Outlander Systems
07-05-10, 20:32
Grid-Down Sustainability
Avoiding Temporary Solutions to Long-Term Problems - Introduction
*Disclaimer: I am referring to a scenario in which, one is without resupply, and traveling on foot. The primary goal is range-extension through improvisation of natural and available resources. I am NOT referring to homesteading or permanent-shelter; only traversing.
http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/4669/sustainability.jpg
First-Off, we need to differentiate from, and drop the term "minimalist" from our lexicon moving forward. I would prefer the term, "maximumist"; as the goal for sustainable survival revolves around maximising your potential, and using certain equipment choices as force-multipliers of sorts.
As a primer, I have, in the past, gone through the phase, like everyone else, of using technology as a crutch. The idea that for every chore you face in the wild, there's a technological solution, and tool for. Actually, there is. Eventually, you will end up, once owning the devices to do-it-all, with a pack approaching 2/3 your body weight. This in turn, increases your caloric expenditure, and slows you down. The very first thing you should do is begin to take a pragmatic approach to a survival scenario. A buddy of mine and I have a running joke about an outdoors enthusiast friend of ours who's always talking about accompanying me on a trip. Without fail, he always bails out, once using the excuse that he had a trip planned, and had to bring the dutch oven...
That actually says a lot, about the majority of people's attempts at configuring a backpacking/hiking/BO/GH/GOOD/Go sack.
I learned through my first several big hikes, that less is more, much more.
I've spent a year using a "Bug-Out Vest", and a Maxpedition Colossus Versipack.
Some quick observations:
The BOV allows me to carry pretty much everything I could NEED on an outing. There's a lot of wasted space on the front, due to having magazine pouches spanning the chest. That being said, I can carry more weight, more evenly, and with less clumsiness than a pack. It's a great setup, and if it wasn't something I rigged together, I believe a design from the ground up would have a lot of potential.
The Colossus Versipack is awesome; however, like larger packs, the tendency exists to overload it, and thus defeat the purpose. To me, the design is excellent. Unlike a traditional backpack or ruck, the Versipack line can be accessed without removal of the pack, which is extremely convenient. Although it can be overloaded, and the Colossus, quite frankly, is too large for a maximumist setup; however, as a training and learning tool, it was worth every penny.
Currently I am revising my setup. A local store allowed for me to try everything in the Maxpedition "small bag" line. To me a "small bag" is anything with less capacity than a standard backpack. While some of the offerings are excellent, for my uses the Jumbo Versipack, standard, carried on the wrong(left) side is the way to go. While I wanted desperately to like the Gearslinger lineup, the on-the-back carry was a deal-breaker. The Fatboy Versipack was too small. The Colossus, too big. Fanny-packs were too small, etc.
The format I've now gone to is a modular-approach. The Versipack should carry everything to maximise an outing in the wild, and offer enough tools and hardware to effectively set up shop. In Georgia, it's not cold very often, and the Versipack would be more than enough to sustain myself for three seasons. Winter is where the modularity comes in. The larger winter pack, on which I am currently undecided, needs enough capacity to hold the Versipack, a cold-weather sleeping bag, and any outerwear for winter-use. Nothing more.
The gear refinement process has shown me where I've made a lot of screw ups in the past. Where I am going with this may not be your cup of milk, but let's do it...
Sustainability.
Main Entry: sus·tain·able
Function: adjective
Date: circa 1727
1 : capable of being sustained
a : of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged <sustainable techniques> <sustainable agriculture>
b : of or relating to a lifestyle involving the use of sustainable methods <sustainable society>
— sus·tain·abil·i·ty \-?sta-n?-'bi-l?-te\ noun
This is, what I feel to be, the absolute most important aspect to survival if we're dealing with anything other than the short-term, 72-hour-type events.
I say again, sustainability is the absolute most important aspect to survival.
Now, I am in no way professing to posses expertise in primitive techniques for enduring in the bush, I have been moving much, much closer in that direction.
Ultimately, the goal is to need as little as possible.
Now, the maximumist philosophy involves improvisation of as many resources as possible. There's one tool, and one tool only that you should positively NOT be without. Without a quality, fixed-blade knife, your work will be exponentially more difficult. With that, you can build and craft just about anything you're going to need. It is the pinnacle of bushcraft force-multipliers. As to which is the best knife is an absurd argument, that could be debated with every ounce of minutia the internet could muster. As long as the blade is ~5", and of a high-carbon content, you should be good-to-go. Everything else is personal preference. This should be the one item you shouldn't skimp on.
There exists a certain grey area, in terms of how long one can exist outside of modern "life support". In essence, as backpackers, hikers, and preppers, the majority of us merely seek to extend that life-support system via our packs, and what we pack-in. This is a dangerous path to take, depending on how long the excursion into unsupported territory we endeavor to go, by fate, or by necessity. We are merely extending modern civilisation's life-support systems by dragging into where it doesn't belong, via our backs. Not only, in this situation, are we battling mother nature, but we're battling the clock; as if we've not made it "out" of the situation within the timeframe afforded by our outlander "umbilical cord", we're dead. It's essentially a race between our own personal resource depletion and a means of escape. If the pack is lost, we're dead. If the clock runs out, we're dead. Not a very sustainable course, unless we've supplemented at least, or ultimately superseded, our "hardware" choices with "software" choices.
You can load up a kit with contents to sustain yourself for 72 hours. That's not a problem. The problem begins to manifest when 72 hours turns into 144 hours. Or when 144 hours turns into 288 hours. By that point the camp stove's long since dried up on fuel, and our last match got used up 6 days ago...
I don't want this to relate to homesteading, as there's plenty of information on homestead longevity and sustainability out there. On that note, Richard Proenneke ranks highly amongst my all-time biggest heroes. The man was nothing short of incredible.
For me, the biggest pluses from my experience of shrinking-down the system, is mobility. The lack of encumbrance is an amazing and incredible feeling.
The goal I'm trying to attain is the delicate balance of only packing-in items for which there is no comparable natural equivalent, and offsetting the remainder with field/natural resources.
The three things that come to mind, of no readily-available natural equivalent are:
1) Knife
2) Cordage
3) Water vessel
The focus of this thread is for the discussion of how you've changed your outdoor/survival kits, or how you plan to change your kits to extend your range, so-to-speak.
From a personal standpoint, the deeper I go into this, the more primitive I want to become. At the onset of my delving into the world of backpacking and personal self-reliance techniques and procedures, I thought all the primitive stuff was for a bunch of "wannabe Indian, hippie dope-smokers". I don't want to be an Indian, and I'm quite fine with my tobacco, but I'm starting to see that the primitive techniques are more in line with the approach I would like to take. YMMV.
Avoiding Temporary Solutions to Long-Term Problems - Introduction
*Disclaimer: I am referring to a scenario in which, one is without resupply, and traveling on foot. The primary goal is range-extension through improvisation of natural and available resources. I am NOT referring to homesteading or permanent-shelter; only traversing.
http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/4669/sustainability.jpg
First-Off, we need to differentiate from, and drop the term "minimalist" from our lexicon moving forward. I would prefer the term, "maximumist"; as the goal for sustainable survival revolves around maximising your potential, and using certain equipment choices as force-multipliers of sorts.
As a primer, I have, in the past, gone through the phase, like everyone else, of using technology as a crutch. The idea that for every chore you face in the wild, there's a technological solution, and tool for. Actually, there is. Eventually, you will end up, once owning the devices to do-it-all, with a pack approaching 2/3 your body weight. This in turn, increases your caloric expenditure, and slows you down. The very first thing you should do is begin to take a pragmatic approach to a survival scenario. A buddy of mine and I have a running joke about an outdoors enthusiast friend of ours who's always talking about accompanying me on a trip. Without fail, he always bails out, once using the excuse that he had a trip planned, and had to bring the dutch oven...
That actually says a lot, about the majority of people's attempts at configuring a backpacking/hiking/BO/GH/GOOD/Go sack.
I learned through my first several big hikes, that less is more, much more.
I've spent a year using a "Bug-Out Vest", and a Maxpedition Colossus Versipack.
Some quick observations:
The BOV allows me to carry pretty much everything I could NEED on an outing. There's a lot of wasted space on the front, due to having magazine pouches spanning the chest. That being said, I can carry more weight, more evenly, and with less clumsiness than a pack. It's a great setup, and if it wasn't something I rigged together, I believe a design from the ground up would have a lot of potential.
The Colossus Versipack is awesome; however, like larger packs, the tendency exists to overload it, and thus defeat the purpose. To me, the design is excellent. Unlike a traditional backpack or ruck, the Versipack line can be accessed without removal of the pack, which is extremely convenient. Although it can be overloaded, and the Colossus, quite frankly, is too large for a maximumist setup; however, as a training and learning tool, it was worth every penny.
Currently I am revising my setup. A local store allowed for me to try everything in the Maxpedition "small bag" line. To me a "small bag" is anything with less capacity than a standard backpack. While some of the offerings are excellent, for my uses the Jumbo Versipack, standard, carried on the wrong(left) side is the way to go. While I wanted desperately to like the Gearslinger lineup, the on-the-back carry was a deal-breaker. The Fatboy Versipack was too small. The Colossus, too big. Fanny-packs were too small, etc.
The format I've now gone to is a modular-approach. The Versipack should carry everything to maximise an outing in the wild, and offer enough tools and hardware to effectively set up shop. In Georgia, it's not cold very often, and the Versipack would be more than enough to sustain myself for three seasons. Winter is where the modularity comes in. The larger winter pack, on which I am currently undecided, needs enough capacity to hold the Versipack, a cold-weather sleeping bag, and any outerwear for winter-use. Nothing more.
The gear refinement process has shown me where I've made a lot of screw ups in the past. Where I am going with this may not be your cup of milk, but let's do it...
Sustainability.
Main Entry: sus·tain·able
Function: adjective
Date: circa 1727
1 : capable of being sustained
a : of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged <sustainable techniques> <sustainable agriculture>
b : of or relating to a lifestyle involving the use of sustainable methods <sustainable society>
— sus·tain·abil·i·ty \-?sta-n?-'bi-l?-te\ noun
This is, what I feel to be, the absolute most important aspect to survival if we're dealing with anything other than the short-term, 72-hour-type events.
I say again, sustainability is the absolute most important aspect to survival.
Now, I am in no way professing to posses expertise in primitive techniques for enduring in the bush, I have been moving much, much closer in that direction.
Ultimately, the goal is to need as little as possible.
Now, the maximumist philosophy involves improvisation of as many resources as possible. There's one tool, and one tool only that you should positively NOT be without. Without a quality, fixed-blade knife, your work will be exponentially more difficult. With that, you can build and craft just about anything you're going to need. It is the pinnacle of bushcraft force-multipliers. As to which is the best knife is an absurd argument, that could be debated with every ounce of minutia the internet could muster. As long as the blade is ~5", and of a high-carbon content, you should be good-to-go. Everything else is personal preference. This should be the one item you shouldn't skimp on.
There exists a certain grey area, in terms of how long one can exist outside of modern "life support". In essence, as backpackers, hikers, and preppers, the majority of us merely seek to extend that life-support system via our packs, and what we pack-in. This is a dangerous path to take, depending on how long the excursion into unsupported territory we endeavor to go, by fate, or by necessity. We are merely extending modern civilisation's life-support systems by dragging into where it doesn't belong, via our backs. Not only, in this situation, are we battling mother nature, but we're battling the clock; as if we've not made it "out" of the situation within the timeframe afforded by our outlander "umbilical cord", we're dead. It's essentially a race between our own personal resource depletion and a means of escape. If the pack is lost, we're dead. If the clock runs out, we're dead. Not a very sustainable course, unless we've supplemented at least, or ultimately superseded, our "hardware" choices with "software" choices.
You can load up a kit with contents to sustain yourself for 72 hours. That's not a problem. The problem begins to manifest when 72 hours turns into 144 hours. Or when 144 hours turns into 288 hours. By that point the camp stove's long since dried up on fuel, and our last match got used up 6 days ago...
I don't want this to relate to homesteading, as there's plenty of information on homestead longevity and sustainability out there. On that note, Richard Proenneke ranks highly amongst my all-time biggest heroes. The man was nothing short of incredible.
For me, the biggest pluses from my experience of shrinking-down the system, is mobility. The lack of encumbrance is an amazing and incredible feeling.
The goal I'm trying to attain is the delicate balance of only packing-in items for which there is no comparable natural equivalent, and offsetting the remainder with field/natural resources.
The three things that come to mind, of no readily-available natural equivalent are:
1) Knife
2) Cordage
3) Water vessel
The focus of this thread is for the discussion of how you've changed your outdoor/survival kits, or how you plan to change your kits to extend your range, so-to-speak.
From a personal standpoint, the deeper I go into this, the more primitive I want to become. At the onset of my delving into the world of backpacking and personal self-reliance techniques and procedures, I thought all the primitive stuff was for a bunch of "wannabe Indian, hippie dope-smokers". I don't want to be an Indian, and I'm quite fine with my tobacco, but I'm starting to see that the primitive techniques are more in line with the approach I would like to take. YMMV.