I really wanted it and I finally got it right before coming out to this so I'm testing this one this year I'll let you know how it goes down the road you know how I am I got to take four to six months of using something and I've got about I don't know any usually any time I've got you know at least ten knives that I'm field testing so they got to go through a rotation but I have been using this out here up to this point I did sharpen the last inch of the spine right here which I said I was going to do because it's this is a stonewashed 1095 CV the stone wash just like the Mac which is what I asked for a sharpened spine on that just like that it takes off the profile and actually the original Kephart design had a rounded off profile up here you know because I have been able to compare the original with this one side-by-side like say so I knew that immediately I wanted at least an inch of a sharpened spine because that's what I use for ferrule rod that's what I use for D parking a lot of times and shaping wood and processing tender so that little inch right there there was a flat spot there that this doesn't start this contour doesn't start until forward of that so I went ahead and sharpen that and I liked it a lot better now and then of course with any night that I get what I want to go with what I want to start is the first project I'm going to do with than any knife I get is a tri stick to kind of see how it performs and this particular one came out pretty decent pay no attention to this splice right here where I splintered this fracture it just so happened the wood that I was using just happened to split right there my bad but anyway and then up here is an interesting story as well that I'll tell you about so as far as performing and this is what I like the Tri stick because it reinforces my family skills but all these skills are applicable to survival and bushcraft skills so if you haven't seen this video make sure you check it out I'll put a card towards the end so you can you can actually watch it but you know I've got a pommel end and this was originally a point you know that's my bow drill this hearth board that's this square reduction is for a hearth board and a number of other things this Brown reduction is for a spindle and then of course the B not CH you know so those 1 2 3 4 5 skills on here apply directly to a bow drill set so I like it for that but anyway I should note that for all of those that the Kephart perform beautifully the reductions are outstanding on this the square reduction was really nice it's got that it's got they call it a full flat grind but there is a secondary bevel on the bottom so I don't call it a full flat grind but the profile of that blade and the thinness of that blade really allows for the reduction and and it actually takes off quite a bit of meat whenever you're doing the pommel end the rose cut or the point on the end and the B notch you know it had zero issues with that so no problems with that it performed like I would expect any knife I take in the field to perform it actually did excellent on this pot hanger notch so I was really pleased with how it handled despite the front side of it being that spear point you know it's a little harder to get in and do kind of that more intricate find carving details but it actually did pretty well on that notch so I was happy with that then coming on down the saddle notch you know this is where I kind of got discouraged because I'd already made the statement I'd never met a cut part I didn't like the saddle notch I was not all that impressed with and you can see that you know it was just kind of cumbersome and clumsy inside here and that caused me to shave off that bark which functionally doesn't matter but it's the fact that it was harder to control than a knife with a profile like a Mora or one of those others that I've showed you that didn't perform well for that particular task but honestly that's the only one it did well on the square notch and I should say also that I could have made this wider you know a little bit wider this is just the same kind of habit profile that I used with a Mora style blade I could have made a little wider and gave myself more room to kind of get that scooped in but it just didn't perform well on this one in my opinion did great on the square notch B notch was great the latch notch piece-of-cake reduction awesome round or square reduction round reduction of both great did a great job on the point and then it also did well on creating the root stripper from the point which is which is impressive I thought what would be really difficult would be the the hole through because I didn't reduce it all that far but it did surprisingly well with that rounded profile towards the front edge to be able to get that tip kind of placed in there and just take off a little livers with the tip it actually did really well on this alright let me get back to focusing and I was impressed with how well it was able to do the whole through despite the blade shape so really the only complaint I have on it for the Tri stick is the saddle notch and like I said that could have been me I could have made it wider so so that's that did well kept part PK 62 from Becker K bar alright guys that is it for the hammock camping overnighter actually five overnight no for overnights sorry for overnighters but because of the rain you only get to see a couple of nights as always appreciate all ru views all your likes all your comments and questions if you've been on this channel long enough you know that I will get to them eventually rather quickly I'm on there every day usually in the morning and at night I look for questions and love to interact with you folks so I appreciate you questions and your comments and appreciate you guys sharing this out to your people if you find it worthy because that really helps grow the channel and kind of incentivizes myself and the long red braids to continue making these this is a different format than normal but hopefully based on the reactions this is something that you guys enjoyed kind of go on camping with me here and we'll do some more of these in the future because I really like doing these so if you guys like them hit like comment below let me know what you think make sure you share it out as well because that's gonna give it even more views and then that tells me this is something that you guys like and it's something and I'll keep looking for more opportunities to do in the future thanks for watching and see you next time

Channel: The Gray Bearded Green Beret

Views: 123,651

Rating: 4.9405422 out of 5

Keywords: Warbonnet, Flint and Steel, Overnighter, bushcraft, bushcraft camp, bushcraft for beginners, bushcraft knife, bushcraft skills, bushcraft tips, camp skills, camping, how to light a fire, skills, survival, wilderness skills

Id: nw-Xn19T-5o

Length: 85min 40sec (5140 seconds)

Published: Tue May 14 2019