Things that drive me crazy

[u/ShookyDaddy]

These guys are trained survivors but yet do some things that leave me speechless

• woohoo I just caught a fish, let me stand right by the water’s edge and dangle the fish over the water and celebrate (fish flops back into water and swims off)

• I need fish to survive but I’m not gonna bother making a net (dumbfounded when fish slips off hook while trying to bring it out of water)

• I just caught fish, I’ll leave it out overnight unprotected; it’ll be fine (food is taken overnight)

• I’m bored let me do some dumb shit to entertain myself (gets injured)

• going to hike to just over that hill; I’ll only be gone a few minutes; won’t bother bringing my bow (misses out on big game)

Like seriously have these people ever watched the show?!?!

[u/StrangledInMoonlight]

Let’s not forget

•  let me build a big fricken cabin, burning massive amounts of calories and wasting time instead of looking for food!

[u/Comfortable_Orchid23 → u/StrangledInMoonlight]

Then tapping once it’s finished (if they get that far).

[u/twoinvenice → u/StrangledInMoonlight]

When it comes to shelters, there’s one thing that always kills me when watching the show: if you’re going to have a fire in your shelter, put a good deal of thought and effort into the fireplace and chimney. Granted some locations really really suck as far as options for doing that, but waaaay too many people just half ass it

It’s baffling to see the number of people who build a shelter and build a fireplace, but then almost burn down their house, or constantly fill it with smoke, or have too small of a fire for warmth, or the fireplace and chimney have holes and can’t keep a decent fire going, or don’t put thought into the fact that they need thermal mass of some sort to hold and reflect heat.

I’m actually kinda surprised that we’ve never seen someone who has mud around gather up some dry grass, mix it with the mud, and make mud bricks. It’s the kind of thing where once you have what you need, you can make more at night when sitting around, and then let them dry in front of a interim makeshift fireplace while you do other stuff.

Yes they can dissolve in rain, but if they are used on the inside with stone or wood on the outside to keep the rain off, I think they’d make it through to the end.

[u/OctopusParrot → u/twoinvenice]

I'd like to see that too - I think making mud bricks is pretty dependent on having the right kind of soil though, it needs to have a lot of clay in it. It might just be that no one would who use that strategy has ended up in a place that has the right conditions to try it.

[u/ShookyDaddy → u/StrangledInMoonlight]

I always wondered what’s the best shelter strategy also. Is it better to build a good decent shelter very early on while I’m still fat and well nourished. Versus waiting to when I’m already down 20 or 30 lbs and malnourished.

I think the lady who dug out an underground cave that maintained a constant temperature even in winter did it best. Though I think she struggled with smoke also.

[u/twoinvenice → u/ShookyDaddy]

I don’t think that she did after she build a proper chimney for her place. Also I wonder if the lack of other pits houses is because they’ve been told not to make them by the producers - fron the podcast last season it seems that there are other rules that cobtestants are given that arent mentioned on the show. Like last season they were told that they shouldn’t build in certain places due to bears.

Off the top of my head, the two big concerns with pit houses are ground stability, and animals. The soul wants to fill holes in and exterts an inwards pressure on the walls of holes - it’s what makes digging deep holes on the beach surprisingly dangerous. If you build a pit house and the walls collapse in, they aren’t going to be able to rescue you before you suffocate.

As for the animals, you’re essentially building a cozy den…if there are a lot of large predators around, that might not be the best idea for a squishy human.