Eugene,

Layed out in list format...it does sound like a bunch of stuff, but it's really not very weighty.

The Glock, admittedly, doesn't stay on my side all the time. Depending on what's going on at work (ie where I'll be and what I will be doing), the Glock usually ends up in the vehicle along with the extra mag.

The Spyderco is clipped to my front right pocket
The Wave is on my belt (right side)
The SAK/photon/nail clippers is in my left pocket.
The Bic is in my left pocket
The wallet is in my right back pocket
The bandanna and PSK ride in my back left pocket. (The PSK is a softsided pouch that looks kinda like a wallet...very similar size).

That's it....not a lot different from the description of daily carry items of other posters. <img src="images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Mike,

How long is this scenario for?" Who knows....does that really matter? When you prepare for a situation in which you are trying to survive...do you prepare for a predetermined length of time? In real life scenerios...most modern survival situations are a pretty short term event and I prepare as such. In reality, the 5 matches (I carry 10 BTW <img src="images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />) and the 12 hour Photon will probally do me more good than the 6 inch belt knife. By the same token...I do try to practice primitive living skills and am constantly trying to learn new things....but I believe in using modern tools when possible and practical.

I think we all have to have a strong basis of knowledge in order to really be prepared for whatever scenerio. Yes...I can make fire without the aid of anything but a knife and a string....but why would I if I didn't have to? That knowledge base is important and you should never totally depend on modern conviences, but it's not a lot of trouble to carry a bic with you. Anything that I'm carrying isn't radically different from your list of things that rest in your pockets (according to your above list).

Kev,

I am not going to argue with you.

You said in your original post that this scenario length is "an extended period of time". Now you say its a short time frame. Which is it because it does make a difference?

After a day or 2 your convenience supplies are gone and your left with not much more than me. I can live that 2 days without light and 10 matches.

Just explain to me how your gear after its used up is any good to you. On the 13th hr you have no light.
After 4 litres of water you're boiling yours like me.

Don't even get me started on the photon vs belt knife comment.

You say "Anything that I'm carrying isn't radically different from your list of things that rest in your pockets (according to your above list). "

I suggest you look again at the 2 lists of what is in my pockets 365 days/yr.

SAK
Bic Lighter
Hanky
wallet with swiss tool
spare change

I think our lists are VERY different!

The point I am trying to make is this:

More people have died in the bush because of stupidity than not having a glock, photon light, dental floss and the all important survival tool "the P38 can opener".

Who would you bet on for a 6 month stay in the bush?
A 65 yr old trapper with one 6 inch belt knife.

Or a 25 yr old gearhead with 15 pounds of the best survival gear and a head full of rocks?

This all reminds me of the mini eco challenge in the Australia outback about 5 years ago which pitted 5 super fit techno racers against one 75yr old aboriginal man. the race was 100 miles across the worst desert in Australia. The eco racers had the best gear and support teams and the old man had a tin can with wire and a pocket knife. The race ended with the old man waiting at the finish line hours before the modern team. To add insult to injury, the eco team spent days in the hospital getting rehydrated and wounds tended too and the old man turned around and walked 100 miles home the next day.

I love packing a good survival kit like the next guy but practice a lot without it. Everything but the basic gear is comfort and convenience and only lasts so long then your back to basics.
Don't count on this stuff to keep you alive for any real length of time.

My opinion for what its worth.

Mike

For what it's worth the early indians had a much higher rate of infant mortality, a much shorter average life-span, and, according to fosil studies, were much less healthy than we, grew stunted and died of avoidable deseases (such as disentery caused by giardia) The rural agricultural mexican society of today enjoys similar statistics. When you spin the roulette wheel of arrogance and disrepect in regards to simple biohazards the statistics will catch up with you.

But your culture survived for 1000's of years with no environmental polution and you lived in harmony with your land.
Both taking and giving in the equal proportions.

I hope you are not suggesting they were wrong.

Mike

Between the rock-head gear-freak and the naked aborigine stands the well prepared well educated renesaince man who isn't afraid to shed his ludite tendencies long enough to carry some tools that would be difficult to improvise and not so techno dependant that he can't start a fire with available materials. Seems folly to me to live within easy reach of a bunch of durable and helpful tools and to choose to walk from there into the wilderness naked or even close to naked. Might be an interesting adventure if you have a support crew ready to help but not the sort of thing that I would volunteer for. Given that I can (and do) carry a wide range of helpful technology in my pockets such that it will be with me if I am dropped from a plane into a jungle un expectedly, why wouldn't I?

Seems to me that it is undeniable that our ancient ancestors actually had full civilizations or at-least tribal communities with nothing more than god gave them at birth for technology. That being said, they did spend a bunch of their energy and time inventing technology, teaching it to their young and preserving it so it wouldn't have to be re-invented and, yes, carrying it everywhere! Iodine tablets and boulion cubes will be gone quickly but a wire snare may be used a few dozen times if you are lucky and that might buy time to fabricate solid fiber snares from the vegetation. A squirrrell may be butchered with your teeth but if you have a blade it might be easier and leave you more time to create that long-lasting hardwood & sinew bow that your primitive idols used instead of the glock or similar firearm. In any long term scenario we will revert to technologies that can be replenished in the wild (the bow instead of the glock) The issue here is whether, in absence of the tribe, you will survive long enough naked of all technology to create the first instances of the primitive technologies that our ancestors used. You will quickly need to generate some weapons such as snares and bows and slings or you will starve. You will quickly need to generate or find fire supplies, I believe the two options here are flint or permanent tended fire if you are anywhere where moisture is a concern friction fires will become something you don't want to bother with. So you need to find some clay and bake up a fire basket. Yes you could get along for a while with a hide and some moss for a fire pouch to carry the all important embers. Let's quickly rundown the difficulties.

No technologies because of-course our ancestors did it so why can't we.

First you need fire - friction fire is possibly the answer here Well you've got no pivot unless you stumble upon a bone from some other carnivores activites. You've got no cordage so you must improvise here but there should be some plaitable fiber nearby (now fire is not day 1 but day 2)

Second you need shelter - or do you? In a sub-tropical jungle you might not need that much. Get a large leaf and cower from the rain-storms for a while.

Then you need water - well the aboriginals just drink the water so that's what we'll do. Cross your fingers and hope that you aren't one of the aboriginals who die early from disentery - might work but it doesn't work for all of them and they grew up on the stuff.

Now for hunting - well insects are tasty as long as you know which aren't poisonous. These make up a large part of the diet of many jungle dwellers and they are easy to catch so no tools needed.

Now how about dealing with those cannibalistic aboriginals who just found you tresspassing on their favorite hunting grounds. Did you learn their language? Do you look sufficiently like them that you will convince them that you are a long lost cousin comming back from walk-about?

A pocket full of stuff including but not limited to, steel tools: knife, wire-saw, snare wire, p-38 (remember why cargo cults exist) sewing needle, fish-hooks, sparking rod flint, (or bic lighter which will still spark for months after the butane is gone) , a couple of Xacto blades (make great improvised spear points among other things), small tin to cook in, some reasonably strong plastic items such as a 1 liter coke bottle, a few zip-locks, some zip-ties, a few tens of feet of nylong twine or paracord, some reasonably strong fishing line or dental floss, some nylon thread and your tools problems are dealt with for a year or more depending upon your level of proficiency and ability to care for them. These are durable things that are not replaceable with field-expedients. You can replace them functionally but at a much lower level of usability. If your scenario is one of awaiting rescue indefinately with the possibility of a short term horizon then the other items such as a Photon or chem light, a power bar, some iodine tablets, a large trashbag or two start to make sense. If I can treat the water I find with iodine for the first day or two while I improvise something larger than my altoids tin for boiling water I will be safer than if I can't and who knows, perhaps the SAR team will arrive before I start boiling water in a birch-bark pot.

I made no comments that were meant as judgement on their cultural values or environmental impact. I merely remarked that they lived significantly more difficult, shorter, less healthy, less well nourished, more desease ridden lives than we currently enjoy and that difference is strongly attributable to available technology and understanding. You can certainly envision using the knowledge of sanitation to improve the comfort and survivability of the cultures that you admire. Had they understood the health value of boiling thier water before drinking it or of washing their hands before they picked their noses they might have still chosen to live as harmoniously with the environment but they would have certainly lengthened the time they individually had to do that. If you are making the argument that all technologies based on mining minerals and refining ore are so damaging to the environment that they should be foregone for the sake of our harmoniuous relationship with the planet then I am certainly not qualified to respond. I haven't attempted to study that question at sufficient length to know any answer with certainty.

I notice that even you wouldn't consider yourself dressed without some artifacts of a highly advanced technological society such as batteries ( in your flashlight), stainless steel and medicines. These items are not created by tribal societies living in complete harmony with the land hunting and gathering only what they need and leaving no mark on the environment. They are developed by societies that include chemical fertilized agriculture, strip-mining, nuclear reactors, petroleum based transport systems, and toxic waste producing chemical plants (for the batteries) and landfills for the waste generated by all of the above.

Mini,

You are correct in many things you say. Of course I do not want to go back to the way it was.

That being said, in relevance to this topic of conversation I was pointing out that it is possible to survive very well with limited gear for extended periods.
How well someone fares in a survival situation is based more on whats in your head than in your pocket.
This was the point I was trying to make before you side tracked it into a primitive living conversation.

I mentioned primitive peoples in order to draw attention to their basic living skills and equipment and proof that it works.

Reminder: This scenario was for an "extented period of time"

I will say it again: 4 iodine tabs do nothing for extended survival situations.
If we are now talking about a short time frame then all items mentioned are very handy.

BTW
The jury is still out on modern man and our so called scientific improvements. As we all stock up the duct tape and plastic sheeting. Life expectancy is a relative term.


Mike

How comfortable and possible the long term is often predicated upon the ability to survive the short-term well enough to make it through to the long-term. Some supplies that make the first 3 days to week safer and easier while you build shelter and set-up long-term camp are not hard to carry and make it quite a bit easier to get a long term scenario started. A full bottle of iodine tabs easily fits in a pant's or jacket pocket without much difficulty and could keep you in water for a week. I have 10 iodine tabs in my PSK and that is 5 liters or about 3 days of drinking water. If I don't have to worry about the sanitation of my water source for the first 3 days I will be living in a much better shelter for the long term because I was spending the first three days building it rather than worrying about boiling my water. The short term consumables are just that. I carry them mostly in the hopes that there will be a reasonable chance of short term rescue. That doesn't mean that I would be unprepared to stay long term, just that I could spend the first few days focused on setting up infrastructure to make the long-term shorter or easier by either focusing on setting up camp or by focusing or signalling rescue. In either case the short-term consumables are intended to make it possible to survive without being consumed by the day-to-day of the effort right off the bat. The other trinkets (wire-saw, ziplock baggies, zip-ties, cordage, p-38, Xacto blades, etc) will be with me through the duration of the extended scenario if I treat them right. They all serve a valid purpose and cannot easily be replaced in the field without great expenditure of effort and time that could be spent on other things such as watching the sky for a plane to signal or for an elk to wander by to be speared with my Xacto tipped spear.

Ah we finally agree haha.

Short term survival is without a doubt enhanced with all you mention. An altoid tin is worth its weight in the short term.

I just don't carry one in my pants as the scenario suggests, thus I would be SOL. Now if allowed to grab my coat then more gear I carry in it would be available. If allowed to grab my fanny pack kit then even more is available. If allowed to grab my full bob then even more etc....

The true test of any survivor is their ability to thrive with just the clothes on their back. If one can do this and learn from it everything else is just convenience.

The military E&E survival courses are based on one rusty old bayonet and basic clothes. The reason for this is to get the person comfortable with improvisation and adaptation to their environment. If they suceed in this then everything else they have in a real situation just makes life easier. Things get lost broken and expire. Whats in your head is yours to keep.

No amount of gear will replace common sense, experience and plain ole luck.

Mike