Blizzard Walker

PrincessAutumn, I commonly prowl the edge of the ice after every blizzard in CH. Two types of loot: Type 1 are items that appear on the ice singly or in groups (over a stretch of say 10 paces) that appear about every 5 days without a blizzard in essentially the same locations. On Voyageur the prized items are rifle cartridges, rifle shell casings, knives, hacksaws, quality tools, cloth, leather, saplings, flares, stims, MRE's, tooks and red longjohns You can gather prodigious quantities of loot over a 100 days or so of diligent beach combing. Type 2 are items found only after blizzards and despawn after 3-4 days. These include fishing boats, canoes, trunks, suitcases, backpacks and filing cabinets. All of these may contain valuable items including arrows, hatchets, revolver rounds, rifle rounds, sewing kits, matches, flares and various clothing items. Some Type 2 locations are perfectly safe while others are surrounded by weak ice and are sure to get you dunked. To deal with the locations where searching for loot will get you dunked I first (1) make a fire nearby, (2) get 1 or 2 teas warming up, (3) take off but do not drop clothing. Rush to the location and loot till you fall in. Once dunked in the cold water retreat to the fire, drink the teas, put back on all clothing and retreat to an area where you can sleep for 12 hours. In CH Jackrabbit Island house is ideal for recovery while the fishing hut between Jackrabbit and Misanthrope works well - the latter works best if you can make a fire in the pot belly stove. After a few dunkings it becomes routine.

I have the boat at the same location just off Jackrabbit Island. The problem is that the boat and the canoe underneath never despawns. It has been present for about 300 in game days playing at Voyageur level. Unfortunately even trying to enter the boat activates the thin ice mechanics - I don't care to get dunked trying to search the boat.

Based on long beach combing experience on Voyageur, improvised knives, hunting knives, hatchets and hacksaws all wash up. Enough can be found that I hoard whetstones as I don't need to worry about wearing out knives and hatchets. Improvised knives wash up in 100% condition while hatchets are invariably at 51% condition. Improvised hatchest, heavy hammers and prybars do not wash up....at least not on Voyageur.

To date I have not taken on Blackrock or Forsaken Airfield. Mystery Lake, Milton, Coastal Highway, Pleasant Valley, Timberwolf Mountain, Ash Canyon, Broken Railroad and Desolation Point all serve as a comfortable, long term well provisioned bases of operations. Bleak Inlet and Hushed River Valley are tolerable despite the timber wolves in the former and the lack of structures in the latter. I have learned to safely transit Forlorn Muskeg on the way to Broken Railroad, Milton and Bleak Inlet but otherwise spend little time in that region. The same cannot be said for the newest regions. I am loathe to try to master the complexities of Blackrock and I am put off by the vastness of Forsaken Airfield. ZOC sounds like another level of scary. Are there regions your character(s) seldom, or never, visits?

20+ day campfire is seriously impressive. 😃

hozz1235, all excellent advice. Never engage a bear in a fair fight.

Leeanda, I find it more difficult to hunt bears and wolves on Pilgrim as the creatures get scared and run off. However, apart from killing 3 moose, either for satchel or because they were in the way, I don't hunt moose. In my opinion they are notably more difficult to deal with than bears. 33 moose I thus find very impressive.

I'm at 102 dead bears on my 1765 day Voyageur run. That is about one every 17 days. Admittedly bears more frequently on Voyageur - every 15 days by my reckoning. As I think about it, my Will on Voyageur subsists almost exclusively on bear meat for long stretches. Do you recall numbers of killed bears on long runs?

Although not my favorite base, my character returned to TWM's Mountaineer's Hut preparatory to an excursion into Ash Canyon. I realized how stress free the Mountaineer's Hut can be. The wolf stays on his side of Crystal Lake unless I chase a deer its way. The bear conveniently walks by the fishing hut twice a day for a shoot-from-safety bow shot. Rabbits wander within sight of the Mountaineer's Hut - simplifying clothing repair. Sticks, branches and limbs are readily available. The work bench avoids having to trek back to the PV Farmhouse for crafting. Provided you import sufficient cloth and metal this location affords easy, stress free living. The fishing hut provides a surplus of lamp oil and the fish themselves provide abundant food and vitamin C.

WillemD, in my experience (admittedly on Voyageur and not Interloper) the fishing hut between Jackrabbit and Misanthrope is the one farthest from known wolf patrol areas. My favorite fishing huts in CH are the two huts (2 of the 9) with doors. They make for the easiest sleeping without fear of frostbite, at least on Voyageur.

Leeanda, if I recall you play on Pilgrim and the beach combing bounty should be at least as good as what I experience on Voyageur. I cannot explain why you have not had better luck with patrolling the edge of the ice. At last count I have stashed away 144 birch saplings and 43 maple saplings - admittedly some were relocated to CH from other regions but surely 75% were the result of beach combing. Each of the 9 CH fishing huts has one or more hatchets, knives, hacksaws and tool kits found via beach combing. I find enough intact arrows so that I do not need to craft arrows. Since beach combing was dialed back I find that certain items like boats, suitcases and file cabinets spawn in areas of thin ice. You just cannot loot those items without falling through the ice. Its still sufficiently lucrative that I spend weeks at a time in gameplay patrolling the edge of the ice.

I too favor the Fishing Village in Coastal Highway as my main base. I have spent hundreds of days in Coastal Highway on my current Voyageur run (Day 1680) and end up accumulating most of my valuable resources (ammunition, arrows, birch saplings, maple saplings, matches) at these cabins. In addition I have added five rock caches at this location for extra storage. I periodically travel to ML, MT, PV and TWM to repair clothing and bedrolls stashed at Camp Office, Milton Trailer, PV Farmhouse and the Mountaineer's Hut. They are all significant bases in their own right but all pale in comparison to my setup at CH's Fishing Village. The windfalls provided by beach combing (at least on Voyageur) provide a steady supply of birch saplings, maple saplings, cloth, leather and tools as well as occasional matches and rifle rounds. Living exclusively on the ice at CH is a viable option after stocking each of the 9 fishing huts with 30 kilos of firewood, cured guts, cured hides and extra cloth and leather. Traveling from fishing hut to fishing hut along well marked paths over the ice all but eliminates unpleasant wildlife encounters. The downside to the unwary at the Fishing Village is the bear that walks past the cabins and the wolf that patrols the ice beyond the dock. Killing the bear every 15 days from the safety of the nearest fishing hut and hunting the wolf from the dock provides for relative peace for long stretches at the Fishing Village.

I am a fan of the light syrup produced at the very beginning of the sugaring season - in the Mid-Atlantic States of the USA it is known as "light amber" - its subtle flavor and sweetness does not overpower tea.

I cannot think of a time that I could not harvest rabbits in the dark. Similarly I harvest ptarmigans in the dark prior to kill time before sleeping.

I would be happy for anything but it took less time to build the pyramids than to reconstruct the hinterland merchandise store.