Transcription
[music] >> Out here, the world can get really quiet. >> [music] >> You sought peace and solitude and you got it. >> [music] >> But at its edge, waits death. >> [music] [music] >> Only two things can keep death at bay in remote places. [music] Luck and security know-how. >> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> In my personal experience, the thing about being in remote places that's probably the most dangerous is the kind of people you could run into. And so today on the channel, guys, we're going to talk about security in remote places. I have a lot of applicable experience here. I'm a veteran, airborne infantry, tab, and all that kinds of stuff. Uh, I did 5 years working in anti-assassination as well. I've worked in security in other areas. But the biggest chunk of my experience comes from a 9 years that my wife and I spent living off-grid in remote places around the United States. And since then, I've spent the last 5 years living on a remote ranch. And a part of my job description here is security. So I'm going to share with you guys today what I have learned, and I'm going to burn through the list of things that I created that you want to pay attention to. Because guys, I I just kind of it's it's reflexive for me these days. When I was living that way for 9 years, I didn't have a list stuck to my refrigerator all the things security-related you need to consider. I didn't have that, dude. It just kind of became second nature to me. So I wrote a ton of it down for you guys, so hopefully it's in a format that you can use for self. And a lot of people are going to be able to apply this. If you get out and camp out in dispersed campsites, or you make up your own out in America's national forests or whatever, or you're in a northern part of Canada where there's not a ton of people, uh even a homestead, this will work for a homestead. It'll work if you have to bug out. A lot of the stuff you want to consider if you find yourself in that terrible situation to be in. But, let's start this with a story, dudes. Uh, because about 14 years ago, I was just getting in to this 9 years I spent traveling around living off grid. And uh me and my wife were up on a remote piece of property that we purchased. And I was running a chainsaw. I was building a shelter, a holtzer style shelter for our goats. And had my .357 mag on. And I'm working, you know, I'm just getting after it. And every once in a while, I'd look up and kind of look around and get back to work. And suddenly, I see my wife waving frantically at me. Right? And with a kind of crazy look on her face. And I look up and there's a man standing about 40 ft from me. And I did not realize he was there. I got a number of lessons out of this. One of them was that being new to living in areas that are that remote, people are just sneaky, man. They're sneaky. Uh, but, the big lesson I learned was that had that been somebody else and had it been someone who's dangerous, that guy wasn't dangerous. He was dangerous to some of my possessions when I wasn't there. And I fixed that with a later run-in with the guy. But, um, had it been somebody else, he could have shot me in the back and it would have left my wife and two of our small children to deal with it. And that would have been bad. So, what I learned from that experience, I applied going forward throughout the rest of those 9 years of traveling and camping. And I can definitely say that it helped keep us safe because the more time you spend in the kind of places that I'm talking about, eventually, you're going to run into people that are up to no good.
So, let's get right into the meat and potatoes of this pimp. What are the things you want to consider when it comes to security while out in remote places? One of these things is the natural terrain and natural barriers. When you're picking a camp spot, you want to look around and think about choke points. Are [bell] there narrow approaches to get in there? Is there only one single road getting in and out? Or is there road to go through? Uh, are you going to be on the high ground? Are you going to be on the low ground? One of the benefits to my property is that it's on the high ground and it's it's kept a lot of my stuff there safe over the years because people don't want to hike up the hill to rip me off. You know what I'm saying? People generally tend to be lazy, guys. They tend to use natural lines of drift. And what natural line of drift really means is the easiest way to get from point A to point B. Is there any natural concealment there that's going to keep your camp hidden? Are you in a flood zone or a washout? And here's the thing, I have camped in washouts and I have camped in flood zones. It's not necessarily a no-go, but if you're camping in one, your ass better be paying attention to the weather forecast. Meaning that you need to have some kind of service there and you need to check it regularly. For a lot of people, I would just say don't even play with it, man. But I've done it. Like I said, I have a lot of experience with this. You just need to have your camp set up in a way where you can pack it up at a moment's notice and move it. Animal trails. Are there a lot of them that come in and out of your camp because people use animal trails, too. Consider the wind direction. And this kind of be difficult because you might pull into a camp that you're checking out and the wind's going one way when you get there and it's going a different way in the afternoon. But uh you need to think about that a bit because sound does carry with the wind and so do smells. And I'm going to tell you what, if you get to a point where you're living out in remote places for large large chunks of time, your olfactory senses get really good. You get to a point where you can smell so good. Man, when I was living that life, I avoided the laundry detergent aisle in the grocery store like the plague. I could not stand it. It was just so overpowering. Next, think about the approach more. What is the road quality like? Is it rutted out? Um, is there snow on the ground during the time of year that you're there? Is it muddy? Is it going to discourage other people from getting in there or is it going to offer easy access? How many different ways are there to approach your camp other than the road? Cuz there might be a road in and that same road out. Uh but like we talked, there might be game trails. There might be some hiking trail that gets right up on a little knoll like 100 yd from your camp. That's going to make you more visible, especially if that hiking trail sees a lot of traffic. Can't somebody walk into your camp without being seen? Is there a lot of concealment around? Are they just going to walk up on you suddenly? So, visibility is kind of a double-edged sword when it comes to living this kind of way because on one hand, let's say you're camped out in an open spot and there's a dirt road 150 yd away that gets maybe like a dozen vehicles going down it a day. There's not a lot of chance that one of those people is going to want to screw with your camp. It's just too visible. There's just a little bit too much traffic. But on the flip side, if you're in that same camp and you don't see anybody for 2 weeks, in the event that someone comes down that road, they know they probably know, especially if they're a local, that no one else is going to be down that road. Their chances of running into somebody out there while they're up to no good are slim to none. On the flip side, having a camp in a spot where there's not a lot of visibility for you means that your visibility is limited. So, now somebody might be able to walk right up on you and all of a sudden they're in your camp. So, is there anything out there that you can use to kind of funnel people a certain way? Because like I said, people follow lines of natural drift. So, downed tree branches, natural stuff, sometimes you can move it around and it'll encourage people to walk up to a portion of your camp where you're likely to be and maybe a place where you have a little bit better visibility.
Let's get into human behavior. There's really two kinds of people that you're going to tend to run into out in these super remote places. And one of those kinds of people is people like you and me. People that just want to get out there and enjoy God's creation and get away from everything else and just have a good time. And the second kind of person is the kind of people that are up to no good. And ask me how I know. I'll tell you I've run into all kinds of people at remote places that were up to no good. I've literally had my handgun in my hand driving past people right on the side of some remote dirt road who were armed and looked sketchy as hell. And I've had this happen plenty of times. Let's talk about people some more. So, seasonal population shifts is one of the things that you're going to see. For example, me and the wife were out filming for her channel, Watch Me Cook, and we were out camping in a pretty remote spot, a spot that's normally remote. But, on our way back home, it was the first day of deer season, man, it had just opened, so there was quite a bit of people out there. You might be out in this place that's been really remote, and you haven't seen anybody, and all of a sudden, because some date that Fish and Game has on its calendar, where, "Okay, it's the right time of year now to kill whatever animal." Boom, you see the population in that area increase all of a sudden. Or, it could be some mushroom that people are after. It could be people out there doing some treasure hunt for those caches that people hide all over the place. You want to think about drug activity corridors if you live in a place like that, or even corridors that illegals will move through. I know that's not such a big issue right now in the United States, but uh wait till we get our next blue president, and it'll probably be an issue again. And I know people that have run into people smuggling other people, and luckily, they were armed, but things could have gone a different direction, guys. So, it's something you have to think about. You need to think about illegal grow sites and transient camps is one of the big ones, man. I've run into transient camps in spots where you I just didn't see it happening. I mean, I like miles out, and again, turning a corner, and you got some sketchy pickup truck with like a just a tarp kind of tied off all half-assed against it, cuz someone's sleeping under this tarp next to the pickup truck. All this [ __ ] on the ground outside, and the dude is standing there with a shotgun on his tailgate. Again, looking hella sketchy. Another story, we had a transient about 3 miles from the ranch out here that uh had killed an eagle, was going to eat it, and his fire got out of control and caused a grass fire, which ended up burning up like 500 acres, man. And that's how I ended up hearing the whole story. My ass was hauling over there to see what was going on. I ran into some of the firefighters out here, which are great, and they told me the whole story about this guy. He skipped bail, and so he was wanted and trying to hide out. And trying to hide out in a remote place, so nobody finds him. Do you guys see where I'm going with this? Moving on.
Local culture can be an issue. Some places are friendly, and some places the people are hella territorial, man. They don't want you there, especially if your plates say California. Who actually owns the area that you're camping in? That's something to consider, and what is the vibe in the nearest town? So, even if you've already done your provisioning run in a place where they had better and more affordable supermarkets, when you get to that nearest town before you finally get off on that dirt road that you're going to ride for 30 miles or whatever, go talk to some of the locals, man. See how they are. If they're friendly, then you're probably not going to get a lot of flak from them for being out in their backyard. And if they're not, you might.
Light discipline, let's talk about that, cuz people forget about how visible light is when you're out in the wilderness, man. A lot of us live in big cities, you know, and you look out your window at night, and there's all these damn lights. But when you get out in a place like this, out here like where this ranch is, and you get these wide open areas, cuz I've seen it, dudes. I've seen people park a travel trailer like 2 miles down this way, and at night I can see them. I can see the lights from that travel trailer from my kitchen window. Lanterns glow through tent walls. Campfires can be visible from miles. Uh vehicle headlights. And you're not so likely to give away your location with vehicle lights at night, obviously, cuz you're not running your vehicle. Uh but you will see other people. It can kind of give you some advanced warning that someone's on the road. You'll see those headlights coming through the trees. Reflective gear equipment can also give away your location. Solar lights can give away your perimeter. A lot of people get out camping and they take those little solar lights and they're like sticking them all around camp so it looks all cool and [ __ ] Well, it's one more thing that's going to get you spotted that much sooner. You also need to consider how light kills your natural night vision. And another quick story, dudes. My wife, uh this is years and years ago. But I wanted to show her this. I wanted to uh to put it into practice for her so she could see what I was talking about. There was this super loud, noisy camp of people. We were out at Lake Shasta. But it was only our camp and their camp. And we had gone for a night walk. And so we're coming back and I was like, "Watch this." I [bell] walked right into their camp. Right into it. They had these bright lights over this ping pong table. And they're like playing ping pong and drinking and stuff. And blasting this music. I stood there for like 2 minutes. They did not see me. And so I just backed on out of camp again when I was done. So the same can be applied to you in reverse. If you're in your truck camper late at night out in some remote spot and you're just finishing up dinner, you got your lights on, and somebody knocks on your door, or you hear somebody outside, remember, your night vision is gone. Theirs is probably not.
Sound discipline. Generator [bell] noise, people will hear that for a long ways away. Inverter generators aren't as bad. That's definitely where I would go if I was going to run a generator out there, and that's what we did do. Uh but keep that in mind, and that noise will travel with the wind. Your dogs barking will give you away. It will travel on the wind. All of these sounds will travel on the wind. Uh metal on metal sounds, vehicle door slamming, um gunshots. Are you out there screwing around and just doing some plinking, stuff like that? That's fine if you're doing that, but know that people in the vicinity are going to know you're there now. Your voice. How far does your voice carry? Also, you got to think about echoes. There's certain places you can end up camping where echoing can definitely make the sound travel more. Uh it can also kind of disguise your location depending on how the echoes go. Uh but you're still letting people know that you're down there if they can hear you. Just remember that sound can be a beacon for things you don't want finding you when you're out in these remote spots.
Camp layout. Let's talk about that, dudes, because you want to consider where you sleep relative to the most likely approach that people would take to get into your camp, and you also want to consider where you cook. Really, what you want to do is you want to consider where you're going to spend most of your waking hours in camp versus possible approaches, because you want to be able to see those approaches. You don't want to be camping on the other side of your travel trailer from the approach, so you can't see the road that people could come in on, right? You don't want that, man, cuz they they could walk right up to the other side of the travel trailer, and you wouldn't even know they're there. Where do you store your food at? Where do you store your tools? Where do you store your weapons? Because you should be armed. Are there any trip hazards in camp? Because if there are, you want to get those out of your camp. What you want is if there's going to be any trip hazards around, you want those to be closer to your perimeter. Less blind spots is better, obviously, guys. You want to pay attention to where those might be.
Information security, let's talk about that because a lot of people forget this in its entirety. Let's say you come into that small town, the one right before you hit that dirt road and head 30 miles to where you where you're thinking you want to camp. Like I said, get in the town, talk to strangers, but you don't need to let them know how long you're staying there for. You don't need to let them know whether you're alone or not. You really don't want them to know that. You don't want to show them any expensive gear. You also don't want to post your location online in real time. My wife and I, we have one of those inReach's. And uh once upon a time, had a different YouTube channel about sailing. We were living on a sailboat on the hook, off-grid, you know me. Uh and we shared our location in real time when we were going on certain adventures only, and that was okay. We had a lot of fans in the area, and so we'd actually run into people sometimes, but not because they were tracking us. And we only shared it online with people on our Patreon. So, a little different there. Could still be a bit of a security leak. Uh just think about it if you're going to do something like that and you're a creator like me.
Vehicle security, let's talk about that one, guys. You always want to park in a way where you can pull your vehicle out rapidly, and where you can't, it's not going to be easy to box you in. Make sure you keep your keys on your body. Make sure you have plenty of fuel. As a matter of fact, you should fill up at the last place you stop before you head out on those dirt roads. If you're in camp and you go out hiking or hunting or fishing or something like that, when you come back in a camp, you obviously want to take a look around. Make sure that no one's tampered with any of your stuff. There's kind of a little trick that you can do here, guys, is you can you could use a like a broom if you want to. Those aren't ideal. Really a farmer's rake turned upside down so the tines are facing up is is what I use in a a lot of times like out here or on my property, but I don't bring one of those with me camping. So you can take a branch with leaves on it, a small one, cut it off the tree, and wipe any footprints. If it's dry out, wipe them away from the exterior of your trailer and your vehicle like in camp. And when you come back, take a look and see if anyone's walked through camp. You might see that some coyotes came in the camp to see if they could scrounge anything out of your fire pit. Just kind of a cool little trick to know. Make sure you have proper recovery gear with you and make sure you know how to use it, guys, because when you're way out there remote like that, man, especially if you're in a place where you got no cell service and let's say you don't have a CB or don't know how to use one, you could really be up [ __ ] creek really really really fast if you get your ass stuck out there.
Let's talk about wildlife. A lot of people don't think about this, but when you've lived it for 9 years, man, it becomes a whole different thing. And this is why I like having dogs. Dogs are an excellent security system. Uh they will alert to other people. Now, a lot of dogs won't alert if you're new to that camp. They don't really look at it like it's theirs. Uh some dogs will, man. Right when you get there, people come walking in the camp, they're going to alert. Uh my dogs usually take a few days plus. My brown dog is real quiet. Uh so he takes like a week. But yeah, dogs are great. Birds going silent. That's another indicator that something's going on out there. It might just be a predator, but it could be a person. Fresh scat or tracks near camp, you want to pay attention to that. Rodents and squirrels will chew on certain gear if you leave it out and they will ruin it, man. I've had this happen to me. I had squirrels ruin a nice tent and a canvas bag for a barbecue, uh the one that my wife had made. We had this little stainless steel barbecue off a sailboat that we put on the back of our truck camper and had a little canvas bag on it and I guess just enough grease had dripped out of the barbecue that it turned into a tasty squirrel treat. We also want to think about other predator behavior as well and I'm talking about the kind of predators that could be a threat to you. Is it that time of year where the bears are starting to wake up? Are you in brown bear country? Are you in a place where there's a lot of mountain lions? Out here on the ranch, there is a ton of mountain lions. We've actually had them come in here and make a den under one of the vehicles on the property. So uh something I I'm always paying attention to, man. If I'm out walking, I turn around pretty frequently and just I've got to have eyes in the back of my head.
Psychological preparedness is definitely a part of security, guys. You need to manage any fear that begins welling up. You know what I'm saying? Don't freak out. Just think about what you got to do and do something. Do something. This is [bell] one of the things I learned in Ranger School back when I was in the army and that was you're better off doing something than doing nothing. So do something. Nighttime paranoia is a real thing for a lot of people. Uh and I'll tell you what, if you are paranoid during the nighttime hours, it is because you are untrained to operating in the nighttime hours. So, fix that. Get trained. Complacency can be a big problem. That will make you sloppy. Overconfidence is going to make you stupid. Guys, you need to know when to leave. I can't tell you how many times we've rolled up on some camp that we really like. Whenever I'm on the road, I keep a map book of all the states, and I'll have notes in it like the great camp, okay camp, and other notes and like water, blah blah blah blah blah, whatever it's going to be. And uh we'll roll up on some place that we've been that season for like the last 3 years, and we'll just get a sketch moment. There will be some people nearby that are looking a bit sketchy, or whatever like that previous example with the pickup truck and the poncho and the dude with the freaking shotgun on the tailgate, man. That was one of those moments, and we were like, "We're out. We're just going to go camp someplace else." Make sure you have an exit strategy when it comes to dealing with some serious problems such as medical emergencies. Always make sure that if you have somebody with a specific problem, let's say someone has a bee allergy, make sure you have an EpiPen. Make sure you have specific medical kit along with the basic stuff. But, have a plan. If someone gets hurt really bad and you have to get out of there, have a plan. Have a plan for a vehicle breaking down. What are you going to do if you're out there by yourself and your battery dies and you don't have the means to jump it or charge it? Human threats, how are you going to deal with those if they come into your camp? Or if you have some locals that drive by and are screaming and cussing at you. Wildfires, have a plan. Flash floods, have a plan. Sudden weather shifts, have a plan, dudes, because there's a lot of places that are remote. And here's the thing about remote places, there's not a lot of people. Why? Do you want to know why? Because it's a place of extremes. That's why. So, you can be out in some spot in like May and think everything's golden and all of a sudden there's snow falling. You know what I mean? I've had it happen, dudes. Packed up and got my ass out of there before it got super gnarly bad. But again, pay attention to the weather. Make sure you know what the weather's going to look like. Redundancies, you want to make sure that if any of your important systems fail, you have a backup plan. Let's say backup comms, for example. You get a cell phone, you get out there, there's zero cell service for like the last 10 miles of your drive before you get to camp. You want to make sure you have a CB or a GMRS radio on you. Multiple redundancies when it comes to fire starting. Redundancies when it comes to navigation. If you're using some kind of GPS to get you in there, have a paper map as well, man. Um backups to shelter. What if you're out there and you and you're you have some something happens in the kitchen and you set your freaking truck camper on fire, man? And it's 10 degrees outside at night. Like, what are you going to do then, man? You better have some backup form of shelter. You guys get the idea. Redundancies for the 80/20 of the stuff you have with you. Remember, 20% of what we have with us is going to do 80% of the work. I think we're going to wrap it right there, dudes. This probably got way longer than I expected it to be, but I hope you got some good information out of it. Don't forget, it's always a conversation on this channel, so comments down below. Guys, please like it. Make sure you sub if you're new here. And uh check out my Patreon link in the description. We have an awesome signal group chat. It's like a support group for preppers and survivalists. It's great, filled with great dudes. And uh tons of info dumps on my Patreon as well. Also, there's YouTube memberships and I have those same info dumps on there. They just don't look like videos because you have to post them differently, so they're posts. But they're actually videos, dudes, like almost 60 of them. All right, I'm going to let you guys go, man. Take care. And remember, security is a big, big deal, man. It's going to be a big deal in SHTF, but it's certainly a big deal right now if you're out and about in remote places. So, that's it, guys. I'll let y'all go. I'll see you in the next one.