WELCOME TO THE KITTCHEN SINK
(it's so much more than survival!).
Hi there, glad you could stop by and welcome to the minuscule niche in this world that is.... ........the Kittchen Sink.
(The English Lake District - not packin' here just moochin about)
So now ....political rant over, lets get outdoors eh!
My primary reason for beginning this blog is a quite a journey, and so not wishing to bore the arse you, I will attempt to compound some of my entry. (Though your still probably best off grabbing that cuppa and a packet of biscuits before sticking your feet up there).
Are ya sorted now?, Ha`way then, stick ya feet up there and I'll crack on.
At age 11.......got my first ever rucksack for Christmas after joining the Ramblers Club at school whereby we used to go in the school minibus at weekends to Hamsterly Forrest, Hadrians Wall, the Lake District and such like, and hoof it for miles. Hauling around this bright orange backbreaking piece of external framed crap as a kid, was simply exhilarating. Oh god, how I thought I was free and independent is nobody’s business!. Learnt a few hefty lessons along the way though…..(Like remember to heed the teachers warning and NOT wear jeans when walking through 3 feet of snow filled forest tracks for miles and miles and when the snows falling down on you like a parachute blanketing a squirrels nostril).
With frost covered Levis you could literally bend up to the upper thigh frozen onto us, my best mate and I (and everyone else too for that matter), at twelve noon and aged eleven, sat beneath a pine forest canopy just off the trail, and propped up by a huge conifer tree with bottom branches only inches from our heads, stopped for lunch. Until my dying day I will never ever forget the cold complete silence as we ate a packed lunch and watched the snow fall absolutely straight down without a breath of wind in the air, like a solid white blanket. Visibility was about thirty feet yet whilst shivering uncontrollably eating lovingly prepared foil wrapped sandwiches and drinking pop (soda that is if you’re not English) beneath that tree, there was not one single snowflake landing on me……not one! My legs were so cold I could feel the burning. My socks and feet soaked and stinging in salt stained Dr Marten boots and now we had stopped I was really feeling the pain, yet thanking god I was wearing a waterproof(ish) cagoule over an army jumper as I stuffed my face and laughed along with my mate at the price we were now severely paying for not listening to the teachers pre-ramble requisites.
I absolutely loved every single second of it, the pain – everything! The day was topped off by a girl and her friend who were lagging behind everyone along the trail. One of them had not noticed a three or four foot gulley complete with icy stream running beneath the snow which covered it level with the trail had stepped into the middle of it. The fresh snow sliding in behind her until she was trapped up to the chest, her friend being physically incapable of pulling her out by herself.
As whistles could be heard howling down the trail, we started walking back through this wall of snowfall reigning down upon us, only to be greeted by a head and arms poking out the ground and flailing around wildly screaming for help. Well I just lost it completely!! Suffice to say she got out alive but no thanks to me and my mate who succumbed to pain inducing laughter.
I`m uncertain as to whether it was because someone was now in a worse predicament that me and my other frozen denim clad compadre was in after having half their body compacted in a zero degree stream for quarter of an hour, or whether it was eating lunch beneath that tree that really struck a chord inside me that day, but I just couldn’t wait for more.
And that was the start of it all for me......
For serious trips the jeans went out the door in exchange for army lightweights. Hiking boots replaced the Dr Martens (not that my Martens were no good, they were in fact very comfortable, I just didn't want them getting wrecked) and wool socks were also employed, as was hats and gloves. But the best was a birthday present that I still own some three decades later (and the mess kit I got alongside it too). And as we all know, its every outdoor person’s rite of passage known affectionately as……the camping stove!
I state here, with monumental pride, that I am the proud owner of the extremely rare Camping Gaz Globetrotter – and it still works beautifully too!
Suppose you wanna see it now then eh? Why Aye!
(over 30 years and my pans are still spotless - grand bitta kit)
I don’t know what it is about this stove, maybe it’s just the happy memories and sentimentality it evokes each time I see it, or maybe it’s all we’ve been through together – a visual and physical reminder of my entire life stretching back to childhood. Or maybe it’s just the fact that it’s a bloody gem of a creation, but I just cannot seem to part with it. The most I have ever been offered for it was £150 by a complete stranger in English Lake District many years ago now. As I was brewing up at the side of a road one day in Ambleside, this guy literally pulled up in a passing car, jumped out, opened his wallet, emptied it, and counted 150 notes right under my chin then begged me to sell him it. The strange thing was, although I certainly could have used the cash, I wasn’t even remotely interested in taking it. I just wanted a cup of tea and I saw him as wanting to take that away from me. (Yeah, us English eh! When it comes to a good cuppa your best off not getting in the way there).
Being slightly older now (shut it....shut iiiiiit!), and in retrospect, I maybe should have snapped his arm off for it there and then. Considering a few Japanese stove collectors I’ve seen online, none of whom possess one, today’s market climate and the fact that I no longer use it at all. I think it could easily be prized from my possession for two but I couldn’t swear on it if that day ever came again. Keep your eyes peeled on Ebay folks, you just may see it there one day, covered in tears and love.
Oh and just for the giggles, here's my original mess kit I also had alongside it for the last thirty years as well. (Though I probably should throw this away now as I never ever use it since getting my Trangie 27. God! how does anyone survive without a Trangie).
Anyways, this stove went everywhere with me from then on. No more packed lunches. It was Pot Noodles and Snakpots, Heinz beans and sausages, bacon and hot cups of tea and chocolate all the way. Aye, me little Globetrotter and my crappy mess kit there just intensified the outdoor experience by a thousand for me. And I guess that was it……..been into hiking, backpacking and camping ever since. It’s in the blood and I don’t suspect it shall ever leave. There's just this inexplicable and enormous satisfaction from possessing the ability to be self sufficient a million miles away from anyone or anything. The desolate solitude that is devoid of human existence is magnetic; its silence deafening, and I just love it.
Thirty years on however, and I’m rather more well equipped these days than I was when I was a kid. (err!.....no making your own jokes up here ok!).
I’ve plodded along nicely, minding my own business and doing my own thing and not really paying that much attention to the changes in outdoor equipment over the years. This is probably due to the fact that what I had served me well. Or perhaps I should say what “we” had between us – my mate and I, was adequate for “our” needs as we shared equipment, the pair of us never actually owned a complete set of gear that would see us individually self sufficient in the outdoors. It was a while later, after we grew up and left school and went our own ways in the world, I realized that the equipment I had was not adequate or practical for solo trips.
Then, as I’m sure many will have discovered (if you’re as old as me that is), that as your teenage years slip away there is a period in time when things like life itself simply seems to just get in the way. One thing leads to the next and before you know it you just didn’t get around to replacing most of your `mediocre kit` with the good stuff because you were too busy buying nappies (diapers) or putting a home together, etc etc, etc (insert your particular preference here folks).
Leeeeeaping to the present day, few years back (2006) I did my degree in Community and Youth Work Studies. Whilst the younger students frittered away their grant money on beer and wine (to which I admit engaging in to a `certain` degree also), I reserved some of mine and invested in a `whole` new gear overhaul to which I’m still adding odds and ends to today.
When it comes to backpacking gear, I’m not one to just dive in and spend haphazardly on any old kit just to find out its crap or not suitable nor practical at all. I will research even the smallest and mundane components to which end I can usually be found sitting at a computer with a notebook, pencil and tape measure permanently at hand.
Like a lot of other outdoors people, I look at an item and if I cannot figure out another six uses for it, then generally it’s regarded as no good to me.
Anyways, I've rigged myself out with some really nice kit (I will be putting up some in depth reviews of it all as time goes by, both on here and on You Tube starting around 2011), and that was that.............or so I thought!
Because I was researching all this new gear (and just to give the complete uninitiated an idea here, I spent three months solid researching the best tent to fit in the base of my bergen - thats `one` item alone), I obviously headed off to You Tube daily and read other Blogs etc. Now maybe I’m just old school, but I’ve always been the type of person who carries the kitchen sink on his back (you may have gathered this by now I take it lol).
I have never for the life of me understood all this ultralight (UL) malarkey, I mean what’s that all about then for gods sake?? If you’re going on a `hike` and at the end of the day are returning home or you’re having a single overnighter then fine, I can see the advantage there (almost). But if I go anywhere for more than three days (which I usually would otherwise I don’t really see the point in going out in the first place unless you’re lucky enough to live in a place where the wilderness is on your doorstep) then I certainly want comfort and not compromise.
That has always been my mentality until of recent, whereby I began for the first time to actually take UL on board as a serious consideration.
What drove me to this consideration was twofold……
Firstly, I have had a number of major heart operations since age twenty five, the most recent being in 2008 whereby my aortic arch and every artery stemming from my heart was replaced with artificial ones. (Apparently I have had a heart condition since birth and it was only discovered when I was twenty five when I went to join the Royal Air Force). Knowing this never deterred me from anything at the time as I was still young. Two decades on though, and I really think I should to be considering lightning the load somewhat, especially if I’m to haul it around any great distance, like up a mountain.
Secondly, and this is what really changed years of thought process, was the discovery of Bug Out Bags (BOB) on You Tube. I found the notion utterly fascinating.
I have had a survival kit that I made myself ever since 1986 when I bought the original copy of Lofty Wiseman’s SAS Survival Handbook. It’s been in my kit forever and a day and I have never ever had to use it I’m proud to say. But the consideration of evacuating my home at a moment’s notice never really occurred to me in the slightest.
Today though, `slightly` older and far more educated on how society works courtesy of the University of Sunderland and its faculty of Health, Natural and Social Sciences, I really sat down and thought long and hard and found myself mentally running through self imposed `what if` catastrophic scenarios in order to ascertain what I would do in any given situation. I figured “hey ian, for years now you have owned just about everything you’d ever need for such emergencies. Why not figure out some practicalities of it all so that should the SHTF one day, you can up and away safe in the knowledge that you have everything at hand to just go and live in the wilderness almost indefinitely if needs be). So that’s exactly what I did………
NOTE: Before I go any further here, I just wish to state for the record, I am NOT a survivalist (though I can see how any survivalist reading this could easily counter challenge my statement by simply fronting the argument that `the fact that you thought about it and became prepared makes you a survivalist` and in all honesty, I think I would have a hard time arguing my corner there I dare say).
So for the record here, I just want to attempt to break away from a lifetimes worth of norms for me personally and attempt to pigeon-hole myself and state that basically I’m a backpacker/hiker who, because of his health concerns, own academic research and insights into economics, politics, the banking system and that of survivalist influences has taken an active interest in his life chances and compiled himself a set of backpacking gear that is practical for everything from heavyweight comfort backpacking to Lightweight backpacking, to extreme minimal survival…..all in one kit.
This is a project which is still ongoing and I believe it always will be for me now.
I have spent months researching `my` needs and what I believe to be the best possible combinations of equipment for me personally. These endeavors have led me to designing a rig that is fully functional for anyone or any person(s) on the face of the earth.
In point of fact, in doing all this: in ironing out all my own creases, has led me to create a quite lengthy primer on a complete backpack rig that I am not only constructing my own current system around, but have preliminary sketches, designs, notes and a quite lengthy documentation on, for a rig that any person(s) in the world can use as a practical redundancy rig.
This `eureka moment` of mine all came about incidentally, by spending literally week upon week on You Tube watching people display and justify their BOB (I use the term collectively in this instance), then proceed to justify the contents thereof. Many appeared very innovative indeed whilst a great many others (I personally found) were, to be lenient, quite pitiful. All bar none that I witnessed (again, in my opinion), were “functionally” useless, in terms of adaptability, redundancy, versatility and flexibility of use, particularly to the outdoors person.
I still have a lot more work to do which is why I’m loosely configuring my current kit around my project in order to iron out any packing flaws etc. Once I discovered that the rig I was constructing for myself could be better adapted to suit everyone, both single or with immediate family members to consider, I set myself some very difficult and challenging goals within the project.
Anyway, the more I started researching this and the more time I spent working on my ideas
and design plans, the more I became aware of the universal importance of it for everyone.
I was and I still am if I'm honest, swayed by thoughts of mass marketing my product, and or, designs specs, and have wrestled with my conscience for a long while about that. My conclusion came in watching a You Tube video of Dave Canterbury from Wilderness Outfitters demonstrating a slingshot he had converted into a bow hunting weapon. This most certainly was an innovative design specification that could have easily made him a significant amount of financial capital had he patented the design prior to releasing the video and all and sundry copying it. I have no doubts in my mind that when the slingshot fat cats get a look at that one they will be quick off the mark to try and cash in on Dave’s invention.
But…..he stated in his video post, he could have done exactly that, patented his design and cashed in…..but he did not. His `raison-d'etre` being that he wanted everyone (and I especially like Dave for his "common man" theology), to be able to cheaply manufacture their own hunting weapon in order to better secure their (and their families) existence in a SHTF scenario. He went on to say his aims were to get young people out into the wilderness which promotes self sufficiency and active participation rather than playing playstation couch potato.
As a professional Youth Worker, this is where Mr Canterbury struck a very poignant chord in me. After rationalizing with myself about my own professional values and principals and the ways in which I engage with young people to teach self reliance and emancipation, I have decided to also follow along a parallel line and let loose all my ideas for the benefit of anyone and everyone who may care to adopt any of them.
My conclusion being found in Aristotle’s `Age of Man` in which he stated……
"The securing of one individual's good is cause for rejoicing, but to secure the good of a nation or of a city-state is nobler and more divine."
Or.... better and more succinctly (I think anyway), as Mr Spock said to Captain Kirk in Star Trek II
“the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”.
It is here I would like to pause then impart an enormous thank you to Dave Caterbury for reminding me of my values (and of course sticking it to the corporate fat cats and all above them, who in the end don’t give a damn about us all anyway. So let’s all share what knowledge and understanding we each have for free, and look after our own backs eh!).
And so here we are…………..
I gave up on the notion of actually acquiring materials and manufacturing for myself my kit concept and decided instead to simply adapt equipment that is readily available to me and “make it work”. I could, in theory, build my own rig as per my design concepts, and that would work far better in terms of speed of redundancy, kit volume etc etc, and I may even get round to doing so one day. As of now though, I’d like to share with everyone the entire kit concept via You Tube videos which will be formatted in order to be viewed in conjunction with Blog posts here at the Kittchen Sink Press. My intention is to complete a series of videos guiding the viewer through my rig and its contents and its many possibilities via break off redundancy.
By the end, I hope this will have given the viewer enough information to either incorporate the same redundancy capabilities within their own setup, or has afforded them the insight to adopt similar methods and principles or physically manufacture their own rig accordingly from scratch (this is the point where I wish I had a sewing machine capable of sewing 1000D ripstop and the knowledge and skills to actually use the damn thing…. lmao).
What do I hope people will gain from this?
Good call indeed! Well, I hope that:
For the Outdoors person(s) – Backpacker / Camper / Trekker / Bushcrafter etc:
This entire rig was initially and specifically designed by me - for me, as a longstanding heavyweight backpacker, to utilize my outdoor equipment efficiently in the event of any crisis AND during the course of any outdoor activity I pursue. I hope it offers you, the outdoors person, an enlightening, informative and intuitive way to rethink and re-muster your gear into a method that allows it to be functionally used – even when it’s stowed, and without overly adding to your current rig.
For the active Survivalist:
I hope this offers an intuitive insight as to how you can design your rig so that it is multifunctional, complete – even when segmented / lightened. Depending upon the crisis or scenario you find yourself up against and the timeframe in which you have to react, this rig will allow you to physically haul a volume of kit ranging from Heavyweight – Mediumweight – Lightweight – Ultralight - Featherlight – Survival Pouch, via multiple inbuilt redundancies.
For the already Emergency Prepared Citizen:
This system will offer you the flexibility to have `your` entire bug out kit in one big rig which can be carried on your back and waist or simply be thrown into a vehicle. But better still, if the situation you find yourself in dictates you need to move fast and on foot, it can be broken down in less than sixty seconds into various smaller loads that you can choose depending upon what the situation you find yourself in dictates, and which will greatly assist in increasing your evacuation response time and ability. All this, safe in the knowledge that you have on you all the kit necessary to cover the basic human necessities for the obligatory 3 days and more.
For the already prepared family:
My concept will offer you the ability to not only have all your bug out kit in one big rig capable of being carried by one person, but better still, it can be broken down and divided between family members which will assist in speed of exit and open up greater options to you as to other kit you can grab and mobilise in less than sixty seconds. The best part being that no matter who has what section of the rig, if, for whatever reason you are split up as a family unit, each section of the rig contains Shelter, Fire, Water and Food for the individual carrying it to survive a minimum of 72 hours (3 days).
For the uninitiated / unprepared single or family `non outdoors` type persons:
(NB: You can skip this last bit if you’re a seasoned outdoors person unless you wish to be bored).
I can appreciate that putting a rig together like this one maybe hugely expensive (though it needn’t be), being as though (and I assume here of course), you do not possess any outdoor equipment to begin with, or at best very little. Nevertheless, the fact that you’re here reading this or watching my You Tube videos, let’s me know (even if it’s in thought only) that you value your life enough to research equipment / survival systems and information pertaining to. This leads me to perceive you are contemplating investing in outdoor pursuits / survival gear.
Making difficult decisions upon what stays and what goes; what to buy and what not to buy – what is good gear, what is average gear and what is totally crap gear when building your kit up, can be very, very frustrating indeed and at times even complex beyond belief. You only need to ask anyone who has been actively involved in outdoor pursuits and they will `all` tell you they built up their kit over many years of trial and error. None of us got it right first time and there are reasons for that! Enough in fact, that I could probably write a book on it. But just to keep things on track here, let’s just assume the biggest flaw is that the people who are really into the outdoors (I include myself here too, oh yes make no mistakes!), tend to want every bit of kit out there that they think is cool, regardless as to whether they actually need it or not, and in all probability, they don’t. I hold myself up as example here when I say I own eight stoves. In reality, I only really `need` two.
The moral here is `research and planning` saves money……lots of money!!
Speaking as an old stick here, the benefit of today is without doubt the World Wide Web. When I was a kid it didn’t exist (I know, I know! – for you young ones its just soooo hard to perceive isn’t it). “So what did `you` do then Grandad?” Well son, I’ll tell you! We had to rely on the guy in the local camp shop telling the truth and not filling us full of it just to make a quick buck. But the best way was to talk to anyone and everyone along the trail and have a look at their kit. It’s called social intercourse as opposed to `cyberchat`. Now that’s what I call getting `real` evaluations by physically witnessing kit first hand (or getting a go of it).
But…... now we have the addition of You Tube, well now, the floodgates haven’t just opened, they’ve been positively washed off the bloody hinges!! Now we can watch gear and listen to opinion as if we are there in the field with the product ourselves, and what’s more, because its world wide, we get to see and have the ability to buy anything from anywhere on the planet. Marvellous!!
So if you’re putting a rig together from nothing, the most important websites you could possibly ever access are: You Tube, Ebay and Amazon. Between these three alone, you can review kit then bid on it in auction for cheap on Ebay or Buy it from Amazon. Or…..accept the You Tube video reviewer’s information and buy direct. Spoilt for choice!! Is it any wonder I have five stoves, four backpacks etc.
For the completely unprepared or uninitiated in the outdoors, an hour or so on You Tube or surfing army surplus stores can quickly become very daunting. I recommend before you begin browsing, to sit and ponder long and hard about what kit you “think” you absolutely need and then write a list down of it all. Now go back through every item and ask yourself why? Why `must` I have “this” particular item in my kit? Can I find it cheaper elsewhere or can I find a similar piece of kit that’s every bit as good, yet half the price and more importantly, half the size and half the weight.
Oh…by the way! if you’re thinking “none of this is a concern to me as money is no object”, then you are very, very much mistaken. You’re forgetting about the one true mother of all equipment; all hail the hallowed god of the great outdoors whose name be COMPROMISE. And as all outdoor folk will gladly testify, Uncle Compromise is the single biggest pain in the arse imaginable!! So yes, you may be able to step out and lavish £400+ on a minus 6 billion degrees Mountain Equipment doss bag alone, but if your thinking that your stuffing it in a 30 litre backpack along with everything else then your sadly misinformed. Again, you need to consider whether you will ONLY use your gear for emergencies or whether once you now have it, you may actually end up participating in outdoor pursuit’s now’s that you own all this cool gear. So obviously there are a great many things to contemplate here, but whatever kit you decide upon, it must relate to `you` and `your` circumstance(s). But if you keep reading the chapters of blog here in conjunction with watching my You Tube videos, my rig (or backpack/ load system) that I am about to explain next, may provide you with a starting point for your research and purchases, so please don’t be put off by anything I have said so far. You`ve came this far – stick with it and we’ll turn you into Bear Grylls in no time ; )
NB: For clarity purposes only - The following system is `specifically` intended around evacuating your home / place of residence. Obviously, it is of no use whatsoever if you are bugging `in` and not out.
FOOTNOTE:
It is my intention to begin recording my You Tube posts around January 2011 or thereafter.
I apologise for having to wait until then, only present commitments would only allow me to do `off-the-cuff` recordings and blog posts. Personally, I don't think any of you deserve that and besides, I want the information to remain accurate within both statement and context, so I will wait until I have the ability to offer 100% commitment to this project.
There will be other things going on here too besides the theory behind my load system. Mainly gear reviews - lots, and one or two other things. I would like to think all of which is open for critical debate(s), so I look forward to the external input and ideas from everyone, be that on Backpacking, Hanging, Camping, Hiking, Bushcraft, Trekking, or the underpinning thread to all, Survival.
PS: If you current grid reference just so happens to be either.....
27°59'17" N or 27 degrees, 59 minutes and 17 seconds North of Equator and precisely 29028 feet vertically, or.............................. you just happen to find yourself 28,251 feet up in Pakistan .......then you do realise I HATE YOU!! ; )
Please go to the next page: My Complete Rig - A Brief Primer
© Kittchen Sink 2010. All rights reserved.
