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.  

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LILOAN (CEBU) RESPONDERS GOES BUSHCRAFT

A WEEK AFTER THE first search and rescue summit of Cebu Province, I began to receive requests from local government units to have their emergency responders undergo training in bushcraft and survival. This training is quite expensive if you look it at from an international perspective since the skills acquired are highly-valued by Europeans and Americans. We have one survival school in Subic but it only showcases the primitive-living ways of the Aeta. What I teach is entirely different.

Disasters are now more intense and unpredictable, aggravated by climate change and by man. More people now visit places, as in adventure tourism, where, a decade ago, nobody would and vulnerability to accidents increase as well. Against these conditions, LGUs need to be well prepared, as defined and mandated by Republic Act 102020. The recent SAR summit initiated by the Cebu Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office provided the stimulus for LGUs to provide their respective DRRMOs with great importance and provide them equipment, funding and training.

The Municipality of Lilo-an requested that I teach their emergency responders in bushcraft and survival on August 28-30, 2015. I recently had taught volunteer responders of the Capiz Archdiocese Disaster Action Center last month at Ivisan, Capiz and, before that, in June, to nineteen individuals during the Philippine Independence Bushcraft Camp which was hosted by Lilo-an. The PIBC is an alternative learning medium created solely to answer the needs for more education of outdoorsmen and active individuals.

I arrived at the Lilo-an Municipal Hall at 05:00 of August 28, 2015. Joining me soon to assist me are five members from the Camp Red Bushcraft and Survival Guild: Jhurds Neo, Ernie Salomon, Dominik Sepe, Mark Lepon and Nelson Tan. I would be expecting the full force of the Lilo-an Public Safety and Emergency Management Office lead by its chief, Hammurabi Bugtai. Thirteen are available and a skeleton crew remained to man the post in their absence.

From the municipal hall we were whisked towards the village of Mulao by the town's workhorse called the “Dukevan”. After touching base with village officials, we proceed to the Mulao Elementary School before proceeding down for Cotcot River. I am leading the party and follow a trail, whose unfamiliarity will be lessened with Ernie's knowledge of having taken this same trail during the PIBC. Ernie failed to remember the exact route but we reach the Cotcot River on a different campsite.

Nevertheless, it is a good camping site which we used in our earlier dirt times. It has a wide open ground good for eight tents and some trees to prop hammocks. It is beside a stream and limitless firewood. Immediately, improvised shelters are erected by the participants using laminated nylon sheets, used advertisement tarp sheets, wooden poles, bamboos, ropes, natural cordage and buri palm leaves.

When all have settled down, I start the training at 13:00 tackling first about Introduction to Bushcraft. Except for a few, the term bushcraft is so alien to them but they could relate it better instead with the use of the closest Cebuano equivalent available - “panikaysikay”. It would also good to note that bushcraft is not totally synonymous with the word survival, since the latter is immediate while the former is the practice of skills in a day-to-day basis or the preparation hereof in survival situations.

One of the new topics that I have introduced lately is Ethical Bushcraft. It is taken as an excerpt from my future e-book which bears the same title. Considering that bushcraft is beginning to unfold as a leisure weekend activity, thanks to survival TV, the unabated enjoyment of it would take a toll on the forest resources like those happening in Western countries where many private lands and parks are now off-limits to bushcraft activities.

In Ethical Bushcraft, the participants are taught to be part of the landscape, judiciously use forest resources, even firewood, and to increase safety, particularly the management of campfires. It is a lengthy topic which takes most of the afternoon and, should be, for educating individuals into responsible outdoorsmen is what this is all about, especially when everybody are now interested in bushcraft and survival.

The last topic for the day is Knife Care and Safety. It aims to correct the usual ways we carry and use the knife and to change the common notion of the knife as a mere weapon into a very useful tool. In bushcraft, the knife lay supreme for, without it, tasks would be downright difficult to accomplish. As every tool, you have to spend considerable attention that it functions well by maintaining its sharpness and keep it from rust.

Bushcraft is a lawful activity and it easily fits in that description under Batas Pambansa Bilang Anim (BP 6), the only law in the Philippines governing the carrying and possession of knives. This topic increases your responsibility in the use of blades and its carrying, including travelling. It also teaches you the different shapes of blades, knowing the different parts of a knife and how to sharpen these.

When dusk begins to be felt, the participants disperse to prepare their dinner. They cook their food and rice in large pots which they brought along. Ernie prepared for the camp staff. Campfire Yarns and Storytelling unfolds when supper had been taken and everyone take their respective spots around a small campfire, just like the Boy Scout days. The campfire is the social center of early camp life since time immemorial. Taps at 22:00 is extended by two hours.

The second day – August 29 – begins with a light breakfast for, today, everyone would be fasting, including the camp staff. The participants would feel being miserable in an environment where they have almost no control of and then fighting off hunger and drowsiness in the middle of the lectures. When responding to calamitous situations, you are almost in this state and you have to stretch yourself for a few more mileage to be effective.

First topic for the day is Survival Tool-Making. When you lack gears or what you have is inadequate, you have to improvise by making tools. Tool-making is simply extending your existence during a survival situation. You make different tools for different situations like cordage, for foraging, for trapping and hunting, for dining and cooking, and for other special uses. What they learned yesterday in knife-handling safety would be applied on this topic.

Essentially, knives and tool-making go together. Making a tool exercises your dexterity with a knife. I demonstrate to them how to make a foraging stick and then a bamboo cooking pot employing the Trailhawk System. I designate them into three groups of four and require them to make a spoon, a drinking jug and a cooking pot. Those that do not have knives with them, choose the knives that me and my camp staff put on display.

The morning progresses into something positive for the participants and the training staff when a strong rain came. It stayed for 30 minutes and unleashes again another torrent after an hour but it stayed longer. In the dry comforts of their shelters, the participants persevered and continue on the making of their dining tools as well as the pot that would be used later for cooking and all three groups showed me their results thereafter.

Second topic would have been Firecraft but we just had a downpour and so not conducive to discuss about fire or heat. I jump to the next, instead, which is about Shelters. Before setting up a shelter, you should choose a good campsite. It should not be on the stream banks. It should not be on flat terrain. It should not be along trails. It should not be near a water source. It should not be under a forest of pines, cedar, pulpwood, eucalyptus and rubber trees.

The campsite should be away from all of these and do not alter the aesthetic of the place just so it could suit your tastes. Keep it as it is and then blend your man-made shelter with it. If you cannot make one, use a small cave or a rock overhang and make yourself comfortable by building a small fire. Use the rocks as reflector of heat. Simple shelters can be made from natural materials or a combination of man-made ones. Some shelters employ this setup in this bushcraft camp which is not difficult to explain.

Then I proceed to the topic about Foraging and Plant ID. Foraging works better with good bushcraft ethics unless there is a need where your existence would be at stake. I discourage the use of rifles when hunting for food and resort instead to trapping. I demonstrate how a simple trap looks like and how it is placed. Likewise, I show a snare employed to catch monkeys and big lizards and another one that closes a loop when moved. Not to be outdone, the participants made a trap made to catch fowls and birds.

Part of foraging is identifying plants. It could be edible, herbal or harmful. Just as long you suspect each plant that you do not know, it would never be a problem. To guide them how harmful plants look like, I showed them pictures of these plants, starting from the thorny ones to one that is so toxic that there is no antidote to cure people affected by this.

The last lecture for the day is about Outdoor Cooking. This topic also includes how you preserve meat, fish, vegetables and fruits. The processes are discussed thoroughly as possible given the light of day beginning to go dim. Then there are ways how you cook your food: open hearth, semi-closed and the closed style; and where you cook: campsite, trailside and bushcraft.

The open style is very popular as it is very simple. Semi-closed works like you would with a clay hearth where there is a hole to feed the fire with wood and another hole where the pot is placed or where the food is cooked. A good example would be the Dakota fire hole. The closed type is a different kind as it does not use direct fire in cooking your food but would use that fire instead to heat the stones to cook your food instead like a crude oven.

The three groups are now ready with their bamboo cooking vessels. The Trailhawk System of cooking is not complete without employing the unusual way of how it cooks rice, which is quite different from a standpoint of conventional cooking of rice. It is now almost dark and the guys are hungry because of the whole day without food. Whoever cooks his rice first, can start immediately their Nocturnal Hunting.

One by one, group after another group, leave in search of their own food. For me, it is time to relax by taking a bath in the middle of Cotcot River where the current is swift. The water is warm yet refreshing to a warmed up body that have not had rest for two days and a bath for a day. I never felt so better after that, given that the night is warm and humid. I can see lights that walk up on one hill and another group on a hill across it.

Ernie starts his own cooking, ably helped by Jhurds while Nelson makes another fire to smoke the mosquitoes away. The first group arrive and they caught five edible tree snails (Local: taklong), just enough for the four of them. A second group arrive to show a more miserable result – a heart of a young coconut tree (ubod). The last group whose lights glowed at the farthest hill returned with a live chicken and some horse radish. Very well, so far so good. All cook their food. Those with less, supplement it with canned goods.

The second night begets a second dinner found the hard way. When all had their fill, another Campfire Yarns and Storytelling turned up. Since I do not have enough time for tomorrow, I decide to talk about the Everyday Carry around the campfire circle. The night went on after that but I am tired and I hit the deck of my shelter early.

The third day – August 30 – is reserved for Firecraft. It is a very warm morning. After a good breakfast, I start the topic immediately. Firecraft is not just about making fire by modern conveniences or by primitive means, but it is understanding how a fire would work and how it may be used. Elementary understanding of a fire should start from the so-called fire triangle, which is now substituted with the tetrahedron. (A tongue twister. Why not a diamond?)

Then you have to identify good fire tinder. Tinder absorb heat which makes fire possible and it could also absorb moisture quickly to test your patience in making fire. Tinder are natural dry material which are so light and, sometimes, so fluffy but you could manufacture your own tinder like I did with cotton jeans which result to charred clothe. Charclothe could catch the flimsiest of sparks and can be used as medium to receive heat from concentrated light passing by water inside a bottle.

There are four ways to make fire. First is by the conventional manner which could be done with a lighter, a box of matches or by a ferro rod. Second is by solar magnification which can be created with a magnifying lens or other material which could imitate the lens like bottled water or even ice. The third is by pressure which is only possible with an internal combustion engine and by the fire piston.

The last is the most popular, which is by friction. The whole idea of survival is anchored on this. Actually, it is not. Friction methods are many and it is done with wood or by bamboo or the combination of both. Most popular here is the bamboo-saw method because it is considered our own and is extensively used in Boy Scout activities. Beginning to get attention in local bushcraft is the bowdrill method. Other methods like the hand drill, the fire plow and the fire thong are as good as the others. It takes a good amount of practice and the right conditions to make fire with these.

After successfully making fire in some methods, I believed I have taught all what is needed to be taught and decide that the training has ran its course. Then it rained heavily. We pack our things back inside our bags under this deluge and break camp. I fear that the river would rise. As I had feared, a tributary has risen and we have to cross it three times under a strong current. We take another route back to Mulao and found refuge under their covered basketball court.

While waiting for the rain to subside, Jhurds decide to raffle off the free giveaways: ten pieces paracord of 10 meters length each, two Seseblades NCO Straight knife and a modified Seseblades Sinalung. All these courtesy of Jhurds, who have been very supportive of my endeavours. A Hyundai Starex of the Municipality of Lilo-an arrive to pick us all, down to the new seaside store of Titay's Rosquillos and Native Delicacies.

Upon arriving, I distribute the training certificates to the participants, after which Aljew Frasco whisk us off to his farm and treated me, Jhurds, Ernie, Mark, Doms and Nelson to a well-cooked mixed-vegetable stew. Gone are the fatigue and the bone weariness that have hounded me for as long as I can remember. The soup is just superb and would have been perfect if paired with cold beer but we all need an early rest. There would be a next time, I am sure.

The Municipality of Lilo-an have taken extraordinary steps to professionalize their emergency responders with the addition of this training. They are the first municipality to extend their DRRM operators to learn bushcraft and, likewise, it equipped them in their work, especially when responding to places where they have no total control of the environment. This training taught them how to adapt, blend and improvise in any given situation where resources are limited and pursue their goals without impediments.

As for me, I have now come to the conclusion that I will focus my attention on sharing what I know about bushcraft and wilderness survival. I have been in private employment for sometime now and I think I may have to choose the best master: the corporate owners or my passion. I will arrive at that bridge and when I do I will cross the river and burn the bridge behind.

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