I think it is common knowledge that I configure Kits for particular purposes and the bags stay configured. Not always constant but normally add water and snack and go. Hunting, work, overnight, grab & go, etc. Today’s Kit is a reworking of my Bushcraft Kit. This separate build started a year ago when I was getting ready to take our grandchild, G-Man, to a local survival course. They had a very specific list of materials and I purchased two sets of everything, for multiple reasons, but mostly so I knew exactly what he had. He was told he could not bring any NEW equipment to training. We ended up attending two of their courses last year and are looking at two this year. For me, this kit buildout has been in multiple packs, the original 5.11 pack just not cutting it. I switched over to an LL Bean Continental Weekender temporarily. I picked up the OneTigris Wild Rocket 45L pack used with the sole purpose of returning theWeekender to its overnight duties. I also wanted to add an insulation component to the kit. I had a SRO Foresters Quilt that was just treading water so it got conscripted. In this flat layout, there are two cooking options, one of which gets packed: canteen set and pot, and the cold steel shovel and the hatchet. Although the both ride well on each side. This pack also has redundant shelter components with the SRO survival tarp and the poncho. The poncho poles area bit of a luxury, but the stakes and rope kit work with both options. The first aid component is strong with a hard shell first aid kit and a trauma kit which includes a pair of TQs. The compass in the navigation kit is from their list, I have not really put it through its phases.I have a Suunto MC2 I reserve to add as needed. The whole setup with emergency bars, two kind bars, and one-liter of water comes at 26.6#. One goal this week was to start rucking again so this pack, as weighed, went two miles in one hour, ten minutes, in boots, partial trail and partial cross country. Not a lightning start but a start.

I spent a couple hours this afternoon working the shelter challenge I posted earlier this week. While working on the unsupported plow-point shelter it became that a ridgeline needed to be tensioned. The best knot proved to be the time honored truckers hitch. At least for the diamond. The 25’ ridgeline was too short for the tarp tent. I was able to apply a marlinspike hitch to tension the system. These two shelters took about an hour and one-half. Starting from a place of no staged material, it is going to take multiple repetitions to bring the time down to a reasonable time. Unsupported shelter configuration is important to me because when hiking or working in the woods, when are you going to find two perfect trees, with the correct spacing and orientation. Unsupported configuration gets around both of these limitations. Tension and original placement are critical. Questions? Pointers?! Thank you.

I am still working on the Week #6 and Week #7 Skills challenge. This weeks personal challenge is educational and repetitions working toward both. Free standing configurations takes religion and practice. Now that the ground is no longer frozen, I am going to continue with two different free-standing sets. My hiking partner and I have agreed to get out for multiple walks together and I am going to start rucking in boots with a pack. Develop my stamina while he is rehabbing his hip. The configurations will be a plow-point and a flying A-Frame. We hiked on a public trail yesterday and with very minor exception, the ice-path has now melted.

All right crew, it has been nothing but crickets in here all week. There has been not so much as a church mouse run through. The sound is deafening! What is the plan for the weekend? I am going on two snowshoe resource hikes. One at my home and one at the family homestead. I am planning on finding six Tinder sources and kindling six bundles or birds-nests with my findings. That being said, the milkweed pods and Fatwood may be coming out of my dry storage from earlier harvest. Maybe the same thing with cedar bark. I’m going to be filming parts of the resource walks and photo documenting the Tinder sources. I’m going to be sort of hog-tied next weekend due to a short destination wedding but my wife is hemming baggy leg pantsuit cuffs today ( and tomorrow?) so I’ll stay out of her way. Haha. This is then the weekend for the monthly challenge. So what are you going to do?