October 1, 2025

Photo: Fred Green

Part of the joy of hiking is finding new locations to explore and discover. If you’re an avid hiker, you might have already explored all the trails around your house and need a change of scenery. A small trip to a new location might be exactly what you need. Small islands are perfect for hikers because they allow you to escape the hustle of the real world and give you plenty of new trails to explore. They also offer different landscapes — some islands have volcanoes, others have lush fields, and others have rocky beaches. Whatever type of landscape you’re looking for, there is likely an island out there that has it!

If you want to switch up your hiking routine, travel to one of these islands for your next weekend trip.

Santa Cruz Island

Santa Cruz Island is part of the Channel Islands archipelago that is off the coast of California. This is the largest of the islands and the easiest one for hikers to get to. There are several trails for hikers to choose from, including flat trails and rugged paths. The shortest trails are less than a mile long, while the longest trail is 18 miles long. Hikers can also go off-trail, but they need to be mindful not to go over the boundary that leads into the Natural Conservatory property. Hikers that are looking to explore everything the island has to offer should book a campground in advance.

Anacapa

Anacapa is another island that is part of the Channel Islands. This island is composed of a series of islets that formed millions of years ago as a result of volcanic eruptions. This island is perfect for hikers that are looking for a day of hiking followed by an overnight camping trip. While the trails here are only two miles long and are relatively flat, hikers will get to experience beautiful coastlines and overlooks. Visitors must stay on the trails to protect the wildlife on the island. The island serves as a habitat for many types of breeding seabirds, including the California brown pelican, and the trails are in place to stop hikers from disturbing the nests.

Kaua’i

The state of Hawaii has several small islands that are perfect for hiking, but Kaua’i is the least commercially developed. This island is perfect for hikers that are looking for a trip that allows them to both hike and relax. Much of the island is covered in tropical rainforest and there are over 100 trails to explore. Hikers that are looking to lush greenery should explore the Kuilau Ridge Trail, while hikers wanting to explore undeveloped coastline should take the Maha’ulepu Heritage Coastal Trail. The tropical environment of the trails means that it is almost always a bit muddy on the trails. Hikers should also be prepared to encounter mosquitos.

Malta

Malta, an archipelago in the Mediterranean, is perfect for hikers that are looking for an adventure outside of the United States. There are a great variety of locations to hike at, from lush green fields full of flowers to barren fields full of sheep. Trails range in difficulty, but many will offer rugged terrain and secret caves to explore. The historical city of Valletta is ideal for hikers to stay at because of how easy it is to travel; according to Choice Holidays, the public transportation routes offered in Valletta connect the city to the rest of Malta. Hikers can also choose to travel to the nearby island of Gozo, which can be easily hiked in a day.

Saba

Another island for hikers that are looking to travel away from the states is Saba, a Caribbean island that is part of the Netherlands. The island has five distinct zones of vegetation, all with their own flora and fauna. The shortest trail on the island will take hikers to Flatrock, where they’ll find tide pools that are home to sea urchins and other types of sea critters. Other trails will take them to the summit of Mt. Scenery, the highest point on the island. There are a few camping locations throughout the island, but hikers can also choose to fly to the island from the airport in Sint Maarten, which is only 15 minutes from the island.

Final

Visiting a small island is a great way to change up your usual hiking routine. There are plenty of islands to visit off the shores of the United States, but for those that are looking to travel further away, a Mediterranean or Caribbean island might be of interest.

At the close of a successful 2019 RoSPA Health and Safety Awards, 20% of entries received were from international organisations… that’s more than ever before! From Mauritius to Hong Kong, our awards community continues to grow year after year.

Based at their head office in Shenzhen, China, we spoke to Huang Yuan Zheng, President of China General Nuclear Europe Energy (CGN EE), about their awards journey towards their first RoSPA Health and Safety Award...

What motivates you/your organisation to enter the RoSPA Awards?

RoSPA is an international organisation for the prevention of accidents, it is an honour for CGN EE to receive recognition from this institution.

What benefits does winning a RoSPA Award have for you/your organisation?

The Awards help us to demonstrate our commitment to excellent standards. In addition, it contributes to motivating our workforce to become better and better in that field. We are always looking for ways to improve our organisation.

Which innovative approaches, risk assessment practices and/or control measures to manage health and safety are you particularly proud of from your most recent RoSPA Awards submission?

At CGN EE we have adopted a range of tools which help us in many ways to standardise practices, be more efficient and communicate in advance upcoming dangerous weather conditions during maintenance work.

Five HSE tools have been acquired:

• Software managing all statutory checks of our assets and helps us to manage training, all safety equipment and HSE documents
• Software dedicated to regulatory analysis in all the countries where CGN EE is located
• Software for the HSE induction of our contractors
• A system for the forecast of lightning in order to keep our contractors informed about dangerous weather conditions
• HSE audit software.

What outcomes  have come from your organisation’s approach to health and safety management (e.g. fewer accidents, reduced absence/lost working days, greater feelings of staff wellbeing etc.)?

We are able to communicate and share a range of indicators via monthly SHE reports and as part of our management reviews. The indicators include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Status of the current construction sites
• Accidents and near-miss
• Incidents and hazards
• Safety observations
• Initiatives
• Training/inductions
• Current issues
• Environmental management
• Behavioural safety observations and performance
• Audits and inspections
• Safety actions required to be flagged.

What do you enjoy most about the RoSPA Awards process?

It takes time, effort and hard work to improve HSE within a company. CGN EE has always placed this field as a critical business operation on a day to day basis. This recognition confirms that we are working in the right direction since the beginning of our activities in 2014, but it is just the beginning…

What do you think entrants could do over the year to keep drafting an awards submission simple?

To keep drafting an awards submission simple, entrants should keep track and proof of the efficiency of their system throughout the year. They also need to think about continuous improvement and how to improve HSE performance.

What advice would you give to organisations considering entering the RoSPA Awards for the first time?

RoSPA Awards is a long term process, it reflects the effectiveness and commitment of an organisation in term of HSE. My advice is to focus on improving the HSE performance of your organisation and the Awards process will be naturally delivered to those who can demonstrate this efficiency.

How would you convince organisations not entering the RoSPA Awards to start entering?

RoSPA is a well-known organisation for the prevention of accident, it helps companies to improve their HSE performance based on the continuous improvement approach. Following RoSPA guidelines is a guarantee to work in the right direction for the management of HSE. In addition, the internal and external recognition achieved will be motivating for all interested parties.

Has your organisation got what it takes to achieve a RoSPA Award? Our internationally-renowned RoSPA Health and Safety Awards provides the perfect opportunity to globally benchmark your organisation. Click here to read how winning a RoSPA Award has benefited other organisations…

 

If I went out looking for bad guys for 8-10 hours a day every workday, I’d be carrying a high capacity autoloader too. And I’d be wearing a helmet.

A colleague of mine had the opportunity to give a short (15 minute) informal block of instruction to a friend of hers. Most firearms instruction in the US is informally done between friends or relatives.

Their session didn’t involve any live fire and was conducted in their office. It was simply a short briefing on basic safety rules, gun handling, and model specific instructions on how to operate her handgun.

An interesting comment came up in our discussion about the session. It’s worth keeping in mind any time we teach somebody something, whether the subject is firearms related or not.

I talked with her not at her.

When we teach an adult, it’s always worth remembering to approach it that way. Even if we are a Subject Matter Authority, the person is one of our peers and deserves to be treated respectfully. They should be treated like a client in an Adult-Adult relationship, not a grade school student in a Parent-Child relationship.

Mutual respect will garner the rapport necessary for the instruction to be effective and add value to the person’s life.

Practice your survival skills. Make a dinner only using your food preps, your “deep pantry” “long term food storage”, but WITHOUT ELECTRICITY…

Original source: Make A “Prepper Dinner” Once A Month

I have been promising you guys a sale on the air for over a week. I was going to do 15 bucks off your first year but I decided to do much better than that. Much better? You bet! Instead … Continue reading →

Screw the lone wolf attitude. Surviving in a disaster or SHTF event isn’t something that you should do alone. Check out this article to find out why…

You’re reading Surviving Disasters: Lone Wolf vs Wolfpack, originally posted at Graywolf Survival – Emergency preparedness from a Counterintelligence Agent by Graywolf.

We should all take a moment to appreciate that here in the US, most of us have access to clean drinking water. Not everyone is so fortunate. When I was growing up, we didn’t have city water. Occasionally the well would go dry, and we’d have to gather up some quarters and haul water from the water tower. Even when the well was dry, we could still get water easily. The upside of that was whenever there was a boil advisory, or zebra mussels invaded the water tower, it didn’t affect us.

By J. Bridger, contributing author to SHTFblog and Survival Cache

My hometown has great drinking water, and frequently places in the top 5 for tap water worldwide.  I bet you didn’t know there were world championships for tap water taste, did you? I am spoiled when it comes to drinking water. So, when Epic Water Filters sent me their new Nano Water Filter Pitcher ($59.95) and a 32 oz. Nalgene OG Filtration System ($34.95 with Nalgene bottle included!), I was really pumped. The tap water here in Las Vegas sucks. I don’t like buying plastic bottles, so I’m stuck drinking water that tastes like someone collected runoff from Bigfoot’s butt crack.

The Nano pitcher has a 3.5L capacity, and water trickles through its filter in 5-10 minutes. According to Epic Water Filters, it filters out all kinds of things – some I’d never even considered. Microorganisms don’t stand a chance. It removes 99.999% (Sometimes you get another 9 tacked onto the end of that, or “log 6” removal) of: Pseudomonas, Giardia, Cryptosporidium, E. coli, and Klebsiella. (See the full report of all contaminants the Nano removes here) If you haven’t heard of the 1993 Milwaukee Cryptosporidium outbreak, you should read about it. Over 400,000 people developed gastroenteritis-like symptoms due to drinking water contamination. The point is, bad water can and will happen in modern times. The Epic Water Filters Nano Pitcher also removes heavy metals, fluoride (not sure if that’s good or bad, depends who you ask I suppose), nearly 50 pesticides, herbicides, nearly 100 organic compounds, and pharmaceuticals. One interesting thing to note is the filter removes testosterone and progesterone. There are a lot of studies out there about exogenous hormones, and how they affect infants and children. Infants have very sensitive androgen receptors, and excess hormones can cause them to grow excess breast tissue (males too!). Children in the US are experiencing puberty earlier, and they think hormones in the environment could be why. Sounds like hippy shit, I know, but there’s a lot of compelling data out there (Check out “The sensitivity of the child to sex steroids: possible impact of exogenous estrogens” (by the University Department of Growth and Reproduction, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark). Bottom line is, this filter removes tons of things you don’t want in your water.  

Despite my hometown’s top tier tap water, its infrastructure is aging, and water line breaks are common. When the summer months come around, you can bet there will be issues. Often, there are boil advisories. Most of the time this is nothing more than a nuisance, but you never know. If there is a boil advisory, sometimes you may not know before you’ve guzzled your morning liter. If you’re sipping clean water from the Epic Water Filters Nano pitcher, you don’t have to worry. Filling this is much more convenient and efficient than boiling water and waiting for it to cool. Obviously, this won’t provide good water if it isn’t flowing, like when a 20” raw water main broke in 2014, and brought the entire county to a halt:  When this happened, restaurants closed, businesses lost money, gas stations jacked up the price of bottled water, and even the local hospital wasn’t able to provide water for their cooling system. Luckily there were no structure fires or grass fires, or the county could’ve had a huge problem. You should keep this in mind and have plans in place should you need to source water from somewhere other than your tap and purify it. This might be a swimming pool, rainwater collection system, or nearby reservoir. This was a stark reminder that the amenities we enjoy are artificial and fragile. No one was bringing bottled water to my door, but that was fine with me. We had a well. 

Also read: Survival Gear Review: Epic Water Filters The Answer Nalgene Filter

How does the water taste through the Epic Nano pitcher? A hell of a lot better than it did before it went through. It makes off putting Las Vegas water taste fresh and clean. One of my favorite features is the filter indicator. It shows you how much life is left in the filter (based on a 90-day estimate. It filters 150 gallons). One filter lasts two people 3-4 months. The last pitcher filter I had didn’t have this. You knew the filter needed to be changed when the water developed an acidic taste, almost like someone had put lemon juice in it. There is a flip top on the lid you can open with your thumb, so you don’t have to remove the entire lid. It’s a small detail, but one I appreciate. Taking into account how often boil advisories occurred back home, the lackluster drinking water here (mostly due to my refined palate, I’ll admit),  and my own paranoia, this pitcher is a home run. I’ll be purchasing a replacement filter when the time comes. You can even set it up to receive filters automatically. If that isn’t enough, it comes with a lifetime warranty and is made in the USA. Epic!

Portable Filtration, OG Style!

Epic Water Filters also makes a wide mouth Nalgene OG filtration bottle. These bottles hold 1 liter (about 32 ounces) and are nearly indestructible. The filter cartridges come in two flavors: the black-colored Urban (75-gallon life, comes standard with the Nalgene OG) and optional orange Outdoor (100-gallon life, also $27.95). Like the pitcher, the Epic Nalgene OG carries a lifetime warranty and is made in the USA.

I took the Epic Water Filters Nalgene OG with the orange Outdoor filter on a day hike in the Spring Mountains. Right away, its strengths were obvious. The flip-up mouthpiece in the OG’s lid doesn’t leak, but I’d still store it in your pack right side up. Because my hike was along a running stream, I didn’t have to carry any water. Water is the heaviest thing in my pack, so that was a huge plus. Whenever I got thirsty, I just scooped up some water, drank as much as I wanted, and dumped the rest. It was convenient and made the hike much more enjoyable. It takes some effort to get water out of the straw, but it’s not terrible. If a spring is shallow, it can be difficult to fill your bladder or bottle. You should consider this and pack a collapsible cup or something similar so you can scoop or suck water from the source to treat.

In my opinion, the best thing about the Epic Nalgene OG filter is how convenient it is. No boiling, no waiting, no chemical taste. Just scoop and go. It really shines when you are near a water source, like a stream or lake. If watering holes were a little more scarce, you would want to consider something with a higher capacity you could fill and transfer over to this bottle (though Epic Water Filters makes the Nalgene OG Grande with the larger 48 oz. bottle if you need more capacity) Don’t underestimate how much water you may need if you are working hard, or if it’s hot outside. I recently completed a 19-mile trail with about 6,000’ of elevation change. Elevation varied between 7,400’ and 10,400’. It wasn’t hot, but it was dry; I drank six liters of water between 7am and 7pm. There was only one spring and thank goodness it was flowing.

Listen! The Survival Cache Podcast – EDC

If you have a bugout location, you should study the route for water sources. If you live in a rural area and work away from home, you should study your route home. If water sources are abundant, this would be a great option for your bag or vehicle. Too many people are guilty of throwing a LifeStraw in their bug out bag and considering it an adequate treatment strategy. You need a way to carry water, and at least one back up treatment method. Pairing this bottle with a bladder and some tablets or drops would set you up well in the water department. If you EDC a backpack or messenger style bag and regularly carry a water bottle, you could use this bottle and stow the filter away for “just in case” scenarios. You could have clean water wherever you are, at a very tiny weight expense.

 The biggest drawback is lack of gravity flow. If you want to use filtered water to cook or wash, this won’t work. If you could squeeze water out of this bottle into a bladder or cooking pot, it would be perfect. Despite that, this filter and bottle combo has a place in my pack. The convenience and simplicity of the Epic Water Filters Nalgene OG filter make it a home run for any EDC, bug out bag, or hiking kit. 

 

This is a Guest Blog Post by Adam A. Lawrence

We
all know that if it can go wrong, it will go wrong. How would you make
effective decisions when your emergency plan falls apart around you?

Remember this acronym: OODA.

What is OODA?

OODA stands for Observe-Orient-Decide-Act.
The concept of the OODA Loop was created by United States Air Force Colonel
John Boyd. It is a decision making tool used to make effective decisions based
on the current circumstances of a given situation. The first step is to Observe
your surroundings and take into account the conditions around you. The second
step is to Orient yourself within these circumstances and understand how
they are or can affect you. The thirds step is to Determine the best course
of action to improve your current situation. Finally, the last step is to Act
on your current analysis. This process repeats until the crisis has passed.

            Like most tools that we have at our disposals, the benefits of the OODA Loop are best determined when put into action. So let us examine some real world examples of how I have applied it during emergencies.

Superstorm Sandy

In late October of 2012,
Superstorm Sandy slammed into the East Coast of the United States, killing 285
people and causing $68.7 billion in damages. I was living and working in the
path of the storm. Though I did not experience property damage due to the storm,
my home was without power for 13 days. I had filled my gas tank prior to
landfall, but after a week of commuting and navigating detours and traffic, I needed
gas. When I went out to fill up, I saw lines at the gas stations over a mile
long and witnessed fistfights as restrictions were put in place, and stations
were selling out.

            I had to decide what to do. Observe – I saw the long lines and fights at the stations at
every local gas stations. Orient
– I had a quarter tank left, and all local stations were plagued by these problems.
My state has very strict self-defense laws, and I didn’t have anything to get
myself out of a violent situation, if it occurred. Determine – I had family who lived about 30 miles south, in
an area that had not been as damaged. With my level of gasoline and the hazards
of waiting in line in my current area, I decided that my best course of action
was to drive south. Act – I
drove south, found a gas station with a line that was only ¼ mile long and
filled up.

Winter Storms

            In 2017, I moved closer to family members. Since then,
there have been many winter storms and sub-zero temperature dips. During these,
family members have lost power and my old furnace stopped working. No power and
no heat can be dangerous in mild weather, let alone during extreme conditions.

            Observe – My family and I would monitor weather forecasts and expected conditions. Orient – My home is the only home that has a wood burning fireplace. Additionally, we have a stock of firewood. Determine – We decided that as homes lost power and heat, everyone would come to me. The fireplace would be unaffected by a power loss. Act – Family members would pack overnight bags to have ready if they had to move out.

Severe Windstorm

In July, my town
experienced a severe windstorm. I was on the road at the time, and could feel
my vehicle shaking against the gusts. Hanging traffic lights were held
horizontal as the sustained winds tore by. When I arrived home, I found a large
portion of one of our two chestnut trees had ripped free and had narrowly
missed my home. Though this is a small-scale emergency, I applied the OODA
Loop.

            Observe – I looked at the damage that the tree had caused. Luckily, it had missed the incoming power line. Additionally, the winds were still blowing strong. Orient – I quickly realized I had parked under the second chestnut tree. Tree branches were blowing close to the power lines and power lost could occur at any minute. Determine – I needed to move my vehicle, get inside to avoid falling and flying debris and preemptively retrieve my blackout kit. Act – I moved my vehicle to an area free of trees and went inside to avoid debris and retrieved my blackout kit.

Most emergencies that we
experience in our lives are not widespread. The ones close to home are the ones
we need to deal with the most. There are benefits in preparing for the worst
however, and the tools to help prepare for large-scale disasters should be able
to be applied to our everyday crises as well. The OODA Loop is just like any
tool. We should know how to use it, we should practice it and it should be able
to be applied to most situations. There is also the benefit that knowledge
weighs nothing and knowing how to make decisions effectively can be the
difference between surviving and thriving.

Adam A. Lawrence is an author, web content writer in the fields of emergency management and emergency preparedness and private sector security and safety professional with over 10 years of experience. Visit his Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/adamalawrencewriter/ for more information.

The post Making Decisions Under Stress: The OODA Loop appeared first on WillowHavenOutdoor Survival Skills.

Virginia Bill SB64 States that a person is guilty of a Felony if that person Teaches or demonstrates to any other person the use, application, or making of any firearm, explosive, or incendiary device, or technique capable of causing injury or death to persons. This doesn’t just apply to firearms, but your martial arts as […]

The post Virginia Bill Outlaws Firearm Training! Want To Start The BlG lGLOO!? Because This is How You Start It! appeared first on Tactical Sh*t.