Ladies and Gents Goodevening: Just a thought for discussion. If you select your backpacking/camping/hiking gear from the prospective of survivle gear (versital,bombproof ect.), then what you end up with is a portable over long distances, large survival kit that serves as your home sweet home with reasonable accomidations for season ect.. Thoughts? Thanks; Jim

Jim,
How you get 114 views and no replies is beyond me. You must be speaking a language only I can understand! lol.

I agree with you that a quality backpacking rig is a great 72 hour BOB and a good place to start for a long term survival package. I don't see a lot that a military style pack would bring to the table that my (circa 1997) Dana Designs Terraplane doesn't offer.

I have a lot of backpacking gear and consider a portion of it as crossover gear suitable for a BOB and other emergency kits.

That said, a lot of my stuff is ultralight with a focus on multiple uses and low carry weight in the context of the areas I go backpacking. While it would be useful to some extent for a survival situation, or if I needed to travel fast and light to get out of Dodge, I'd choose other gear for the BOB.

I have a survival/BOB kit that is modular and based on an Eagle Creek Bhatah Sab pack. I swap components in and out of it depending on whether it's sitting at the house for a quick exit, in the trunk of a car, or in a plane when I'm piloting - there are different mixes of items for each.

The backpacking crossover items I include are:

- My mini-FAK (there's a full FAK in the larger kit as well)
- My PSK
- A stove of some sort (not always included); an Esbit when flying (most stable fuel); an Optimus Nova for the car or home kit (runs on lots of fuels, including the diesel and unleaded our two cars run on)
- Titanium cook kit and lexan spoons
- Hydration bladders
- A silnylon tarp
- Lightweight line and titanium stakes
- Silnylon ponchos
- Avalanche shovel and ice axe (go in the car kit for winter, even when I'm not bringing them along for snow camping)

Most other items don't have the durability I'd like for a survival kit, or are just meant for a different purpose. Tents take up too much room for a compact survival kit, and of course can be tossed in separately in the car or plane if I do decide I want them. Food and the like for a survival kit is different than what I take backpacking. Clothing for backpacking or snow camping is not necessarily what I'd put in a BOB. The knife I take backpacking (a Victorinox Classic) is completely unacceptable for the survival kit.

It's a good question, though, and I'll think about it more. Maybe one of these days I'll post pictures and a description of my full modular kit (I did a post with some basic pictures long, long ago on this forum).

To me, survival/camping gear is the same thing. Light & durable. Look at Michael Blomdens video's on Bushcraft.se. Makes the point quite handily.

My rifle company was once sent to Camp LeJeune, NC. When we got there, it was discovered that the barracks we were supposed to use were already in use by another unit. Oh, No, What to do!? Well, not a problem. We all had our home away from home (field gear) with us & all we needed was a place to be. So we marched to a field, set in, put up ponchos for shelter & got out the c-rats. Instant housing, no barracks necessary. So, if you have the right stuff, you don't need a superdome to evac to.

Is there anything that doesn't cross over, until you look at the more tactical aspects of urban and long term survival? It's all just a matter of quantities and were you planning on this.

A couple of examples:

- My ultralight packs (e.g. a GoLite Speed, a custom Pulag pack); these weigh under 2 lb, are made of very lightweight material, and are meant to carry under 30 lb (better under 20 lb). They're great for fast backpacking on good trails in California weather...not good for loading up with lots of gear, tossing in a trunk or cargo hold, moving through thick brush, weathering a huge storm.
- Alcohol and canister stoves: great for lightweight backpacking, not so great for survival (scarcity of fuel, inconvenience, etc.)
- Lightweight trail runners - again, great for hiking with a light pack, not so good for extended wear or protecting feet in wide-ranging conditions
- Ultralight down sleeping bags - my Montbell bag in particular (18 oz) would be inadequate and too fragile for a survival kit, though it's great for ultralight backpacking
- Lightweight DWR top - great for fast hiking in specific climates, good against wind, light precipitation; would fall apart quickly in a survival situation and won't protect against enough conditions
- I could go on and on...

Again, I suppose one could find a place for any of these in a specific, tailored kit - I just am more selective about what goes in my survival kit versus what I'd take for a backpacking trip in an area where I'm comfortable and experienced, like the central Sierra Nevada or California Coast. I also know how to maximize this gear for the kind of survival situation I might get into if I somehow got off trail or injured (balanced versus carry weight and increased chance of injury as I load up), versus the gear I'd like to have in my BOB or car (carry weight less important).

So, there's other equipment I no longer use for backpacking because it's just too heavy, such as an Arc'teryx Bora pack, that would be fine for a long-term survival situation.

I'm really comfortable with minimalist backpacking, so that is also a factor in this - people with more old-school gear will find that it probably crosses over better for survival, though there's nothing wrong with looking at how to minimize weight and multiply functionality for our BOBs and survival kits. I bet most of us here think about that.

Piggy-backing on the previous replies, I would add that the (to the extent possible) expected environment for a survival kit may include considerably more specialized gear than what would be carried while backpacking. Consider that the survival kit may include important documents, more medical prescriptions, and perhaps even some tools (for an urban environment) that would be inappropriate for camping/backpacking (i.e. a crowbar). Obviously, some overlap is possible and likely, but it could be dangerous to assume that only wilderness gear will suffice for an emergency. It all depends on the environment and your needs.

Wow, I just discovered these videos by that swedish guy on Bushcraft.se. Nice free videos!

He is convincing me in needing a coffee kettle in the wilderness to boil water. I've been looking for a decent water container for so long, I really like his cute little kettle he's using in his video.

It looks like the Primus LITECH coffee kettle:


Sounds like this might be the container i've been looking for a LONG time! I might even be able to stuff my PSK in it! It's much cuter than a GI canteen or a aluminium foil bowl... <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Bee, did you just use "cuter" to describe your logic in selecting components? *puts head in hands, giggling madly*

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

I did say that!

The Primus kettle might not be proper for a pocket-size PSK obviously, but I think it might be a worthy container for any trip in the wilderness... One thing i'm wondering about regarding this guy's video; he has a 4L collapsible plastic container (great idea, kinda like the Platypus), he also has a 1L Nalgene and a small stainless steel cup... Wonder why he needed the small cup? Wouldn't the Nalgene be enough to drink the boiled water from?

Sorry if I might getting off topic here... <img src="/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

I just ordered a Primus kettle. I also carry some of the stuff in your post Bee. I have a 4L MSR Dromedary Bag with a tube and bite nozzle, two 1L Nalgenes, an old army canteen cup and stove. One of the bottles carries kit stuff like my Miox and iodine solution and other stuff. I am of the mind that you can't have too much water (within reason) especially when it's hot.

My wife picked up my bag a few weeks ago on our five mile hike at a water break and said holy bleep this is heavy. And it was without the 4L bag, just two bottles of water. So I ended up shouldering my bag and carrying my two year old because she was done hiking. She got carried for most of the five miles which I thought was unsual because she made it all the way uphill (about a mile mile and a half) on a previous hike before she konked out and I had to carry her back down. My five year old made it the whole way on both hikes! Proud daddy moment.

Gents and Ladies; I reposted this question another way today because I think it's important and a viable thought. From what I've heard from various sources, backpackers and hikers and campers and most other folks that spend time outdoors, don't put much thought into "what if's". The gear I carry when I'm "out", although it's only"Recreational" equipment, would serve me much better then the stuff I carry as EDC. My question was two fold; planting a seed in the hiking ect. communities that the equipment they carry might bear some thought as to how it would serve them in a survival situation because some day it might have to, and also thinking how you might optimize a backpacking loadout for survival purposes and still have a viable backpacking outfit? Advantages; a dedicated or even fairly active backpacker probably uses their equipment alot more ferquently the we practice with ours. From another prospective, a backpacking trip could be viewed as a survival trek. And if you could hike for 15-20 miles/day in your backpacking rig, wouldn't it make a good choice for a real survival trek? Respectfully; Jim