...bigger time gap between when they were printed. and there is a massive difference between kit recommended in the survival handbook and the essential bushcraft book following on from the tv series. kit views change once an opinel, a dartmoor survival knife and an estwing hatchet were the must haves now it is mora or woodlore or custom knife and a gransfors bruks in another decade it could be another selection
Actually I think you can see his kit change as he travels more and makes more money.
I've got both the SAS one and Rays Survival book and there's quite a lot in them that's basically the same info presented in a different way.
Is there not a few jokes about all survival books being a reworking of the US military survival manual.
GPS-enabled phones are great, but the apps eat into battery life at a hell of a rate and will fail when you need them most. We're seeing an increasing number of callouts where the misper was using a smartphone app as the primary method of navigation. Compasses work almost indefinitely, work when wet, work in the dark and don't require batteries...
Am I serously the only person who carries a spare mobile phone battery? I also have a battery powered charger thinking about it. The only reason I have not brought a tablet yet is it is so hard to get one that usb charges.
I get what everyone is saying but and it is a big but I carry the map and compass, I just do not use them.
A common theme amongst folk coming on mountain nav courses with me is "I used to know how to do this, but I struggle with pacing/timing/relocation/whatever now". Navigation skills need to be practised to keep your eye in. You want to be able to get yourself to safety in the dark, in poor weather and when you are tired instinctively, not whilst trying to recall how to use a compass properly. I advise people to navigate using map and compass every time they go out in the hills/woods etc, even if the weather is great and they are following a marked path.
Ok, that is really interesting might start doing that. I had not given that side of it much thought. That the skills would not be there when I needed them would be a big problem.
I think that the difference between survival & bushcraft is a fine line. Survival is what it says it is, bushcraft is about being comfortable and perhaps starts where survival finishes. But this has been endlessly debated in other threads.
Being very honest:
Bushcraft is the gaining of native skills for many reasons for example fire by friction.
Survival is a means to an end ie lighting a fire by the fastest method that is going to work.
We've veered awy from the original thread question though; I've almost always got a swiss army knife and a few meters of paracord in my pocket. Since I stopped smoking I've not always got matches or a lighter though. I have a possibles pouch very like the one described on Paul Kirtleys' blog
http://paulkirtley.co.uk/2011/bushcraft-survival-kit/ When I was a kid I made a survival kit based on a 1970's book for children "Survival for Young People" and a bit later I read Lofty Wiseman's book and make a 'baccy tin kit. I accumulated bits and pieces in a variety of containers over the years until I attended the first 'Applied Bushcraft' course which was designed and run by Paul Kirtley whilst he was still at Woodlore. We talked on that course about possibles and survival kits and Paul showed us the kit he carries and later described on his blog. There's been several threads about these sort of kits like this one
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20960 Of course these kits are no replacement for practice and experience. It doesn't matter what you've got if you don't know what to do with it (Ooo-err Missus!)
The scouts got me prepared so I always have what is now called EDC. I also think that is why the possibles pouch is better than the tin. The tin for me tended to be a static forgotten thing. The possibles are an ongoing life experience thing, that change on expected conditions.
Actually to a certain extent Shingsowa might have a big point for certain items I carry when I cannot carry what I want.
I remember our local library used to have a copy of Ray's "Survival Handbook" and I must have borrowed it a dozen times back in the day. It hasn't aged very well but all the key ideas are there and reappear more refined in "Bushcraft". But the featured kit is obviously all about what was available at the time. A Thermarest is pretty much the only bit of branded kit Ray recommended in that first book that made it through to "Bushcraft" in 2002 and, it could be argued, still hasn't been bettered. Though saying that I was still using a Mini Maglite until a very few years ago when I ditched it for a more efficient and smaller/lighter LED torch. What kit have other people got that they've been using for years?
Me too. Took me years to find a copy. It was the first book of this kind that made sense to me. Forget the tin and carry the stuff the way I was already.
That might actually be the difference between Bushcraft and Survival. Survival is about getting yourself out of trouble. Bushcraft is about being able to live were other people struggle.