By Magellan315   Sat, Jun 7, 2008

In May 2004 while on a business trip to Las Vegas, Nevada I took a few extra days to go Geocaching and spent time hiking in Red Rocks National Conservation Area. A local friend took me up Turtlehead Peak for a great hike, a wonderful view, and of course to find a Geocache at the peak.

At the last quarter mile of our trek a four-man helicopter made a series of low passes nearby and within minutes we caught up with a group of high school students and adult chaperons. One of the students had lost their footing on the trail and had broken an ankle; the helicopter was the local search and rescue team.

When I got back to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania I began to think about what I would do if something like this occurred to me. As someone who likes to day hike I carry extra food and water. I began to wonder what else I should have in case I got stranded or ran into someone else who was.

I started searching through my local library and bookstores, but every book I found looked like someone had reprinted or rewritten a military survival manual. These books dealt with building elaborate shelters and snaring wild animals, the type of skills more suited for long-term wilderness survival, not short-term emergency survival.

It wasn’t until I discovered Cody Lundin’s book 98.6 Degrees: The Art of Keeping your Ass Alive, did I find the book that I was looking for. A book that showed me how to survive 1 to 3 days alone in the woods until search and rescue could find me.

In the first 100 pages Cody Lundin covers the two most common survival situations you will encounter, hypothermia and hyperthermia. Plus the one survival skill you need have in any situation, a positive mental attitude. Cody Lundin stresses that with a positive mental attitude you can survive any situation. He reviews the basics of human biology for hypothermia, hyperthermia, and stress; how to identify them, to treat them, and how to prevent them, as well as what kind of clothing to wear, what search and rescue teams do, and how to make it easy for them to find you.

The second 100 pages are worth the price of the purchase of the book, alone. Cody Lundin goes over the do’s and don’ts of creating a survival kit and commercial versus homemade kits. The great things about the survival kit he recommends are that you can assemble it yourself with a trip to your local drugstore and that it fits into a medium sized fanny pack. This survival kit will give you the tools and equipment to build a shelter, make a fire, provide basic first aid, and signal for help.

Without having to chop down a tree to build a shelter or snare a wild animal, everything you could possibly need is contained in this kit. He explains what each item is used for, how to use it, and the most cost effective option available.

Cody Lundin has been teaching wilderness survival for over twenty years and practices what he preaches. The title of his book makes a clear statement about what this book is designed to do. 98.6 Degrees by Cody Lundin is a well-written and easy to read book that covers the basics of emergency survival and is a great gift for the novice hiker or the experienced woodsman. The recommended survival kit in the book is worth the price alone and you will never need any gimmicks or specialized skills after reading this book.