This is precicely what I've been thinking about recently. Last night I was thinking about my gear (and about Nessmuk) and watching some Ray Mears episodes...maybe a good combo or maybe bad...

But anyhow, I realized that many of the items I carry are no good for an extended (or indefinate) stay in the wilderness....be it willing or not.

By my standards an extended stay is over a month. I always think about a 40 day time period as extended since that's about how long one can live without food.

Some items which I'm seriously questioning as 'extended survival gear' (though they still may be great for hiking/camping) now include:

• MSR MIOX pen (dead batteries!)
• Pioneer Filter Straw (limited overall capacity)
• Gerber EAB Folding Saw (I can't sharpen a saw in the wilds)
• Optimux Crux stove (once the fuel is gone, it's dead weight)
• GMRS Radio (proven to be not very useful...and again batteries!)
• GPS (helpful initially...but again with the batteries!)

Some other things I've been thinking a lot about are items like gear repair, first aid, and fire lighting. Many items in these kits are single use or used up quickly. While some of these items are good to have either way, I'm going to move towards stocking more of the 'good' items which are used up (ie: needles and thread) and get rid of some of the luxury items so that I'm not reliant on them. Same with fire making. I need to become less reliant on tinders. It's nice to have some for emergency and on a weekend trip they're great. But for survival I'm not sure it's good to be reliant on them.

Okay enough thread jacking...how does all this mumbling relate to weight vs value?

Well for me I've really re-thought what 'value' is and how it reltes to weight. 2 months ago I had a really hard time distinguishing between a survival item and a camping or hiking item...but thanks to this site and all of you I can now look at an item and say 'This <insert favorite widget here> is good for hiking but dead weight if I'm trying to survive in the bush for 40 days' without contradiction. For me this is hard because I truly WANT my gear to cover both angles...and, for me, it just can't. From some of my previous posts I'm sure a lot of you know that I compensated by trying to carry as much as possible...the more I carry a heavy pack, the more I desire to shed weight. I can compromise however by giving up a few luxuries and redundancies and replace them with some simple, high quality, well thought out equipment. By doing so I get more value where it counts (survival) AND less weight where it counts (a week long hike for example). And if I fill the gaps with education and experience, I've lost nothing.

I'm also discovering that redundancy is a real weight killer. While some is good (I like to have 2 knives just in case...but I've been known to carry as many as 5). These extra items can be heavy, and bring no value (unless that rare circumstance rears it's ugly head).

There's one side benefit too and it's pure vanity. As a guy typically obsessed with gadgets, I love nothing more than whipping a neat toy out in the bush to impress friends and strangers alike. It's much better to whip out a skill nobody else has and get the same job done with less hardware than anybody else can. I've impressed more people in every day life the past 6 months just with the knots I've learned to tie through my SAR training than I have with any of my gadgets.