Preferably with water, you have at least a way to carry it (eg platypus soft bottle), and a way to boil it (eg small pot with wire hanger), depending on your size requirements, the boil pot could easily be the kit container. These should be independent backups of your normal water supplies. You of course know this, but the people reading your list may not. And let us not forget the ever-handy aquarium tubing for extracting from seeps.


Extra clothing: Work gloves of some sort should be carried at all times for the times you need to protect your hands, and extra socks (wool, natch) to protect your feet. Mittens are handy in colder weather, but an extra pair of wool socks can warm hands or feet. A watch cap, GI Poncho, and down vest are very handy to have as minimal emergency clothes.


Cards or dice can be a handy other essential to kill boredom. GPS could be considered an "other essential" nowadays, though it shouldn't take the place of map & compass, since maps seldom break, lose signal, or have dead batteries. Cheap painters drop clothes can be used for temporary shelters, but are really inferior to a tube tent, as they tear easy, they are however cheap, compact, and light weight.

Just some thoughts,

C.Rowe