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Posted by Bill S on November 13, 2007 at 8:00:51 pm EST
In reply to What's in Your Survival Kit? posted by Alicia on July 2, 2007 at 10:55:02 am EDT

f_klock,
Many of us consider what we carry on a given hike or expedition to be those things necessary not merely for comfort when everything goes perfectly, but those things necessary when everything goes south. I have spent too much time in places where a major storm might move in (like the unfortunate climber in Yosemite's Tuolumne Meadows a few days ago), or where storms are the norm and expected (as on my various treks in the Alaska Range or in Antarctica), or in places where an injury might well mean I wouldn't be found for days, even if I had a companion to go for help (as is true even in the "little" hills behind my house in the Santa Cruz Mountains) to consider a "survival kit" to be something separate from what I normally carry. As I teach in my backcountry courses, always be prepared for the "reasonably unexpected". You can't prepare for asteroid strikes or dinosaur attacks, but you should be ready for dealing with earthquakes (we have them here in Calif), storms with temperatures going to the extremes on record, serious injuries, mountain lion attacks (we have those here, too), rattlesnake bites (yup, got those as well), and your plain old everyday broken legs (none for me, but I have come across them all too often - although I wasn't on the spot when Jim S got his in an incident that he says I contributed to - he was vaulting over a fallen giant sequoia and missed the landing, and now won't go running through the redwoods with me).

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