BUSHCRAFT IN THE PHILIPPINE OUTDOORS SCENE

SINCE THE TIME I shifted to Bushcraft and Survival, I now know where I am going. This is no accident for me but it had been motivated by one popular TV show whose producers made one fine dude into a buffoon. That show had made nonsense of what bushcraft is really all about. I know that, for I had been taught primitive-living skills by my late grandfather, who exposed me to woodlore at a young age.

In the Philippines, bushcraft or primitive-living skills or wilderness survival or off-the-grid living is still practiced by a good percentage of the populace, even more so, when you travel to the far countrysides. Shades of it are even carried by migrants into the big cities but that is just all about it. Nobody is interested anymore because it is low technology and inconsequential. This present generation thinks that the search engines and their tablets could provide them of what they want.

This direction I am talking about is imparting my knowledge to people and, at the same time, converting contemporary yuppies into weekend bushmen. My philosophy of enjoying the outdoors is not conventional and does not follow how the mainstream work but I place it in a proper perspective so it could be understood better by those who may practice it. It is an activity that uses a lot of common sense and a good dose of hard labor, although it is disdained by many conventional types because of its nonconformist methods.

I would like to emphasize that there is more of the outdoors than just being conventional or mainstream. I have seen the difference because I had been there. I cannot comprehend long ago why my hands were tied when I am supposed to enjoy “ultimate freedom”? It is not a very good idea going on camping with someone watching behind your back constricting your movements along the rigid lines of a foreign ideology called Leave No Trace.

Be advised also that there is a limit to enjoying a bushcraft activity which is really different from what you see on TV. You do not just cut green branches without considering the type of species. You do not just make fire without a purpose and without also considering the impact it gives to the camp ground. You do not just show off your blades on popular mountain sites without offending the sensibilities of certain people. Our own concept of the outdoors does not necessarily gets appreciated by the mainstream crowd.

People are now more aware of their environment because they choose to help and preserve Mother Earth in a good state in whatever way they can and that is good. Their adherence to LNT made them better hikers or mountain climbers, I suppose, and educates other people who visit the mountains for recreation. Ethical backpackers are incensed of people and activities that despoil the environment and are now more forceful in their approach. Rightly so, for a lot of reasons like garbage to fire rings to mass climbs to crowded campsites to commercialism.

I am practicing Philippine-style bushcraft and I make it sure that its impact on the environment is negligible if you compare it with how Westerners does theirs. I shun popular campsites and I would rather be with as few people as possible so we could enjoy bushcraft better. I encourage my adherents to practice light backpacking and to absorb the principles of “adapt, blend and improvise”. Campfires are mandatory on preparation of meals but, do not worry, we keep it small.

Conventional hikers always love to camp on high places and when they see fire rings on their beloved campsites, they would attribute that to bushcrafters even though it runs contrary to how and where we choose our fireplaces. We prefer hidden nooks, inconspicuous places that are too remote and wild, even to an adventurous urbanite but, sometimes, we use our old haunts which are now frequented by people. We equate our activities akin to those of indigenous people and we imitate their ways of moving about in a forest.

We learn plant ID by heart and that distinguishes us from firewood and charcoal gatherers who cut trees wholesale. We prefer cutting green limbs from introduced or invasive species, if we do not find any left behind by locals, when we need it for general bushcraft work. Firewood and kindling we get from dead branches which do not touch the ground and save someone the trouble of being hit by a falling one. We forage and use wild edible plants on our cooking; natural fibers for cordage; and natural tinder for our fire kit.

What we cannot leave behind, we burn. Any organic refuse, goes back to the land. As much as possible, only opened cans and empty bottles goes back to civilization to be sold in junk shops. Bringing in of garbage back to the cities are unnecessary since it would only use more fuel needed to transport these to dump sites, add more man hours and help hasten the filling up of landfill projects. Smoke from small garbage we burned in an hour of a weekend are peanuts compared to everyday poison unleashed by coal-fired power plants and vehicle fumes.

The importance of knives in bushcraft and survival are supreme and its presence in all our activities are mandatory. If you cannot stomach the sight of it, then keep your distance else learn from us. We have no other purpose for the knife except as a tool and, without that, tasks would be downright difficult to accomplish. Nowhere else is an outdoors hobby would you get to learn a myriad of skills except here in bushcraft and, as always, the knife is very relevant.

Where does one learn bushcraft here? If you search the Internet, this word is confined to countries that are mostly found on the temperate zones. In the Philippines, your search will take you to Cebu, the Philippine Independence Bushcraft Camp and me. Yes, I teach bushcraft only during the PIBC, which is always held on June 10 to 12. The Mountain Climbers Alliance of the Philippines also requests me to teach their members wilderness survival each year. Apart from that, I instruct people indoors about urban survival techniques.

To keep and maintain the skills of local bushcrafters sharp all the time, I established an organization for this purpose: the Camp Red Bushcraft and Survival Guild. It is the only one of its kind in the Philippines and is based in Cebu. Camp Red members are always out there on the field every weekend, hiking mountain trails, exploring, foraging, learning outdoors culinary, firecraft and a lot of real-world skills. You can distinguish them by their preference to carry openly their knives.

Bushcraft, for me, is the ultimate experience. You are the sole master of your own fate and you will know the mountains and its valleys and rivers more than anyone else. You just stay in a few places while everyone else are preoccupied of their time and destinations, totally missing out the finer details of a journey which would have given one lasting impressions, wonderful discoveries and irreplaceable wisdom. I have achieved total and unimpeded freedom doing all these and no foreign ideology, modern technology or expensive gears had altered or prevented that.

Bushcraft shall remain outside of the mainstream and so would the men and women who had embraced it. It will never ever replicate activities of conventional outdoor interests nor would it intrude on their realm but it can be integrated into theirs, with a few adjustments to their individual’s mindsets. I have come to the conclusion that Philippine-style bushcraft will stay for good and it will develop people into self-reliant individuals who may become leaders of a community of survivors should there be a SHTF situation.

The introduction of bushcraft as one of the activities in the Philippine outdoors scene should be welcomed, even from those whom have thought that the outdoors is their monopoly. Although we do not abide by the principles of LNT, we understood the spirit by what it was meant for and we have our own set of values when in the outdoors. We appreciate nature very much and we, like the rest, are never in a good mood when our mountains are abused. It is our playground as much you had considered it as your own.

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NAPO TO BABAG TALES LXXIII: Pyromaniacs

THE BOAT FROM CAGAYAN de Oro arrived at 06:00 today, February 2, 2014.  I know that the Camp Red Bushcraft and Survival Guild are congregating right now at Guadalupe for another outdoors sortie at the Babag Mountain Range.  I have to be there in the fastest time possible as this is an important activity which would not go well with my wife.  She kept complaining that I have no more time in the house except to eat dinner, watch TV, sleep and drink coffee in the morning.

Well, deep inside, she knows that men of my age are prone to heart diseases caused by inactive physical exertions and unhealthy lifestyles.  I know she would agree with my continued absence during weekends as long as I do not go home drunk and cut in noisy.  In a blur, I am out and running to the street carrying the same bag that I used during that travel to northern Mindanao.

I commute twice from home to Jones Avenue to Guadalupe and I notice people with candles on the streets and inside public jitneys.  Of course, it reminded me that today is the Feast of Candles and it marks the end of the Advent of Christmas.  It is the birth anniversary too of my late maternal grandmother, Purificacion, and my late paternal grandmother, Presentacion.  I arrive at the parking lot of the Our Lady of Guadalupe at 08:30 and I feel that the Camp Red guys are now hitting the trail from Napo to Lower Kahugan Spring.

After eating two moon cakes at a bakery, I hurriedly take a motorcycle ride for Napo.  At around 8:50, I am now hitting the trail myself.  I notice the Sapangdaku Creek very robust and noisy, the result of a typhoon that had passed by a day ago which dumped a great volume of rainwater.  I open carry a Seseblades JEST Bolo for today to test it.  I follow the trail and begin counting the footprints.  Each individual are distinguishable by a different shoe tread but there are just too many, overlapping each other and I have to try.

I was at this act of studying the tracks when Dominic Sepe arrive near a mango tree and we both help each other distinguish the shoe prints.  Here is a Vibram sole and there a running shoe.  No, two people with running shoes!  Quite small, maybe a woman’s, but the imprint is deep, it could be a man’s.  There are a lot of hiking shoe prints, very wide and with deep furrows.  Some smudges, made by locals wearing rubber slippers.  I do not think that all these shoeprints are made by Camp Red people.  Surely, there are other groups of hikers today.

We reach Lower Kahugan Spring and I top off my water bottle.  The stream is flowing freely and it is full.  Gone are the debris and the big stones used as a footpath and replaced by another set of stones, smaller and unstable, that looked like a tiny dam.  I surmise that our guys would take the long Kahugan Trail and so, I decide, we take a shortcut to our destination which is at the Roble homestead.  I follow this route and I see fresh footprints and no Camp Red bushmen would surely walk this very steep path.

When we arrive at our meeting area, the group of Barry Paracuelles and Maria Mahinay are already there.  Two ladies and another guy are with them and I notice Barry and the other guy wearing running shoes and that answers the shoeprints I studied a while ago.  So the Vibram sole must have belonged to Aljew Frasco as what Dominic had suggested.  When the Camp Red group do arrive, Dominic had guessed correctly about Aljew’s shoes, eliciting a smile from him.

I see Jhurds Neo, Christopher Maru, Fulbert Navarro and his girlfriend and the new guys, Jerome Tibon and Tope Laugo.  It is nice to see them again and I believed Jhurds had planned a firecraft activity for today.  I have brought my fire kit, which consists of safety matches, a butane lighter, a ferro rod, fatwood, charclothe and a jumbled mixture of foraged tinder.  I also brought pieces of pyrite which I found in that trip to Mindanao to test it if it could give a good spark if clashed with steel.

By now, the guys are foraging firewood and sticks to make tripods.  Black-soothed cooking pots are familiar fixtures of bushcrafters unlike those of the spotless ones that conventional outdoorsmen carry.  We at Camp Red prefer to cook our food with fire coming from wood instead of canned fuel.  The more we use firewood, the better our skills with making a fire and it does not matter if we use a matchstick or with friction to start it, just as long as it is done the bushman’s way. 

I make the JEST bolo work on the cutting and splitting of wood.  I use a baton on the stoutest wood.  I found the JEST bolo easy to use as long as it stay sharp.  This bolo had been given to me by Dr. Arvin Sese, through Jay Z Jorge, while I was conducting a Basic Wilderness Survival Course in Antipolo, Rizal last October 2013.  It comes with an Igorot-inspired wooden sheath and a webbing belt with clip lock.  I even use it with the pyrites and minute sparks appear. 

When the group of Barry and Maria had left, another group of five hikers came.  It seems, they are part of the first group but this habit of failing to come on time wrecked havoc on someone’s itinerary.  It is not our concern though and it has no effect on our activity.  The fires had now started and the rice is now ready for cooking which Fulbert is now focusing on.  Dominic produce iron grilles and lay it above the surging fire, a prelude to a delicious barbeque.

The pots used for rice are suspended on two tripods from which separate fires blazed below it.  The pyrites were tested on the steels and anyone could choose to keep the pyrites for himself.  I also brought an industrial bearing cap which composition approximate those of a micarta.  It could be sawed into small pieces and filed to proportion as knife scales.  I gave this to Jhurds for his unending knife projects and, hopefully, this piece would provide him satisfaction.

Anyway, a mixed-vegetable soup with oyster sauce is now on its final stage of cooking while the steamed fern tops are now transferred from pot to plate.  The thin strips of pork and beef are giving off smoke and pleasant smell and the gastric juices are beginning to play on our tongues.  It is 12:00 and everyone gets a seat inside the visitors shed as the prayer before a meal is lead by Fulbert.  Refills after refills, the food gets decimated by the hungry band of bushmen without a whimper. 

When we had recovered from that feast, Aljew produced pulp wood and begin carving a spindle and a fireboard; familiar items for a bowdrill.  On the other hand, I go downhill and look for a dry pole of bamboo which I found and cut it to size with the JEST bolo.  I carry it up and keep it near a fire to heat it and then refine it as a fire-making implement.  While Aljew is showing to all how to make a bowdrill set, I show to Jerome and Tope how to make a bamboo-saw set.

The knife, together with the folding saw of either a multi-tool set or a Swiss Army knife, are very essential tools since, without these, it will make this work difficult to perform.  Aside that, you need a lot of patience to make a fire by friction.  It is not done in conventional fashion but through stages.  You have to follow the process slowly and forcefully to achieve an ember.  Presence of smoke is not enough though but persistence will.

Aljew produced a fire with the bowdrill.  The bamboo saw did not although the presence of smoke is one step less to achieve an ember.  Jerome tried to improvise but with no result breaking the bamboo in two.  Christopher, on the other hand, produce fire with the same bowdrill.  Tope took the reins of the bamboo assisted by Fulbert and produce smoke yet the magic ember is missing.  Jhurds, after failing a first and second attempt, achieved success the third time on a bowdrill.  Persistence after patience. 

Fele Roble, a farmer who just observed what everyone did, made a fire using the bowdrill.  It goes to show that the techniques in the bowdrill are easy to do compared with the other methods and that is why when I conduct the yearly Philippine Independence Bushcraft Camp, I make it sure that the bowdrill is given a demonstration on the same level as that of our hometown favorite, the bamboo saw.  On the whole, I find preference with the bowdrill as it does not use energy that much.

On the other side of these pyromaniacs, the steel and flint, although more crude than the modern ferro rod, could give off sparks as efficiently as those rods provided you use a charclothe.  The ferro rods, available commercially now through the advent of survival TV shows, produce a lot of sparks that could ignite even a sawdust from a half-dry wood.  It is now the standard equipment for all outdoorsmen, replacing the safety matches and the lighter, since it could be used more than a thousand times, even in wet or cold days, and is much safer.

The tinder could be sourced anywhere or you could make it yourself like the charclothe.  Foraging tinder is the best practice.  You collect and collect until you think you have enough.  Any combination of natural and manufactured tinder is good and would save you from a bad day in the woods.  For insurance, carry rubber strips and thick plastic.  These are good material to kindle a fire under extreme circumstances.  It will never fail!

When it is 16:30, we start to leave the Roble homestead together with a couple of hikers, who had enjoyed our fire session and the powdered corn coffee.  We go by way of the route I took in the morning.  It is not that slippery as the ground is moist.  We reach the stream and walk the trail back to Napo and to the parked red pickup owned by Aljew.  We take a dinner at AA Barbecue Grill, complements of Aljew, and capped the day’s activity with a few rounds of cold San Miguel Pale Pilsen.

To appease my wife, I gave her my Seseblades JEST Bolo.  She knows how to use a blade, she being bred from a prominent homesteading family who pioneered a community in the wilderness of Mindanao.  It all goes well. 

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