You both hit the nail on the head as far as I'm concerned. My wife accompanies me each year on a four day autumn trip and a couple of weekenders into the remote parts of the Chippewa National Forest. Over the last few years each of our PSKs went from the size of a baseball to the size of a football to a 12 pound rucksack....too cumbersome! I unpacked and repacked them a dozen times trying to eliminate weight and bulk, but refusing to give up much of anything.

We have had the experience of setting out on a brisk cool day and ending up in a 6 inch snowstorm. The difference was that it was mid-day, we were not on a bluff, we were only two or three miles from our truck and we were walking a very long trail in the woods that we could still follow.

We sat down last week even before this was posted and talked about that experience and others, and assessed the real risks of this activity. We agree that there is not one single thing in the packs that would not be nice to have if we suffered an injury or were lost in the woods at dusk and had to spend a night in the woods in late fall/early winter.... Together we agreed, it's not a camping trip, it's survival.............we're going back to basics.

The story actually inspired us, as they made good with minimal equipment and excellent training. I don't necessarily agree that they wouldnt have survived another night, because the only reason they didnt build a better shelter and gather more wood, is that they knew they were going to be rescued and they just waited and it just took a little longer than they thought.

Here is what we will each carry going forward:

Full set weather-appropriate hunting clothes:
Base layer
Heavy shirts/pants
Canvas coat
waterproof hunting boots and heavy socks
gloves
scarf
nylon balaclava
hat
bandana

Usual upland hunting gear:
shotgun & ammo
Leatherman Wave (she pefers a SAK w/saw)
field belt knife (me: cord-wrapped Western W36, her: Linder Traveller)
map and compass (Taylor)
mini bic
tube of DEET (early season only)
Gorp and clif bars
motorola radio
whistle
mini maglite (me) LED (her)
1 mini binocular between us
1/4 roll TP
nylon poncho
gaiters (snowy weather only)

Survival kit:
signal mirror
Vic Classic w/tweezers
double orange emergency blanket
flint rod
35mm film canister with duct tape wrap containing greased cotton balls and a treble snag-hook
Frontier emergency water filter-straw
three CC teabags
two ricola cough drops
two sizes fabric bandaids
6 ibuprofin
sierra cup
20" 550 paracord
10" lightweight wire
4 misc zip-ties

Kit seals into the sierra cup with tape and plastic and fits in the coat pocket.

What will we do with the excess that is currently piled around me? It will go into a dedicated rucksack to keep in the truck in the unlikely event that the truck is the problem and we must leave shelter to trek out to a remote highway.

Great post, Bryd! That's the beauty of a forum like this: We have the ability to bounce things off one another and learn from examining real life situations. I think the day hiker has luxury on his/her side- since you anticipate a short trip you're not already encumbered with a 50 pound pack. In my mind that means that each person carrying a 10-15 pound load is really nothing. Certainly not like humping 80 pounds along the AT!

You see articles and videos on the "Top 3/10/20 Items For Survival" but realistically we should probably think of "2/5/10 Pounds of Gear for Survival." If you take a kitchen-sink approach to gear, at best you won't enjoy your time out of doors, feeling like a pack mule. And at worst, you'll leave that bulky pack at home because it's just a day hike... You really have to balance security with living your life.

I'm going to copy your list into a Word file for reference.

Thank you, but what is appropriate for us in our environment and for the activity we are engaged in is not necessarily appropriate in another place or scenario. Some members will be appalled that we dont have water or a stove on the list. Nice to have? Yes! But we simply dont need those here. Others do in their environment. I did revise my list slightly because I forgot a few items.

Absolutely true. But some things are universal. For example there are few climes in the world where you don't need shelter at night no matter the season. And fire is a near-univeral need for cooking and water purification. No matter where you are on this blue marble, you need oxygen to breath, a means to regulate your core temp, water to drink and food to eat. Honestly, those things would also apply on Mars; it would just take different gear to provide for them.

I'm a fan of both Dave Canterbury and Cody Lundin. Dave preaches that for survival, you take tools. Tools are hard to make in the wild. With tools, the rest is just a matter of effort and calories. Cody emphasizes using what you have instead of looking for something you can use. Both approaches make sense.

Ultimately it was training that saved the couple in question. Knowledge helped them first by ensuring they packed a minimum of useful gear. Then it saved their bacon by teaching them how to use it.

I think you're better off with a couple pounds of gear tailored to your environment and a lot of knowledge of how to use it than someone with a 70 lb pack full of random "survival" and camping gear they don't know how to use.

Great story.
I liked the part about trying the seam sealer as fire starter. That suggests they hadn't gone into brain-lock yet.

I hike alone very frequently. My pack weighs over 20lb with all the just-in-case stuff. Yes, I may not walk as far because of the weight but it's the price I make myself pay to be out there. (Besides, I'm mainly out for the exercise anyway and the weight just makes it a better workout.)

My load list is very much like byrd_hunter's.
And I file a detailed travel plan with my wife so she knows what to do and when.

It seems situations like this almost always start with getting lost and this one was no exception. Other than having no nav gear (GPS) for a hike back, I notice they were yelling for help. A whistle would have been very useful. Once the helo was on scene a mirror could have helped it find them quicker. What else? . . . a PLB would have been nice. . .

Each story like this alters my own kit. After decades of knowing how valuable a whistle can be I finally ordered a pair of Fox Micro's a few days ago. And I still don't have a proper mirror. But of course, got the sexy stuff- knives, mylar sleeping bags, ferro rods, Chitosan-based hemostatics...Now before you bash me too much, I am back-filling the mundane stuff a little at a time.

I do at least carry GPS most of the time.

Phaedrus, Doug's Pocket Survival Pak (PSP) contains a whistle and mirror. Look at the top four items in the list and tell me they wouldn't have helped:

"Old habbits" if they make sence often keep us alive!

They didn't file with the rangers because it was only a day hike. But they should have left a trip plan with someone. Then when they didn't show up when they should have, that person could have sounded the alarm the night before. They still would have spent the night on the ridge but there would have been folks looking for them in the morning. They were damn lucky a random cyclist came by and heard them or they would have been dead by the next day with still no one even knowing they were missing.