Survival prep is something most of us never want to have to worry about. Unfortunately, that also means it’s often the most overlooked group of items that one should carry if they find themselves venturing into the great outdoors. I believe that camping should consist of what’s needed for your trip along with a few “just in case” items. I don’t need a four-course meal while trekking through the backcountry. The feeling of being remote is what brings me pleasure. Getting away from pavement, getting away from crowds, getting away from the creature comforts of home and calling the forest or desert your home for even just a few short days, that’s what it’s all about. Regardless of how you spend your time outdoors, being prepared is something you need to be concerned with.
ITS Tactical Editor-in-Chief’s note: This post was written by Brett McKay and originally ran on The Art of Manliness.
In the quest to streamline your camping trips, foil packet meals can be one of your greatest allies. It’s cooking at its simple best; you take some ingredients, wrap them up in a foil parcel, and place the pouch in a campfire’s coals to cook. You can prepare these foil packets before you head out into Mother Nature, and they require no pots and pans, no plates, and no clean up. All you need is a fork and some fire. And, if you know what you’re doing, they can be incredibly tasty and satisfying. So today we’re going to cover the basics of foil packet cooking and provide you with some delicious recipes to try the next time you venture into the great outdoors.
The ongoing trend in the consumer market of providing small, ready-to-go, individual size packages of consumables has been a win-win for the lightweight and ultralight backpacking communities. Always looking to shave a few extra ounces or grams off of our overall pack weight, these individual servings are the perfect fit for trail snacks, drinks, condiments – you name it.
However, these nicely packaged individual servings can come at a premium. They can often be pricy or difficult to find without going online and ordering in bulk + shipping. That’s when the creative types among us come up with ingenious solutions that lets us make our own alternatives using things we usually have lying around.
The Tarahumara from Hill People Gear is a small pack that manages to reach an impressive equilibrium between simplicity and versatility. Originally envisioned as a hydration carrier, the Tarahumara grew during its development into a small pack and compression panel.
This is the fourth post in my series on lightweight backpacking aimed at helping you reduce your overall pack weight without sacrificing any of the comfort or necessities. In my first post I introduced you to the concept of lightweight backpacking, the benefits, how to get started, and taking less stuff. The second post focused on weighing your gear, using gear lists, and knowing how much weight you are carrying. The third post focused on reducing the weight of your “Big Three” – your tent, backpack, and sleeping bag.
At some point in the past you’ve probably heard someone say that their version of camping was staying in a hotel. I know that’s a standard response from some of my friends and family when I’ve told them about a camping trips that Bryan and I planned. I’ve also been guilty of saying that same line a few years back.
Since then, I’ve found that camping is a fun way to relax and spend time with my husband and our son. (Right now it’s one of the few things that helps me relate to our teenager.) It’s also a great way to test my skills when it comes to fire building, knot tying and surviving outside of my comfort zone. Learning to truly enjoy camping has just taken some experience and thoughtful preparing on my part, to make sure I pack what I need to be comfortable on a campout. [Read More…]
Carrying on the waist isn’t an option when you’re wearing a pack with a belt. In order to do its job, the pack belt needs to wrap tightly around the waist, which makes any bulky items between the waist and the pack belt inappropriate. A holster could be mounted to the pack belt itself, but then you drop your gun whenever you drop your pack. If you choose to carry a handgun in the backcountry, you probably want it with you and readily accessible at all times.
The Kit Bag addresses this problem by allowing the handgun to be carried on the chest. It’s supported by its own harness, worn underneath the pack, which allows the user to drop their pack without removing the Kit Bag.
We’ve kept you up to date on the Muster last week via Facebook and Twitter, but we wanted to post a few awesome photos here on the site while we continue to sort through the hundreds we took.
If this is the first you’ve heard of our Inaugural Muster and Skill-Set Development Excursion, it was a way for us to interact with you all, our community, and get hands-on training in the skill-sets we continue to advocate here.
Enjoy this preview and stay tuned for more information and photos from the Muster!
This is the third post in my series on lightweight backpacking aimed at helping you reduce your overall pack weight without sacrificing any of the comfort or the necessities. In my first post I introduced you to the concept of lightweight backpacking, the benefits, how to get started, taking less stuff, and smaller amounts of things. In my second post I focused on weighing your gear, using a detailed gear tracking list, weight summaries, and the importance of keeping it up to date. How else can you know how much you are carrying if you don’t weigh your gear?
For this third installment I wanted to focus on the three pieces of gear that every backpacker must have and which collectively account for the majority of the weight you will be carrying – we call them “The Big Three” – your tent, backpack, and sleeping bag.
It was a few days before I was flying to Colorado for the GORUCK Ascent this year and I was thinking that it would be great to have a device that allowed me to send and receive messages as well as allow someone to track my current location and movement.
A simple search online produced the usual results; SPOT Personal Tracker, DeLorme inReach, etc. But then I stumbled across a device that no one seemed to have seen before. The CerberLink from BriarTek.
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