Food

When planning your 72 Hour Bag you must plan on keeping 72 hours worth of food in your kit. Well how much food is 72 hours worth of food? The answer can vary depending on the individual. I can tell you what I calculate for myself. I am a 6' tall 175 pound man who is pretty active with running and training. On a daily basis I consume approximately 2,000 calories and am able to maintain my weight. During backpacking I try to take as much food as I can carry and sometimes exceed 3,000 calories per day depending on the terrain. In LA County you are pretty much guaranteed you won't have rugged terrain to cross while trying to get home with your 72 Hour Bag on your back but you will be in a stressful situation and you will be burning calories walking the 30-60 miles to get you home. Finding the balance between weight, calories and practicality is an important equation. I have chosen to keep as close to 2,000 calories per day as I can. One thing to consider is it may be beneficial to have more food than less, it may be advantageous to share what you have and having more than you need will give you this luxury. This gives you several options.

Junk Food

First are the easiest and most readily available to you. They are power bars and candy bars. Believe it or not these are a great addition to your backpack and 72 Hour Bag. People always think they have to eat granola while climbing or backpacking because they're in nature and should be all Earthy crunchy. Well the fact is that your body is going to be consuming so many calories so quickly it doesn't matter what you eat as long as you do eat. Bringing me to the second reason why you'd want to have a candy bar in your bag. When under high stress conditions or working at altitude during a climb your appetite gets suppressed precisely when it shouldn't. Most of the time we have dehydrated food and after a few days or weeks eating this stuff you need something, anything to put in your body and it will not matter what it is, just eat and having something that tastes good like candy is perfect. This is why on a daily basis at my house I do not eat this stuff, but when I pack a backpack I always pack candy bars like Snickers and power bars such as Balance Bars.

The downside of candy bars and power bars is their extremely limited shelf life. You can not pack these guys away in the trunk of your car and expect them to survive through August & September here in LA. Rotate them often if you choose to go this route.

Emergency Rations

The next tier are emergency foods in tight little packages that you can eat on the go: Datrex and Mainstay. They come in a couple of different sizes, 1,000, 2,400, 3,600 calorie packs. I have found that the 2,400 packs work best for their weight to calorie ratio. The mainstay have six foil wrapped packages in each resealable container made of 400 calorie biscuits that taste a little like a shortbread cookie. It's recommended you consume only 3 per day giving you 1,200 calories you can consume while walking. The Datrex 2,400 calorie pack has twelve 200 calorie bars in it. Both these brands have an excellent shelf life. They're specifically designed to be thrown in an emergency kit and left there for five years or so. As with all long life products the cooler you keep them the longer they'll last but these are pretty rock solid. The most important thing about these bars is that they are NON thirst provoking. They are Coast Guard approved which means when shipwrecked and you don't have much water, you can eat these and not make your feeling of thirst worse. Translation? When an earthquake hits in an area like LA and water is scarce these are a good item to have. Pretty sure these are both MADE IN THE USA.

Camping Meals

Next comes Dehydrated foods you would typically take with you while backpacking there are two brands I like and recommend. Mountain House Beef Stroganoff and Backpacker's Pantry Pad Thai Noodles 

I like Mountain House for my 72 Hour Bag because they have a Pro Pack series where they've sucked out any excess air and they are very compact. Having said that, the Backpackers Pantry are the best dehydrated backpacking meals I have ever eaten, the Pad Thai is amazing. In addition each Backpackers Pantry meal packs more calories than the latter. These meals have a fair shelf life of about three years but will also degrade when left in a hot car so you have to rotate them as well. I always write the calories and the date purchase or manufacture on the outside of the package in sharpie. One tip: If you won't have time to heat water for your lunch add cold water to the package and hang it on the back of your pack and let the sun heat it. It'll take about 4 hours to make it edible but if you add the water in the morning, it'll be ready for you at lunch.

Ramen Noodles

Another good meal that is very light weight are Ramen Noodles. I classify Ramen Noodles like Twinkies, they don't really have an expiration date (they do... but not really). The other benefit is that it is so easy to make. Just break the brick in half and put it in the cup you're going to boil water in. By the time it comes to a boil you're good to go. Being able to drink some hot soup as the sun is setting and it's getting colder works magic on your morale. The DRAWBACK is these are EXTREMELY high in sodium so you need a lot of water to prevent dehydration. If you have plenty of water to drink then these might work fine. If you don't have plenty of water keep these tucked away in your pack and save them. All in all these are so light weight they're worth throwing a couple packages in your bag.

MREs

A type of meal many people will talk about when it comes to survival is the MRE (Meal Ready to Eat). They are the updated version of the C Ration used in WWII and the K Ration used in the Viet Nam conflict. After MUCH research I feel the MRE's made by A PACK are the best. This is for a variety of reasons which could be an entire post in and of itself. Each meal has an entree with a self heating unit, a side dish, a a beverage mix, condiment, utensil, and towelette. These meals pack upwards of 1,200 calories per meal packing the biggest bang per meal and are easy to prepare. You need to buy these from A PACK by the case, 12 MREs come in a case and a case goes for about $70 plus shipping. Another upside is you don't need to have a stove to heat these meals, they're self heating and this brand is the ONLY brand I've found who can legally sell you MREs with heaters. LONG STORY... 

These have a shelf life of about 5 years and will degrade faster in heat, so rotate accordingly. They have a shelf life chart on their site. I have heard of people eating MREs 10 years after their expiration date so there's that... MADE IN THE USA.

There are also a new ration called a First Strike Ration, I have not tried these but they were designed to support the troops nutrition during an assault or mission. They don't have much more than power bars and some high calorie foods that don't need to be heated and can be eaten on the move. These are not available for public purchase but could become available at some point. If you have a hook up in the military you might be able to get your hands on these.

Long Term Storage Food

A good addition to your 72 Hour Bag, or your earthquake kit at home is a product by Wise Foods 60 Servings Wise Emergency Food Kit. These are the next step in the evolution of being a prepper. Because these foods are nitrogen packed, they have a 25 year shelf life. Yup, 25 YEARS. They have a ton of options and variety of entrees, just add hot water and go. On their site they have a great calculator to figure out how much food you need for your family in an emergency situation. These are MADE IN THE USA and are really good.

Coffee

Who wants to start the day without coffee?  Starbucks Via Coffee Packets, Colombian, .12 oz. packets, 50/BX are a great thing to throw in your 72 Hour Bag, they're tiny and just need hot water.

3 Ways to make fire in your kit

It's important to maintain redundancy with fire. After air and water the next in the rule of threes is shelter, and the whole point is keeping your body at 98.6. If your core temp drops below 98.6 you will risk hypothermia and the clock begins to tick till your demise. People don't think it gets cold in Southern California but if you've been trekking all day and its 90 degrees let me tell you that at night when the sun drops and temps dip into the 40's it's fucking cold. I don't care who you are a 40-50 degree drop in air temp will make anyone shiver.  It is possible to maintain 98.6 without fire but a fire makes your life much more comfortable and can lift a persons spirit when they get to watch "Channel 13".

Perhaps one of the lightest tools you can keep in your 72 Hour Bag is a way to create fire and the redundancy here is of vital importance. With that in mind you should have at least 3 ways of making fire in your kit. There have been times in the field when I have had to go to a back up plan for making fire either because the winds were too high or the environment was too wet and one method of making fire wasn't the right tool for the job.

There are thousands of ways to build a fire but we're going to stick to several I find to work best.

Lighters

One of the best buys you'll make for your 72 Hour Bag is a Bic Lighter. I buy them by the pack and slip them in every bag I possibly can. There's a couple tricks I learned when it comes to Bic Lighters. First rip off the child safety. If it's one thing I've found is that the first thing to fail is the safety and it usually screws everything else up. You don't need a piece of sand getting stuck under the safety preventing you from getting a flame. The last thing you want is to have your hands numb and you're trying to pry this thing off and have your blade go through your hand. Second, wrap either duct tape, gorilla tape or electrical tape around the lighter. I'm always looking for places to wrap tape and I'm always fixing stuff so if you have tape, you'll end up using it. But if you don't then you're SOL.  Lastly, take a pop top and secure it to the side of the lighter with the tape, that way you have a place to clip it to your keychain or a lanyard. Here's a good video on these tricks:

 

I also carry a zippo lighter in my 72 Hour bag. I'm kind of experimenting with it right now, but here's my thesis. The zippo lighter is windproof, stays lit and strikes easily allowing you to light a fire and hold your hand away from the object you're trying to light versus the way you have to keep your finger on the trigger with a Bic lighter. Anyone who's owned a zippo knows the fuel dries up after a week or two of not using it so here's what I did. I filled the lighter with fuel and took electrical tape and wrapped it around the seam where the inside fits into the outer shell. I then took the whole thing and vacuum sealed it with the vacuum sealer I borrowed from one of my Prepper buddies. I know it's over due Clean and I promise to get it back to you! I'm going to let it sit in my pack for a couple of months and then open it up and see how it performs. I'll report back how it worked out.Zippo 162 Windproof Armor Brushed Chrome Lighter (Google Affiliate Ad)

Steel Wool

A second tier of protection is keeping a small wad of steel wool in your kit. The steel is soaked in oil to prevent it from rusting and when hit with a spark it will ignite easily. Another good way of making a fire if you don't have anything that will create a spark (HINT: even when your lighter is out of fuel it's a potential fire starter) is to take a 9 volt battery and rub the terminals on the steel wool. The battery will short out but the steel wool will begin to catch fire. The finer the steel wool you use the better it will catch on fire.

Fire Tools

I like the Swedish Fire Tool. It works in any weather condition, creates a spark at 5500F, lasts 12,000 strikes, works even when wet, and the spark is so bright it can even be used as an emergency signal. All you have to do is swipe the metal piece down the rod towards the material you're using for tinder.

A magnesium fire starter is another good fire tool all you do to get this one to work is to scrape off some magnesium shavings then use the striker on the other side to create the spark. The magnesium will burn at an incredible temperature making it possible to get a fire started even with damp tinder.

This little guy works a little like a lighter. You put the ip into the tinder and press the striker. It emits a shower of sparks and ignites the tinder. If it gets wet you just wipe it off and you're good to go.

Old School

The old school tried and true method of lighting a fire is the match. If you have a book of matches store them someplace they won't get wet. If they do get wet dry the sriker strip as best you can and run the wet match through your hair. Usually about 100 strokes through your dry hair will bring a match back to life. If you only have one paper match start at the base and gently tear it in half by bisecting the paper layers. When you pull them apart you'll get two matches with sulphur on one side only. 

There are a variety of match types, strike anywhere, windproof, paper. Any will do in your 72 Hour Bag. Just make sure you employ three different techniques for making fire. There's nothing worse than being outside cold and wet and have no way of getting warm and knowing that three o'clock in the morning is going to roll around and just get colder. The ones shown below are a pretty good because they come in a watertight crushproof container and have a striker on the outside. But you can pretty much achieve the same result by taking a box of wooden matched and use an old pill bottle. Just make sure you put the striker on the outside of the pill bottle in a secure fashion.  You don't want it on the inside where an accidental ignition may occur and you also don't want it to come loose and end up with out a striker.

Tinder is another topic all together and I'll cover that in another post.  Thanks for reading!

Water water everywhere

So you've read my piece on filtering and purifying water and are now looking for a vessel to carry water. I have several methods I use to carry water in my 72 Hour Bag. As with all aspects of having a 72 Hour Bag I think of every item as layers or redundancy. It's important that you overlap any necessary items so if one fails you have a back up and water is just about the most vital of those necessities.

Emergency Water Rations

I carry inside my pack Datrex water pouches. They're Coast Guard approved for survival and are built to be stored for 5 years without going bad or leaking. I keep them in the 2qt metal cup so they have a layer of protection. I carry as many as I can because if all else fails they are inside my kit and I can grab it and go without worrying that I won't have any water at all.

Hydration Bladder

Next I keep a hydration bladder in my bag. Some people fill their bladder and have it ready to go, but I find it to be a little too risky. I don't want the water going bad, so I keep it empty and clean ready to be filled. My favorite hydration bladder is the Platypus Big Zip by Cascade Designs. The company is in Seattle and it's MADE IN THE USA. The biz zip has a giant opening at the top which closes using a two fold design, first it locks like a zip lock bag, hence the name, then a plastic slide locks the zip together. I've tripped and fallen with all my weight and that of the pack on top of this bladder and it was bomber, not leaking a drop. The opening is so wide that you can fit your entire hand in all the way to the bottom to clean it. When it's open it makes it very convenient to fill it either by pouring a pot of purified water or scooping up water from a shallow stream. One other feature that's worth noting is the material is made from what they call 'Slime Guard' which is supposed to be anti microbial. In all the years I've used this pack I've never had slime issues like other hydration bladders have. I love the 1.8 liter size.

Water Bottle

I also keep a wide mouth hard nalgene water bottle in my pack so if I find a good supply of water I can stock up and take it with me. I've had my wide mouth since 1987 and I'm sure it's not BPA free but it's so rugged I can't ever get rid of it. When backpacking for 28 days in the Wind River Range we used to pour boiling water into the bottle to use in our sleeping bags as warmers at night. When in my pack I have it stuffed with my wool socks and bandana, that way they stay dry no matter what. I know you can't buy this bottle any more, but they sell a new BPA free version:

Bottled Water

Lastly I do the ghastly practice of keeping a case of bottled water in the trunk of my car! Oh no, you'll get cancer from the plastic as it heats up! You're ruining the environment by using bottled water! 

Yeah, whatever. I rotate the case of water out of my trunk every few months and if there's an emergency and I'm going to die if I don't drink clean water well let me tell you I'm going to take the risk of getting cancer 20 years down the line from a plastic water bottle that's been in the heat in my car. One problem at a time people. If I use the bottles in an emergency I promise to recycle them, how's that? Ok?