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" Night is falling, and we&amp;#039;re lost. Somewhere in the canyon lands of southern Utah, I&amp;#039;m trudging across a seemingly endless sagebrush plain, and the twilight gloom is thick. My group of 14 hikers has been on the trail for 5 hours, and our delight at the majesty of the red rock landscape has long since given way to grumbling about hunger and sore feet. As the first stars start to twinkle, the question arises, &amp;quot;Okay, now what?&amp;quot; We stop. &amp;quot;Here&amp;#039;s the scenario,&amp;quot; says Jesse Turnidge, our lead guide. &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;ve driven out to the canyon for a day hike, gotten lost, and now you can&amp;#039;t find your car. Decide what to do.&amp;quot; Hmm. We have no water, no flashlights, no food, no shelter, no way to make fire and few extra clothes. And now it&amp;#039;s pitch dark. Reluctantly, we realize that the only thing to do is lie down where we&amp;#039;re standing and try to sleep. The ground is hard; the August night air is cold. I shut my eyes, then open them. It&amp;#039;s getting colder. My stomach twists in hunger. From out of the blackness comes a voice of reason in the wilderness. It says, &amp;quot;This sucks.&amp;quot; Experts claim that the most critical period for survival in the outdoors is the first 72 hours. &amp;quot;Within that time, most people are found,&amp;quot; says Turnidge, a head instructor at the Boulder Outdoor Survival School (BOSS) in Boulder, Utah. &amp;quot;Whether they&amp;#039;re found dead or alive is totally dependent on their preparation and state of mind.&amp;quot; That&amp;#039;s why I&amp;#039;m here, taking part in BOSS&amp;#039;s 72-hour Survival Rescue course. But with 67 hours to go, things aren&amp;#039;t looking good. My teeth chatter. I sleep, wake up, fall asleep again. With agonizing slowness, the constellations creep across the desert sky. I wonder if I&amp;#039;m going to go nuts and, if so, what that will entail. Dawn finally comes: I&amp;#039;m still alive. The instructors, three affable guys in their 20s, suggest we hike up the canyon to look for water. About 200 yards in we find a &amp;quot;tank&amp;quot; where rainwater has collected in a depression in the slickrock; bugs dance over the scummy yellow surface. As we strain the water through handkerchiefs into plastic bottles, I realize that at times like this, a vivid imagination is a terrible curse. Now that water has been found, what to do next? The instructors aren&amp;#039;t providing much guidance. We&amp;#039;re supposed to get into the \u00ADsurvival mind-set, and that means making decisions for ourselves. The group hunkers down to powwow, and it&amp;#039;s just like jury duty: One-third wants to do one thing, one-third wants to do the opposite, and everyone else just wants to vote with the majority and get it over with. Finally, we decide to hike to the mouth of the canyon and set up a campsite. Our guides improve upon the previous night&amp;#039;s sleeping conditions by handing out lightweight Mylar emergency blankets and then showing us how to rig them into lean-tos. That afternoon, Turnidge demonstrates a half-dozen ways to build a fire, including using a bow and two sticks. I quickly come to the conclusion that unless you have a graduate degree in Neolithic studies, you&amp;#039;ll die before you figure out how to make fire using sticks. Carry waterproof matches. The upshot is that unlike the night before, we have shelter and a fire to stand around, which is incredibly cheering. Warmed by its glow, we begin to swap tales. One guy reveals that last night he was so hungry he ate his lip balm--raspberry green tea flavor. It sounds incredibly delicious. On day three, we spend most of our time sitting around the campsite--a boring but strategically correct choice (conserve energy when there&amp;#039;s no productive outlet). Hunger is starting to get the better of us, so with the temperature above 90 degrees, we sprawl, half asleep, in whatever shade we can find. We idly chat about our lives on the &amp;quot;outside&amp;quot; and learn that one guy&amp;#039;s a farmer, another works in IT. There are a couple of law enforcement officers, two students, a bank officer. Sort of like one of those war movies about a ragtag band of GIs. There&amp;#039;s even a wisecracking city boy from Brooklyn. As I walk to the water tank to refill my bottle, my legs feel weak, and I wonder if I can make the distance without falling down. At this stage, I should be sticking as close as possible to my resources. Back at camp, the instructors teach us a bunch of merit-badge-type skills, like signaling with mirrors and making cordage from strips of bark. Guide Troy Julian offers his take-away: &amp;quot;This course is like a vaccination. You&amp;#039;re getting a sense of what it&amp;#039;s like to be in a life-threatening situation, so that when you actually are, you&amp;#039;ll be able to do what you need to.&amp;quot; I would add to that: When things head south, don&amp;#039;t panic. You can go without food and water for longer than you think--in this environment, perhaps a week without water and a month without food. In the predawn of day four, I&amp;#039;m lying on a scratchy bed of dry leaves, thinking &amp;quot;damn, I&amp;#039;m uncomfortable,&amp;quot; for the thousandth time, when Turnidge shouts: &amp;quot;Good morning!&amp;quot; I jump up with everyone else and start breaking camp.  By sunrise we&amp;#039;re on the trail, and the red rock cliffs look like a painting in the low-slanting, golden light. Two hours later we see the BOSS van by the side of a paved road. We&amp;#039;ve made it. The guides give us each an orange. I eat half of mine and feel nauseatingly full. On the ride into town, I marvel at the comfort of my padded seat. And that evening, back in Provo, I eat a large pizza, shower and climb into a bed that, though just an ordinary bed in a motel room, feels like it&amp;#039;s equipped with a million massaging fingers. If learning how not to die is the main benefit of survival school, here&amp;#039;s another lesson I&amp;#039;m loving just as much--knowing how to appreciate the sweet pleasures of civilization.     4 Survival Necessities 1. Water  Look for water in rock depressions if there aren&amp;#039;t any streams or ponds. Then filter it through a handkerchief to get rid of bugs. This won&amp;#039;t purify the water, but in an emergency, hydration is the priority. 2. Shelter  Rigged into a lean-to, a pocket-size, 2-ounce Mylar blanket can save you from exposure. Be sure to lay down an insulating bed of leaves or pine boughs to reduce the loss of body heat when you&amp;#039;re at rest. 3. Fire  The bow-drill method of fire starting takes many hours (and a patient teacher) to master. Better to remember these three simple rules: carry matches; carry matches; carry matches. 4. Energy  In a survival setting you need to conserve energy, so being lazy could be a lifesaver (for once). That includes staying close to your essentials--shelter, water and fuel.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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