Hi Folks,

I have an ongoing debate with myself on how to assemble a Wilderness Personal Survival Kit; should it be as compact as possible and tightly sealed to be waterproof or arranged more loosely and not sealed as tight so you can access the items for every day use?

Almost all of the kits I have made have been the compacted, sealed type, the problem with these is that I will proabaly never open them unless it is a real emergency because I know how much effort it took to fit all the items in the container (I do have duplicates I practice with).

I have been thinking of a more loosely packed kit that has my back-up items in it so they are easy to access if needed throughout the day (e.g. spare knife, para-cord, Heatsheet Bivy, sharpening stone, flagging tape, lighter, metal cup, TP, water bag with treatment tabs, ...). I would still have my normal EDC items on my person, these are just readily accessable back-ups or infrequently needed things. The kit would be housed in a bag about the size of a Maxpedition Fatboy or Jumbo S-Versipack.

I may even keep a small sealed Altoids PSK in the bag as a last ditch kit if I had to travel really light and therefore drop the shoulder pack.

So I guess my question for the forum is; how do you assemble your PSK, tightly packed and sealed or loosely packed and accessable?

Thanks,

Mike

Both. It should be sealed i.e. waterproof container, but it should also give you relatively quick and easy access to what you need.

IMO

Blitz.

If sealed it should be resealable. I'm not a big fan of the 'taped tin' seal job. It's only going to seal well so many times. In an ideal world you only need to get into it once but with a dry bag or case (be it metal or plastic) with an o-ring or rubber seal it will seal again and again forever AND provide easy access.

My real PSK is an altoid tin. That being said, on my day pack is a small MOLLE EMT kit. Now, to be honest, it's pretty empty, save a MRE beverage bag and a HeatSheet. But the plan is to gradually make a bigger version of the PSK, that I can transfer between bags as I switch from day hikes to overnights.

Some matches, a mirror, cordage, etc are planned to be there.

I guess most of us are like you; have a true emergency kit, as well as a consolidated "need it" kit, that's not one we use when we're stripped of everything but our clothing. The nice thing about being a MOLLE kit is that theoretically I can tear it off my bag if I decide to ditch it, so I'd really have 2 PSK's.

The one time I really needed the contents of my EDC, it was a good thing it wasn't sealed (I gave that up because I was always getting into it), I was scared (bear) and my hands were shaking so bad that I just flipped it open, grabbed the lighter, and dropped everything else on the ground. Left it all there, too.

Allow for the worst conditions and shaking or frozen hands. There's no point in carrying the gear if you can't get to it when you need it. I just shake my head when I read about some people who wrap fifteen feet of duct tape around their kit.

Sue

Uhm.... yes?

The stuff I'm likely to need on a regular (daily or every other day) basis goes on me. Semi-regularly (one a week, or when you really need it you really need it) used items go in my bag of tricks. My PSK is sealed and in the bag of tricks, but I'm using a clear container for it so I can see the compass; it only gets opened for inspection (giving the preparedness sermon counts as inspection, right?) or emergencies.

*grins* That is why something scary-ish should be EDC, not in the PSK.

"...Wilderness Personal Survival Kit..." and "...access the items for every day use..." do not compute, at least to me. Unless you are surviving in the wilderness every day, you should not need to access the stuff. If you dig into it every day, come the day you REALLY need it, you may find that you have used it up, mislayed it, or something...

Using everyday is what EDC stuff is for. The backpack I carry every day would make a great wilderness survival kit, but it's an EDC kit, everything there is available for use all the time. I'm moving away from "kits", little containers of stuff I forget about and going toward EDC user stuff. Situationally, the stuff may change; my EDC backpack has a lot of gear that would go in my pockets in a real situation. I think there's a DR PSP buried in the bottom next to a small FAK.