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Share you checklist of essential items for a survival kit.

Compass, fire starter, etc.

i like to have enough to keep me reasonably comfortable until i either reach home, or perish...

Yes

First aid to include aspirin (heart attack) and Benadryl (bee stings ect). Various fire starting tools, duct tape, whistle/signal device, compass, para cord, small multi-tool or knife. You can add fish hooks, fancy survival knives, ect but I always have these basics with me. Most important is to use your head to keep out of trouble and if stuff happens�.composure and knowledge to use your kit.

I usually have some newspaper and 2 different fire starters sealed in a water proof bag. I have a compass with me too. Other than that, A SPOT is in my pack when I go into the back country, especially when on horseback alone.

I have knives/rope/etc with me as well, but for various reasons that are not necessarily safety oriented. I don't get crazy with all that safety equipment, especially this day in age in the lower 48. My mother always knows roughly where I am though.

Just a thought, if it's not ALWAYS with you it doesn't count. I've got some great stuff in my pack, can overnight just about anywhere, no problems. But it's in my pack. Pockets and person, that's what counts.

Here's that list:
In a leather packet laced shut with 20 feet of 440 cord, an issue compass, real deal, magnesium fire starter, Throxane tablets, permenent lighter (basically a mini Zippo that screws shut - last for years.) This goes into left side gear pocket of pants.

Two AA cell mag light on lanyard attached to pants in same pocket.

Left side pocket:
Victorinox "Hunter" lock blade and saw, tweezers (used often antelope hunting in cactus coutry), etc.

Burt's Bees Lifeguard chapstick.

Right gear pocket:
24"x 15" sheet of 1/8" neoprene to sit on. Sounds dork, but a wet, cold ass is not going to help you in anyway. You need to sit down to conserve energy, huddle be the fire, etc.

Two large bandanas in the rear pockets, one camo, one day-glow orange. Lots of uses.

Belt: Firefighters last chance style, real deal. Perfect gun belt.

Head and neck: Shemagh, Cotton is excellent for most occations but a nice wool one is great in winter. Why? One bout with skin cancer is enough. Wet and you have your own AC in summer, head and neck warmth essential in winter. Note: I'm a building contractor and I wear one constantly working outside in the summer, lately it's been fantastic, one day it dried out 3 times before 1PM due to heat! I would not have been able to work past noon otherwise.

Something windproof and waterproof for an outer shell, even if it's just a jumbo heavy-duty garbage bag that you can get your whole body into comfortably, with a hole cut out for your face so your breath won't soak your insulating layers in condensation. Something sturdy, definitely not one of the cheap mylar space blankets that are about the size of a deck of cards and will disintegrate if poked by a stick.

You can get just the right size here for a few $$:

http://outdoorsafe.com/read/

I'd suggest buying his book too, it's a good one. His main theme is to carry what you need with you and to consider your layers of clothing as shelter. The idea being that if you get into a survival situation, chances are you'll be injured, it'll be dark, you'll be in unfamiliar territory, and you'll need shelter from the elements in a hurry.

And in that situation, relying on your ability to find the right materials at hand and then construct a wind-proof, water-proof shelter is not slanting the odds in your favor.

Every Boy Scout can tell you this.

The Ten Essentials

It's a good place to start. I always like to customize it based on what I am doing. The hunting survival kit has some more items than the regular hiking/camping one.

Don't skimp on the first aid kit... its the one item in there that will save your bacon when you need it most. Of course it goes without saying that you need to know how to use all of these items. Taking them with you and being ignorant of how to properly make use of them is idiocy of the first order.

Fire starter x 3 (matches, lighter, steel) at least two lights, basic first aid, tweezers, mirror, small magnifying glass (like a jewlers loupe. The mirror helps when you get something in you eye, and I'm going to add a instant clotting sponge-they weigh nothing and are small. I think a bad cut is probably the most likely injury of all, especially dealing with meat when it's cold. And having it with you is the main thing.

Depends on where I am and what I'm doing - what I carry on the Kenai Peninsula isn't exactly what I carry here just north of the Arctic Circle - but it's close. (Hey, we got trees in the river-bottoms up here!)

I'm currently bi-home...

Nor is it what I would carry in desert country (not BTDT), or in the High Arctic (BTDT).

Knife, fire-starter supplies, compass, GPS, very basic first aid kit, some snacks, almost always a GI canteen/cup, a couple pkgs of hot choc, 50 feet of parachute cord on the Kenai or in Kotz. A cell phone isn't a bad idea. If I had one... and knew how to use it. Nor is a SPOT - I can , and have, checked one out from the NWA Borough S&R on occasion. Probably should read the directions....

Fire starter in the High Arctic is superfluous, since there is virtually nothing to burn (in winter, anyway). An extra set of skin-out clothes in a dry sack, on the other hand, once saved my sorry butt about 35 years ago... Can the fire starter, substitute a tarp, pad, sleeping bag on the sled in a dry sack. Hope you don't lose the sled...

Winter overflows and thin spots are killers, mostly . Blizzards/ whiteouts/ blown off the water/lost can be dealt with more successfully with basic equipment and supplies intact-in my case, only the snow machine and I went in - the sled with extra clothes didn't. It was a memorable occasion...

"May you live in interesting times". :

will say on most the survival types ive read where they seemed to know what they were talking about all said carry a lighter as your main fire starting kit with matches and magnesium bar and such as back up.....most all of them said a lighter makes things a whole lot easier when yah have one and they carry one with all the other stuff as back up if the lighter failed....

Space blanket type depending on area.
Ultra light weight rain tarp with attached guy lines for anchoring, similar to backpackers. You must have the ability to stay dry.
Seat cushion that you can use to stop conduction.
light weight saw for managing wood for fires.
One strong survival knife mainly for battoning wood for fire starting and shelter. Such as Ontario's SK-5, Mora.
Magnesium fire starter with steel and zipo lighterx2
Tinder/chemical starter/candle/TP
Heat pads place near arteries to warm the blood and improve circulation.
GPS with extra batteries a quality compass with a topo. map and learn how to use well.
Extra large heavy duty trash bags 2 minimum , you can fashion into a sleeping bag by stuffing it with tree leaves etc...
First aid kit
If you are venturing deep into the wilderness invest into a satellite phone, or Delorme spot messenger.
Make sure to leave your itinerary with a responsible person.
Carry extra cloth make sure it is wool or synthetic for winter and cotton for summer. Quality gloves/mittens and head gear are a must.
Try to always have a couple of partners.
High calorie candy bars, beef broth bars
Titanium pot to store everything in and for boiling water for purification and food sustenance.
Fish line with hooks also for snaring.
Headlamp with extra batteries.
Signaling devices such as a signaling mirror, light stick that you can tie to a long cord and twirl in large circles. Wistle beadless type.
Mostly keep your faith don't panic or venture at night and NEVER give up.

A few thoughts on survival�

In a nutshell survival means NOT DYING out there. Plain and simple.

Having spent many months of my now �longer life� out in very wild and remote areas that most people would be well advised to avoid, I�ll offer a few suggestions:

A.�Discretion is the better part of valor�� very clich� I know, but by this I mean� If in doubt, turn back. If you�re at all doubtful about your vehicle's ability to get you there and back, don�t risk it unless you are both capable and equipped to WALK your sorry butt back out. The same goes for being on foot� don�t go �down in there� (so to speak) unless you are more than capable of climbing back out.

B. Take the time to �recon� the area you are going into first. Get an appropriate map and study it BEFORE you ever leave the house. And by this I mean a map that shows at least some topographic details. Mentally visualize the general contours of the area and how it relates to major drainages, mountains and canyons, major and minor roads and trails, and towns. If possible physically scout the area from all sides of the periphery.

C. Never be 100% reliant on electronics�
Cell phones don�t have service in many places, and the GPS on most of them will kill the battery in just a few hours. Stand alone GPS devices will have better battery life, but most have far too many features and in a stressful situation (like when you are �discombobulated�) can be down right confusing. A Personal Location Beacon or even a satellite phone can be possible exceptions, but even these can get lost or broken, or in rare situations not be able to broadcast out. There is no substitute for a good �hard copy� map (kept dry of course) and a compass (the kind that hang from your zipper� not so much).

D. Tell a reliable person where you are going and approximately when you will be back� Uncle Buddy the town booze hound may not be the best choice.

E. If you are truly lost, find a spot obviously visible from the air and stay put. Hopefully if Uncle Buddy isn�t �out on a bender� he will notify the authorities and Search and Rescue will be out looking for you within 12 hours, so make it easy for them to find you.


And finally when it gets down to the nitty-gritty remember the �Rule of 3�s� and prioritize:

1.Complete panic for even 3 seconds can kill you. This is especially true in situations of serious eminent catastrophe or dire threat.

2. Hypoxia (hypoxemic) for a little as 3 minutes can kill you. So avoid situations where you might get submerged in water, buried in snow or other debris , overcome by fumes, or squeezed. (Also severe blood loss for as little as 5 minutes can kill you even if the bleeding can be effectively stopped , but this is more related to situational trauma rather than actual survival.)

3. Hypothermia for even 3 hours can kill you. Stay warm and dry. Have proper clothing, preferably layers of non-cotton insulation and rain / wind protection. Have a way to start a fire if possible, and know, from practice, how to start a fire in less than favorable conditions. (Extreme heat and sun can also be fatal although usually nowhere near as quickly fatal as a dropping core temperature.)

4. Going without water for even 3 days can be fatal. Although constant hydration is necessary for proper physical and mental function, death rarely occurs in less than 48 hours from severe dehydration (even in the desert). Questionable water sources are a risk, but unless a possibility of actual poisoning exists, a case of Giardia (or the like ) is much better than actually dying from dehydration, (especially in the shorter term during which most rescues happen). But all that being said, water is much more important to pack along than food, because:

5. You can starve to death in as little as 3 weeks. Although if this was a hard and fast rule many of us would not be here today because many of our distant ancestors would not have survived to pass on their genes to us. And considering the fact that most of us carry around a more than adequate �fat reserve�( thanks to those same genes) that time frame can stretch considerably, especially if an effort is made to conserve caloric expenditure.

*And finally this one which I will leave to your own judgment:
6. You can die from as little as 3 months without companionship� Now to a degree this may be true. Although what most likely perishes is your sanity rather than your physical body. We�ve all heard about some crazy hermit living sequestered up in the remote wilderness, and the likes of the �Uni-Bomber�. But then there are also documented cases similar to Tom Hanks� character in �Castaway� that made do just fine with a volleyball-esque substitute.


So in a nutshell; avoid survival type situations if at all possible, have proper clothing to stay warm and dry, pack adequate water and/or water treatment facilities, don�t be upset if you get hungry, conserve energy and don�t be stupid.

Remember: Help will get there.

*Personally I�m not really an advocate of this one, especially the time frame.

Good addition with the "rule of 3's" but to drive home the point, they're not meant to be hard and fast "rules," they're just meant to show what's really important.

And food is near the bottom of the list. Wind-proof, waterproof shelter is near the top.

So all the stuff you see on TV about snaring rabbits, eating snakes and grubs and other nasty stuff is purely made-for-TV entertainment.

Unless we are taking about an extended (7 days+)"survival situation", being overly concerned about food is more a matter of comfort than simply preventing death.

Anyone who regularly puts them-self in locations or situations that may require emergency survival skills would be well advised to do a self-imposed 2-3 day fast a couple times a year, if for no other reason than to "acclimatize" their system to coping with a very diminished caloric intake, so that if that does in fact happen in a survival situation, they can take it in stride and rather focus on those things that are more immediately necessary to fend off death or permanent debilitating injury (such as hypothermia, frostbite or pulmonary edema), than trying to satiate an empty belly.

It basically boils down to the same criteria that EMS personnel use to triage and treat accident victims, as any person in a true survival situation is in effect an accident victim.

Unless a person is a diabetic, going hungry for a few days, or even a week is not going cause any lasting harm.

Remember, there are many documented cases of people equipped with supposed "survival kits" that perished within a few days of being stranded either because they were unable to prevent hypothermia due to lack of appropriate outdoor clothing (rain type gear and also fabrics that have insulating properties even when wet and that also dry out relatively easily), lack of simple basic "woodsmanship" (it does no good to have a fire starting kit if you don't have the experience to find dry tinder in a rain soaked environment and actually start a fire), or because in a state of panic they made poor decisions that lead to other dire events from which they were unable to recover.

If you have enough to drink, you can go a long time without food.

I see these long list of survival items and wonder if those guys get Sherpas to carry all of that stuff.

I like my packs high speed, low drag affairs. Besides the normal items I carry for hunting (maps, compass, knives, etc) the only items I carry extra for survival are strike-anywhere matches, vaseline cotton balls and an emergency blanket. I could survive several days with those items and what I carry in my pack.

1st let me say that this comment is not meant to belittle any other posters' experiences or opinions:

I'm not a big advocate of "survival kits". I think they pander to the "shopping list" mentality that we see alot of here in Colorado.

These are usually guys that have little or no experience and little or no gear but are going on their 1st elk hunt with a buddy from work or some similar scenario. They show up at a local "big box" store with a shopping list they either snagged off the internet, or that their "buddy" that invited them gave them. (Often this list even includes a rifle, optics, and ammo. This is how green these guys are.)
Unfortunately often "survival kits" follow this same mentality.

A "list" that someone else came up with either when they were writing a book or posting on the internet... The fact is, most people that spend alot of time out in the mountains don't really have a "kit" so to speak, because the things that they normally throw into their packs and/or carry in their pockets and use all the time do effectively the same things, but usually better.

For example:
If I'm going to venture even 1/2 mile from the vehicle I'll have my "Camel-back Alpine Explorer".In addition to a freshly filled 2 liter hydration bladder, things that live in this day pack are a "Bic" lighter, a butane "jet type" lighter, a "blast-match" and a couple "WetFire" packets,a cheap light weight blaze orange hunting vest, a headlamp,a Silva compass, a light weight folding knife (backup), a small roll of medical tape, 5 yds of 1" nylon webbing, 15 yds. of 1/8" parachute type cord, a couple of climbing type carabiners, and a 1.5 oz. eyedropper bottle of household bleach in a zip top bag.

I always throw in some type of fleece Jacket or pull-over, depending on the season and elevation , a compact yet durable rain jacket and rain pants, a pair of mid weight synthetic socks, gloves, and a balaclava,and often a pair of fleece pants. And ALWAYS a USGS map (or maps) of the area properly folded and secured in a zip bag.

I try to avoid wearing 100% cotton clothing on these excursions, and I always have a folding knife and "Bic" lighter in my pocket and at least a ball cap on my head. I usually have a small note pad and pen as well.

I'll throw in lunch and a few extra snacks if I'm going to be out any longer than a couple hours or so.

I don't carry garbage bags, space blankets, whistles, signal mirrors, 1st aid kits (again with the kit thing) sun screen, chap-stick, snake bit kits, sewing kits, fishing kits, duct tape, cable saws, muli-tools, GPS's or usually even a cell phone..... I seem to be very talented at losing expensive electronics.

So..... You might say my typical day pack is a survival kit, just like you might say a typical woman's purse is too. My point is, that its nearly all stuff (except for a few items)that gets used on almost every trip, especially the rain jacket. A sudden rain (or even snow) storm is very common in this area, and a sudden need for extra insulation can happen even if it just gets a little cloudy or windy.

Might I possibly need a snake bite kit someday? Perhaps... but I might also need 150 ft. of climbing rope, and I'm not about to lug that around as a general rule, either.

way to keep dry poncho

way to make fire to keep warm, redundancy, lighter or two and blast match and tinder

way to build shelter, small fold up saw and knife

way to hydrate, few iodine tabs, water bottle with filter top or at the least straw filter

compass

firearm

few odds and ends, a cup, some tea and bouillion cubes, some ziplocs, spare headlamp, few meds, little duct tape, a few wet wipes in ziploc

I'm set

CaseyTibbs, What all is the bleach for?

Well Casey wellcome You ruffi.