Trail Breakfasts 101: Chocolate Chia Breakfast Pudding

 

The assembled Chocolate Chia Breakfast Pudding pouch. Picture by Author.

I love chocolate, particularly dark chocolate...mmm…yummy!

I also like quick easy to make trail breakfasts, you know the ones that don’t take any cooking, don’t take much time to prepare and don’t make any dishes that need to be cleaned up.  That is why I like chocolate chia breakfast pudding and I think you will like it too.

For a video on chocolate chia breakfast pudding, you can go to my YouTube channel, BandanaMan Productions HERE or to The Woodsman's Journal Online HERE.

 

Basic Ingredients. Picture by Author.

Flavorings. Picture by Author.

Ingredients measured out. Picture by Author.

   

The recipe for chocolate chia breakfast pudding is simple and here is how you make it. 

To make a single serving combine the following in a one quart, Ziploc® style freezer bag.

        4 Tbsp (tablespoons) of chia seeds¹

        1/3 cup of instant nonfat dry milk

Add any of the following to your Ziploc® style freezer bag, for flavor:

        2 Tbsp of Sweetened Flaked Coconut

        1/3 cup of Dried Banana Chips

        ¼ cup of Shelled Walnut Halves & Pieces

        ¼ cup of Seedless Raisins

Lastly, put a chocolate Carnation® Breakfast Essentials drink pouch into the Ziploc® style freezer bag and you are done: one trail breakfast assembled and ready to go.

This recipe will make one trail breakfast that weighs just 6 ounces, and is tasty and nutritious.

 

Information assembled by the Author.

To eat your trail breakfast, simply remove the Carnation® Breakfast Essentials drink pouch from the Ziploc® style freezer bag, tear it open, pour the drink powder back into the Ziploc® bag, and add ½ cup of water.  Seal up the Ziploc® bag and shake it up until it is fully mixed.  Let it sit for three to five minutes, then pull out your spoon, open the bag, dig in and enjoy!

Notes

¹  You can substitute 2 Tbsp of chia seeds and 2 Tbsp of milled flax seeds for the 4 Tbsp of chia seeds, if you wish

Trail Breakfast 101: Chocolate Chia Breakfast Pudding

What’s Your Survival Quotient?

 

The title of an article on page 72, in the March 1971 edition of Field & Stream 

Have you ever wondered if you would pass a survival quiz?  Have you ever taken one to test your survival knowledge?  Do you know the answers to the questions below?

True or False “In free air temperature below 50 degrees F. you must have at least two quarts of drinking water  per person per day.”

True or False “When traveling in below freezing weather you should always have dry tinder and waterproof matches (or other reliable fire starter) on your person and protected against any moisture.”

True or False “A snow ‘well’ (the space kept clear by wind around the base of large tree) may be 40 degrees F. warmer than the air on top of the snowbank.”

If the answer to these questions is “no”; then you should go to “What’s Your Survival Quotient?” by Alonzo W. Pond, in the March 1971 edition of Field & Stream, found HERE on page 72, take the quiz and then read the rest of the article on what to do in a wilderness emergency. 

Personally, I love taking survival tests and I read everything about survival and the outdoors that I can get my hands on.  However, it is important that the survival expert that you are taking advice from, knows what they are writing about, so who was Alonzo W. Pond?  He was a survival expert and archaeologist, who was born in 1894 and died in 1986.  Mr. Pond, until 1958, was in charge of the Desert Branch of the Arctic-Desert-Tropic Information Center (ADTIC) and he was a member of the Explorer’s Club and the Adventurers Club.  Additionally, he was a professor of desert geography at the Air University.  He wrote over a dozen books on topics ranging from archaeology, ethnology, geography, natural history, travel and survival, as well as many scientific and popular articles.  He was a co-author of both, Afoot In The Desert, published first in 1951 and later revised in 1956, and The Survival Book, which was published in 1959, before being republished in 1978 as the A Pilot’s Survival Manual.

 

A portion of the dust jacket of The Survival Book, 1959. Photo by the Author.

Besides the quiz in “What’s Your Survival Quotient?”, the author discussed what to do in a wilderness emergency to prevent panic and recommended steps, that are today called S.T.O.P., which stand for Stop, Think, Observe and organize and then Plan and act on your plan, when he wrote the following points:

“Panic is sudden, unreasonable fear and – as one survival manual puts it – ‘fear is ignorance; knowledge conquers fear.’ The best way, therefore, to outwit panic is to acquire a little knowledge before an emergency.”

“What you do in those first few moments of the emergency may determine your chances for survival”

“If you become lost, first do something casual to calm yourself; but whatever it is, take time to think.”

A Boy Scouts of America, “If You Become Lost” card. Photo by the Author.

He followed up his advice on what to do to prevent, with some practical advice on what to do first, second, and third; advice that mirrors today's “Rule of Threes”, with the points below…

“First get out of the wind.  Try to keep warm and dry.”

“Build a fire if possible.”

“Don’t worry too much about food.  You can go many days without eating and not starve to death”

“Drink your water and plenty of it as long as it lasts.  You cannot stretch its value by hording it.”

The “Rule of Threes” is a rule that helps you prioritize what to do first, second and third in survival situations.  It states that you cannot survive for more than 3 Minutes in freezing water, without air or with severe bleeding; you cannot survive more than 3 hours without shelter from the sun, wind or weather; you cannot survive more than 3 days without water and you cannot survive more than 3 weeks without food.  Some experts also state that you cannot survive more than 3 days without sleep.  These rules assume that the rules above them have already been met, for example, if you have a large quantity of water, yet you are bleeding severely, according to the three-minute rule, the most important task at that moment, is to stop the bleeding. 

So take Alonzo W. Pond’s quiz and read his thoughts on what to do in a survival situation, HERE, on page 72.  Don’t worry if you miss a few questions, it’s okay, wrong answers are the just areas that you need to study more about.  For more on survival from Alonzo Pond, I recommend that you read either The Survival Book or A Pilot’s Survival Manual, both of which he co-authored.

 

The Survival Book, 1959 and A Pilot’s Survival Manual, 1978. Photo by the Author.

Sources

Pond, Alonzo W.; “What’s Your Survival  Quotient?”, Field & Stream, March 1971, Vol. LXXV, No. 11[Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York, NY] p. 72-73, 204-206

A Cougar Went Walking

 

Mountain lion print found near Red House, Allegheny State Park, NY during November 2017.  Picture by the Author

The truth and the cats are out there…Do you believe?

I grew up hearing stories about mountain lions in western New York: when I was little, I remember my Father telling me a story that took place when he was a young boy, shortly after World War II.  Some cousins of my Father’s foster family, who lived outside of Forestville, New York, told him about a panther that had been heard, at night, in the hills, south of the village, and the hunt that took place looking for it.  Of course, they didn’t find an eastern mountain lion, because as everyone knows, cougars, catamounts, painters, panthers, or just plain mountain lions, which are all names for the same animal, and had been extinct since the early years of the 20^th century on the east coast of North America.

Fast forward to 2008, it was a warm early fall day and we had decided to take a trip to the “Hanging Bog”, which is a large beaver pond, in the hills, near Rushford, New York.  We thought it would be a good day to do some canoeing and exploring and my youngest son, who was four at the time, had never been in a canoe before.  We canoed to shore on the far side of the lake and as I stepped out, I saw “it”.  “It” was a large paw print, the size of a baseball, without any claw marks, that was just starting to fill with water.  Someone had watched us bring the canoe to the shore and that someone was a cougar.  I quickly scanned the trees around the landing, to see if there was a large cat above me in the branches.  I loosened the small axe that I always carry when I wander in the woods, which was under my belt, in the small of my back.  I didn’t see the cougar, just a lonely paw print rapidly filling up with water, at the edge of swampy lake.  Oh, and of course, just as these things always go, I didn’t have a camera with me.

Mountain lion print found near Red House, Allegheny State Park, NY during November 2017.  Picture by the Author

 It was a sunny, early November day in 2017, and we had decided to take a hike near Red House, in Allegheny State Park, in southwestern New York State.  We were hiking along the top of a ridge that separated two narrow, steep-walled valleys with small streams down their centers.  It had snowed the night before, only about a quarter of an inch, and it was still below freezing, although the sky was clear and the sun was bright, when I saw “it” again.  Again, “it” was a single, large paw print without any claw marks, boldly stamped in the snow, as if a large cat had stepped over the path.  This time I had a camera, and I took a picture, thankfully, just before a woman with a small herd of yappy dogs came around the bend of the trail and trampled all of the evidence. 

In 2008, no one believed that I saw, what I had seen, because of course, there are no cougars left on the east coast of North America, except in the very south of Florida, which is a long way away from rural western New York.  However, I knew what I had seen.

In 2011, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service concluded that there are no native populations of mountain lions east of the Mississippi, except in Florida, and any that are seen, are escaped or released pets.  The native eastern mountain lions, as a subspecies (puma concolor couguar), was considered to have gone extinct in the early years of the 20^th century. 

Shortly after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services announcement regarding the extinction of the native eastern mountain lions, came the news in 2011, that a young male cougar that had been hit by a car on Wilbur Cross Parkway, in Milford, Connecticut, only 70 miles from New York City.  Scientists, using DNA tests, determined that this cougar was from South Dakota, and he had travelled more than 1,800 miles, through Michigan, into Canada, crossing back into New York State near the western edge of the Adirondacks, before travelling southeast to his fateful encounter with an SUV, on the parkway.

After, the South Dakota mountain lion was killed on the parkway in Connecticut, in 2011; migratory western mountain lions were added to the mix.  Officially, there is not a breeding population of mountain lions east of the Mississippi and today, if you see a mountain lion in the woods, you have seen a migratory western lion or an escaped or released pet. 

Tracks and Scat

Most likely, you will never see a mountain lion in the woods; however, you might see evidence of its passing, either tracks or scat.  So how can you tell if those tracks you have found belong to a mountain lion?  The first clue is whether there are claw marks or not.  Canine tracks usually display claw marks, while cat tracks do not; also canine tracks tend to be oval and are longer from heel to toe than they are wide.  Additionally, cat tracks often display a leading toe, which is a toe that sticks out further than the rest, while with dog tracks the two front toes are side by side.  The second thing to look for is the size of the track and the size of plantar or heel pad; mountain lion tracks are quite large, up to five inches in diameter, although on average they are closer to three inches in diameter.  The average male mountain lion will leave tracks that are four inches wide, while the average female mountain lion will leave tracks that are up to three and a half inches wide.  In addition, you might be able to determine the sex of the mountain lion by the size of its plantar pad; the average adult female mountain lions have a plantar pad that is less than two inches wide, while the average male mountain lion will have a plantar pad that is greater than two inches in width.  The heel pads of cats are larger than the small, two lobed, triangular pads of dogs and the three lobed pad looks like an “M”.  And, the last clue is whether an “X” drawn between the first and fourth toe pad, crosses through the heel pad or not.  If the “X”, when drawn, does not cross over the rear pad then it is a dog track, while if it does cut through the rear pad, it is a cat track. 

(L) Coyote track, actual size, Animal Tracks: Roger Tory Peterson Field Guide, Figure 46, p. 95 and (R) Mountain lion track, scaled to actual size, Figure 52, p. 110.  Note the lack of claw marks on the Mountain lion track and how an X drawn between the first and fourth toe pad, crosses through the heel pad.

 

Mountain lion print found near Red House, Allegheny State Park, NY during November 2017.  Picture by the Author

So, I used these tests on the track that I found near Red House in November 2017: unfortunately, because the leaf under the rear pad makes it difficult to see the outline of the heel, this isn’t the best track to analyze.  However, the size, round shape and the absence of any claw marks, makes me believe that this is not a dog’s footprint and is most likely a mountain lion’s paw print.

 

Animal Tracks: Roger Tory Peterson Field Guide, Figure 57, a. Tracks in mud; b, c, d., Walking or trotting gates; e. Mountain lion wallowing in snow; f. Tracks in snow, showing foot drags; g. Leaping gait in snow, showing tail marks; p. 118-119

Instead of tracks, you might find scat.  If you do find scat, you will notice that it is full of hair and bits of bone, however, since members of the cat family tend to cover their dung, scat is not often found.  If found, the scats from large cats can be hard to distinguish from those of dogs or coyotes.  Cat scat is more segmented, by constrictions, than those of dogs are, but the best clue would be that scat is covered or that there are claw marks surrounding the dung pile.

 

Animal Tracks: Roger Tory Peterson Field Guide, Figure 53, Mountain lion scat, p. 111

Mountain Lion Facts

·      Mountain lions have a wide range throughout the western United States and both their population and range are increasing.  They can easily travel 20 to 30 miles a day, hunting an eating along the way.

·      A mountain lions range depends on the amount of available food and can be from 10 square miles to 370 square miles.

·      Mountain lions weigh an average of 130 to 140 pounds, with male lions weighing an average between 115 to 160 pounds and female lions weighing between 75 and 105 pounds.

·      Mountain lions live on average 12 years in the wild and in captivity have lived to 25 years.

·      Mountain lions are solitary animals and are seldom seen, they prefer remote, wooded areas: searchers generally have to content themselves scat, tracks and the remains of kills and food caches.

·      Mountain lions need eight to ten pounds of meat a day to survive and experts estimate that a mountain lion kills one deer every nine to fourteen days.  In general, mountain lions prefer deer, when they are not eating deer; their diet includes elk, porcupine, small mammals, livestock or pets. 

·      Most mountain lions will avoid a confrontation, so keep your distance and make sure it has an open escape route.  If a mountain lion is angry or anxious, it will crouch down and thrash its tail, stare at you and keep its body low to the ground.  Immediately before an attack, a mountain lion’s ears will flatten down against its head and its rear legs will pump.

In the end, does it matter whether the lion you saw, or whose tracks you found, was a migrating western mountain lion, an escaped or released pet, or a relic of the original eastern mountain lion population?  Do you know what to do if you have a close-range, surprise encounter with one, who seems angry or anxious?  Worse, do you know what to do if a mountain lion appears to be following you at a distance and staring intently at you: in short, it is stalking you?

 

A portion of the photo titled “seen mountain biking at Skeggs today”, by Steve Jurvetson

How to Avoid an Encounter

·      Since mountain lions are nocturnal, be especially cautious when moving around at night.

·      To avoid an encounter with a mountain lion, make noise so that the mountain lion knows that humans are in the area and hike in groups.

If You Encounter a Mountain Lion

Most mountain lions will avoid a confrontation with humans, so stay calm.  If the lion is angry or anxious, try to identify why it is upset.  Are you between a female and her kits?  Are you near its den or its kill? 

·      With mountain lions, it is all about being seen as prey or being seen as a threat

·      Always and at all times maintain eye contact, while you slowly back away giving the lion an avenue to escape.  Do not bend over, as you will lose eye contact and you will look like a four legged prey animal.

·      Never turn your back and never EVER run away from a lion!  If you do, you will trigger the cat’s predatory instincts. 

·      Stand tall, wave your arms or hold your coat open, yell and throw sticks and stones at it.  If you are in a group, stand side by side so that you appear bigger.  If you have children, put them behind you or hold onto them.

If You Are Attacked

·      If you have bear spray, use it.  If someone is being attacked and you have bear spray, spray both the lion and the person being attacked if necessary.

·      Do not play dead, fight back!  Playing dead means that you will end up dead for real.  Fight back because 75% of those attacked by mountain lions survive.  Mountain lions kill people by biting the back of the neck and snapping the spine, by biting through the skull, or by biting the throat and suffocating their victim.  If you are bitten, stick your finger into the lion’s eye. 

·      If you are with a group, fight the mountain lion as a group.

If You Are Being Stalked

·      If a mountain lion is following you at a distance and watching you intently, it is probably trying to determine if you are or are not prey.

·      Stand tall, wave your arms or hold your coat open, yell and throw sticks and stones at it.  If you are in a group, stand side by side so that you appear bigger.  If you have children, put them behind you or hold onto them. 

·      Make sure that you have scared it away before, immediately leaving and reporting the situation to the proper authorities.

Sources

Catskill Mountaineer, “Cougar Tracks in Kaaterskill Clove” http://www.catskillmountaineer.com/forums/phpBB-3.0.5/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=254, Accessed 3/27/19

Ferris, Jaime; “Washington Talk Features a Connecticut Mountain Lion Believer” [County Times, February 10, 2012] http://www.countytimes.com/entertainment/washington-talk-features-a-connecticut-mountain-lion-believer/article_6a7bddd0-f535-59df-9e24-90afefe108dd.html, Accessed 3/26/19

Gabbey, Amber; “Call Of The Wild: How To Avoid Feral Animal Encounters” [American Survival Guide, December 11, 2011] https://www.asgmag.com/survival-skills/call-of-the-wild-how-to-avoid-feral-animal-encounters/, Accessed 4/2/19

Jurvetson, Steve “seen mountain biking at Skeggs today” https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/442807351/, Accessed 4/11/19

Keiper, Lauren; “Mountain lion killed in Connecticut prowled east from S. Dakota” [Reuters, July 27, 2011] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mountainlion/mountain-lion-killed-in-connecticut-prowled-east-from-s-dakota-idUSTRE76Q5ZE20110727, Accessed 3/26/19

Lancaster, Laura; “Fight or Flight?” [American Survival Guide, December 2015, ] p 77-81

LiveOutdoors, “How to Identify a Mountain Lion Track”, https://www.liveoutdoors.com/recreation/236133-identify-mountain-lion-tracks/#/slide/1, Accessed 3/27/19

Read more at https://www.liveoutdoors.com/recreation/236133-identify-mountain-lion-tracks/#GyQ5JsdvD0hrSrdx.99, Accessed 3/27/19

Merritt, Pamela; “Adirondack Panthers: Then And Now” [October 26, 2016] https://www.saranaclake.com/blog/2016/10/adirondack-panthers-then-and-now, Accessed 3/26/19

Murie, Olaus J., Animal Tracks: Roger Tory Peterson Field Guide, [Easton Press, Norwalk, Connecticut, 1974] p.110-111, 118-121

Seely, Hart; “Wild cougar killed in Connecticut will likely spark Upstate sightings of big cats”, [Syracuse Post Standard, July 28, 2011] https://www.syracuse.com/news/2011/07/wild_cougar_killed_in_connecti.html, Accessed 3/26/19

Kids Can Survive In the Wild: A Summary

 

An example of a readymade shelter, the root-ball of this downed tree will block the downslope, nighttime breezes.  Picture by Author

Author’s Note: I chanced upon this article in an almost 30-year-old edition of Scouting magazine, while I was combing through Google Books.  I had never read it before, however I had read many of the ideas that the author wrote about in this article, in other, later, works.  It is a well-written article, chock full of great ideas and I hope that you enjoy my summary of it.

 

Title page of the article “Kids Can Survive In the Wild” by Steve Scarano

Did you know that about ²/₃ of lost people are between the ages of 10 and 19 and that 95.9% of lost people are found alive by searchers and that most people are found within two to three days?  Do you know what to teach your kids or grandkids so that they are among the 95.9% that are found alive?  Do you like about the general topic of survival in the wilderness?

If your answers to the first two questions was “no” and your answer to the last question was “yes”, then you should read “Kids Can Survive In the Wild” by Steve Scarano.  It was originally printed in the Family Safe magazine, before being reprinted in October 1989 edition of Scouting magazine (the article can be found HERE). 

To help your children, or for that matter, anyone, survive a wilderness emergency, first you have to realize that a wilderness emergency can happen to anyone, anywhere, since as survival expert Gene Fears quoted in the article, a “wilderness emergency” is when “a person suddenly loses those things he relies upon for comfort”.  Second, you have to remember that your greatest survival tool is a positive mental attitude, and as a later quote by Gene Fear in the article stated, “Survival is 80 percent attitude, 10 percent equipment and 10 percent skill”.

“Survival is 80 percent attitude…”

In the past, I have written about how I have taught children that you are never “lost” during a wilderness emergency, rather you are “misplaced”, because misplaced things are eventually found and lost things stay lost.  Being lost is scary and since most of the art of survival is keeping a positive mental attitude and not giving into your fears, the distinction between being “lost” or just being “misplaced” can mean life or death.  A quote in the article by Gene Fear, supported this, when he noted that, “A human being will act, feel, and perform in accordance with what he imagines to be true about himself, his environment, and his situation.” 

“Survival is…10 percent equipment…”

Every child, and for that matter, anyone who ventures in to the wilderness, should always carry a bare-bones survival kit, which includes a plastic trash bag to act as a shelter; a pea-less whistle on a lanyard and a metal or plastic mirror, or a piece of aluminum foil, for signaling; some high energy foods and a canteen of water.  Additionally, the author recommended that, for those children who are old enough to use them safely, the survival kit should include a pocketknife and waterproof matches.

“Survival is…10 percent skills…”

If a child knows what to do in a wilderness emergency and believes that he or she can survive, then their chances of being among the 95.9% of those found alive, increases.  Help children develop a positive survival attitude by asking them to imagine being “misplaced”, quiz them on what they would do and teach them what to do in a wilderness emergency, based on the suggestions found in this article.  Teach them about S.T.O.P., which stands for Stop, sit down, stay put; Think; Orient and organize yourself; Plan and put your plan into action.  Anyone who carries a survival kit should learn to use everything in the kit and should regularly practice using them.  Teach children how to find and use a ready-made shelter, build a bough bed and how to use the plastic bags in their survival kit as a shelter.  Also, teach them how to signal for help and what to do if they hear scary noises.

I hope that this summary of “Kids Can Survive In the Wild”, by Steve Scarano, will help you prepare your children, or grandchildren, for the possibility that they might be “misplaced” in the woods someday and what to do if they are, so that they can be among the 95.9% of people who experience a wilderness emergency and emerge alive.

Besides the information found in the article “Kids Can Survive In the Wild”, by Steve Scarano, which can be found (HERE), you might find the following links useful.

You Are Never Lost, Only Misplaced… (HERE)

The Ace of Spades: “Survival Basics” (HERE)

Making an Emergency Bough Bed (HERE)

Building An Emergency Bough Bed, video (HERE)

Using your poncho or a trash bag as an Emergency Shelter (HERE)

Emergency Trash Bag Shelter, video (HERE)