by Phillip WattsYou've probably heard it before–to find the best hunting, get off the beaten track and go where the crowds don't go. This is sound advice, because elk have learned to avoid areas with lots of human activity, especially during hunting seasons. And elk range over large areas so sometimes you need to cover a lot of country to find them. But where do you begin?First, you'll have to acquire some basic wilderness navigation skills. These skills will make you a better hunter–you'll ...

by David CronenwettIf all else fails – your equipment, the weather, your sense of direction – it is still possible to emerge unscathed from a wilderness emergency if you master basic fire craft.My teaching experience has shown me that most backcountry travelers are not competent fire makers. Fire building, like all other skills, must be practiced frequently and in varying environments and conditions.Here's a test I give my students: Take one strike-anywhere match, a sharp knife, and – using ...

by Mike Beagle My 8-year-old daughter and I recently stood at the bottom of a brushy, 300-foot cliff and talus slope over looking Blue Lake in southern Oregon's Sky Lakes Wilderness.For me it was a short climb. For a little girl much smaller than me, the hill looked downright colossal.But I knew something about my daughter that she is only beginning to learn: her potential.As a high school teacher and coach over the last 15 years, I have made some disheartening observations regarding ...

© Jim Posewitz Jim Posewitz New generations replace the old subtly, and we face the new millennium with new people. Among them are hunters who never knew wildlife’s bad times and know little of their own history. Access to hunting opportunity is critical, yet there are some among us who engage in practices of exclusion to give advantage to themselves. The society we are a part of consists of a significant majority who do not hunt, are unaware of the hunter’s history, and ...

Off Road Vehicles (ORVs) are motorized machines designed to travel over any type of terrain and include all terrain vehicles (ATVs), dirt bikes, dune buggies, snowmobiles and swamp buggies. The use of these machines in the backcountry has increased ten-fold in the past twenty years. This increased use and subsequent abuse has reached such epidemic proportions that ORV’s have been listed as one of the top four threats, right alongside wildfire, to our National Forests, including Inventoried ...