Leon Pantenburg is a wilderness enthusiast, and doesn’t claim to be a survival expert or expertise as a survivalist.

Leon Pantenburg

As a newspaperman and journalist for three decades, covering search and rescue, sheriff’s departments, floods, forest fires and other natural disasters and outdoor emergencies, Leon learned many people died unnecessarily or escaped miraculously from outdoor emergency situations when simple, common sense might have changed the outcome.

Leon now teaches common sense techniques to the average person in order to avert potential disasters. His emphasis is on tried and tested, simple techniques of wilderness survival. Every technique, piece of equipment or skill recommended on this website has been thoroughly tested and researched.

After graduating from Iowa State University, Leon completed a six-month, 2,552-mile solo Mississippi River canoe trip from the headwaters at Lake Itasca, Minn., to the Gulf of Mexico.

His wilderness backpacking experience includes extended solos through Yellowstone’s backcountry; hiking the John

A much younger Leon at a silver mine in the Beartooths.

 Muir Trail in California, and numerous shorter trips along the Pacific Crest Trail. Other mountain backpacking trips include hikes through the Uintas in Utah; the Beartooths in Montana;  the Sawtooths in Idaho; the Pryors, the Wind River Range, Tetons and Bighorns in Wyoming; Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, the Catskills in New York and  Death Valley National Monument in southern California.

Some of Leon’s canoe trips include sojourns through the Okefenokee Swamp and National Wildlife Refuge in Georgia, the Big Black River swamp in Mississippi and the Boundary Waters canoe area in northern Minnesota and numerous small river trips in the Midwest and Pacific Northwest. Leon is also an avid fisherman and an elk, deer, upland game and waterfowl hunter.

Leon and hiking partner John Nerness pitched their tarp in this Death Valley "forest" during Christmas of 1977.

Since 1991, Leon has been an assistant scoutmaster with Boy Scout Troop 18 in Bend, and a wilderness skills  trainer for the Boy Scouts’ Fremont  District.  Leon earned a second degree black belt in Taekwondo, and competed in his last tournament (sparring and form) at age 49. He is an enthusiastic Bluegrass mandolin picker and fiddler, two-time finalist in the International Dutch Oven Society’s World Championships, and a freelance writer for the Bulletin newspaper in Bend, Or.

Contact Leon at: survivalsenselp@gmail.com

A more recent snapshot along the Deschutes River running through Bend, Oregon

by Leon Pantenburg.

Can you slam dunk a basketball?

Leon Pantenburg at Smith Rock State Park

Me neither. But I’ve seen the guys in the NBA do it on TV.  A slam dunk always brings the crowd to its feet, and you’ll remember how dramatic it looked. But, wouldn’t it  be ridiculous for me to try a slam dunk in the final seconds of an NBA game? (That’s also assuming I could ever play in a NBA game!)

But far too many people abandon their common sense when they end up in a wilderness emergency. They assume, without trying it, that some survival technique, or piece of equipment they saw on TV or read about in a magazine will work for them. Then, they end up in the big game, (defined in this case,  as a wilderness emergency). The typical pattern is that the adrenaline starts flowing, they may panic and can’t think, and the only thought that comes to mind is a flashy technique some TV guy did! All they can remember is a skill that would be impossible for most people under ideal circumstances!

A survival situation can happen anywhere and any place. Virtually no area is without the risk of some sort of natural disaster such as tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis etc.  And what about something like getting lost in the woods, or having your car slide off an icy road into a ditch?

Would you survive?

The concept of common sense survival came about in late 2006. In November 2006 Veteran snowmobiler Roger Rouse, 53, of Bend, died of hypothermia in Deschutes National Forest, about 10 miles west of Bend. He and his son had intended to only be out for a morning ride when a fierce snowstorm overwhelmed them. In December 2006, Californian James Kim, 35, died in the Rogue River Wilderness after leaving his wife and children to get help. The family car was stuck in snow on a remote road. His family was found alive with their car a few days later.

Shortly after the Kim and Rouse tragedies, John Costa, Editor of the Bulletin in Bend, Or., asked me to write a winter survival guide for the Central Oregon area, to be published in October 2007.

I see myself as someone who continues to learn, and don’t claim to be a wilderness survival expert. But with more than 30 years experience in the news and associated professions, I am an expert interviewer and investigative reporter. I have written many stories where a misquote or inaccurate paragraph could have gotten me sued.

The winter survival guide was to be approached like any investigative assignment, Costa said, and nothing was to be taken for granted or assumed. All sources and facts had to be verified before using. All “experts” had to be checked out. Any recommended equipment or technique had to be tried and proven.

My research for The Bulletin showed that there is a tremendous amount of dangerous mis-information and just plain BS out there. Many so-called “experts” aren’t, and they recommend dangerous or useless techniques to unsuspecting newcomers. And far too many outdoor novices view wilderness survival from the slam dunk approach.

So this site is all about what techniques, equipment and skills have been proven to work – in other words: Common Sense. I hope it goes with you into the backcountry!  Contact Leon at: survivalsenselp@gmail.com