Posted by: Polak187
Silver in survival kit. and other ramblings on EDC - 05/26/07 06:58 PM
I carry a lucky coin (old piece of silver coin from Indo China made in 1880 worth about $60). It's sort of my lucky charm. I was up in the mountains and got lil strapped on cash since instead of roughing it as I normally would I was forced to stay in lodges since it was my girls first trip. I sent my pack over the pass 3 days earlier and forgot that I left my fleece with cash in it. Also bank closed my account after one withdrawal on foreign soil and it costed a lot of cash to call the US. So out of the sudden I'm lil short on money but have some US currency as well as loose British coins that were more than enough. I went to pay for a meal and other stuff and guy is frowning upon US and GB money saying they aint so good lately. He is pointing to my $1000 watch, my leatherman or my headlamp, jacket and even boots (every vital piece of equipment) as a trade option but obviously trade on all this stuf is out of the question. Finally it hits me. I pull out a piece of silver and we make a deal. Obviously I wasn't in the position to bargain but somehow the silver was stronger currency than everything. But nice thing is that 10 days later I was able to acquire another lucky coin which was a silver US dollar ffrom late 1800s. Problem is that in 10 days without my lucky coin I was hit by a boulder and hoped along down. Still it is an interesting point of view how sometimes paper money would have no value but something worth of trade and looking serious has.
And as far as the EDC goes... I realized that flashlights are not as handy as headlamps (packed up my surefire gear and never touched it), knives have nothings on multitools (striders gave way to the leatherman), good FAK is essential (got hit by a boulder, did right first aid and was able to walk), good clothes (good gore tex/fleece made sure I'm warm and dry), boots (more on it below) and socks (dry feet = happy polak), good sleeping bag (warm feet = happy polak).
Also be aware that shoemaker who just resoled your shoes may have done a crappy job no matter how nice it looks. 5 days into the trek my heels on my Scarpa boots started to separate from the shoe body. Thank god for local crazy glue which I had to apply every day before bed.
Miox is great.
Garmin VistaCx and local maps are great tool but map is better. Map + GPS are the best. I downloaded special area maps in order to know where I am all the time but also bought NG map of the place. At no point those maps were in agreement with each other but between the two I was able to figure out my position. Sometimes GPS would freak and just jump the distance telling me that I did 50 km in one day.
Just few pointers here and there but the most important thing is: EDC up in the mountains changes a lot and every little thing adds up. My main pack in which I kept stuff for my girl and me that had down clothes, two sleeping bags and other misc equipment was about 25 kgs (~50 lbs). My personal pack that had "survival items", extra clothes and camera gear was at 20 KGs (~40 lbs). I started carrying liner for my sleeping bag on me just in case while the main pack was sent up by the porter and robed by Maoeist or bandits. When I finally had a day of acclimatization I decided to throw away (separate) the redundant items, items not being used and luxury items (including extra camera gear) and weight of my both packs was down to 32 Kgs (~64 lbs) together. All this extra weight is the stuff I could have done without but would have no safety net to fall upon (no extra blade, no extra dry clothes, no backup lights, less backup batteries, no waterproof cases (small pelicans substituted by ziplocks), etc...) Also my girls sleeping bag was around 2.5 Kg and her clothes were in the main pack as well. My point in all this is that we build up BOBs with a lot of backups in mind but if you ever had to carry it up and down for few days you may not have been to keen on redundancy.
That's about it and thanks for listening.
And as far as the EDC goes... I realized that flashlights are not as handy as headlamps (packed up my surefire gear and never touched it), knives have nothings on multitools (striders gave way to the leatherman), good FAK is essential (got hit by a boulder, did right first aid and was able to walk), good clothes (good gore tex/fleece made sure I'm warm and dry), boots (more on it below) and socks (dry feet = happy polak), good sleeping bag (warm feet = happy polak).
Also be aware that shoemaker who just resoled your shoes may have done a crappy job no matter how nice it looks. 5 days into the trek my heels on my Scarpa boots started to separate from the shoe body. Thank god for local crazy glue which I had to apply every day before bed.
Miox is great.
Garmin VistaCx and local maps are great tool but map is better. Map + GPS are the best. I downloaded special area maps in order to know where I am all the time but also bought NG map of the place. At no point those maps were in agreement with each other but between the two I was able to figure out my position. Sometimes GPS would freak and just jump the distance telling me that I did 50 km in one day.
Just few pointers here and there but the most important thing is: EDC up in the mountains changes a lot and every little thing adds up. My main pack in which I kept stuff for my girl and me that had down clothes, two sleeping bags and other misc equipment was about 25 kgs (~50 lbs). My personal pack that had "survival items", extra clothes and camera gear was at 20 KGs (~40 lbs). I started carrying liner for my sleeping bag on me just in case while the main pack was sent up by the porter and robed by Maoeist or bandits. When I finally had a day of acclimatization I decided to throw away (separate) the redundant items, items not being used and luxury items (including extra camera gear) and weight of my both packs was down to 32 Kgs (~64 lbs) together. All this extra weight is the stuff I could have done without but would have no safety net to fall upon (no extra blade, no extra dry clothes, no backup lights, less backup batteries, no waterproof cases (small pelicans substituted by ziplocks), etc...) Also my girls sleeping bag was around 2.5 Kg and her clothes were in the main pack as well. My point in all this is that we build up BOBs with a lot of backups in mind but if you ever had to carry it up and down for few days you may not have been to keen on redundancy.
That's about it and thanks for listening.