good point

Bumpity

Haven't been onto updating this lately. I have been out using my gear every week this summer but not for travel. I've been hiking, backpacking, and climbing.

Not a ton to say, go light, carry everything you need and nothing else. The pad I carry sucks for backpacking. It's just good enough for airport survival etc, but not big enough or warm enough for extended use. Since the GHB is not a backpacking bag I'm not to concerned, different missions.

I use a jetboil now when I backpack and climb. The alcohol stove still works its just not appropriate for making large volumes of snow into water. If you lived in an environment that you need to do that to survive I would use the alcohol stove.

I did make a nice tyvek bivy yesterday. 9oz, waterproof, breathable. Pretty cool. I'm going to make a bunch of other stuff just for fun.

Conditioning: one thing is not the other! The only way to be good at walking and jogging and climbing with a pack is to go do it a lot. The gym is of limited value.

Footgear: the single most important piece of equipment for moving quickly. Make sure they are awesome for your conditions.

Goal zero plus, I like it. First solar setup I would carry. The fact it can charge modern stuff plus the fact it charges a battery pack, and you could charge two packs in a day is the main reason it's good. You don't have to have your stuff hooked to it while the sun is out. You can recharge later at night.

I'm going to play with some perimeter alarms that alert you wirelessly and silently. Also want to play with some wireless stand alone cameras that can be watched from your phone.

Eyewear: if you live in a sandy or snowy place you need full googles in case of a wind storm. If you can't see you can't move.

Meet up.com has locksport groups. Join and learn.

Keep all you gear in your car at all times.

Get a mountain bike and keep it at work. Ride it to work and back once a week ( maybe one way on two different days if it's a long ways)

Go on a long walk with your gear and stay out multiple nights. I just had to cancel out on a 75miler this week, work came up that I couldn't miss.

Go out one day off and see how far you can walk in one day with your pack. Do the same thing with a mountain bike. On pavement  or dirt roads it should be at least 25 miles on foot and quadruple on bike. But even if you can't go that far because of condition, injury weight etc at least you know what you can really do. If you are in really good shape go for 24 hrs and try to double those numbers.

Go sleep outside with your gear ever 1-2 months even if it's only in your backyard. Take the kids and have fun. (may have to give them more than survival shelter to be fun for them) you need to test your system in all weather and temps.

Down for sleeping may work,, but think about how much you sweat while moving before trying down for clothing. The lower the humidity is where you live will make it a more viable option.

Be organized and test shot your system, little things, how long to get ready for bed, make food, pack up, etc. It's amazing how much time is lost through the friction produced by unorganized people. Hint: you should be able to move out no matter what you are doing quietly in a minute. You may not be packed perfect but you have all your gear and are moving.

Conditioning: get some! Then get some more. I've been climbing with a lot of people twenty years younger than me. For the most part they can wear me out for the first few hours, but then they are  usually done and for the next days I'm dragging them.

River crossings worry me, know the rail bridges.

A huge amount of energy and time is wasted with indecision, fear, worrying, discussing, anxiety, etc. The more experienced you are the less this will happen.

Do medical training. Do SAR. Do whatever emergency preparedness stuff your town does, do ham radio. Do stuff.

For a lot of people boats are a viable option.

Training and preparing are at most half the game, experience is the other half, go get some.

Could you tell us a little more about this, with maybe a pic or two?





 

Pretty simple, tyvek from home depot, I'll look up the type, you don't want the stuff that doesn't breath. Then cut about 14 feet, folded it over itself at the foot and brought that up to neck height, folded the head over and overlapped that about 6 inches, taped all then seems with tyvek tape, folded the edge over and retaped. Then wash the whole thing to soften it and make it so it's not noisy anymore.

I did trim it to width leaving the footbox bigger tapering around the legs and going back to full width at the shoulders, tapering agian around the head. I made sure a sleeping pad could fit inside and still have enough material to not compress the sleeping bag and ruin loft.

Once you buy a roll you just start playing as it's cheap.

If you want to check waterproofness just fill it with water to find leaks. I didn't make it to be perfect. Just to be light and cheap and for something fun to build. I'm going to build some 2 and 3 man bivys for climbing, they will be really useful.

Lots of info on the net about bivys and tents made from tyvek, listen to the guys who actually successfully made stuff not the complainers who can't even figure put how to pick the right tyvek without having their hands held.. I didn't use a zipper or anything. Just slide in and sleep.

tagging for home, since I travel alot too

TAG

bump

+1 on PT being the most important prep

Anything new to add?

_Ragnar_

Thanks for sharing your load out.  I have learned much from you, and especially like what you said about "proofing" your load- walk as far as you can w/ pack etc...  I think many forget about this part.  I have seen many high speed packs with all kinds of great gear, but many of the users go down or cannot keep up due to over packing/not being able to ruck their own crap.

-Jay

buimp

Bump

not tagged

Can we put a sticky on this thread?

Thread started in 07.
Don't think it's going to happen.

bump

Cops aren't as dumb as you think.  We had a PDR with photos in the D-Bureau to look up Rx meds and ID them no matter how packaged.  So if controlled, keep prescrition label in bag.

TSA gave me a hell of a time a while back about some (legally prescribed) percocets I had mixed in with other pills to save space.  I agree w/ your recommendation.
 

There is a direct link in the gear section. It's not a sticky but if you loose the link you know where to locate it.

http://www.ar15.com/content/page.html?id=387

Just wanted to mention something about pick tools. Proper tools are always preferred, but once you're proficient with proper picks, you can start experimenting with improvised tools and use them effectively as well.

For example, bobby pins are cheap, versatile, and completely innocuous if carried in a little "fix it" baggie (with stuff like paper clips, wire ties, zip ties, duct tape, binder clips, rubber bands, etc). We all know they're effective against standard handcuffs. But with a pair of needlenose pliers and a few minutes prep time, you can fashion a bobby pin into a very effective hook pick. Break off the plastic bead, bend to shape, then scrape/sand as much of the paint away as you can (smoother is definitely better). A tiny file or even the knurled plier jaws can help with this.

I haven't found a particularly good way of using bobby pins as a tension wrench, but they can limp by in a pinch. But if you have your "fix it" kit described above, you should have plenty of other items for that purpose. Paper clips can work, depending on the keyway. Personally I think a couple short lengths of steel wiper blade inserts would be invaluable. Just carry them flat and when you need them, bend to a 90deg angle and go to work. I need to add these to my kit, but this is what I have and it's non-threatening for airport security.

How is this going and, what are the options you have been using.



 

I have two of these, one broken up at home for practice, one whole in my wallet.  Made of real steel and sold by TOOOL, the best resource (IMHO) out there on locksport.

 

bump

Well, I have added the personal alarms to my GHB.
Thought that was a great ideal.

bump....

Can't let this archive.

bump

What personal alarms did you find workable for a GHB?

 

I know someone else mentioned the meds already but if they are prescriptions I would NOT have them out of the bottles.  I am a LEO and I would not mess with you as I have other things to do but I know guys and gals that will.  We also have the ability to look up the pill numbers on the car computers now and they will tell us what they are.  They did this because of the frequency of people abusing scrips and that we would have a way to ID the pills if we did  not have a smart phone.  We also have a very cool color book at each precinct booking counter that you can use which contains picture of every know pill and the number and markings specific to each.  

But that is a well thought out set up.

All the loose bags are OTC pills.  Prescription stuff is flat packed.

For reference I've flown over a hundred times w versions of this bag, at least twenty times overseas to European and middle eastern countries.(once to Mexico)   Which I think we can all admit has a higher level of scrutiny than a random LE interaction. how many times has my bag been taken apart? Once. How many times have they gotten down to poking at meds and toothbriushes? Zero.

I LOVE it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaZ-d4vIoVs

 

I got off EBay if I remember right.

I need to post some pic's in this thread and the Bob thread.
Contribute a more than I have been,

But they are not expensive, put out a loud warning and I thought a very good idea.

Would work great in your home, hotel or put in a purse and clipped to a wrist strap.
I also think it would good for women who into areas that are not the best.
Just slip strap over the wrist and pull if needed.

I'll try to post pic's this weekend.
I be a slackin.

Perfect timing. I have x2 T.H.E Packs that I was looking for ideas to kit out.

That's awesome, thanks for the link.



Check out his other vids, he's got some great ideas.

       




 

Sorry I's so late posting these.
Just kept forgetting to take the pic's.

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Still need to paint and rig up the tripwires.
I'm just going to use green trot line for the tripwire.

I really do need to finish this thing.
It won't do me much good if I don't get it set up properly.  

Very cool idea. Thanks!

Well, as much as I love to say I thought of it all by myself, it was the OP of this thread that had the idea.
But your welcome anyway.

Nice!   I just ordered 6 of those for a hair over $20 delivered.

This particular model has(you can see in pic above) a way of attaching the other end to your anchor.   Other models lack this and you will end up having to 100mph tape? them to your anchor, which might cover up the emitter holes.

Still one of the best threads, I can't let this archive.

Never mind, just saw how old this post was. . . not worth getting into it at this point!

Feel free to say anything you want. I check in here occasionally.

My experience is it's not that useful. The hole has to be pretty damn big to be able to get it to where it needs to be. I'd rather use combat gauze and pack the wound. And if the hole was big enough to,get the quick clot into I'd still rather just take the roll of combat gauze and force it into place.

If it doesn't get to the artery it's not stopping the bleeding just keeping it inside.

That being said I've only used each of the various clotting agents IRL a couple times each.  So I don't have huge numbers of data points, but I just carry the gauze now.

I don't even carry quick clot.



A pressure bandage will be more versatile, IMO.
 

MIL cravats, old school MIL bandages, Israelis if you like them (you can carry two old school bandages for one Israeli) and combat gauze.

That and a few one handed tourniquets covers bleeding IMO.

How about the bandages that have been impregnated with a clotting agent?  Wouldn't that be better for wound packing than just regular gauze?  I wasn't a medic so my knowledge is limited to what's taught in CLS.

That's what "combat" gauze is.

Getting the clotting agent deep into the bottom of the wound at the arterial damage is the ticket, with gauze you can pack the wound solid and get the pressure required with the clotting as extra credit.

With the powders it's not easy to get he agent to the source oft he problem

As far as agent on bandages, I can't see it being very useful, the wound the surface is not life threatening.

Sorry, I meant gauze impregnated with the agent, not bandages.  I'd have to agree with you from my non-medic perspective that the "combat gauze" would be the way to go.  I know when I was in Iraq in '08 we initially had the powder but we had to turn it in and were reissued the Quick Clot gauze.  That said, I was taught if it looks arterial and you can get a tourniquet on it, use a tourniquet first.