GETING READY TO GO
From the past experience, to incorporate new members into the group of poar-alpinism, takes less work if these people have interested a lot in tourism since childhood.
On the other hand, we have had worse experiences with people, who are physically fit, active in some sport, but don't have any knowledge of nature and do not want to admit that they don't know everything. In comparison to them amateurs without any experience seem to assimilate much better and quicker. To prepare the crew we make curses on the sea, river, glacier.
THE PSYCHICAL RESISTANCE
About psychical resistance we can say it is in contradiction to the physical condition. To get psychical resistance sometimes takes years but it stays with you. That might explain why some times older mountain climbers can climb higher mountains than younger ones, and why sometimes physically weaker people get through critical situations better than stronger ones.
One thing which is quite common and has a bad influence on the moral of the group, is to talk about family and home. The person who starts with it usually has so called "memoir inclinations", and writes critical notes in his diary, instead of doing something useful. It's much easier in critical situations to stay in your sleeping bag, write the diary and not work for your own safety, which is uncertain at that time, than to do something with it. This inactivity also can make the other people passive, which is quite dangerous.
A proof of this can be found in the diaries of expeditions that ended up badly, their people either died or were saved by others. From these diaries we can take a lesson, that for saving ourselves is not enough just to write notes.
A sign of a high moral level can be also proved by the ability to throw away things which have great meaning to the given person, either memory wise or money wise, but weight the person down (money, cameras, diaries, gold). For leaders of the expeditions it presents a great problem. The kind of things that a person takes in his pockets, the "undeclared" things say a lot about the character of the person that took them.
Captain De Long of the ship Jeanette wrote about a rescue journey to civilization: "Today I was amazed when I realized, how much stuff people carry, much more than I allowed. It's amazing how many little things, which don't weight anything, got into bags, and not less amazing how much these little nothings weight all together."
Sometimes you will get down when the weather is not nice. In this case there is an easy philosophy: Nothing lasts forever and even the bad weather must stop one day. Statistics show that there is the same amount of good and bad days throughout the year.
Returning back from extreme conditions brings another test of your psychical resistance. The stress from the finished expedition can lead to a break of a very good group. The stronger ones start to see everything much greater than it was in reality. The weaker ones start to say nasty things about the others, make up stories, try to put the experience they've gone through into the best light or tell heroic stories about it.
WASTE
Good relation with the nature will always make your psychical resistance stronger. Think of it.
As the perfect equipment for rough conditions serve things which produce the smallest amount of waste. Things, rest of which you can easily liquidate or can be taken away. Our station makes very little amount of waste but there is a lot of waste from the impact program that comes from the sea. Following the recommendation of Greenpeace we don't bum those things, but we store them and transport them away.
Waste taken to civilization and put in the first rubbish bin is easier destroyed by the waste industry compared to nature, where it would take years or centuries to decompose.
We also have to add human excrements to the waste. After the dehydration they are also taken away from the island. There an experiment is going on to use it as a fuel, but at present we are at the state of tests. The same way we treat the "grey water" after its filtration.
When washing, we use the extract of seaweed, and both rain and salt water. We lick the dishes clean or wipe them with bread. We do not leave anything on the plates. We do not feed the skuas and generally all the animals.
Rain and sea automatically take care of our hygiene, too.
Soup and saponates are not allowed.
A RESERVE SOLUTION
Every time we decide to go on a journey we must count on having a reserve of energy and time. So in case something goes wrong we are ready to use a reserve solution. This will help us to solve the unexpected situation quickly. If there is not a reserve solution in the time of failure then only confusion or catastrophe will occur.
BASIC RULES FOR SURVIVING
To all of you, who want to survive in dangerous conditions, we would like to offer a simplified summary of the most important rules. Surely everyone has to come out of the existing situation and to carefully think over all the problems that he might turn up with. These rules given here in the form of "Decalogue".
Do not serve as a universal solution for everything but rather as an instruction what to do:
1/ When there occurs a negative change of conditions don't loose your head and the will to survive.
2/ Do always have a bag with safety equipment by your hand.
3/ First take care of your safety, then warmth, water and then the rest.
4/ Make yourself busy, help others.
5/ Deal with problems in time, and do always have a reserve solution.
6/ Keep discipline.
7/ If you make a stop, put immediately something on.
8/ Drink a lot.
9/ Don't speak too much.
10/ Be afraid, fasten yourself to the rope in time.
HOW IT ALL STARTED
After the Soviet army came into the former CSSR I left the philosophical faculty to work on an alpine cottage at the height of 2014 m. There I got to know people from Poland, who were always a bit more free-minded and open to the world. The stay in the mountains was also a school where I learned how to survive. 1 saw [here that death usually comes through foolishness. I have tried to fight against it with a group of artic-alpinism people. We have been on expeditions to the Balkans, Caucasus, Alaska, and Himalayas. The supreme adventure was crossing of Greenland (without any assistance). After this we wanted to do the research in the field of surviving in one place. Our dream was to have our own island, sea and glacier.
From the past experience, to incorporate new members into the group of poar-alpinism, takes less work if these people have interested a lot in tourism since childhood.
On the other hand, we have had worse experiences with people, who are physically fit, active in some sport, but don't have any knowledge of nature and do not want to admit that they don't know everything. In comparison to them amateurs without any experience seem to assimilate much better and quicker. To prepare the crew we make curses on the sea, river, glacier.
THE PSYCHICAL RESISTANCEAbout psychical resistance we can say it is in contradiction to the physical condition. To get psychical resistance sometimes takes years but it stays with you. That might explain why some times older mountain climbers can climb higher mountains than younger ones, and why sometimes physically weaker people get through critical situations better than stronger ones.
One thing which is quite common and has a bad influence on the moral of the group, is to talk about family and home. The person who starts with it usually has so called "memoir inclinations", and writes critical notes in his diary, instead of doing something useful. It's much easier in critical situations to stay in your sleeping bag, write the diary and not work for your own safety, which is uncertain at that time, than to do something with it. This inactivity also can make the other people passive, which is quite dangerous.
A proof of this can be found in the diaries of expeditions that ended up badly, their people either died or were saved by others. From these diaries we can take a lesson, that for saving ourselves is not enough just to write notes.
A sign of a high moral level can be also proved by the ability to throw away things which have great meaning to the given person, either memory wise or money wise, but weight the person down (money, cameras, diaries, gold). For leaders of the expeditions it presents a great problem. The kind of things that a person takes in his pockets, the "undeclared" things say a lot about the character of the person that took them.Captain De Long of the ship Jeanette wrote about a rescue journey to civilization: "Today I was amazed when I realized, how much stuff people carry, much more than I allowed. It's amazing how many little things, which don't weight anything, got into bags, and not less amazing how much these little nothings weight all together."
Sometimes you will get down when the weather is not nice. In this case there is an easy philosophy: Nothing lasts forever and even the bad weather must stop one day. Statistics show that there is the same amount of good and bad days throughout the year.
Returning back from extreme conditions brings another test of your psychical resistance. The stress from the finished expedition can lead to a break of a very good group. The stronger ones start to see everything much greater than it was in reality. The weaker ones start to say nasty things about the others, make up stories, try to put the experience they've gone through into the best light or tell heroic stories about it.
WASTE
Good relation with the nature will always make your psychical resistance stronger. Think of it.
As the perfect equipment for rough conditions serve things which produce the smallest amount of waste. Things, rest of which you can easily liquidate or can be taken away. Our station makes very little amount of waste but there is a lot of waste from the impact program that comes from the sea. Following the recommendation of Greenpeace we don't bum those things, but we store them and transport them away.
Waste taken to civilization and put in the first rubbish bin is easier destroyed by the waste industry compared to nature, where it would take years or centuries to decompose.
We also have to add human excrements to the waste. After the dehydration they are also taken away from the island. There an experiment is going on to use it as a fuel, but at present we are at the state of tests. The same way we treat the "grey water" after its filtration.
When washing, we use the extract of seaweed, and both rain and salt water. We lick the dishes clean or wipe them with bread. We do not leave anything on the plates. We do not feed the skuas and generally all the animals.
Rain and sea automatically take care of our hygiene, too.
Soup and saponates are not allowed.
A RESERVE SOLUTION
Every time we decide to go on a journey we must count on having a reserve of energy and time. So in case something goes wrong we are ready to use a reserve solution. This will help us to solve the unexpected situation quickly. If there is not a reserve solution in the time of failure then only confusion or catastrophe will occur.
BASIC RULES FOR SURVIVING
To all of you, who want to survive in dangerous conditions, we would like to offer a simplified summary of the most important rules. Surely everyone has to come out of the existing situation and to carefully think over all the problems that he might turn up with. These rules given here in the form of "Decalogue".
Do not serve as a universal solution for everything but rather as an instruction what to do:
1/ When there occurs a negative change of conditions don't loose your head and the will to survive.
2/ Do always have a bag with safety equipment by your hand.
3/ First take care of your safety, then warmth, water and then the rest.
4/ Make yourself busy, help others.
5/ Deal with problems in time, and do always have a reserve solution.
6/ Keep discipline.
7/ If you make a stop, put immediately something on.
8/ Drink a lot.
9/ Don't speak too much.
10/ Be afraid, fasten yourself to the rope in time.
HOW IT ALL STARTED
After the Soviet army came into the former CSSR I left the philosophical faculty to work on an alpine cottage at the height of 2014 m. There I got to know people from Poland, who were always a bit more free-minded and open to the world. The stay in the mountains was also a school where I learned how to survive. 1 saw [here that death usually comes through foolishness. I have tried to fight against it with a group of artic-alpinism people. We have been on expeditions to the Balkans, Caucasus, Alaska, and Himalayas. The supreme adventure was crossing of Greenland (without any assistance). After this we wanted to do the research in the field of surviving in one place. Our dream was to have our own island, sea and glacier.