>>411Yes it's never a bad idea to bring things along I think apart of why I was safe is luck as I was fortunate enough to run into any wild animals.
I got unlucky the very first time I started when a medium sized fox attacked me, took a chunk of my left hand the bugger. I fought it off by biting it's nose, punching the throat and clawing at the eyes.
Pro tip: one good form of self-defence against animals like that it to carry an umbrella with a crazy design and a small sharp blade. Sounds strange but it works.
The umbrella when closed can be used for something for it to bite on or you can open and close it really fast to scare it away.
>>412Nope didn't do any treehouses it would more tree tent if I did. No need for covered clothing and the only bugs you see a lot of are dragon flies, moths, spiders and butterflies I'm right in the middle of the Great Lakes so it's either really cool or sticky hot and your biggest threats are foxes, coyotes and surprise cliffs at least in my zone.
My first technique was keeping track of how many left and right turns I did then I paid attention to the wind and walked towards where it felt cooler and felt the air for moistness this was to try and find a river and I did and once that was done with I followed it downstream making sure I didn't lose track by being sure the river was right of my person as I moved down. After that I looked at the trees to see which ends have more growth and went that way since the sun is facing north. The forest was deep so it took awhile to even see the sun, I also kept moving only to rest for no longer then 45seconds to a minute as I'm always burning daylight and I knew I would be screwed without it.