Don't Die Out Here While Living in a Van. 8 Rules to Staying Alive in Van Life.

hi everyone welcome back to my next video today i want to talk about something that you could take to be morbid and fear-mongering and i know i i preach against fear-mongering all the time uh and when you hear this you could think well that's just clickbait i want to talk to you today about how to come out here and not die because uh in the news recently there have been several instances of people who got who accidentally got up into the mountains and uh and passed away one of my big motivations here is i've gotten a lot of letters from a lot of people over the years people say you know bob you're suggesting we come out and spend time on public land what happens if i go out there and i break down or i go out there and i go for a walk and i fall and i break my leg how am i going to get help and that's what i want to answer today and i want you to be aware that if you're not prepared the consequences can be severe but it's so easy to be prepared the first story i want to tell you is the story of ronnie and beverly parker they live somewhere in the midwest but they have an rv and they take rv trips they're traveling from oregon to uh tucson and they're driving through nevada to go through las vegas and so their gps sends them on a shortcut and remarkably all three of these stories their gps sends them on a shortcut and all three of them are in uh shoulder seasons either in march or november and you think in march you're safe it's nevada nevada doesn't get snow you're not going to freeze to death in nevada yes you can everywhere in the west in the winter you can freeze to death a snowstorm can come in really quickly in the mountains you can get trapped you can get stuck in snow or mud and boom uh all of a sudden you're fighting for your life and maybe you win maybe you lose depending entirely on how well prepared you are now they were in rv they should have been fine had they just sat there and waited for them to be rescued because they had a lot of family and friends that knew they were coming and we would have would miss them and would send out search and rescue so if they had done nothing but set there they would have been fine but they decided to drive unhook their car they had a little key of soul and drive it into town the key is they so they're on their way into town they take a wrong turn they get stuck both of them are who are their health is such that they're not walking out for help so their car got stuck they were stuck in their car the elevation and the cold and going hungry all and no water water was the biggie that's actually what the diagnosis was he he died of dehydration uh they just sat in their car and waited for help and and he passed away she was in better health but she couldn't walk she was using a walker and she couldn't walk for help so uh he he passed away and after nine days in the car search and rescue found them and she got out and she she got out just fine the second story is albert and rita crichton i'm not sure i'm saying that name right but it's pretty close their story occurred in march 19 2011 in northern nevada right up on the idaho border and that's mountain country you're high enough in the mountains that if a snow torn storm comes in in the winter you're gonna die and they were in march same thing they lived in british columbia he was going to a convention in las vegas so this was just a trip to las vegas and it was late in the evening and it was dark and they were in a hurry and the gps showed them a shortcut and she said he he passed away and she lived and she said later on well this gps showed us this shortcut so we took it and they went up into the mountains in march march in the mountains all over the west is danger so they took they went back they went back quite a ways 10 15 20 miles i don't remember the exact number uh they were in an astro chevy astro it was only two-wheel drive and they got stuck and a snowstorm came in the next day while they were there a snowstorm came in and they were there for three days and uh it's march no one's going up into the mountains in march after three days he decides to walk out for help another snowstorm comes in catches him underwears he goes underneath the tree to get some shelter from the snowstorm and he passes away there she is is still in the car she has a little bit of food she had a little bit of brief beef jerky a little bit of trail mix and hard candy she was eating one hard candy a day and one trail mix one taste teaspoon of trail mix a day and a fish and uh she had fish oil pills and she took one of those a day she lived that way for 49 days she is a remarkable human being so after 49 days a couple of people were up on and exploring on four-wheelers and stumbled across them by pure luck they come around the corner and here's this woman in a astro and she's been there for 49 days his body wasn't found for another year about a year later some hunters were up in the fall and just stumbled across him now this third story occurs in oregon and again in oregon you don't think of oregon as rough rugged deadly country this was a couple james and katie kim they'd been visiting friends in seattle they lived in san francisco they're just driving home and the first night of the trip they're going to stop on the oregon coast at gold beach i think so they're heading down i-5 and they have to cut across the mountains and so they were going down i-5 they missed the primary cut that they would have been safe that cut across the mountains they look at their maps and the map shows a little road that goes across the mountains and on the map it looks fine looks safe but instead of course they're going across the mountains in the dead of winter and these roads aren't maintained in the dead of winter and so they go up this road and then they run into snow and so they got to turn back and so they then they get lost in the maze of roads and i can tell you where i'm at right now it's a maze of roads the national forests are a spider web you can't just go wander around and hope you find your way through and they wander around some more and they head down well this looks like a pretty good road they go down it they go further and further and further and then boom they get stuck in snow huge snowstorm hits overnight so james and katie and their two children one is only seven months old one is four years old are trapped here in the middle of nowhere and search and rescue is out but they don't have any information to narrow it down until finally some real computer geeks uh telecom geeks narrow it down because they find some pings on a cell tower nearby and they narrow it down to a small area after nine days and then they go out there and find them he had tried to walk out and he froze to death on the way out uh they were very fortunate uh katie and her two children because they got out they got out fine they were unhurt the year before someone had done the exact same thing had tried to go over this road got stuck and starved to death in 1995 a couple had taken their rv down this road again in the shoulder seasons gotten hit by a bad snowstorm and they were stuck in their rv for 20 days they were fine they had plenty of food in their you know it was an rv your home is with you they were smart they just sat there and they waited and 20 days later they were rescued so i'm going to give you eight rules that will prevent all of these things from happening number one is don't panic if you're a nomad you're in your home your home is with you you should have plenty of fat food you should have water if you've listened to me you have a water filter on board you have extra food on board you have extra blankets on board don't panic you're just sit tight your home is your cocoon and you can be there for a month uh you might not do it well but you can be there for a month they were all completely unprepared and then they panicked because they were unprepared rule number two is don't underestimate the weather in the national forests virtually everywhere in this country you're at risk of a snowstorm fall winter and spring especially out west anywhere out west even at low elevations like in oregon and even if not a snowstorm a lot of national forest roads turn to mud a quagmire of mud unpassable quagmire mud i've been stuck in lots of national forest roads that were all of a sudden got so much rain that you couldn't get through them and you just had to sit and wait until the road dried out and then you could pass so don't underestimate the weather because it can turn on you at any time and become deadly number three is don't overestimate the roads that's what all these people did they took they saw these roads they thought they were shortcuts well we'll just go across the mountains here you can't do it many many roads in the united states in the national forest are impassable they are intended to be impassable in the winter because you never know when winter comes in the fall and the spring you have to expend extend it don't over estimate the roads figure the worst for the roads rule number four is don't trust your gps uh almost all of you are using a gps it's an intended to be you're using your phone most of you are using your phone or maybe you have a gps that you buy and you put up on your dash those are all designed for roads they will all lie to you about off-roads that's one of the reasons all these folks are dead because the gpes said here's a road do not trust a gps that's intended for use on paved highways they lie now there are gps programs for your phone and on standalone devices that are intended for off-road use you can trust those use those and you're fine but nothing else rule number five is don't keep going they all kept going once you know you're lost and you're in trouble stop they got somewhere and they thought well here's a road i'll go down it and that road took them even to a worse place and then once they went down that road and it got too narrow and they couldn't keep going any further they took another road and then that road got too narrow and too wide and before before long they were either stuck or just couldn't get out that's what happens in the national forest the national forest goes narrower narrower narrower another road narrower narrower narrower another road narrower narrower narrower impassable stuck once it's looking bad and you're lost and confused stop see you're in trouble spend the night in the morning regroup rethink can you backtrack from then number six don't try to walk out now that isn't a a hard and fast rule there are rare times when walking out is the right and the appropriate thing to do but for the most part almost always the thing to do is to set and wait for rescue so don't panic stay in the vehicle really that's almost always the right thing to do is to stay in the vehicle for most of us now and and let's be honest here most of my audience is older we're not in the best of health walking out is almost never a viable option for you stay put be prepared and wait rule number seven is uh they all failed to tell someone else where they were going had they done that they don't they might all be alive today it's a very distinct possibility uh they all changed their routes midway and none of them told anyone else about the change when they decided to change their route and go off road essentially they were going off road off pavement had they while they still had cell called a friend and said hey we're going to take a shortcut sorry to bother you but we're going to take a shortcut and i just want you to be aware we're going to take this shortcut across the mountains just in case something strange happens i'd like you to know or if they just texted them you know we all make mistakes we all don't do things right we can all find ourselves out here all of a sudden we're stuck we're trapped uh it's life and death now uh let me tell you what you can do to be safe in that situation okay the single most important thing you can do and i'm gonna suggest every single nomad go out today and buy one of these these are personal locator beacons plbs and both of them these are just two different models i'm gonna i'm gonna show them to you both of them only perform one function in their existence they're both satellite they will call a satellite the satellite will call a government center and say this person is going to die go save them that's all these things do and they're kind of expensive this one's 250 this one's about 350. had these people all these people i've talked about had one of these in their hand all they would have had done is activate it and within 24 hours they would have been out and safe would you spend 250 dollars had you known that was coming to have one of these on board i'm always going to have one of these in my rig now one of the problems with these is the batteries only last five years this one is guaranteed five years this one's guaranteed six years every five years i'm gonna throw them away and i'm gonna buy a new one i'm always telling you to have an emergency fund take the money if you can't afford it if you can't save up the 250 or the 350 take the money out of your emergency fund this you can't there's no better money spent for an emergency than this uh this is just an inexpensive model it's mcmurdo uh it's got great reviews it's certified all these things are certified now let me explain everything how this works these send a signal to the satellite the satellite sends a signal to a government office the government office there's also gps they're both gps and satellite when it gets to the government office it sends the gps signal that then notifies a local search and rescue if you have one of these these will lead them right to you it not only talks to the satellite and then to the government office it also talks to the search and rescue so there is another option to the plb and this is a spot uh i've had spot service uh for a while and a garmin inreach that's those are the two big name brands that that are out there and they're both great they both work well these are private companies uh the saddle the signal goes from this to the satellite to the private company it doesn't go to the government in any way it goes a private company and they will follow through and call search and rescue they literally contact search and rescue from this corporate office that concerns me a little bit honestly it does and this has a monthly cost this isn't this is a one-time charge never spend another penny you have to buy a monthly service with this and this is a little bit complicated a lot of us are older and this technology is a little difficult for us and i don't recommend this so this does only one thing and does it superbly well this does many things and does them all pretty well this has a far better signal stronger better signal to reach the satellite so this will reach the satellite when this will not uh this is a good thing to have go ahead and get it if you can afford it you're good with the technology but all of you should own one of these the next thing everyone should have is a go bag a bug out bag the upper preppers call it and there are a lot of things you should have in here no matter what ronnie and beverly were in their rv rather than stay in their rv and wait for rescue they got in their kia soul to drop backtrack they took nothing with them they had nothing with them and that's why he died had they had a bug out bag that went with them everywhere and had just the most basic essentials to keep them have water to have warmth to have a little bit of food they would have both been fine i'm going to do another video on your bug out bag have this in your rig at all times one of the things you must have in your go bag is a chow bag this bag in a waterproof bag has 10 000 calories in it there's 10 000 calories that don't need any cooking you can just eat them that's a thousand calories a day for 10 days you're fine if you got a thousand calories a day for 10 days you're you're in no health risk at all now this is going to go bad on you so what i'm going to recommend is every january and every june you get this bag out you find the dates on things and if it's getting a little close you take it out and you put something back in and then you eat it so that's it uh that's how you can be sure that you don't die out here this isn't risk from animals or people this is just risk from nature okay i know i talked a lot and i know this was not a pleasant conversation talking about how people could die how you can die but if you don't think ahead and say how can i die out here and how can i make sure that doesn't happen then the risk of dying goes up dramatically so let me know in the comments below are you willing to buy one of these spend 250 to 350 dollars that you hopefully will never ever use so if you got anything out of this video like us on youtube subscribe to the channel hit that thumbs up button and we'll talk to you later bye now [Music]

Channel: CheapRVliving

Views: 170,191

Keywords: car, van, RV, Full-time, nomad, camper, camp, boondock, travel, caravan, tiny, house, RTR, Bob Wells, Nomadland, CheapRVLiving, Cheap RV Living, vanlife, van life, how to live in a van, van dwelling, van tour, van conversion, living in a van, camper van, van build, diy van build, sprinter van, van living, #vanlife, van dweller, campervan, vandwelling, diy camper van, RV Life, Living in an RV, Class B, Class C, Truck Living, Living in a car, boondocking, Living in a RV

Id: hn1jyicsSrg

Length: 18min 41sec (1121 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 15 2022