So Saturday afternoon I decided to actually take my BoB on a 1.5 mile hike through thick, untrailed woods and spend the night camping out.

End result: Being a cheap-ass is bad. My gear weighed a ton (~40 pounds) and carrying that up and down through brush-filled gullies wore me out really fast. Even after getting a 2" thick self-inflating pad I spent the night shivering in my sleeping bag (no tent used). 32F is really cold. Water weighs a fricken' ton. Four knives and a machete are overkill...

The only thing that worked perfectly was my fire-building. One match and the fire was still burning 14 hours later.

This really showed me that my plans to walk home if I get caught far away need serious re-evaluation. If you are going to rely on gear to get you home it'll need to be extremely light and durable otherwise it weigh too much and break too soon. My low-priced stuff will NOT cut it.

If you are planning on "brush-shelters and boiled water" then plan on going really slow. It takes a while to get things like this set-up and it's very difficult (for me, anyway) to do it in the dark.

Of course, all this being said I still did have an absolutely great time!

-Blast, who discovered five feet of waterproof cannon fuse makes great tinder.