Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Do You Have a Survival Kit Ready?

The Red Cross describes being prepared as “being equipped with the proper supplies you may need in the event of an emergency or disaster.” This event or disaster can be anywhere from an earthquake to civil unrest. In order to keep you and your family safe, think about preparing easy-to-carry emergency preparedness kits for your home or to travel with. Having a well-thought out survival kit on hand really can mean the difference between life and death.

Our experts at Hikingware suggest that if you have not gotten your survival supplies yet that you go about getting them in an organized manner. Don’t try to get everything at once. Buy one item a week, and soon you’ll have everything you need in the event of a man-made or natural disaster.

The American Red Cross endorses the list below as a basic emergency inventory:

Water—one gallon per person, per day (3-day supply for evacuation, 2-week supply for home)
Food—non-perishable, easy-to-prepare items (3-day supply for evacuation, 2-week supply for home)
Flashlight
Battery-powered or hand-crank radio (NOAA Weather Radio, if possible)
Extra batteries
First aid kit – Anatomy of a First Aid Kit
Medications (7-day supply) and medical items
Multi-purpose tool
Sanitation and personal hygiene items
Copies of personal documents (medication list and pertinent medical information, proof of address, deed/lease to home, passports, birth certificates, insurance policies)
Cell phone with chargers
Family and emergency contact information
Extra cash
Emergency blanket
Map(s) of the area

Once you have the basics secured and placed where they can be easily reached, you may want to consider adding these other items to help you through a disaster:

Medical supplies (hearing aids with extra batteries, glasses, contact lenses, syringes, etc)
Baby supplies (bottles, formula, baby food, diapers)
Games and activities for children
Pet supplies (collar, leash, ID, food, carrier, bowl)
Two-way radios
Extra set of car keys and house keys
Manual can opener

Depending on where you live and the kind of natural disasters your area is prone to, you may also want to include some, or all, of the following:

Whistle
N95 or surgical masks
Matches
Rain gear
Towels
Work gloves
Tools/supplies for securing your home
Extra clothing, hat and sturdy shoes
Plastic sheeting
Duct tape
Scissors
Household liquid bleach
Entertainment items
Blankets or sleeping bags

In addition, always make sure that you have a way of knowing where all your family members are at any given moment. Cell phones with GPS are now standard, so that may be the way your family wants to go. ID bracelets around the wrist are a very good idea for children who are still too young to give a coherent account of who they are and where they live in the event of a catastrophe.

Don’t become disturbed or fearful as you make the above preparations. Life is always going to be full of challenges, and it’s our duty and privilege to prepare to meet them. Remember these stirring words of Isabel Allende: “We don't even know how strong we are until we are forced to bring that hidden strength forward. In times of tragedy, of war, of necessity, people do amazing things. The human capacity for survival and renewal is awesome.”

Do you have any other suggestions for survival gear that’s missing from our list? Let us know in the comments! Who knows, maybe we’ll even start carrying some of your suggestions!

Friday, March 13, 2015

How Well Will You Eat During the Next Disaster?

MREs or “Meals, Ready to Eat” have long been used in the military but it wasn’t until Hurricane Katrina, the threat of Y2K and other natural disasters that a civilian demand for MREs was known. Unfortunately, companies that produce MREs are not allowed to publically sell them which create a demand that we at Hikingware are happy to fulfill.

We are proud to announce that we now have civilian MREs, with many different varieties of meals to choose from. There is no need to add water and the meals can be eaten anywhere at any time. Each meal contains the complete calories and nutrients of a regular meal. Here is an entertaining look back at the history of early efforts to provide meals for our military while they were out on the battlefield. It should bring back some memories (and perhaps a touch of indigestion!) to our older veterans. Reserve Ration: This early 1900s MRE was a field ration that included one pound of dehydrated meat (i.e. jerky) and hard tack biscuits. Yum.

C-Ration: Because the Reserve Ration had such low nutritional quality, in 1938, the C-Ration took its place in the military. Where the Reserve Ration composed of dehydrated meat and hand biscuits, the C-Ration was a canned, pre-cooked “wet” ration. C-Rations were meant as a worst case scenario type food and were intended for limited consumption like when there was no access to a camp kitchen (A-Ration) or to unprepared, pre-packaged (B-Ration). Unfortunately they ended up being pretty popular, and we’re using the term popular lightly, during World War II. Just like their predecessor, they lacked variety and consisted of only M-units and B-units; known to civilians as meat and bread.

MCI: In 1958, C-Rations were replaced by another wet ration type of food called MRIs aka the Meal, Combat, Individual Ration. Unfortunately for the soldiers subject to these rations there was little improvement made in the transition from C-Rations. They were used in the military until 1975 when the first MRE was developed.

MREs: Even after the MRE was created, they did not taste very good and were given a range fo nicknames by soldiers. Some of them were “Mr. E” (mystery), “Meals Rejected by Everyone”, “Meals, Rarely Edible”, “Meals Rejected by the Enemy”, “Morsels, Regurgitated, Eviscerated”, “Meal, Ready to Excrete”, “Materials Resembling Edibles”, and even “Meals Rejected by Ethiopians”. An individual meal that received its own personal nickname was the frankfurter. They came in packages of four and were referred to as the “four fingers of death”. Although quality has improved over the years, many of the nicknames have stuck.

One of the number one complaints about these older MREs was that they had a very low dietary fiber content which caused constipation and even more nicknames. Some of the examples of the nicknames are “Meals Refusing to Exit”, “Meals Refusing to Excrete” or “Massive Rectal Expulsions”. It has been quoted that in December 2006 comedian Al Franken (on his 8th USO tour at the time) joked to troops in Iraq that he’d had his fifth MRE so far and “none of them had an exit strategy”.

All joking aside, MREs have come a long way since their initial creation as the Reserve Ration. Now MREs come in a variety of flavors and with many different menu options helping to break up the monotony of mushed up meat and bread every time a soldier sits down to a meal. Our civilian MREs offer up to 1,300 calories a meal and can be eaten any place, any time.

Do you have any nicknames for MREs or any experiences eating the newer civilian MREs you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments below!

Tim Torkildson is a nationally-known writer and editor whose work has appeared in the New York Times. He currently works as an editor for Tork Media.

Monday, November 17, 2014

What are MRE’s?

MRE stands for ‘Meals Ready to Eat’. They are a modern staple of the military world-wide, and they are an invaluable asset to your emergency preparedness template.

Before we discuss the background and mechanics of MRE’s, we want to encourage you to insure your family’s safety and health by dealing only with authorized and reputable MRE dealers. We recommend you use hikingware.com for all your MRE needs and questions, as they are a recognized leader in the emergency preparedness field.

Of course, MRE’s are not just for emergencies. They can really turn a normal hiking and camping trip into a smooth and convenient event, saving you lots of trouble and heartburn.

History.

Armies and navies have been traveling for centuries with prepared and preserved rations, when they weren’t looting the unfortunate local people who were in their military path. Dried and salted meat and vegetables was the standard ration for centuries. It would feed a soldier or sailor, but it made them awful thirsty!

In 1799 Napoleon Bonaparte asked the members of the Institut de Science to come up with a feasible way to carry rations that would not cause his soldiers to suffer so much from thirst. They were able to come up with canned meat and vegetables, which Napoleon’s armies soon began carrying with them from Egypt to Sweden.

Other countries began using the process, and soon the civilian population saw the benefits of it as well. Today the manufacture and sale of canned food is a multi-billion dollar business.

The two problems with canned food, of course, are its weight and bulkiness, and the fact that unless you have a way to heat the canned food you will have to eat it cold.

In a pinch, when hungry enough, a cold can of pork and beans can taste mighty good. But a steady diet of cold canned food won’t keep an army going for very long.

The invention of dehydrated rations, beginning with the Korean War, did away with the problem of too much weight. But how to heat the rations was still a conundrum.

The FRH.

FRH stands for ‘Flameless Ration Heater’. The Pentagon funded research into ways of providing soldiers in the field with a safe way to heat their dehydrated packaged rations during the Vietnam War. The result is that a small packet of magnesium metal, with some other minerals, was invented to heat food; you simply added water to the packet and it would heat the rations in under twelve minutes. It is still the standard way to heat an MRE today, for both the military and civilian population.

Today’s MRE’s.

There are a wide variety of meal menus to choose from when you buy MRE products. You can get everything from chili to spaghetti & meatballs to turkey with mashed potatoes & gravy, and many other ethnic and mainline meals.

Make sure you know the expiration date of your meals. They are usually considered in prime condition for the first three to five years. After that period they may still be eaten in complete safety, but some of the flavor and nutrition does tend to diminish.

If you are buying MRE’s for your food storage/emergency preparedness program you should have a rotation schedule so you make use of them before they begin losing their potency.

Visit us at www.hikingware.com

Email: sales@hikingware.com
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written by Tim Torkildson

A Guide to Noxious Plants and how to avoid them when Camping and Hiking

Everybody knows about noxious plants such as poison ivy and the problematical safety of mushrooms picked in the wild to be eaten by amateurs. Stinging nettles and cacti are also pretty easy to spot and avoid. But there is a whole range of devious and dangerous plants lurking out there in the woods, the desert, the shore, and on the mountainside – just waiting to bushwhack you, pardner.

Hikingware.com is happy to list a few of the more exotic and rare botanical enemies of the human race that you may encounter, as a public service. Read, heed, and beware:

· The Pink Grabemgood. This innocent looking flowering plant likes damp soil and shady nooks. You will often encounter it in the woods. When fully grown it stands about four feet tall; the flower has pink petals. The leaves are loaded with microscopic Velcro spores, so when you disturb one the spores shower you completely and you instinctively back away, usually coming in contact with a tree trunk. And there you are velcroed for eternity, unless someone is with you or happens to come along. So don’t ever argue with your camping buddies or ignore the friendly wave of a passing hiker; they may be the ones to peel you off of that tree trunk. There has been a rush lately to domesticate the Pink Grabemgood to give on Mother-in-Law’s Day.

· The Gasbag Plant. This rascal grows in sunny and higher altitudes. It has much the same appearance as a mature cabbage plant, and unwary hikers and campers have been known to either try to pick it or step on it. Not a good idea. The whole thing is filled with gas, like a balloon. After the startling ‘pop’, you will be overwhelmed by the smell; a combination of puke, dirty diapers, and cheap aftershave. The smell clings to clothing like barnacles to the Sea Hag. The only way to remove the stench is to wash your clothes in lighter fluid and then give them to NASA to shoot into outer space for six years. It’s almost cheaper to have them dry cleaned.

· The Grumbleweed. Found in the Western part of the United States, the Grumbleweed is attracted to the underside of your vehicle while it is parked. Botanists think that the combination of oil and heat is what calls to them. Be that as it may; if you leave your car or truck unattended for any length of time in places like Utah and parts of California, Grumbleweeds will sail underneath your vehicle’s chassis with the least breeze in less time than it takes to write a Stephen King novel. We recommend you light them on fire to get rid of them (and don’t tell your insurance company about it when you file your claim).

· Woodwort. This is not really a plant, but a giant and aggressive fungus that sprouts after a heavy rain, taking on the shape of a food truck – even mimicking the smell of street tacos! Famished hikers who rush up to the Woodwort and attempt to place an order with a side of fried zucchini are sucked inside and never seen again. The best way to tell the difference between a Woodwort and a real food truck is that the Woodwort looks a lot cleaner.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

WHAT IS GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE?

It’s a Joke, But it Ain’t Funny!

Customer service is pretty much a joke here in the United States. We take it for granted that when we have a problem with a product we have purchased we are going to have to call in, push this key and that key to navigate the ridiculous phone menu, then wait for an eternity before we can talk to a live person, who most of the time is not even a native English speaker. All this leaves us frustrated, and often we just give up on a defective product and chalk it up to experience.

When in Rome . . .

Caveat emptor, the old Romans advised: “Let the buyer beware.”

This can also apply to our modern practice of purchasing items online. The Pew Institute estimates that today 49% of all purchases take place online in the United States. That means that Americans really do love to shop online, and we do it despite the problems that can arise. Whereas when you stroll into a shop or store you can handle the item and get a feel for it, all you can do online is view a picture of it and read reviews. Not quite the same thing.

So Where Can I Get Great Customer Service?

So when you decide to shop online, perhaps because you don’t have time to drive to the store or don’t want to hassle with the traffic, you should make sure you are dealing with a company that has your best interests at heart first and foremost. That is what great customer service is all about! Also, you may want to especially patronize a store that is run by our country’s military veterans. Why? It’s simple. They know how to give strict heed to every order they receive; that’s what they’re trained to do!

We Live in Uncertain Times.

All this brings us to your camping/outdoor/survival needs. Because when it comes right down to it, it’s the basic necessities that you need to be thinking about for you and for your family. All prudent people, no matter what their political or religious beliefs may be, know that we live in uncertain times. A political upheaval or a natural catastrophe can occur at any time, in any place. So it’s best to be prepared.

Hikingware.com

You simply may not have the time or inclination to go out shopping for your camping and survival needs, and so you need a reliable, dependable, company that is dedicated to GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE. That company is hikingware.com. Their growing customer base is proof positive that they know how to get the job done, and they can make it right – whatever your specific needs may be.

Great Inventory at Reasonable Prices.

Hikingware.com features nothing but quality products. Their tents include recognized brands like Texsport and Snugpak. Their sleeping bag brands include Multimat and Caprock. They have a wide selection of MRE meals, garden seeds and first aid kits. They feature the latest technology in water filtration systems and canteens. Hunting knifes. Cook stoves. All products are personally vouched for by the company owners.

So remember, when you want the best online prices and the greatest customer service for your camping and survival supply, use Hikingware.com – once you buy from them you’ll never buy from anyone else!

Biting and Stinging Insects to Avoid While Camping

For many people enjoying the outdoors is spoiled by their fear of biting and stinging insects. While there are some exotic, mostly tropical species of insects that carry a deadly or extremely painful bite or sting, for the most part in North America there are very few bugs that have life-threatening venom. Among them are the black widow spider, but that creature is almost entirely found indoors, not outside.

Of course, if you are allergic to stings and insect venom you should always carry your doctor-prescribed prophylactic with you.

This brief list of some of the common biting and stinging insects in North America will hopefully help you to deal with camping and other situations, such as natural disasters, when you might have to be outside despite your own desires.

Hikingware.com suggests that you always have plenty of bedding, water and food on hand and available in case there is a disaster in your area that forces you outside and away from you normal shelter, comforts and necessities. They also recommend that you always have on hand a good first aid kit in case of a bit or sting.

· All scorpions sting, but very few inject anything that even approaches a dose that would be lethal to a human being. The exception is the Arizona Bark Scorpion. It is found in dry regions of the southwestern part of the United States, including Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Nevada. They are a pale straw color and sometimes have 2 black bands running down their back. They rest under litter and rubbish during the day and actively hunt at night, often climbing up tree trunks, walls and fences.

· Saddleback caterpillar. This caterpillar is easy to spot; it has long feathery bristles on its back and a bright green ‘saddle’ that covers its back. It is commonly found throughout the eastern United States. The bristles are poisonous and produce large welts and extreme itching. They never attack, but children may want to pick them up because of their curious appearance. You can treat their sting as you would that of poison ivy – using calamine lotion or baking soda with water worked into a paste.

· Mosquitos can be a major nuisance, not to mention a health hazard, during the spring, summer and even on warm fall days. The Asian tiger mosquito is the main culprit in spreading malaria, dengue fever, encephalitis, and West Nile Virus. They also spread heartworm in dogs. They have infested the eastern half of the United States, and are on their way to becoming acclimated to the rest of the country west of the Mississippi River. Their most noticeable characteristic is the white and black bands on their body and legs. Wear long sleeved shirts and pants during the hours of dawn and dusk to avoid the greatest hazard of being stung by one. There are many commercial mosquito sprays to repel them, but if at all possible you should stay out in the open if there is any kind of a breeze, as they cannot navigate in wind of any kind.

· Fleas, bedbugs and lice. These nasty critters are normally thought of as being a pest indoors, but they can also cause problems outdoors if you are using any kind of bedding or clothing that has been invaded by them. Make sure all your sleeping bags, pillows, blankets, and even tents are thoroughly aired out and washed, if possible, after every camping trip. Wool watch caps are especially attractive to all three insect types, so do not wear a cap if you do not know where it comes from.

(Tim Torkildson lives in Provo, Utah, and writes for Deseret News Services.)

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

How to read a map

A map is an essential tool when you face the wilderness under any conditions; when you go camping, hiking, hunting, or are just driving through a wilderness section of the country. There are several different kinds of maps which you should be familiar with, so you will know which kind you should take with you.

· Road map. This is a map that indicates all the freeways, roads, alleys, and possibly deer trails. It will tell you if a road is two-lane, one-way, tarmac, gravel, or yellow brick. It will also indicate where rail road tracks cross the road, and why did the chicken cross the road? If you are a man you will hold this kind of map in contempt, telling any and all female companions that you know exactly where you’re going, thank you very much. If you are a female you will find a road map a useful article to wave in front of the man who got you lost in the first place. You may also want to chew on it in rage in lieu of head-butting said male.

· Tourist map. This is a map that highlights exactly where each and every idiotic tourist will be during most of the day, and probably well into the evening, so you can avoid them like poison oak.

· Topo maps. These feature campgrounds and other items of interest to those on foot, or in a kayak or pulling a yurt.

· Sectional map. This type of map is for aviators. It features airports and marks tall things so the pilot will be able to either fly around them or above them.

You’ll need to know the scale and projection of your map. This is usually done by counting to eleven, and then subtracting the number of sections it takes for the thunderclap to follow . . . or is that how you can tell temperature? Well, anyway, once you’ve got that figured out you must next decipher the color scheme of your map. Some use blue to indicate water and red to indicate deserts and green to indicate forests and plaid to indicate single malt. But other maps don’t even bother with colors and are just a bunch of squiggly lines and dots and numbers. It’s best to avoid those kinds if you can – they’re as dull as ditch water.

Here are some of the symbols common to all maps:

^ This means a mountain; if there are a bunch of them, it means a chain of mountains

# This means either railroad tracks or a swamp; the way to tell the difference is that railroad tracks will usually go in a straight line for quite long distances, whereas a swamp is normally sedentary and just sit there like a bump on a log, and is usually kind of roundish or oval or straggly.

< > Thy symbol indicates two people talking with each other, and we very much doubt either one is listen to the other.

$ This symbol is inevitably followed by the price of the map. They’re sure getting to be more and more expensive. (We do not condone shoplifting; but if you happen to lean that way please pick us up a good one of Acapulco.)

(All kidding aside; when you want the best equipment for your outdoor camping experience, go to hikingware.com. They have the best prices and plenty of expertise to guide your purchasing decisions in a way that is going to please you and keep your pocketbook from snarling. Their friendly online staff is able to service your order at any time.)

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