My hiking kit.

Posted by: Herman30

My hiking kit. - 03/11/20 12:05 AM

Please feel free to comment if anything comes to mind.

It is a chest rig with following content:

-simple FAK mainly for stopping bleeding wounds from knife acccident.

-Fire making kit: storm matches, regular matches, plasmalighter, fuel gel, Esbit fuel tablets, a telescopic tube for blowing air in to fire.

-50 feet of paracord (3 x 15 feet).

-10 large zip-ties (one use could be to attach plastic shelter to tree branches).

-2 thick 300 litre trashbags (to be used as makeshift shelter, one bag is about 2 x 3 m when cut open on two sides).

-Knife (Sissipuukko M95).

-Bahco Laplander saw.

-8 x 30 monocular.

This set can be folded to fit in a pack sack of 5 litre and therefore easy to take with me strapped to a back pack. And by doing so, having a basic hiking kit where ever I am.

Main bag with listed items.


Small pouch with monocular, long pouch with Bahco saw.


Small pouch empty, (might store a compass there when going away from home), the Sissipuukko knife.




Posted by: Phaedrus

Re: My hiking kit. - 03/11/20 12:53 AM

Nice! What are the camo strips on the front for?
Posted by: hikermor

Re: My hiking kit. - 03/11/20 02:16 AM

+1 to Phaedrus' comment. I would add a compass(long with appropriate map usually) and something for signalling - at least a whistle and a dedicated signal mirror or a compass with a mirror. Not sure about the zip ties,but if they work for you, great!
Posted by: KenK

Re: My hiking kit. - 03/11/20 03:24 AM

Compass adjusted for magnetic declination, map of area, GPS (create car waypoint), extra batteries for GPS, whistle, LED headlamp, extra batteries for headlamp, something bright for daytime signals (bag, bandana, coat, ...), signal mirror, liter Nalgene bottle, and maybe controversial, but I like a Steripen with extra batteries (fast, easy, safe). Bandanas are also useful for soaking up water/dew, first aid, and pre-filtering water.

Consider a personal locator beacon.

As you may have seen in my past posts, I think GPSs provide an amazing ability to get you unlost IF key waypoints are saved. A compass saves battery life, avoids confusion, and are useful & with maps.

Honestly, if you can buy one, Doug's survival kit is excellent and cost effective for those elements. I tend to recommend buying two, practising with the contents of one, and packing the other.

I cut my paracord into 15-20 foot lengths to be more manageable and wrap them into fist sized bundles. Easy to tie them together, as needed.
Posted by: Herman30

Re: My hiking kit. - 03/11/20 12:22 PM

Camo strips are there beause I donīt want a light brown patch on my otherwise camo or naturelike colored clothes. You can call it vanity, I suppose.

A compass will be added if I take a trip further away than my "home forest". The one empty side poch is for a compass. My compasses are a Suunto M-311 from 1970īs and a newer Suunto M-9.

My paracord is in three bundles, each is about 15 feet. I have measured them in meter so it doesnīt quite match up in feet.

I donīt do long hikes, just for a few hours. Day hikes, so to say.
And finnish forests are not wilderness like in USA or Canada.

If you walk in a straight line here, you will come to a logging road or some other road every 10km or so at the most.
We donīt have much anything of big wilderness other than up north in Lapland.

I have a cellphone with GPS and downloaded off-line maps of the whole country.

This is just the basic ("survival") a bare necessity kit, a small back pack will be addeed with water and food/snacks. And/or a gasburner and cooking pot.

A bright signalling panel would be a good idea since I am dresses in naturelike colors or in camo. And a flaslight would also be a good thing to have.


Posted by: KenK

Re: My hiking kit. - 03/11/20 02:39 PM

I've always imagined the "I broke an ankle scenario" where I'm basically sitting waiting for someone to find me. Thus the whistle, bright "flag", and some kind of bright light. This actually almost happened to me. I decided to walk around the edges of the flooded farm field next to my property. I got almost exactly on opposite side of the flooded area from my house, and my leg dropped almost to my hip in mud. I truly struggled to get out. I could actually see my house in the distance, but stupid me didn't tell my wife where I was going, nor did I bring a phone - just a gps and a camera.