The maddening itch of poison ivy is something that most outdoor lovers know all too well. Poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac are all capable of torturing us at some point during the course of the year. But the shiny, oily springtime leaves of poison ivy seem to be the worst of the bunch.

When you get cut out in the field, it can be hard to tell just how bad the injury is until the bleeding subsides. After applying pressure for a few minutes, and once you can actually see the nature of the wound, you’ll probably be wondering if the wound needs stitches or not? It’s a simple question, but it opens up a big gray area in field medical care.

The first advice I would give is the obvious advice, find a medical practitioner to make the call about either using stitches or simply bandaging up the wound. But if you are hell and gone from any normal medical care, or you are away from your group’s medic, you may have to make your own assessment. Just don’t “Rambo” your way through the wound’s care, trying to use fishhooks and foolishness to stitch yourself up. Make sure you have a proper suture kit and the knowledge to use it correctly.

When you are a long way from a dentist, and your teeth start giving you trouble, you’ll need a very specific set of medical items to bring yourself relief. With that very specific need in mind, the forward thinking folks at Adventure Medical Kits created the Dentalmedic kit.

This ultralight zip-top bag contains the essentials for treating dental ailments and injuries when no dentist is near. It could even be handy over a weekend trip, or anytime a qualified dentist isn't available. This 3.5-ounce kit contains:

When you start a campfire, how do you do it? Do you use a log cabin fire lay? A teepee fire lay? Or is there a pile of wet logs and a can of diesel involved? I hope it’s not that last one.

For years, I have been a big fan of the teepee fire lay. It just seemed like the natural shape to allow the fire to climb at a steady pace. But I wanted to see if there was any solid evidence that one fire lay did something that another style did not, so I set out with equal amounts of the same fire building materials to determine if there were any major differences between a log cabin fire and a teepee fire. Using two pounds of sticks and a quarter-pound of twigs for each fire lay, I built a cone-shaped teepee and a square log cabin with a small cone core. With a handful of dry oak leaf tinder in the center of the fire lays, I lit each one with a quick kiss from a Bic lighter.