The Omnivore’s Backpack

I have a hard time focusing on any one thing when I head outdoors. Any of the few people who’ve been out with me can attest to this. I may start with a fly rod in hand, headed upstream along a rocky, cascading trout stream but within minutes I might find the rocks themselves more interesting and become absorbed with flecks of mica and seams of quartz. Are there fossils? How about agates or crystals? Oh, wait, I think I was supposed to be flicking this weighted stonefly into that plunge pool just ahead.

Yes, I like to pursue many things when I go afield and I seldom really pursue just one on any expedition. I’ve been known to take off on a trail run when my steelhead fishing’s done. I sometimes walk away from my ice-fishing to wander off into the woods and build a survival shelter and light a fire for tea. I’ve been after bolete mushrooms among the conifers but have found the little brook full of brook trout irresistible. Often, I’m out for photography but end up foraging on nature’s bounty instead. I often end up cutting back the worst of the invasive plants I run into. Last week I explored a new section of a small local river for fishing opportunities but ended up searching an old glass bottle dump along the way.

With so many potential pursuits to pursue in the wild, and sometimes two or three on any given trip, it can be hard to go and find all the right gear for every trip, each time it’s needed. And something’s sure to be forgotten. What if, while pursuing walleye, you run across wild ramps and need a trowel to pop out these wild onions? What if, while ice-fishing, you decide to just spend the night here in the woods?

Over the last couple of years I’ve been trying to put together a generalist’s kit of the most widely useful outdoors stuff. The idea has been to have a mid-sized backpack on hand all the time with the basics in it, a kit I might add a special few items to for any particular mission but the basics are always ready to go. And, preferably, this kit generally resides in the back of my car so that I’m ready to go when nature calls.

Everything discussed in the following paragraphs would make for an extraordinarily heavy pack if you really tried to include it all but just take this as a starting point, a fairly comprehensive list of suggestions from which to choose your own kit. If you really did want to include it all though, probably every bit of this, and more, could be kept in the back of the car. In fact, here’s a few items which are more appropriate to the car than to this pack, simply because of their bulk: a tent, sleeping bag and sleeping pad. If you suddenly need or want to spend the night in the woods (maybe work’s canceled tomorrow) you can just stay.

I’m going to start with a category I’ll just call “survival,” though this group overlaps a lot with just camping supplies. Maybe you only spend time in local parks of limited acreage and this survivalist’s paraphenalia seems useless but, then too, maybe it’s not a bad idea for everyone, suburbanite or otherwise, to have a “bugout” kit containing all of the following:

• Water Bottles.   This is always among the first things I’ll pack for any kind of outing. Water is incredibly necessary for incredibly self-explanatory reasons. Don’t leave home without it, or a way of carrying it. A larger bottle for in the car’s not a bad idea either.

• Water Filter or Purification Tablets.    Water is so very important that you want to make sure you can collect and use it in the wild if you need to. Simply as a matter of practicality, water is heavy to carry so don’t overburden yourself with gallons of the stuff. How much to carry and how much to rely on purification of wild sources will vary enormously through different regions. Hiking through the west a few years ago was an eye-opener in this respect. Generally, in the east, there’s no shortage of surface water around and walking with one bottle and a filter is generally fine.

• Matches.   This should be among the survival essentials. If you’re good with a striker and live where things are dry, this could be your tool of choice but for most of us, matches are hard to replace. In cool to cold weather, the ability to start a fire can be the difference between life and death. But beyond this, it might also be nice to be able to cook something or to boil water. Pack matches in waterproof containers in a couple of different places in your kit.

• Striker.   Consider this a backup for matches (or a first resort if you’re real good with it.) Don’t buy the Walmart striker, put it in your pack and consider this requirement fulfilled. Starting with sparks takes practice and dry tinder so don’t bother carrying this if you haven’t invested some time in practice.

• Tinder.   Yes, natural materials abound but when you’re in an emergency and no birch bark or fatwood’s in sight, it’s nice to be able to pull dry materials from a pocket. This could just be paper of cardboard sealed up tight or you could prepare wax-coated cardboard strips or petroleum jelly soaked cotton balls. And test your expertly-prepared materials before venturing out just to ensure that they really do go up like tinder before they’re desperately needed.

• Tarp.   A fifteen by fifteen just isn’t going to fit in the backpack but maybe an 8 by 8 will. A tarp’s a nice piece of survival equipment if you’ve got space for it. This will generally require less space than a tent but will also keep the rain off better than just about any natural materials, with much less time required for set-up. In a pinch (such as a sudden downpour) the tarp can simply be thrown over you and the pack for a bit while you wait it out. If you do have a tent, the tarp can be tossed over the pack to keep it dry as well overnight. And nowadays, thin hiker’s tarps are widely available that take up a minimum of space and add little weight.

• Survival blanket.   Here’s a nice piece of gear, likely to keep you alive through wet and chilly conditions. You’ve probably seen the cheap versions – widely available and made of a single, exceedingly thin layer of mylar. There are better products available though such as SOL’s Sport Utility Blanket. With a piece of rope or clever use of the sticks around you, this can also become a shelter to keep the rain off if that need’s more pressing.

• Hiker’s mess kit.   Not absolutely essential but nice to have while lost in the woods or even for a quick hot meal while not truly lost. If space allows, I like to have a very compact boiling pot (it takes very little volume to produce a serving or two), a small pan of some sort, aluminum foil, and at least one sturdy spork. Of course all of these can be used with open fire, or, more accurately, with hot coals, but they’re most efficiently put to use with a hiker’s stove of some kind, covered below.

• 2 knives.   I say two because a knife is really essential and you want to be sure you still have one if your primary knife merges with the forest floor. And I’m honestly not picky about which knife I carry most of the time. A knife that’s been proven to hold its edge well is great. And if you have two knives, then make one a fairly large knife that’s capable of prying and carving rapidly.

• Compass.   This antiquated item can help you not become lost in the first place and can help you regain civilization if you do lose your way. The simple compass has saved me repeatedly. And the most basic idea here is that almost no-one consistently walks straight lines through the woods unaided and few people really know where north is at all times. The compass will allow you to move with confidence, maybe not so much with the intention of hitting a particular point as with the intention of intersecting a road or trail, which is normally a far more acheivable target.

• Emergency whistle.   I’ve never had to use this but it’s easy to imagine situations where the ability to be heard across long distances becomes desirable. These situations include when an injury precludes finding your own way out. This is about getting help when you need it. 3 short blasts is a universally recognized distress call.

• Basic Medical Kit.   An array of mishaps can possibly befall even the most experienced woodsmen out there and it’s good to be as prepared to deal with these as you can be, even though this kit will just be adding bulk and a little weight to your pack most of the time. I generally keep this simple though, not truly trying to think of all contingencies. Sanitation is important while dealing with wounds so I usually include tablets for water purification in this kit as well. Bandages from band-aids on up are nice. Consider carrying an “Israely bandage” for those very worst wounds for which control of bleeding is extraordinarily difficult and for wounds to the trunk of the body rather than the more typical limb lacerations. I can’t say an awful lot about the Israely bandage from personal experience. Fortunately, I haven’t had to open mine yet. Pills for pain relief are nice as well as something for allergies as these can sometimes escalate to the point of true misery. Include a pair of tweezers as well.

• Head Lamp.   Often, as an outdoor enthusiast, you’ll end up staying out a bit later than expected and may need to find your way back to the car in the dark. The head lamp is important enough that I like to pack at least two. If you really become lost, this item could be invaluable, whether you choose to keep moving after dark or whether you stay put and maybe want to gather wood for a fire or set up a shelter long after sunset. It can simply be a comfort item that allows you to look around when things go bump in the night.

• Paracord.   This seems to be the form of rope with the most universal application – strong yet thin and supple. There’s a myriad of uses for this one from survival situations to all kinds of day-to-day applications. For survival, this stuff is highly useful for construction of several types of shelters including very simple lean-to’s. I use paracord to string up any bag with food at night in a tree, keeping it out of reach of all from bears to shrews. You can use paracord to make a “trot-line” for still fishing. You can even fray it for a fire starting tinder. You might use it to repair a pack or even take the place of a failed belt. At any rate, it’s about the most versatile and likely to be used material you’ll carry.

• Maps.   I still encourage people to carry paper maps in addition to the electronics so popular nowadays. Electronics can fail and batteries can become exhausted. Always carry maps in waterproof bags. USGS quads are great and if you can’t get more detailed maps, cutting pages out of a DeLorme topographic atlas can work well. I do this quite a bit myself and I have a large collection of atlases at home, from Washington State to West Virginia, with the most useful pages removed. People tend to rely too much on trail guides but it’s when things go wrong and you lose the way that you’ll be thankful for maps.

• Dry Bags.   I’ve mentioned watertight bags already for most vital supplies but I’ll just list it again as its own essential item. Normal kitchen ziplock bags are generally adequate and I always keep the matches double bagged.

• Duct Tape.   Obviously, this is for all kinds of repairs – repairs to tents, fishing rods, clothing, shoes, waterproof bags, books, etc. But it can also be used as a fire-start material and you can even use it to repair yourself when Band-aids are lacking.

• Bug repellent.   I list this among survival supplies rather than convenience or recreational gear because there are situations where the misery inflicted by biting flies will make it extremely difficult to focus on the priorities of survival. At the very least, having this stuff spread all over your exposed skin will make the experience of being lost in the woods much more tolerable.

So, that’s about it for the survival stuff – the items that will make it just a little more likely you’ll get out alive if things don’t go as planned. And it sounds like a lot but all of this can be made up into a fairly compact little bundle with a little thought. Let’s turn our attention now to some general camping supplies you can keep in this pack just in case you decide to stay for the night. And, again, a few of the most primary items are just too bulky to keep in the pack from day to day but could be kept in the car in case you need them. These items are a tent, sleeping bag and sleeping mat. And that last item, the mat, isn’t truly necessary and I didn’t carry one on my first 3-month walk in the woods. But I found over time that I really did like to have this along because it allows me to sleep many places that would just offer too hard a surface otherwise and I might have a difficult time finding a place to sleep without it. And a comfortable, restful sleep is at least as important while out in the wild as it is in our day-to-day lives. The other major reason to use a pad under your sleeping bag is for insulation in cool and cold weather. Trust me on this one. The pad has been a life-saver for me down to twenty below zero.

So, here are a few other camping items you can include in the generalist’s pack:

• Hiker’s Stove.   This can take many forms from a home-made alcohol stove the size of a tobacco can to much larger wood-burning stoves to fuel canister stoves. Here, I’m primarily discussing time spent in the eastern forest so there’s no shortage of fuel but things are more likely than not to be damp most of the time. So, if you want light weight, certain starting, and quick cook times, some form of gas fuel stove is probably the way to go. Hiker’s models, or “pocket rockets” can be truly tiny folding single burners nowadays but remember, you’ve got to carry the fuel canister (of something like isobutane) as well, which takes up space and adds a little weight. I like zip stoves myself, where practical – stoves with a small burning pot for sticks with a fan underneath to inject air up through the burning chamber. These work well with wet wood but there never as fast to cook on as gas stoves. Very simple tiny folding wood stoves like the Emberlit can be employed as well to burn the dead twigs and sticks you’ll find all around campsites. All of these options have pros and cons and it’s difficult to pick a favorite without using these at least a few times each in various conditions. And maybe add one of those disposable aluminum baking pans to the kit as well which can be rigged to act as a windscreen/reflector for your stove to step up efficiency, especially in cold conditions.

The mess kit was already mentioned above.

And I’ll take a moment to discuss a camping item that does not need to be included unless you have very special purposes out there: the hatchet. People seem far too wedded to this relatively heavy item. As a long-range hiker I learned quickly that there’s no need for this pack anchor and mine was sent home after a few hundred miles of non-use. I think that people imagine using it for firewood most commonly but here’s the thing: a hatchet’s good for cutting green wood, not dead wood and it’s the dead wood you’ll generally want to burn. Dead wood’s more easily broken in a variety of ways than sliced through with some kind of large knife or hatchet. If you’re into real “bushcrafting”-type activities, this is where a hatchet finds its greatest applications.

• Extra Socks, Underwear, T-shirt, and Shoe Laces.   This one’s kind of self-expalantory.

• Tooth Brush and Soap

• Flagging Tape.   This is a must-have for my kit. It always seems like you’re going to be able to find your way back to your secret campsite or to some tool you set aside to pick up later but a little time passes, the light changes, you come back from a different angle and things aren’t just as you remember them. A small piece of bright flagging tape on a branch often remedies this. And it you’re worried about someone else finding your marked camp or your stuff, place it perhaps on the opposite side of the trail or somewhere else deliberately misleading, yet still acting as a clue that only you can interpret.

• Carabiners.   A whole set of ten isn’t necessary but it’s not a bad idea to have a couple at hand for little jobs like securing something to the outside of the pack or maybe for snapping your paracord to the food bag at night.

• Toilet Paper.   No explanation required.

Then, there’s a whole range of interesting items I’d like to add to my kit just to be sure I’ve got these at hand when an opportunity arises.

• Foraging Bags.   These usually take the form of some kind of net bag that I can use to stow my big finds of mushrooms, ramps or nuts.
• Trowel.   Many potential uses. Camp construction and excavation of edible bulbs and tubers are among these uses.
• Hatchet.   Go ahead and keep one in the car. There might be a use for it some day.
• Pruning Shears.   For me, this is the best tool for cutting through vines and branches across the trails of the eastern forest. Much more practical than a machete.
• Folding Saw.   This is mainly useful to me for trail clearing and I also use it to remove some invasive plants like Oriental Bittersweet.
• Telescoping Fishing Pole.   This is one of the most compact ways to stow fishing tackle in the pack.
• Telescoping Spinning Rod.   This will also work, if casting’s your thing.
• Minimal Terminal Tackle.   This includes bait tackle like hooks, sinkers and floats but also some basic lure for when bait’s hard to come by.
• A Stringer.   To string the fish on, of course.
• Small Gold Pan.   I don’t need this just everywhere but sometimes it’s nice to be able to prospect a bit.
• Loupe or Other Magnifier.   Here’s a versatile item for the scientifically minded forager, amateur mycologist, fisherman, or rock hound. It does come in handy.
• Night Sky Charts.   If you’re sometimes out overnight and are at all curious as you look skyward, these can be helpful.
• Bug Net.   Two basic purposes for this one: to collect specimens for study or to catch bait.
• Screw Driver and Wrench.   Just two of the most basic tools for repairing all the other stuff.
• Scrubbing Pads.   I like these for cleaning rocks I’m hounding but these can also be handy for cleaning dishes, the same as at home.
• Peanuts.   To feed to the animals. Virtually everyone out there likes peanuts, even some carnivores.
• Suet.   Maybe, sometimes, especially in winter, I like to hang up a suet block at my camp site and see who visits.
• Measuring Tape.   This can help satisfy your curiosity on all kinds of things one of which might be the circumference of huge old trees.
• Cable Ties.   Another good light-weight repair item.
• Binoculars.   For all kinds of wildlife watching.

Again, that’s a pretty heavy pack if you really include it all. But if you’ve got it all in the car, including the pack, it’s quick to customize when it’s time to hit the trail. And you don’t want to end up one day thinking of all the things you didn’t do just because you weren’t prepared for adventure!