There was a friend of mine at work who was a Survivalist and is now a Prepper. We were talking one day about a societal collapse scenario. He told me he was preparing to go into the mountains with his wife and 11 year old daughter to wait out the turmoil. I told him I am sorry to hear about your impending death. He was shocked. He asked why do you say that? My response is most survivalist and their families will die with the bug out theory.

My logic for this is simple. A case study for just two counties in the front range of the Rockies. Pueblo and El Paso counties have nearly 1.4 million people. Lets say that 5% of the people in these 2 counties head off to the mountains to wait out the political storm. That is around 70,000 people going into a fragile ecosystem that cannot sustain them.

The most effective food packs I know of are MRE’s they weigh just over 1 pound each. Going into the mountain carrying enough food for a month would be 120 packs. That is nearly 130 lbs per person. How far do you think an 11 year old girl will get carrying 130 lbs of food and her bed roll clothing, a days worth of water, and other necessary items to survive? As an Infantry Veteran I carried a 60 lbs Ruck Sack; I remember being exhausted at the end of a five mile hike.

Now lets say for the sake of argument you had a bug-out location fully stocked for a month for your family. You only needed to get to it. Most survivalist have an area in the mountains scouted out but no long term supplies waiting. You have been there for 3 weeks. Your stocks are getting low. The provider decides to go out and hunt for small game to stretch the food supply. As a well prepared survivalist you are in a good position. What about the people that just headed out with a tent and a box of MRE’s. They will be there in the woods looking for any kind of food. They will most likely be well armed. You as the provider get a gift from God of a squirrel that has avoided the other 70,000 hunter for nearly a month. You shoot it and start heading home with your prize.

Most riffle reports can be heard for nearly a mile in the woods. Someone with in that 2 mile circle who is hungry and has a hungry family will have very few inhibitions about taking your catch. They may be polite and ask you to give it to them usually at gun point or they may just shoot you and take your catch and anything else that is of value. Tired, hungry, stressed out people do not always think of the long term implications of their actions. Now it is a reenactment of the wild west or worse yet the Donner Party. This new provider with his ill gotten gain may also run into someone who needs food for their family.

This is why I believe the majority of the survivalist will not live through the turmoil. Lone Wolves are usually in the front of the line to die quickly. The above scenario does not include the group of people that die of natural causes or by their own stupidity and lack of preparation.

To be honest there are a group of survivors that will make it through the turmoil. These are very well trained and hardened men and women. In Colorado there is a group of people called Mountain Men. These men and women get together for a month at a time and live totally off grid with available technology from the mid 1800’s. This group would stand a great chance in the mountains. First and foremost they band together as a community and help each other. And they are pretty hardy people.

I prefer to think of myself and people like me as those who will thrive in a Grid down, societal collapse scenario. We are community based. There are a group of us that will bunker down in our neighborhoods and take care of ourselves. We all have different skills that will be necessary during the crisis and more necessary after the crisis has subsided.

A friend of my father was in the German Army during WWII. He was picked up by a recruiting truck. They get 10 – 15 recruits per mile in the cities. He was too young to volunteer, but old enough to be drafted. After the war there were shortages of everything. Food, clothing, fuel, basic necessities of life were is short supply. Anyone who had resources could trade them for pretty much what ever they wanted at the price they wanted. City people were trading high end jewelry for a few days worth of food in the farms that had survived. He told me a story of how his family had somehow gotten a 10 pound tin of bacon. He would take three sliced of bacon and trade it for a days worth of food at the market. Mostly the black market.

This story was echoed by many other people in different countries that had suffered economic collapse or the ravages of war. Paper money is good for starting fires and insulating the bottom of your shoes. As a trading commodity it is worthless. Precious metals will always be of value. But as the old Chinese proverb say “Gold is curious, you cannot eat it and you cannot eat without it” How much gold you need to eat will be the question. If a farmer has enough food to trade they can set the price for it. Hungry people are in a bad negotiation position. The smart farmer will have protection; because they have valuable commodities.

So the best strategy I can think of is to be a person who has a necessary service or commodity. Computer programmers and cable TV installers are not going to be in high demand for quite sometime after the crisis is resolved. Farmers, and people who can create or fix necessary items are going to be in a huge demand and they will be able to charge what the market will bare. My suggestion is to have a low tech skill, a garden, learn to can foods during the summer months and have at least 6 months of food and a few good gravity fed water filters in your home.

Here is a list of some skills I have determined will be in great demand during and after the crisis:

• Spinning of fiber
• Weaving
• Knitting
• Sewing
• Canning & Preserving of food
• Making of beer & wine (People need t relax after a weeks worth of hard work)
• Construction
• Blacksmiths
• Security
• Gun Smithing
• etc…

  This is a quick list. There are many more that can be added to the list. It depends on the area you are in and what is necessary for you and your community. Remember you need 5 things to survive: Oxygen, Water, Food, Clothing, & Shelter. If you can provide any of these to people you will be in a great position both during and after a crisis.