[Prepadoodle]

The best way to survive an encounter is to avoid it in the first place. In a remote wilderness-type environment, it might be worthwhile to find ways to steer or "nudge" people away without them even knowing it's happening.

I would start by taking a good look at a topo map of the site to identify obvious avenues of approach, then walk the property to confirm what I learned. Most people would be using roads, man-made trails, and game trails.

There isn't a lot you can do about roads except to make sure your shelter isn't easily visible from the road. This could mean planting some fast growing tress or shrubs to obscure lines of sight or using multiple ways in to avoid making an obvious trail, to name just 2 examples.

You could try to block the smaller trails with, for example, coils of razor wire, but that would just let everyone know that there is something in the area that is valuable enough to try to protect. Not a great plan, in my opinion.

But you CAN (and maybe should) find the thorniest, nastiest plants you can find, propagate them, then plant them in natural-looking groups designed to gently nudge people in a slightly different direction. If you just plant them across an obvious trail, people might tend to charge though them anyway, but planted at an angle to the trail, most would tend to turn a few degrees in order to walk around.

The farther from your shelter you nudge them, the better. Nudge them a few degrees a mile away and they will walk right by and never even know you're there.

 

[Montana Rancher]

I've been hunting big game in the middle of the Rocky Mountains for my whole life, so using that knowledge here are my thoughts.

1. To sleep find the nasty dead-fall-over-your-ass area to bed down. Most people hate to bend over or climb over vegetation so usually that one spot will make you invisible. Plus in those areas IF someone decides to come in, you will hear them before they see you.

2. While traveling don't walk on roads, ridges, rivers or ravines, stay in cover and move really slow (about 3-5 steps per minute). Walk around clearings, cross roads in culverts or under bridges and travel at night.

3. To avoid being seen, don't move. I can't tell you the number of hunters that have walked past me in broad daylight within 40 yards and didn't know I was there, and I was wearing blaze orange! On the same note I've had elk within 20 yards of me and didn't know I was there (still in blaze orange), of course they ran to me not the other way around.

So my suggestion isn't to divert people around you, I suggest being where the don't want to go.

 

[Southern Dad]

One thing to keep in mind is your utility lines and right of ways. They leave a clear path to tell everyone where to look for your location. I suggest underground utilities.

 

[Prepadoodle]

Montana, your observations are spot on for those on the move.

Nudging people like I suggested is for a static location, like a BOL shelter which would probably be off grid and in a remote location. Since such a location will probably have some garden areas and whatever, it's worth trying to gently steer people clear of the general area, and all the better if they don't know they're being steered.

 

[Montana Rancher]

My 12 hour after the SHtF plans are to take my impressive tractor (see my sig) and drop thousand pound boulders on the 2 county roads that access my neighborhood.

2. Dig a slit trench for bodies and trash

3. Contact my neighbors and work out a contact plan.

My plan isn't to decoy or divert, itis to just make it easier for them to keep moving past me. In essence tour plan but less tact and planting

Hehe

 

[roy]

Clearcut and blackberry vines are the hardest stuff to get through. When you hide find the most miserable crap you can find and get in the middle of it. In the woods you basically disappear when you get down. Take a knee, sit down, lay down. If it is serious don't move during the day. Take lots of listening breaks when you are moving. No lights at night. Moving at night is very, very slow.

 

[PaulS]

Moving at night, in the woods, is stupid!
Anyone who has done any backpacking knows that once the sun goes down you just don't move without some kind of light. You can get lost in 30 seconds, you can fall over a bank and injure yourself in 1/2 a second, you can trip and cripple yourself in no time at all.

If it's not cloudy, you have a moon, and the forest is not grown over so as to cut out all light from the heavens then you might be able to see but without that - it is DARK! Your eyes do not see well in that absence of light and you will get hurt. It might just be a bruised eye from walking into a branch but if you try to travel in the dark you are an idiot.

 

[Montana Rancher]

Hey Pauls, no disrespect but you are 80% wrong, moving at night is a perfectly good option. Even without modern night vision technology people's and army's have been doing this for thousands of years.

There are so many examples of forces attacking at dawn (I.e. getting into position at night) that it can't be calculated

 

[PaulS]

I hear what your saying but I also know from my own experience that, at least in the forests in the Pacific Northwest, that it is so dark that you could walk into a tree and never see it.
I have been backpacking since I was 10 years old... that would be 50 plus years, and even after sleeping a few hours (eyes as adjusted as they can get) you had to feel your way to the camp "privy" because you couldn't see anything. Where you are it might be different but in the rain forest on the Olympic Pennisula it is dark at noon in some spots. Add to that cloud cover and mist and you can see what I am saying. Kind of like walking in a blizzard..... Stupid!

 

[csi-tech]

If you watch old white tail bucks you will absolutely learn how to avoid detection. Bedding down in thick briar patches, moving only at night, as people approach circle around behind them and let them pass, use other people as guinea pigs letting them make the mistakes and stepping out into the open first, Stay away from common areas and watering holes and hide in plain sight. Oh and if you want to be better than a deer get neutered. Love is the only thing I know that can get one into your gunsight.

 

[roy]

Moving at night is a learned skill. Folks have been doin' it for generations. Google Green Mountain Boys, Roger's Rangers, Francis Marion.

 

[Southern Dad]

I wish the cadre at the US Army Ranger School had believed that fairy tale about moving through woods at night. We moved through the woods quite well without the aid of any type of lights, night vision or anything else. The really foolish lit cigarettes. The next thing they heard was their MILES gear going off.

 

[roy]

No shit. "Saw" lots of Georgia, New Mexico and Florida at night.

 

[Seneca]

I think that desperate people will go into the briars will go around the boulder in the road. They will not leave a stone unturned. They will look everywhere. Eventually they will find you. Once they do find you and they will, will you be able to deter them?

A fawn is born with spots (natures camoflage), so it can hide from predators. Once it is able to fend for itself the spots disappear. What I'm saying is you can employ subterfuge (trickery) and nudge for only so long and then you'd better have a solid plan B...lol

 

[Montana Rancher]

Obviously nobody thinks a single plan will solve every problem, defenses work only in layers and they never are intended to guarantee safety, they only slow down the foe so you have time to react.

 

[Seneca]

Subtle things that nudge I'd agree with, as well as the notion that all you can really do is delay the enevitable, yet something that says this road is blocked to keep you from coming up here. Invites the kind of trouble you wouldn't want..it's like ringing the dinner bell for the truely dangerous predators. It simply signals to them that you have something they want...thats all it does.

 

[Prepadoodle]

Roads and driveways leading to your house are hard to camouflage, unless you come up with some kind of Bat Cave-type thingie, which is probably impractical. Blocking the road with a boulder won't stop everyone, but that's ok. Those desperate and determined few who manage to bypass the boulder have shown themselves to be desperate and determined: you have gained valuable intel on them.

In an environment where any encounter could turn deadly in the blink of an eye, preventing even half of them is well worth the effort.

Here are a few more hairbrained ideas based on the old "carrot and stick" approach...

Stick 1: Put up a sign that says, "Danger, Minefield," then dig a crater past the sign. Put half a fake leg, some shredded burnt clothing, and maybe some other bones nearby.

Stick 2: Put up a sign that says, "Trespassers will be shot," then hang a few fake skeletons in the nearby trees. Dress them in bloody clothing and hang a "trespasser" sign around their necks. You can get a realistic skull at Amazon for like $30, put a bullet hole in it and place it within viewing distance of the sign.

Stick 3: Put up a sign that says, "Danger, contaminated area, full protective clothing required beyond this point," then scatter a few dead birds around like they dropped dead and fell out of the tree. Add whatever other roadkill or bones you can find.

The Carrot: Put up a sign that says, "Food, Water, and Shelter - Smallville Church, 3 miles ahead"

Will such craziness stop everyone? Probably not. But you know what? Most people are looking for easy solutions. "Hmmmm, cross the contaminated minefield that's guarded by a blood thirsty maniac or walk another few miles for an easy meal?" I mean really, what choice would most people make? What would YOU do?

EDIT: You obviously wouldn't use all 3 signs in one location.

 

[roy]

In the military fake mine fields are as common as real one . . . less the theatrics.

 

[Smitty901]

Lot depends on your plans. We will lock down on our site.
Stay out of site as much as possible
Keep items that others may want out of site
Make it clear any attempt to take anything will be costly
Be ready and trained to deliver a quick and painful blow to any aggressor.
Those that may need to move to get here have plans and train for it. We hope that sign of what maybe coming will give enough warning so move can start long before it gets to bad
We have a few trained to go and bring in members that may require help.

 

[Seneca]

Prepperdoodle I agree...those are all good ideas for nudging the average (unprepared) Joe a little further down the road...I guess one has to look at whether or not the desired results can be achieved and if it is worth the time and effort.

A good fence and warning signs along with landscape that funnels access while denying cover from which to launch an assault may well be worth the effort, it depends a lot on the location. Even so it is a tall order to fill.

Would it simply be better to go grey and blend in?