Comments by "Harry Mills" (@harrymills2770) on "Kusk Bushcraft"
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If you slept warm the whole night, you wouldn't've been waking up every couple hours to build the fire back up. It's still do-able, and you do get comfortable before you drop back off to sleep, after you stoke the fire, again, and the radiant heat starts hitting your shelter, again. But getting up every couple-three hours to build the fire back up says you got cold in the middle of the night. With your setup, you'd be putting on and taking off your boots, to kick the unburnt ends towards the middle and stoke it back up.
I think you were a little disingenuous about staying warm all night. You wouldn't've used up that wood if you didn't wake up a little chilly, with more desire to get up and stoke the fire than stay in bed. I do kind of like the way he built his fire. As it burns, it works its way towards the ends, so as the intensity dies down, there's more length to the fire. I imagine it becomes a smoking mess right before you re-stoke it.
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The skeptics are out on this one. Maybe force him to throw a bowl of water into the air to prove it's cold.
As for the steam or lack of steam, that isn't always picked up by the cameras. But it frequently is. Lars on Survival Russia has said he gets lots of doubters saying there's not enough steam visible. He insists he doesn't lie about how cold it is.
If Kusk is sitting underneath that reflector and he's got a good hot, tall fire going with those 10- or 12-inch rounds, which he does, he's probably quite cozy cutting vegetables in that little micro-climate. And I bet the brief camera shots of him sawing and so on might be in half-gloves, because he's fiddling with the camera.
I've worked on my truck at 20-below, Fahrenheit, and I agree, he didn't saw up all that wood in half-gloves.
But that is a big fire, he's set up just out of scorching distance, and he's got a nice reflector and wind-break at his back. I can see where it could keep him warm for a couple hours at a stretch. I don't know exactly where he's set up. In the mountains, the air is quirky, but it's generally up-canyon during the day and down-canyon at night.
People are skeptical about the gear he's wearing. I imagine he's wearing wool, underneath. My experience in extreme cold was exposed skin and an outer layer that stops the wind. As long as I'm moving and working hard enough, that's all I need. This guy didn't really stop until it was time to build that big fire of his.
I know people who wear down on top of fleece and they carry a spare fleece, so they always have something dry to put on. I never understood that. My parka is for when I stop moving and there's no big, toasty fire around. Hiking or working in the cold, I've never had much more than long underwear and a warm shirt under a wind/rain shell. Working on a vehicle is the worst, because you're out in it AND you have to stand still! If there's one thing Gunnison taught me, it's the importance of a heated garage.
Anyway, he doesn't look like he's dressed for wet, but you're not worried about wet at -20 Fahrenheit. He might be faking it, but I think it's definitely possible to camp like this, with that fire build and that size of wood. Still, he doesn't show how it looks as it starts to burn down to a smoky mess.
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That's a pretty miserable night, waking up with one side cold every half-hour or so. But it beats having both sides cold with no fire. Making the video was difficult, but it also took your mind off how freaking cold you were. You weren't just spending a night outdoors. You were recording it for posterity.
I don't think I'd venture out without a lightweight tarp (or two).
I thought you were cutting it close on the firewood, when you did the "feed long ends into the fire" strategy. Very smoky and harder to ration your fuel supply for a full night. But you're pretty adept at gathering max firewood for minimum effort, so even if you ran out, you could always get more. I must say you were very efficient at whatever you set out to do. The only thing I'd've done different was waste a lot of energy processing the wood into approximate stove lengths, and made a tidier fire. I'm not sure my way'd be better for delivering more heat to my shelter. There's a lot to be said for the long fires, and since you're spending the night down low, you're not really troubled by the smoke.
Still, you demonstrate one true fact about the deep cold. If you've got fire, you can survive. Doesn't matter how cold it is.
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