[at-l] RE: Emergency Kit.

[l_parker at cacaphony.net (L. Clayton Parker)]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Steve Adams [mailto:stephensadams@hotmail.com]
> Sent: Monday, March 01, 2004 1:42 PM
> To: PUDSCRAWLER@aol.com; lbooher@pure.net; l_parker@cacaphony.net;
> jbullar1@twcny.rr.com; orangebug74@yahoo.com; daveh@psknet.com;
> chaynes@gwi.net; Snodrog5@aol.com
> Cc: at-l@backcountry.net
> Subject: Emergency Kit.
>
> Orange Bug advised, 2-29-04, ?The personal body kit typically has no
> redundancy.  ...  He has redundancy built in with the fire, maybe
> a bit too
> much.?  Redundancy is permitted, in literature, when used for
> emphasis.  I
> toy with the notion that fire is so important at times that it
> may tolerate
> slight redundancy.    : )     To make clear, some of the items in my
> emergency kit are redundant, since they are duplicative; those in
> my pack,
> which are used routinely, and those in my kit, which are strictly
> reserved
> for emergency use only.

Okay, just this ONCE, for emphasis:

Forty something years ago, my brother and I were caught out on an
unexpectedly cold night with nothing but a wool blanket apiece. Yeah, that's
right, I said a blanket. Sleeping bags don't really go all that far back;
most people would be truly surprised at what was available forty or fifty
years ago. Sleeping bags fell into the "horse packer" category, not
something that would fit into a "pack" which at the time was about the size
of a small rucksack by today's standards.

To further delineate this, "boots" disn't exist either. The conventional
wisdom was that you wore mocassins and that your feet needed to be
"toughend" by lots of practice before even a moderate hike, by which, I mean
a few hundred miles. Only people like Colin Fletcher had attempted longer
hikes. If you hiked at all in those days, you read everything he and Eddie
Bauer ever wrote, and practised it beforehand. NOBODY simply took off and
said "I am going to hike the Appalachian Trail".

But I digress. We built a fire at a campsite on the edge of a smallish
lake,on a point of land well ventilated by the prevailing wind (to dissuade
mosquitos). The fire was in the classic "star" pattern and we both spent the
night feeding additional boughs to the fire to keep warm. With temperatures
hovering just below 32 degrees and a wind designed to keep mosquitos off of
us, we were both freezing our b@$# off.

BUT; we had food; we had blankets; and we had the means of making fire.
Nothing else was (or is) required. We both survived the night unharmed, and
in a time before blazed trails and shelters and resupply points. THINK about
it. There are several other people on this list who have had the same or
similar experiences and are still alive (you know who you are), the point is
you CAN live with a LOT less than you think you can.

Thru-hiking is more about unlearning what you think is true than it is about
learning what really IS true.

So take that "emergency" list and really think about it, you can build a
base pack weight off of it that really is less than thirty pounds, and if
you try real hard, less than twenty pounds.

This is all from experience that is forty years old. It is MUCH easier
today. So much  easier that I am tempted to attempt a thru hike with my
American Express Card and nothing else...I think I can do it...


Lee I Joe



Once I knew where I was going, but now I have  forgotten.  Sometimes my mind
wanders.  Sometimes it goes alone, and other times it takes me along...this
isn't one of those times...