Saturday, September 22, 2018

THE TRAILHAWK JOURNEYS: Bukidnon Bushcraft Training

MINDANAO IS UNDER MARTIAL LAW and I do not forget that. There was an urban war in Marawi City fought by the government forces against ISIS which had ended more than a month ago. I travelled a month earlier to Davao City to test the climate of uncertainty painted by media. There was indeed a military presence there, which is fair enough. Would it be okay to travel there again with bladed tools? I have to find that out myself.

You know, I have never taught bushcraft and wilderness survival in Mindanao and I waited for many years for that opportunity until Earl Ryan Janubas and JP Echavez, both of Cagayan de Oro City, organized one for me. Martial Law have curtailed travel of Mindanaoans to their most famous mountain destinations and they needed an alternative outlet for their thirst of adventure. That is when they contacted me.

Going by plane to Mindanao is out of the question for me, although travelling in it with blades is the most convenient. The transfer of the airport location of Cagayan de Oro, in Lumbia, to the Municipality of Laguindingan a few years ago is too far for my own comfort. The boat is my best option even if I have to unload my bladed tools to security for safekeeping while I am in the boat and it would travel with me anyway.

As an outdoors educator and survival instructor, blades play a very important role in all my classes and training instructions. Blades make easy work and these are educational aids and tools. Trusting to my good judgment, I carried some of my best blades with me like the AJF Gahum, Pandoy Pulido Pinahig, Condor Bushlore, Mora Companion, Knifemaker Camp, Seseblade Sinalung, Seseblade Matavia, a Browning and a Victorinox Trailmaster. Coming also is my veteran tomahawk.    

I travelled by boat in the evening of October 29, 2017 bound for Cagayan de Oro. Earl and JP would be expecting my arrival the following day. I arrived in the morning of October 30 and JP came to fetch me and whisked me to Focal Matters, a photography studio located at Capistrano and Yacapin streets where Earl is the resident photographer. After lunch, Earl and I travelled to Libona, Bukidnon on his Honda CG125, along with JP with his motorcycle.

We followed a newly-opened road that go through the backcountry of Indahag and Gango and arrive at Libona at around 15:00. We made a courtesy call to the village head of Poblacion and then to the community leader where we would make our camp for three days. It is in the property of Earl’s brother. We visit it for a brief inspection. It passes by a big pineapple farm and a trail lead to a stream.

Beside the stream is a narrow piece of ground good for eleven tents and some trees could host a few hammock pieces. It had been raining here for the most part of the week and the stream is deep with color associated with floods. I have my concerns but I am hoping that weather will get better. It is sunny and warm but the highlands has a weather of its own. I cannot rely on a weather forecast from a mere phone application.   

Earl and I returned to the town and made it to the house of his brother. We will both sleep there so we could be early to the campsite while JP need to go back to CDO. Bukidnon, by its location in the highlands of Mindanao, always has cold nights. It was colder still when there was a heavy downpour in the middle of the night which did not stop until the earliest hours of dawn. That got me worried about the stream and the campsite.

After breakfast of October 31, Earl and I went back to the campsite at 07:00. The stream have not risen that much. Only the color became more brown and the current more brisk than yesterday. I am assured of a very sunny morning and I hoped that the weather will turn out the better for the rest of the day. We choose this site because of its proximity to a natural spring located across.

I looked for a couple of trees, not far enough from each other and not near enough, and finding one such place, I left my bag. I choose the best location where I would be safe if the stream overflow but near enough to the rest. Open carrying my AJF Gahum, I go back up the slope and looked for a good place to make a latrine. Found one under a copse of cassia trees and dug a hole with a digging stick sharpened by my knife.

Then I foraged materials as educational aid for the outdoors seminar like dry and green bamboos, firewood and dry leaves. After an hour, JP and eleven participants arrived, including two high school students from Xavier University. One participant even brought his two dogs. All set up tents on the grassy ground while two of them found a place for a hammock.

Part of the morning was spent setting up shelters and diverting the flow of the natural spring by a bamboo viaduct, crossing over the stream into our campsite. Dry bamboos are abundant and I do not have to cut poles since there are many left rotting on the ground and a few are left hanging. I choose the clean ones for our improvised water span, propping it high enough from even an increase of a meter of flood.

The BASIC TROPICAL BUSHCRAFT COURSE is almost the same as that of the ones I do and organize in the Philippine Independence Bushcraft Camp, held in Cebu annually. It always start with Introduction to Bushcraft. The participants learned the terminologies and jargon used in bushcraft; its preferred environment; its own psychology; its methodologies; and its difference from survival and from mainstream activities.

 
Then next is Ethical Bushcraft. The best practices of leisure bushcraft, using its own principles of Blend, Adapt and Improvise, to lower your obtrusive presence among forests and jungles and increases an individual’s safety and security. It covers trail travel, courtesy to locals, campsite location, fire management and camp hygiene. Ethical Bushcraft is taken from this author’s unfinished book of the same title.

After lunch and siesta, it is the turn for Knife Care and Safety to be discussed. This chapter changes the perspective of the knife into a useful tool instead. The Philippine law on the regulations of carrying a knife – Batas Pambansa Bilang 6 – are explained thoroughly and clearly as well as ethics and safety, care and sharpening, blade shapes, parts and grinds, and the Nessmuk Trio.

At 14:30, this author demonstrate Survival Tool-Making to the participants. This chapter is a practical exercise in knife dexterity and safety; taught them how to carve spoons, jugs and an improvised cooking vessel from a green bamboo pole; and create a digging stick from a thick straight branch. Aside that, this blogger gave them the idea how and where to source cords from nature. Next is Notches. Another knife dexterity session aided, this time, by a baton.

When dusk came, all activities ceased and the participants focused on the preparation of their meals under a slight shower. By 19:30, the campfire is lit and becomes the social center for the Campfire Yarns and Storytelling. This camp tradition does not need great company as long as the train of tales and laughter begins. Sometimes, a moderate round of alcoholic drinks move that into more tales and laughter. Rains came and ended abruptly the night socials.
  
The second day (November 1) starts with breakfast but after that, all will deny food the rest of the day, not until they have accomplished foraging their own food which comes later in the night. This is to simulate the hunger pangs associated when you are stressed in a survival situation. Everyone steeled themselves for this occasion. The day is warmer than yesterday but the ground is muddy.

The first chapter for this long day is Customizing the Survival Kit. It is better that survival kits are made from scratch than bought commercially because its size and components depend upon the type of the activity you are indulging in and the kind of environment you are going to visit. Your personal preference still matters although redundancy of some functions, like fire tools, luminosity, water collection and cutting devices increases security.

Then I proceed to Foraging and Plant Identification. This author discusses about traps and snares and what are the difference between the two; luring methods and trap lines; and foraging food and non-food. It also identifies which plants are edible, harmful and poisonous. The participants are then shown the different traps and snares that are set up in camp before touring the area around the camp for the common plants growing here.

Hearing distant thunder, I decide to proceed to Fire, Fuel and Campfire Safety. Understanding first how a fire is made is very important. You have to know the three elements of the fire triangle: fuel, heat and air. You cannot produce fire if lacking one element. Conversely, you can put out a fire by removing one. Lately, they added a fourth element – chemical reaction.

Making fire by friction is 80% common sense, 10% skill and 10% perspiration. Your fire can start if you can acquire and identify the right tinder, if you are in a dry place, and if you have the patience. In a very humid location, the presence of moisture in the atmosphere almost always hinder the production of ember needed to start a fire. Most of the time heat is stolen by the cooling effect of watery air.

Aside from friction, there is the conventional method which are matchsticks, lighters, ferro rods, and the flint and steel. Then there is solar magnification which can be done with magnifying lens in a cloudless day. Then you have pressurized air, exemplified by the fire piston. Since I do not have the luxury of time, I limit my demonstrations to the flint and steel, and the ferro rod. I also showed them how to make a tinder bundle. 

Demonstrated how the bow drill method is made and spun. Unfortunately, I could only make thick smoke as sawdust embers refused to light up my tinder due to humid conditions. Dark clouds are now overhead as the thunder gets nearer and nearer. I let others try the bowdrill, the ferro rod, and the flint and steel. The participants properly learned how to use the ferro rods. It ignites easily natural tinder.

By now, wisps of moisture started to drop. I demonstrated how the bamboo-saw method is made and scratched. As with the bow drill, I could only produce smoke. Moisture have penetrated the grains of bamboo. Racing against the rain, I tried again and failed. Four participants tried but in vain. I made another derivative of the bamboo-saw that could be done with two people. Smoke is thick and there is a promise of ember but it lived shortly. Then a strong downpour fell.

For the rest of the afternoon, we could do nothing but stay in our shelters. I could not discuss the rest of the topics and our Nocturnal Hunting is even jeopardized. Owing to circumstances beyond our control, I aborted it and gave a go signal to prepare their food for dinner. In wet conditions, I am able to make fire in my Swiss Army wood burner to boil water first for coffee and then for Japanese seaweed soup.

The heavy downpour caused the stream to overflow on the lowest places of the campsite but it necessitated the transfer of three tents nevertheless to better locations. The water current increased and became very noisy, alarming everybody. For a couple of hours we were awake, watching the stream, until the rains began to slow down. I relax with my watch and half-chased sleep.

In my comfortable hammock, rainwater found its way to my chest. I shifted my body so the drips would not fall on me but a cotton rope I used to tie the hammock with snapped and I fell hard with my hammock on the ground. I re-strung my hammock and my shelter setup hoping to stop the drips. I placed drip cords on the ridgeline of my shelter just like I did before on the ends of my hammock. After I have done so, the drips have stopped.

The last day (November 2), I was surprised to see that the bamboo viaduct have withstood the stream’s rising water last night and still supplied us with an uninterrupted clean water. The water is not cloudy. We prepared breakfast early for I have four more topics to discuss. Yesterday’s muddy ground are smoothed out by water but it is wise not step on the same surfaces.

After breakfast, we break camp and transferred uphill to be away from the din created by chainsaws used by locals who took advantage of a holiday to cut trees. The first one is Understanding Cold Weather. During mountain climbing, exposure to the elements is expected. There are five physical mechanisms that steal away body heat and the things that we should do to keep us constantly warm.

Next is Outdoors Common Sense. This is the subject matter that I based from my yet unpublished book, ETHICAL BUSHCRAFT. It is about trail courtesy and behavior while on the trail; choosing the best campsites; practicing stealth camping; increasing individual safety and security; wildlife encounters; and introduce people the idea of Blend, Adapt and Improvise.

Finally, the topic of Outdoor Cooking and Food Preservation gets its slot. Different ways of preserving meat, fish, vegetable and fruits. Getting equal discussion are the different kinds of fireplaces. After the lectures, author shows how the Trailhawk System of cooking rice in bamboo is done. The participants prepared their meal for lunch and when all got cooked, to include the rice inside the bamboo, we had our meal.

We packed up everything and hiked the three kilometers back to Libona and then to the terminal. From Libona, we rode on tricycles to Manolo Fortich and transferred to a van-for-hire. Destination is Cagayan de Oro City, which we reached at 18:00. We stayed for a while at a local restaurant for dinner and the post-event discussion and socials. I was tired but I was not sleepy. I noticed there was no curfew here but we have to end after midnight.

 
I found a vacant room at Rosario’s Place for I have a speaking engagement tomorrow evening (November 3) at Viajero Outdoor Centre. Coming here to Cagayan de Oro with a cargo of blades gave me fears of travel restrictions brought about by Martial Law. It turned out well but, going back to Cebu, a security guard made it a little hard for me with his wrong presumptions. Or was he just interested with my properties? My spring-bound lecture handbook made all the explaining for him.

The unpredictable weather of the highlands of Bukidnon is something that I have to give an extra consideration next time. I expected it to behave like all highlands do but I failed to give a thought that Bukidnon is a plateau where rainwater would be collected on a wide area instead of travelling fast and quick to the sea. Here, it accumulates slow and long before going down the different drainage systems.    

It was a productive moment not just for me, but also for my newly-found friends of Mindanao. At last, I was able to introduce bushcraft there and helped them become better outdoorsmen. My trip there would not have been possible without the sudden sparks of creativity by Earl and JP. For their efforts, I part my couple of Seseblades to them, courtesy of Dr. Arvin Sese, whose quality but affordable blades I had endorsed everytime I have training sessions.  

Document done in LibreOffice 5.3 Writer

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Thank you for the experienced Sir Jing.

PinoyApache said...

My pleasure :)