Hey everybody, my name is Joshua Enyart
the Gray Bearded Green Beret, and I'm here to show you exactly what is
in my 18 pound bug-out bag. In any sort of a bug-out scenario, when your main
goal is to put distance in between yourself and whatever the incident is
that you're running from, the key is to be lightweight and fast while still
being able to provide for all of your immediate needs: maintaining your core
body temperature, consuming water to stay hydrated, and consuming calories for
energy...and to be able to cover ground quickly without wearing yourself out. In
addition, you need to be able to take care of any life-threatening injuries
that you may have sustained during the incident, or since you've left the
incident. and you need to be able to effectively and efficiently navigate
from point A to point B. With this in mind, it's important that you really
streamline your kit and only carry what's absolutely necessary, as well as
allowing for some redundancy for some of the more important things, to allow for
contingencies that you didn't see coming. While it may be tempting to carry as
many modern conveniences as you possibly can to make your life easier,
the simple fact is that the heavier this pack is the slower you're going to move,
the more water you're going to need to consume to stay hydrated, and the more
calories you're going to burn and therefore more calories you need to
consume to keep your energy levels up. All three of those things go against
your main goal which is to put distance between you and whatever the incident is
as quickly as possible. You should never plan on carrying a bag that is is more
than 20% of your actual body weight. A better goal would be to have a bag
that's 10% of your body weight, and it'll make you that much faster, that
much more efficient, so long as you're still able to provide for all your basic
needs. My bag weighs in at only 18 pounds, that's a little less than 9% of my total
body weight. This allows me to move extremely fast and cover longer
distances without getting tired and still provides for all of my needs. The
bag starts with a good durable backpack, and like my clothing choices I prefer
natural colors that blend well in a woodland environment, but I don't want a
true camouflage pattern that's gonna stick out in an urban environment. I also
try to avoid clothing and equipment that has too much of a tactical look to it.
This is another thing that allows me to be a little more inconspicuous
regardless of where I find myself. I may plan on bugging out to the wilderness
but I may have to start my bug-out from an urban location, I may have to go
through an urban location, or I may have to come back into an urban location to
resupply at some point, so I don't want anything that makes me stick out. Let's
take a look inside: now as far as my immediate needs I need to maintain my
core body temperature and especially within the first you 24 hours or so
in the beginning of a bug-out scenario, when I'm not sure you know whether it's
going to be a permissive or a non-permissive environment, I'm going to
be extremely careful, so fire is not going to be something that I'm going to
do if I don't have to, so the primary function of my body's thermoregulation,
maintaining my body's core temperature, falls on my shelter kit. Every good
shelter kit consists of something to sleep under, something to sleep on,
something to sleep in, and some cordage to hold it all together.
For something to sleep under I prefer a military poncho, it takes the place of
both a rain jacket and a tarp so it's multifunctional and when I'm moving I
could use this in place of a rain jacket. It's large enough to protect me from the
rain and also drape over the back of my equipment and keep my equipment dry. It
also has these grommets that I can use to tie up simple and effective poncho
shelters when I'm stationary; and as far as this being camouflaged, I don't
necessarily mind my shelter system being camouflaged because most of the time
this is going to be packed up in my bag and not seen. One of the benefits of
having this camouflage pattern is that when I when I do stop and I do put up a
shelter, this camouflage pattern offers me a little bit of concealement. When
it comes to something to sleep in, it's hard to beat a military poncho liner for
something that's lightweight and extremely packable. It also saves me time
when I go to pack up because I don't have to worry about a stuff sack or any
cinch straps or anything. It can be crammed into all the voids in your pack
rather quickly. The majority of our body heat is lost to conduction from our
bodies being in direct contact with the ground. In my opinion, thermal mattresses
are a little too bulky and they catch on too many things. They stick out from the
sides of your pack a lot of times, they catch on a lot of things in the woods,
and for that reason I like to carry a simple bivy sack. This bivy sack can be
stuffed with leaves and debris to make what's called a browse bed mattress to
sleep on and it's also waterproof and windproof so if I don't feel like
putting up a poncho shelter I can tuck myself inside here with my poncho liner
and use this as a standalone shelter and be fairly protected from the elements as
far as cordage goes I prefer TITAN SurvivorCord for a number of reasons
this is high-quality true milspec paracord that has the outer sheath and
it has the seven inner strands it has three additional strands one is a copper
utility wire one is a monofilament fishing line the other is a waxed jute
strand that I can fluff up and use for emergency tinder this prevents me from
having to carry an extra spool of wire for use in trapping and it also prevents
me from carrying an additional spool of fishing line for food procurement on top
of giving me an additional emergency tinder source for fire-starting true
milspec paracord has a breaking strength of 550 pounds in this Titan survivor
cord which is true milspec plus three strands has a breaking strength of 660
pounds so it's going to hold whatever I need it to hold
lastly I carry six lightweight aluminum tent stakes this is something that's
more of a convenience when I do finally settle in for the night to throw
up a shelter I want it to go up as quickly as possible although I can make
these in the field this is one more thing that consumes time and energy that
I can eliminate without adding much weight to my pack in most cases I'm
trying not to be found one of the quickest ways I can signal my location
is to have a roaring fire the flames and a smoke can be seen day or night and it
can be smelled from a long way off it's not something I would I will likely need
in the beginning and not something I want unless I absolutely have to so I've
built the rest of my kit to ensure it isn't an immediate need however I may
need it for thermal regulation I may need it to boil water may need it to
cook food etc so I need to be able to make it as quickly as possible
in all types of weather fire is an extremely critical skill over all so it
deserves some redundancy a lighter is the easiest method since it's sure flame
and keep in mind that it's not the same thing as sure fire I'll normally keep the
lighter in my pocket so if I'm separated from my pack for some reason whether
that's voluntarily or involuntarily I still have a chance of having an
ignition source the main problems with the lighter are that they're pretty
challenging to use in the wind in the rain and that's likely when you're going
to need it the most the other problem is the fuel can leak out if the button is
being depressed in your bag or if it's in your pocket or in your kit and if
they get wet you have to dry them out before using them also they've got a lot
of small moving parts that can break so I normally carry my lighter in an Exotac fireSLEEVE to prevent all of this. in an effort to conserve what little
resources I have I like to have a couple more durable and longer lasting
redundancies for those I choose a fresnel lens and a ferrocerium rod if
the Sun is out I can quickly start a fire with little effort using solar
techniques that take nothing away from my kit if that's not possible I'll
normally choose to use the ferrocerium rod a Ferro rod is a larger version of
the same sparking device that's found within a lighter I can expect this
particular one and a half by six inch Ferro rod to start thousands upon
thousands of fires and last several years before wearing out while these
lighter may only provide hundreds of fires and
a year or so and that's something that's important to consider when you may not
be able to resupply I can normally source dry natural tender in any weather
condition to use for starting a fire but it's worth carrying some man-made
emergency tinder to use for when dry material is scarce and we're not
convenient to go look for I like these fire tabs ten of them take up very
little space and weigh next to nothing I can pull each tab apart to make three
fires each they also work really well with a lighter that's out of fuel and
work great with the larger Ferro rod as well on top of emergency tinder I
generally like to carry at least three beeswax candles these are UCO
candles and in addition to being a good useful tool for getting a fire going
especially in wet weather I can also use this as kind of a low-key source of
light around my campfire that doesn't put off as much light less likely to
give me away in the event I'm using this and if I had to I could boil water with
this it would just take a little while but each one of these candles burns for
12 hours so I've got 36 hours of light in every three pack the next challenge
in a bug-out scenario will be remaining hydrated normally a person needs one
half gallon about 64 ounces per day the need is much greater when the weather is
hot if the area you're working in is especially dry or if there's a lot of
physical exertion happening like you will be when you're carrying a pack
great distances across difficult terrain under stress and possibly injured water
is heavy it weighs about eight pounds per gallon we've already discussed that
carrying extra weight will require more water consumption so for me I would
rather rely on resupplying at every opportunity then attempt to carry a full
day or a few days worth of water which could be several gallons I should also
mention that I'm not anywhere near the desert I don't plan on going anywhere
near the desert so if you are you want to make you may want to carry more
containers of water from the start for a container I prefer a single walled
stainless steel 32 ounce water bottle single walled so that I can boil water
in it to disinfect if needed 32 ounces for a couple of reasons one that's half
of my normal daily water requirement and it's roughly one liter which is
what my water purification tablets are meant for the nesting cup allows me to
have a secondary container and also allows me to char material for fire if
needed again if you're in a desert or extremely hot or dry weather environment
or freshwater sources or a little bit fewer and farther between in your area
than they are for where I'm planning on being I would highly recommend carrying
at least two containers of water instead of just one an additional 32 ounces
would only add two pounds to your total pack weight a cotton shemagh is useful
for a number of reasons but it's part of my water kit to act as a pre-filter for
my water bottle to keep debris out when I'm filling it I can also wet it and
wrap it around the bottle and take advantage of evaporative cooling if the
water's too hot to drink this would also keep your water and your self cool in a
hotter environment should you need to because I don't want to start a fire
unless I have to I carry a small lightweight water filter I prefer the
Sawyer Mini it filters down to a 0.1 micron level and it's rated for a
hundred thousand gallons if i were to drink two gallons a day which is way
above my requirement i could expect this filter to last me almost 137 years I can
use it in several different ways as well which we'll get into later it also comes
with you know a couple of other accessories one of which being a large
syringe that you can use to flush this periodically that doubles as an
irrigation syringe for wounds so this is also part of my first-aid kit I also
carry twenty water purification tabs while my primary means would be to use
the water filter and when possible to boil to save resources there could be
situations where I could drop one of these tablets in 32 ounces of
contaminated water and let them do the work for me while I continue to move an
example that comes to mind is crossing stream during movement that I don't have
time for this situation doesn't allow me to stop to actually take the time to
filter it I get it fill the bottle as I cross and keep on moving these tablets
alone will give me about 10 days of my normal water requirement food is not
necessarily an immediate need however it is a metabolic need and you're going to
be burning calories and an extremely high rate you can't afford to completely
let yourself tank mentally or physically and you likely don't have time to trap
fish or hunt right away I carry emergency rations in my bag to make sure
I have some calories to bring in that I don't have to work for my goal is to
create distance as quickly as possible and that requires energy I prefer the
SOS emergency rations because they're individually wrapped once you open the
main pack and they taste pretty good each pack has nine individually wrapped
bars that are about four hundred calories each for a total of 3600
calories so this is 3600 calories that I don't have to work for that don't take
any time I can eat these on the move and never stop once those run out and as
opportunities present themselves I want to be equipped with at least some basic
supplies to procure food that don't add much weight and take up very little
space we had already talked about the monofilament fishing line and the
utility wire that are found in the survivor cord I also carry a ReadyMan
Wilderness Survival Card and this has hooks arrows points an improvised
fish frog spear point and some snare locks as well as a couple of little
tools so this coupled with the monofilament fishing line and the
utility wire that I can double over and use a snare wire inside the survivor
cord gives me a nice little kit to be able to fish or trap when the
opportunity presents itself it would no doubt be a highly dangerous event that
pushes you to bug out and well not all would involve gunfire or sharp metal or
explosions or what have you there are some that we can all like limp think of
that might if you become injured at the start of an incident or somewhere along
the way you need to be able to take care of it to the best of your ability I'd like to carry a kit that can handle
injuries sustained from things like gunshot wounds or lacerations to the
extremity torso or head I like the Black Scout Survival
Individual First Aid Kit, the BSS IFAK as the baseline and then I add a couple
of things to that based on my experience in my competency level this allows me to
take care of major bleeding sucking chest wounds tension pneumothorax manage
airways what have you any sort of trauma and that could be either for myself or
the people that are with me and of course I like to keep that somewhere
where I can get to it quickly you need to have the ability to navigate from
where you are to where you're going as efficiently as possible
you've got very limited resources at your disposal so you need to make time
quickly hopefully you're moving towards a well-stocked much safer location
having said that you may not be able to take the route you originally planned on
taking and you need to be able to adjust on the fly based on circumstances I'd
like to have a map of the entire area I expect to be going through along with
some waterproof paper and some mechanical pencils for recording
information and route planning as far as compasses I prefer the Suunto MC2 compass
because it's got a sighting mirror that I can also use for signaling and it also
has a small magnifying lens that I can use as a backup fire-starting method it
also has built-in scales that I can use in place of a protractor or a coordinate
scale I also keep pace beads so that I can easily keep track of distances
traveled this is extremely important in the event I have to change routes on the
fly knowing what distance I had moved for the last known point before changing
direction allows me to better pinpoint where I might but there are a few tools
that I feel are absolutely essential for every bug-out bag so the first one being
a headlamp with extra batteries the second being a good full tang fixed
blade belt knife and the third being a multi-tool I
prefer the headlamps that you can put a physical filter on like a red lens
filter over a light that has it as a button option if I'm trying to sneak in
as concealed as possible without compromising my position the last thing
I want to do is hit the wrong button and flash a white light instead I also carry
three or four sets of extra batteries which should be more than enough to get
me where I'm going especially if I'm trying not to use light at all when I'm
traveling or when I'm working around camp at night and I prefer the
longer-lasting lithium style batteries for this option in my opinion and
experience the best fixed blade knife for the money is the Mora Carbon Garberg
it's full tang maintains a good sharp edge has a good 90-degree spine has a
Scandi grind that's easy to sharpen in the field and this thing can take a
beating, this thing will do everything you needed to do in the field and then
some and lastly my choice for the multi-tool would be a Leatherman as far
as the model I'm just looking for one that has pliers wire cutters has an awl
for stitching and repair has a good saw on it and in addition to all that I want
it to have a good blade so that I have a back of course depending on your
situation and your experience level and what you've planned for you may want to
add certain tactical gear and personal security items as needed it's going to
increase the overall weight of your pack and slow you down but but it's also
going to greatly enhance your security in an uncertain situation but that's a
conversation for another day this particular go bag has been developed to
take care of all of your immediate needs and at only 18 pounds it won't weigh you
down until next time stay safe keep prepping
