Sounds pretty heavy to pack with some redundancy and agree with what others have stated regarding food options. I’d be much better off packing some light weight backpacking type food than trying to harvest my own. I keep my day hiking pack and another larger pack, plus fairly large packs for both my dogs, in my SUV at all times, in a large plastic storage container. The most likely scenario that I can come up with is if an earthquake took either roads or bridges out and I had to hoof it home. My thoughts would be to carry what I needed from the supplies of gear, food and water, plus water treatment options stored in my vehicle to get home, and what I took with me would depend on where I was at the time as well as the season and weather conditions. I guess everyone has to take into consideration where they live and the most likely emergency scenario for themselves. Heading off into the wilderness isn’t something I’d likely do, but that‘s just me and where I live.

In your FAK it looks like 3 different scissors, while I do carry two different sizes in my kit for the SUV, I’d never carry more than one in my pack. I might have missed it on the list but I didn’t see any non-stick pads. Non sticks are really nice to put next to a wound even if you’re going to use additional padding on top, both for the comfort factor and so you don’t get a wound bleeding again when changing the dressing. I actually like to have at least one fairly heavy cotton type blood stopping pad with me along with a few of the gauze squares and rolls of various sizes.

Re water. I too carry the Katadyn Micropur tabs, however for my situation I’d want to be able to have the option of always moving so I went to the 1 qt. platypus soft sided containers for use in that situation as I don’t think any sort of bag would hold up well and wouldn‘t want to have it spill getting other gear wet or more importantly not have it when I needed it. The platypus containers add a little bulk and probably a fraction more weight but are actually designed to carry water and drink out of, as well as the exact size for the Katadyn tabs. Just my 2 cents in that department!

One other piece of gear that I would take is a small battery powered radio so I could keep up with just how bad things were and reports might even decide the route I took. Maps of the area would also be something to consider taking along, depending where a person was. I have a bike route map of my county in my rig that might be handy if traveling without my vehicle.


Edited by rebwa (06/10/10 06:04 PM)