Training Hike: Hide site and Dakota fire pit

The planets aligned and I saw an opportunity to get out and do some training this weekend so I took it. Not wanting to waste the opportunity, I decided to organize it around a few objectives in order to get the most from it. They were:

• Conduct a hike in full kit. This is to continue familiarizing myself with my gear and how it fits as well as the obvious PT benefit.
• Patrol in and scout a location for a low profile shelter, or hide site.
• Camouflage the shelter utilizing materials I brought with as well as local vegetation
• Construct a Dakota fire pit with an emphasis on keeping as low a profile as possible.
• Practice identifying as many useful plants and resources in the area as possible.

I arrived at the training area and the first thing I did was conduct my own pre-combat inspection on my gear. I checked to make sure everything was tight, zipped, buckled, etc. I checked to make sure all the extra webbing was rolled up. I inspected my weapon stem to stern to make sure everything was tight, the turrets were zeroed, magnification set at 1. I also checked my line 1 gear to make sure it was all there and secure.

I then put my gear on and did a “jump test” to make sure nothing was rattling or banging. At this point I loaded my rifle and did a brass check.

I was in a new training area and since I didn’t have a map I decided I would self map and keep P.A.U.L. notes as I worked my way in. I love being able to create my own maps anywhere I am and this is a skill I teach at The Fieldcraft Course.

There’s a dirt road running up the valley in the direction I was wanting to go so I decided to handrail it.

As soon as I went to take my first azimuth I noticed something I forgot to check on my PCI – the magnetic declination setting on my compass. I dialed it back to 0, where it should be when you’re self mapping.

I proceeded along, handrailing the road, moving from cover to cover and taking notes along the way. I was happy to find many resources as I went.

I found many varieties of berries ready to be picked including Raspberries, Saskatoons, Currants and Choke Cherries.

Saskatoons

Currants

Raspberries

I also came across Salsify, Yarrow Coneflower, and Bee Balm, all edible. Yarrow was the original quick-clot, used for centuries to stop battlefield bleeding. Combined with the anti-bacterial properties of the Usnea lichen that grows prolifically in the area it’s a good combination if you get hurt or sick.

Yarrow

Usnea lichen

I also came across many heavily used deer trails and bedding areas as well as elk scat. I added all this information to my notes.

After moving about 1000 meters there was a smaller draw feeding into the valley, and I decided to move further into it to see if there was anywhere suitable to use. I was using the same criteria you would use when selecting a patrol base or hide site to pick a location for my shelter. These are:

• Avoid built up areas
• Avoid natural lines of drift
• Avoid known or suspected positions
• Avoid ridge lines, topographic crests, valleys, lakes, and streams
• Avoid roads and trails
• Avoid open woods and clearings
• Select areas that offer dense vegetation, preferably with bushes and trees that spread out close to the ground.

I spotted an area on the left side of the draw. It had good overhead concealment as well as lots of low brush growing amongst the trees. I decided to head towards this area and check it out.

I didn’t cut a bee line for the trees though, I decided to employ an anti-tracking technique called a button hook, or J-hook, and circle around to the back of the trees and enter from there. This would place my tracks on a path running directly in front of these trees and across the open bottom of the draw, placing anyone, or anything, that might want to follow me in an exposed and very bad position.

When I got to the trees I liked what I saw as far as concealment, but they were on a very steep slope. This wasn’t necessarily bad, but I was hoping for something a bit more level so I looked around some more.

On the other side of the draw about 100 meters away there was another cluster of trees and it looked a bit more level so I went over there.

This spot was more suitable and I decided to set up shop there. I dropped my pack and conducted SLLS for about 5 minutes while I inspected my gear to make sure everything made the trip (I won’t lie, I enjoyed the break to catch my breath too). I then did a quick scout 25-50 meters around the site to identify LP/OP positions, alternate defensive positions and a rally point. If I were working with a team these would all be important parts of our security plan.

I also took this time to study the terrain around me using OCOKA. OCOKA is an acronym for military aspects of terrain and it stands for:

• O – Observation and fields of fire
• C – Cover and concealment
• O – Obstacles
• K – Key Terrain
• A – Avenues of approach

I identified two LP/OP positions, one on either side of my current position. These were each about 50’ away from the hide. This ensures everyone is still in visual of each other and all three spots can be connected via pull line. These OP’s ended up creating an L shape with my hide site, with the opening of the L facing down the draw on my back trail. Not a good place to be..

The crater left from the root ball of a large tree after it blew over would make a good spot for one of my OP’s

The view from my hide site looking down on my button hook. Note the large logs directly to my front providing decent cover and concealment. The range to my old tracks was about 225 meters.

My alternate position (red) and rally point (green). The alternate position was directly behind my hide, about 25 meters, that way it could cover the same sector of fire. The rally point was about 120 meters behind the hide and was in a cluster of downed trees.

With my security plan in place, my next priority was to setup my hide itself. It consisted of a group of three large pine trees in a triangle, about 10-20 feet on each side. There were multiple smaller pine trees in the middle of these trees and lots of brush close to the ground. Facing down the draw were multiple large downed trees.

The view from the left side OP towards the hide.

I picked the side opposite the draw and cleared out any large branches from the ground so I could start setting up my shelter. When you’re setting up a low profile shelter you want to keep the following acronym in mind – BLISS.

• B – Blend in – we want our shelter and materials to blend in to the environment we are in. Shadows can make or break our concealment. We want to stay in the shadows as well as avoid creating our own. Ideally we want to select a location that is in shadow all day long. As the sun moves so do the shadows, so we have to take that into consideration.
• L – Low silhouette – We want our shelter to be as close to the ground as possible. We want to make sure we are picking a location that doesn’t expose us, such as a hill top or the bottom of a valley. If on a ridge or hill, try to pick a location about 1/3 down from the top.
• I – Irregular shape – Humans can easily identify regular shapes. Remember there are no straight lines in nature.
• S – Size – We only want our shelter to be as large as necessary
• S – Secluded location – We want to select a location that is off the beaten path, as well as away from natural lines of drift.

I started by setting up my rapid deploy ridgeline about knee high. Then I strung up the tarp. I cover this technique in The Fieldcraft Course as well. The tarp I’m using is a BCO MEST and I’m really impressed with it. It’s very lightweight and durable. It’s also made in the US with IR mitigating materials.

By utilizing a toggle and slip knots, the ridgeline can be setup in minutes and taken down even quicker without having to undo knots.

While this was a good start, I still had more work to do. My tarp blends in good, has a low silhouette and is in the shadows, but the flat top was definitely needing to be broken up.

I had a technique I wanted to test. I took a section of fish net that was a little longer than my tarp and had multiple 550 tie outs to tie vegetation to. I laid this out and hooked the ends over the toggles that my tarp was attached to. This really didn’t do much to break up the outline itself, but it gave an excellent base to attach vegetation to.

I then went to some small pine trees that were located away from my hide and cut off about 20 small branches. I attached these to the 550 tie outs and tucked them into the netting.

Hide from about 25M, how did I do?

The last task for the day was to build a Dakota fire pit. This is a good method if you need a small fire. I want to emphasize that having a fire in a non-permissive environment, especially a wood fire, is only to be done when absolutely necessary. Some situations might be to disinfect water, avoid hypothermia or to cook an animal to avoid starvation.

Because of the risk associated with a fire giving away my position I chose to build it away from my hide at the original location I checked out. There were many small trees there with branches low to the ground, this would help dissipate any smoke and provide good concealment. This would also help keep any smells from cooking away from the main hide site and hopefully this would keep animals away.

I selected a small area with good overhead cover in the middle of the trees and marked out my fire pit. A Dakota fire pit consists of a main fire pit with an air shaft coming in at an angle to feed air to the fire. Fire requires three things in proper balance to burn correctly: heat, fuel and oxygen. If this balance is off, the fire will be very smoky and inefficient.

Fire pit and air shaft. The fire pit is about 1’ in diameter, the air shaft is a little bigger than my fist tapering down to about 2”. This is so that I can fit my hand inside to remove dirt as I’m digging.

After I laid out my holes I took my poncho off my 3A gear and laid it out next to the hole. This was to pile dirt onto. A heavy garbage bag would work good for this too. This keeps the area cleaner, avoiding making any more spoor than possible, and also makes it much quicker to fill the hole back in later.

I pulled out my titanium Russian spade and got to digging. It took me about 20 minutes to get the main pit dug to about 16” deep.

I then found a couple branches to use to dig the air shaft. I used my hand to clean out the dirt and put it onto my poncho as I went. This took about another 20 minutes.

I finally broke through and cleaned out the air shaft and pit. I then gathered up some dry pine needles and a handful of twigs and sticks.

Because the Dakota fire pit is so efficient, you don’t need anything bigger than thumb sized sticks for fuel. I lit a handful of pine needles with my Bic and put them into the pit, then piled a handful of twigs on.

The fire burned very well, with almost no smoke at all. It produced a very good flame with such a small amount of fuel. As the fire burned down it started to produce more smoke as it was running out of fuel. At this point I took a couple handfuls of dirt and threw them on the burning twigs to extinguish the remaining flame and cut out the smoke.

I poured a bottle of water on this and stirred it around to ensure there were no big embers left, then dumped the rest of the dirt back into the holes. I tamped them a little with my foot then used a small branch to wipe out the prints. I added a layer of dead grass, pine needles and sticks over the top of this to obscure the work I did.

AAR

Maintain

• Gear fit pretty good together and wasn’t too cumbersome to carry, this is no doubt due to keeping pack list light as well as consistent effort in strength training.
• Fish net for shelter worked very good for attaching vegetation.
• Continue learning about useful plants
• Continue studying tracking and counter-tracking techniques

Improve

• Need to improve cardio for climbing hills, I got more winded than I’d like as I was working my way up the draw. I’ll be incorporating cardio between strength training days
• Practice working quieter. Multiple times I clanged equipment together, especially the ITW buckles on my pack lid when it was open. Slow down and be mindful of sound.
• Find a way to fix spade head to handle better. It came loose while I was digging.
• Tape sling adjustment buckle, it would occasionally bang against my radio handset if I had the sling adjusted out all the way.