Plymtom wrote:MBJ wrote:One thing I forgot to add before is to try and avoid premade kits. They're good if you're new and not sure what you need and can therefore be a good start, but you will pay a premium for them; it works out a lot cheaper to buy the items individually and assembly your own kit, you also get the choice of choosing each individual item so you can tailor it to your own needs. I also find it more fun too!
That makes good sense, an observation on the gear side of things in general, do you think the market (us but probably more our American friends) have given birth to a rather lucrative industry over the last few decades? I look at these lists and I often think there's an underlying book of prep or bushcraft/survivalism, and a whole load of must have items, the sharpie, the tactical pen/torch, write in the rain pad
Man we all want this shit but I honestly feel sometimes like some clever rich *&^% is sat rubbing their hands together with glee at the cash they are making off of our backs, and laughing their arses off at what they have got us carrying around ( I need a cynical laughing smiley here).
What we really need is each other, we clump together online ( many online groups do this) looking for like minded folk sort of longing to feel justified in our thinking.
I think there is definitely some sort of exploitation going on by some less than scrupulous businesses but I think the trick is to buy cheap on the items you can but not scrimp and save on the items you really shouldn't. Another good practice is to buy items you would use in normal day to day life anyway. For example, as a bushcrafter, wood carver and Scout Leader, I already use a a lot of camping, carving and bushcraft tools such as tents, sleeping bags, stoves, hook knives, axes and saws etc. These are tools I will be using anyway so if nothing happens I haven't lost. It's also the heavy tools such as your axe that I don't think you can scrimp on; my Ray Mears Wilderness Axe cost me £125 but it's made by Gransfors and Bruks who are the Rolls Royce of axe making and has a 20 year guarantee. I use it all the time so that's a good investment for me.
Similarly, for tents and sleeping bags, you can buy some really cheap kit but they're likely to be very heavy. So what you save in pounds you lose in pounds too, but as a backpacker I don't mind purchasing the light kit as I use it anyway.
Also, the more you know the less you will need. For example, I don't need to carry cutlery or bowls in my bag as I can carve them. So i'd say that skills are definitely far more important than gear. No one can take your skills away from you and they're with you all the time after all, and there's no point having loads of gear if you can't use it.
That's why at the moment I'm working on developing a few more skill sets; I recently got into Herbal medicine and I'm going to try and make a few natural pain killers and antibiotics for long term storage. I'd also like to learn Krav Maga too but you can't do everything at once.