But my kit isn't complete yet!!!!
Of course I try to be prepared and all. I consider myself somewhat OK prepared when doing my day hikes and stuff. But I still haven't arrived at a decent pocket sized PSK...
For years I've been lumping this bivy bag around:
Which is a piecee of alu-foil covered polyester about 2,8 by 1,4 meters (4,5 by 9 feet). Important features:
- Similar to the famous space blanket, but MUCH stronger. Mine is 15 years old. Still going strong.
- It folds in the middle, and you can zip up the three sides, creating a cocoon that is water proof except some will leak through the zippers.
- Strong grommets at all corners plus on the middle of the long side allows for creativity making wind breaks, lean-too, basha and so on.
- The primary use is as a bivy bag as shown in the picture, but you can use it in a whole lot of different ways.
Minus: Price, weight (650 gram) and it is too small for making a good tarp. It is also just barely long enough for me to lie down when I curl up along the diagonal.
Add to this bivy a knife, matches, candle and some cord and you've essentially got what was my minimum kit for years.
I love the idea of a PSK, but how would I fit my bivy bag in there??? I played with assembling some PSK's anyway just to see how they turned out. After some tweaking I realized my PSK was not a bivy bag in a tin can - it was a PSK in a bivy bag pouch
Bivy bag in its pouch at the far left.
In the center are the sorry remains of a plastic pouch wrapped with gorilla tape. The pouch gave up its ghost last weeks, only shreds remains. Can't just toss out the gorilla tape, though.
The pouch at right is its replacement, but it is not up to the job - too small and it doesn't close properly. I'm looking for a replacement, but it'll do for now.
So... right now I have a somewhat less than optimal arrangement of gorilla tape around shredded remains of a pouch, and a sturdy, solid pouch that I'm not happy with. . The most cost effective solution will be to replace the whole enchilada with Doug Ritter's PSK and add and remove some items. But hey - where's the fun in that?
What's in these pouches?
Snickers bar
Space blanket
Spark-lite fire starter plus tinder
Lighter.
Oh, and there's an emergency poncho supposedly in there... I removed it last week and forgot to put it back in
Whistle
zip tie
(more than one, but I seem to have lost some. I blame the lousy pouch for that...) Super glue
Needle and thread in a small plastic vial. The needle is pre-threaded with the strongest nylon thread I know, called Grizzly thread. The large needle will accept inner strands of para cord.
Compass.
Knife - mora 511.
LED light - petzl e-lite.
A couple of meters with generic 2mm nylon line. Packs smaller than para cord.
EDIT: There's a small multi-tool here to. Removed only yesterday to pry apart something, but didn't make it back into the pouch... I need to be more attentive about putting stuff back.Except for the knife and the bivy bag it all fits in the plastic pouch shown in pic 2. That pouch, the knife and the bivy bag goes into the olive bivy bag pouch. Technically I can then fit my bivy bag pouch in a large anorak pocket, but it is too bulky to be comfortable. Usually it goes into a pack of some kind.
On my person there will typically be my clothes including gloves/mittens, a hat. In my pocket I have a cell phone, my key ring with a flashlight, money and a ultra-minimalistic first aid kit
(sterile bandana, steri strip, band-aid, one sterile anti-bac wound wipe, gorilla tape - this FAK will also evolve somewhat). Most of the time I will have some knife of a sort. All those are vitally important survival items.
My pack will typically have some other goodies:
- Water bottle
- More cord (para cord or nylon line, depends on my mood)
- More clothes: At a minimum my fleece jacket, but may also have more wind/water proof garments if I'm not wearing them already, dry socks and so on. Depends.
- Lunch or snack
- My survival cup if the mood is right. (Still testing and having fun). See here link
And my pack will typically also have some activity specific items. Such as a stove or grill if we're cooking outside and so on.
Some specific comments to my location: Pure blasphemy, I know.
- No signal mirror??? I am not particular afraid of experiencing a fair weather survival event where I live. But if I buy Doug's kit I'll carry that mirror.
- No water purification? In the bush I'll drink the water untreated. The risk of water borne diseases is low enough for me to accept it. (In the winter, a snow melting cup is nice and a hot brew even nicer).
- No fishing or snaring? Nope - those are low priority items. May add some low priority zero bulk items later (aka known as fish hooks and snaring wire). Right now there's too much other stuff to do.
- Knife carry is illegal unless you have good reason. And yes, going for a day hike is a perfectly good and legally accepted reason - so I carry my mora on my hip with pride when I go hiking. EDC a pocket knife is not a legally accepted reason.
Still tweaking, still re-considering. Some more recent ideas that may or may not come to life:
- An AMK bivy bag would be a huge weight and volume reduction.
- After doing my own stuff with pouches that keeps disintegrating, buying Doug Ritters PSK gets more and more tempting. I love my home made stuff, but his POUCH is so much better and the whole kit is such a convenient size.
- The survival cup concept may evolve into a permanent part of my kit. Depends.
- The kit may evolve into something I perpetually carry on my person, not in my pack. So far I've been happy with just tossing it into a smaller pack when I go exploring, running and so on.
- Doug Ritter's mk5 knife is high on my birthday wish list as a backup knife that fits _*inside*_ a pouch based kit.
- EDIT: A wire saw will find its way into my kit.
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