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Survival is his business
Napa merchant packs up items to save your life
By RACHEL RASKIN-ZRIHEN, Times-Herald staff writer
About 150 years after Mountain Man, Caleb Greenwood led a group to rescue the Donner Party survivors, his descendent, Vallejo native Jerry Nunn, launched a survival business.
"We build survivor kits for individuals and families that contain everything they'll need to survive for three days in case of a disaster," said Nunn, now of Napa, California.
The idea for the business - Mountain Man Survival at 1758 Industrial Way, Suite 105 in Napa, grew out of his inventing a Aerial Rescue Panel, he said. "It's a 10-foot by 20-foot bright yellow nylon panel with a big red 'X,' designed to be visible from thousands of feet in the air."
The 3 1/2-pound panel, which folds to about the size of a loaf of French bread, can be a life saver in emergency situations - for mountain climbers, skiers, backpackers, campers, boaters, plane crash survivors, hunters and fishermen or people stranded in cars in remote areas, he said. The panel comes with tent stakes and bungee cords and ca also be used as a shelter.
"There was a TV documentary about a traveling salesman in Northern California who took a short cut and got caught in a snow storm and ended up dying in his car when the road was closed off," Nunn said. "They were looking for him, and if he'd had something like the Aerial Rescue Panel to throw over his vehicle or stake it out on the ground he might have been rescued." Another instance was the Kim family up in Oregon when they were stranded in their car in the snow.
The survival kits range from $19.95 for a standard car kit to $189.95 for a four-person deluxe kit. Packed into a zippered duffel bag, a standard kit contains enough Datrex water packets and food ration bars to last three days, a first aid kit, light stick and emergency survival blanket. Other kits add candles, waterproof matches, an emergency whistle, packaged hand warmers, a radio and a flashlight. Some add a rain ponchos, safety vests, leather gloves, tube tents, heavy-duty truck rope, duct tape, dust masks, and a multi-function pocket knife.
Nunn said he doesn't discount the possibility that some of his drive to survive was inherited from his mountain man forebear, Caleb Greenwood, his maternal great-great-great grandfather.
"I first heard the story from my grandmother when I was 8 or 9," Nunn said. "It was his marriage to a Crow Indian princess in Montana that was emphasized, but we always knew he was a Mountain Man and a trapper. He was a trailblazer, he led wagon trains from Council Bluffs, Iowa, and Independence, Missouri, west to California." "He was the first to go over the granite walls at Donner Lake before the Donner Party ever got there and he established the first overland wagon route to lead thousands of emigrants to California," said Nunn.
"When the Donner Party was snowbound Greenwood was camped in the Napa Valley.
He was called upon to lead the second rescue party. He was in his 80s at the time, and he was with his son, Britton. Caleb went as far as the snow line, and Britton led the party the rest of the way," Nunn said.
Historical Web sites describe Greenwood as a former fur trapper and mountain man who helped blaze the Sublette/Greenwood Cutoff west of South Pass in1844. Confronting the Sierra Nevada, Greenwood and colleague Isaac Hitchcock, met a Paiute Indian chief, whom they named "Truckee," according to the sites.
The chief provided directions along the Truckee River to an area now known as Donner Pass. From there, the party made it to Sutter's Fort, thereby completing the opening of the first overland wagon route to California, the sites say. The route became an established wagon trail.
"I feel a sense of fulfillment doing something for other people", Nunn said. "The panel is something that can save lives, and in a way, the survival kit is an insurance policy - something you hope you never need."
The Aerial Rescue Panels and Survival Kits are available through their web site, www.mountainmansurvival.com.
Basics ...
What: Mountain Man Survival
Where: 1758 Industrial Way, Suite 105 Napa, California 94558
Call: 707-225-1847 or (888) 8mtnman
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