Posts Tagged bug out bag
Camping trip load out
To get ready for an upcoming camping trip I decided to do a load out list. List like this help you see what your pack contains, and hopefully spot missing items in the list.
For those of you looking at this list and wondering how I am going to pack off of this gear, the easy answer is “I am not going to pack it”. The camping trip is going to be on the banks of the Angelina River. This means the boat is going to be carrying the gear for me; all I have to do is load the boat up and go.
Pack – Large MOLLE pack with internal sleep system, 2 sustainment pouches on the MOLLE pack. I was going to take my large ALICE pack, but my sleeping bag, food, fleece liner and poncho liner filled up the pack. This means I am having to store a lot of my gear in the sustainment pouches on the MOLLE.
Tent – Wenzel Lone Tree Hiker Tent, this item is hit and miss and might be difficult to find
Tarp – 6×8 foot for tent ground cloth
Sleeping bag – Coleman Exponent Tasman X 32-Degree Hybrid Sleeping Bag
Sleeping bag liner – GI poncho liner and fleece sleeping bag
Sleeping pad – Coleman Max
Bug out bag topics
Over the years I have seen one topic that has been repeated over and over, and that is the topic of the bug out bag.
In reality, a bug out bag should contain copies of important papers, house title, car title, insurance policies, change of clothes, snack, or even 2 – 3 days worth of food, change of clothes, phone number contact list, and any prescription medicines you might be taking. The list will vary depending on the person and what they want to bring with them.
People that live close to railroad tracks or chemical plants might be asked to flee their homes due to a chemical release accident. The bug out bag is for people to grab, run, and have some basic supplies with them.
In fantasy, the bug out bag will be used to bug out to the wilderness when society collapses.
This video pokes fun at the different viewpoints on bug out bags.
Hastily assembled and ill equipped survival plans
Science channel Saturday morning of July 30, 2011 had a program on about Kublai Khan, and his doomed fleet that tried to invade Japan.
During excavations of the ocean floor, scientist discovered that most of the ships in the fleet were flat bottom river boats. River boats do not have a keel like what ocean going ships have. The keel helps ocean going ships weather large waves, while flat bottom boats will capsize.
It appears that Kublai Khan was in a hurry to invade Japan, so he ill equipped his navy with the wrong type of ship. This short sight meant the fleet was lost in a storm.
How does the example of Kublai Khan apply to survivalism?
Those that do not take the time to properly prepare are doomed to fail. The key word there is “properly” prepare. Kublai Khan had his army, weapons, armor, supplies, ships,,,,,. But the ships were the wrong type of ship, they were not ship designed for oceans, they were designed for rivers.
In the survivalist community, there are a lot of people that plan on grabbing their bug out bag, bugging out to the wilderness and living off the land. There are lots of problems with that situation, such as being able to find enough food, diseases, illness, vitamin and mineral decencies,,, only to name a few.
Back in November and December of 2010, a buddy of mine and I spent 3 days on the Angelina river camping and trying to live off the land. During those 3 days I did not see a single wild hog or whitetail deer. Some deer came close to the camp site at night, but I did not see anything during the day. We caught a few catfish, but not enough to feed a group of people with. In order to catch enough fish to live off of, we would have had to have people fishing all day long.
Food bag for a bug out bag
For years, and I mean for years I have kept a food bag in my bug out / camping bag. For the most part the food bag contains a single burner stove for a bug out bag, pot for cooking, eating utensils, lighter and matches for the stove and for building a camp fire, hand sanitizer,,,, and other odds and ends.
The purpose of a Bug Out Bag is if you and your family have to leave home in an emergency, the bag provides a few days of supplies for each person. Lets say there is a chemical leak near your house and your family has to evacuate. Everyone grabs their bag, and heads to a shelter or friends house.
My main bug out bag use to be a large ALICE pack. But a year ago I bought a large MOLLE pack with internal sleep system, which is currently my main bag. To add a little more room to the pack, 2 sustainment pouches were added.
Lets talk about this food bag in a little more detail.
The main bag is made of a brown cloth, has a drawstring at the top, when empty laying flat on a table, the bag measures 18 inches tall, 15 inches wide and has a 7X9 rectangle bottom. In a bag this size, someone should easily be able to carry at least 3 days worth of dehydrated food.
Ideas for a get home bag
Get Home Bag Ideas
If I had to walk home, here are some items that I would like to have in my get home bag.
32 ounce water bottle
Rain poncho – even a light duty one
LED light, something like a Surefire G2X Pro
Mainstay rations
Road map
Phone number / contact list
Rope – 550 cord
Multi-tool
Small first aid kit
Paper, pen and sharpie / felt tip magic marker
Money – at least $20
One of the first packs that comes to mind is the Maxpedition Noatak
Stuff survivalist should not stockpile
From time to time I see discussions on the forums about gear and supplies that survivalist should invest into – like a berkey water filter, mountain house foods, or long term food storage items. For the sake of discussion, lets talk about stuff you should not invest into.
Before investing a lot of money into a project, there is a lot of stuff to consider. The first thing is “can you “really” afford it? It would be nice to have half a million dollars to drop into 1,000 acres in Alaska and a 2 story cabin. But the fact is, most people can not afford such luxuries. Next, do you really “need” the supplies? Or, are you buying the stuff just to have it?
Bugging out to the wilderness
There is a theory that has been going around the survival community for decades, and at one time I subscribed to it, but not any more. The theory goes like this – if there is some kind of wide spread disaster, I’am just going to grab my bug out bag, and bug out to the wilderness. From there, my family and I will live in peace as society falls apart. When everything has passed, my family and I will return and help re-build.
Here are some of the reasons why I no longer subscribe to the bug out to the wilderness theory:
Ehrlichiosis
Lyme Disease
Rocky Mountain spotted fever
Tularemia
E. Coli
Cryptosporidium
Dysentery
Vitamin Deficiencies
Culture Shock – that may not be the correct term, but its going to be used anyway
Frost Bite
Heat Stroke
Heat Exhaustion
Only to name a few,,,,,,,,,.
MOLLE Pack VS ALICE Pack
“which one should I buy, an ALICE Pack or a MOLLE Pack?” – that is one of the questions that I see a lot of on the forum. The answer is not a simple one. Before you can answer a question, sometimes you have to ask a few questions.
How much room do you need
How rugged do you need the frame? – the MOLLE pack has a plastic frame, ALICE has a metal frame
A couple of weeks ago my son, nephew and I went on a boating / camping trip. We loaded up the gear, launched the boat and headed out to a camping spot on the river. While we were there, I decided to put together a video about the packs and do a little comparison.
My first exposure to the ALICE pack was way back in either 1992 or 1993. One of my good buddies had just came back from the first Persian gulf conflict, and one of the first things he did was buy himself a medium ALICE pack to replace the one he had been using in the ARMY. I liked the pack so much, I bought myself one. The difference between my buddies pack and mine – my pack was woodland camo, while my buddies pack was olive drab. After using the medium ALICE for a few years, I found it was a little so, so I bought a large ALICE pack in olive green.
My first exposure to the MOLLE pack was a couple of months ago after I bought 3 packs off ebay.
One man tent for a bug out bag
There has been ideology going around the survivalist circle for the past couple of decades – if some kind of end of the world event happens, I’ll just load up my Bug Out Bag and head to the hills. If you go to just about any survival forum, there will be dozens, if not hundreds, or even thousands of threads about what kind of back pack would make a good bug out bag. One of the next most popular questions is – what kind of one man tent would be good for a bug out bag.
Here are some of the things I look for in a tent
Weight – how much does the tent weigh? The more the tent weighs, something else has be be removed from the pack to keep the overall weight down.
1, 2, 3 or 4 season tent – where are you going to be using the tent, will it be for hot weather, cold weather, wet weather, or something else? If you live along the gulf cost where it rarely snows, do you really need a 4 season tent? If you mostly go hiking / camping in hot weather, you want to make sure the tent breathes well.
Most of my hiking / camping is done in hot weather – so I look for a tent with a removable rain fly, and mosquito netting across the top of the tent. This allows a cross breeze to go across the person in the tent, and helps with the removal of collected body heat inside the tent.
No bug out bag for me thank you
From what I see, most of the people that talk about “bug out bags” have never faced a “real” disaster. But lets not group everyone together – I’am sure some of them have.
Personally, I do not subscribe to the “Bug Out Bag” train of thought. I have had to bug out / evacuate in the face of too many hurricanes, and like to think I know the difference between reality and myth.
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