Minimal Survival Kit based on the 5C’s Mentality

morning folks I'm David Canterbury with social Alliance Outfitters in the Pathfinder school back down here at the Pathfinder Outdoor Classroom what I want to do today is I want to kind of touch on the five C's I want to kind of update that video a little bit and update my mentality on things a little bit so that you have a better understanding of this 5c kit I noticed that my buddy Sean Kelly did a video this past weekend on a five C's minimalist kit he called it a minimalist kit but it was basically the five C's same five C's that I created back in 2008. and those components within that five C's are really what matters how you set that up and so what I want to discuss with you is a minimal kit in my mind and everybody does things different so because I say something different than someone else doesn't necessarily mean they're wrong it means their mentality is different than mine and if you understand my logic and you understand my mentality then you'll say okay that's what I'm going to do if you think it's a bunch of bunk then you won't do that so I'll leave that up to you the first concept I want you to understand with this though is pocket carry okay those five items that we're going to put in that minimalist kit or those five minimum items and remember that the five C's was never ever meant to be I'm only going to carry five items into the woods it was five categories of items that I'm going to base my survival kit around so remember that five categories now you can pair that all the way down to one item for each category if that's what you want for a minimalized kit except for one category we'll talk about that in a minute because it requires more than one item to be effective in an emergency scenario and that's kind of what I want to push across today but let's first talk about this pocket carry because it will play into these five selected items in just a minute these five categories that we're filling in just a minute for an emergency kit and this is not a kit that we're going to put together and go out of Camp purposely if we're going out to Camp with purpose or we're going out to Bushcraft or we're going out to hunt or fish or mushroom hunt or whatever it is we're doing we're taking our camping gear this is I'm going out for a day on a Day hike on a Long Trail somewhere and if something happens and I get injured I get lost vehicle runs out of gas four-wheeler gets a flat tire whatever the case may be that causes me to have to spend a night there I can do it semi-comfortably and it becomes inconvenient camping at that point and not survival because I'm not going to be at risk of jeopardizing my body's core temperature now back to this pocket carrier there's three things that I put in my pocket every single day when I get up in the morning and it's very simple I don't like my pockets loaded down with crap one piece of paracord utility line I covered this in my cordage management system video you can go back and look at that because we're going to talk a little bit about that in this setup that I've got in front of me on the table here but I carry one of those in my pocket it's about six feet long so I've always got a piece of cordage for the Emergency boot lace for an emergency belt you strap over outerwear to hold in body heat to carry something off the camp to carry firewood back to Camp to hang my pack up on a tree lots and lots of uses for that piece of cordage but in the end it's one emergency piece of cordage I have I always have a Bic lighter in my pocket with a small roll of one inch duct tape around the lighter I don't get carried away and put 40 things on this lighter as a fire starting kit this lighter is a fire starting kit it has instant flame that's instant gratification that is a fire started kit again like was said in Sean's video I can rescue this thing in seconds if it gets soaking wet or submerged underwater and it will float if it falls into water it's not going to sink to the bottom of the lake or the creek or wherever the case may be the duct tape is highly flammable I can use it to extend that flame because this is a resource and the fuel inside is a resource so being able to extend that Flame by lighting the duct tape and letting it burn gives me an extra resource on the same thing it doesn't take up any more room in my pocket but it allows me to extend that resource the third thing I keep in my pocket every day is an Sak this one is an outrider sometimes I carry the ranger grip 79 or 78 I can't remember which one it is it's the one with the non-serated blade the OD green one that we carry on our website I carry that one a lot of the time but I carry the outrider a lot because it employs a pair of scissors in the kit as well which I think is important for management of hygiene and you also have obviously a toothpick and you have the tweezers again hygiene items but it gives you an extra blade and it gives you a small saw that can be used for cutting down small Limbs and things like that if needs be and that's always in my pocket so there's three things give me a lot of power but they don't give me the ultimate power I would need in an emergency scenario with a bare minimum kit so now let's discuss why I selected the five things or the five categories what I selected to put in them and why and why one of them takes a little bit more than one thing to make it viable and then we'll look at this thing and say okay this is a minimal kit and this is why so stay with me guys okay so getting down to the Bare Bones here and we're talking about you know these are five items if I could only carry you know a very minimalized amount of stuff this is what I'm going to choose remember what I have in my pockets already now it's important to understand if you're walking out in the woods and they can afraid or you think somebody's gonna steal your pants then you really got a problem you should have some things in your pockets that we talked about already you can even put a button Compass or pocket compass in your pocket if you thought it was necessary all right so five things first of all going through the five C's we're talking about cutting tools I choose a Full Tang belt knife of some kind this one happens to be a more garberg it's got a little over a four inch blade on it but it is full tank now the reason I choose that is because I'm never going to rely on my Sak to process a lot of firewood if that's what I have to do obviously I'm not carrying a saw other than that little one on the Sak I'm not carrying an ax I'm not carrying a wedge so I'm really relying on this knife to do all of the work to create a fire and if I'm planning on using a fire to boil water there's no doubt I'm going to try to build one so I'm not going to try to manage that with an Sak and if I already have one in my pocket then I can afford to have a belt knife in my emergency kit all right so Full Tang belt knife any brand any make doesn't matter there's certain criteria that knife has to meet for a basic level class here at the school but it doesn't necessarily have to be any certain brand to meet those criteria and it's a big misconception on the Internet is that I'm trying to sell gear by forcing people to bring certain things to a basic class I'm trying to force people to bring items that meet a certain criteria level so that they are multifunctional doesn't really matter what brand they are as long as they meet those criteria now number two very serum Rod again it's wrapped with duct tape as well it does have a striker built into it that's made of tungsten steel if it didn't have one that's fine it has a 90 degree spinal my knife doesn't matter however this gives me a secondary Fire Starting device again to extend the main Fire Starting resource I have which is my cigarette lighter that is in my pocket so it doesn't need to be in this kit because I have one in my pocket so I'm going to choose something else that can last longer than that in this kit which is a fair cerium rod container I'm always going to need a container to carry water over distance to be able to boil water for disinfection and again with a small kit like this you're planning to do that you're planning to boil water so if you're planning to do that and I said some of these items were more than one I only I said one of these items is more than one excuse me two of these items are more than one because our container should always have a nesting vessel the reason for that is it takes up no more room really in the kit but it then allows me to number one boil dump to cool boil again while I'm drinking I'm boiling so I'm killing two birds at one stone and I'm losing any time that way it also allows me other things like a chamber I can use the signal for rescue if I need to and it gives me a charring chamber to again extend my fire resources in an emergency so without taking any more room in the kit I'm adding something that adds much more versatility to this kit than it would be with the bottle alone okay now the shelter element this is where I think it's important to understand all right a good night's sleep and controlling that body core temperature is the most important thing that you're going to want to achieve once you've gotten past things like sulfate all right you're going to want a good shelter system now the clothing on your back is your first line of defense you should be dressed for the weather and you should have something with you really to battle any inclement weather that may occur in your bio region during the season you're operating in and things like that but what I would tell you is this any shelter system really needs to have three components it needs to have something you can sleep in something you can sleep on and something you can sleep under so if they're only carrying an emergency space blanket all you have is something to sleep under nobody goes in their house at night lays down on the concrete or wood floor and goes to sleep you've got something to sleep on and you've got something to sleep under sleeping on something battles conduction from the ground sleeping inside something traps body core temperature and sleeping under something protects you from the exterior elements outside you need those three elements do they have to be huge absolutely not so something to sleep in an emergency busy doesn't have to be Pathfinder branded this is a Tyvek Bibby it's reflective on the inside so it traps body heat so if I'm wearing minimal clothing this thing is good to about 40 degrees in normal clothing so I've got something at least down to 40 degrees even if I don't have fire that I can sleep in as part of my shelter system as long as I can battle conduction that's the next step the conduction portion of this can be as simple as a six mil trash bag a six mil trash bag that's filled with debris or leaves to contain them easily and again I'm not planning on having things that I can construct a bed to put leaves inside of and hold them in place maybe I get lucky and find some logs but I'm not going to chance that I'm taking this and then if I do happen to find all that good stuff I still have this as a ground sheet that's going to protect me from getting wet or any dampness from seeping through into my shelter system itself so trash bag six mil the third element is your emergency space blanket now your emergency space blanket can be a 5x7 any brand you want as long as it is a durable space blanket but the reflective portion of that space blanket is what enables you to manipulate that fire to get convective heat or to trap your own body heat by making a very small enclosed shelter with this blanket so when you combine this blanket with this bivvy now I have two ways I can trap heat if I need to I have something I can sleep on something I can sleep in and something I can sleep under so I've built a viable shelter system now steaks yes I'm going to carry steaks just like Sean was talking about in his video I'm not going to carve steaks if I don't have to if I want a shelter and I want it up now I want the steaks available to me now my rapid deployment Ridgeline same thing the only difference is I put the third prussic loop on here for a tackling device I don't have the tiny knots and I also have a stick on here at the end of my bowling knot on the tail so that when I do that running bowling around the object I can just drop this stick through it I don't have to waste a tent stake and I don't have to hope I can find a stick in a rush in the rain or in a driving rain all I have to do is take that stick and drop it in there and I'm done and it's the same length as my rapid deployment Ridge line so it's not taking up any more room in my pack and it weighs almost nothing because it's the dry stick so right I choose to carry six things the reason I choose to carry six is because one of them becomes a fire starting device which puts me automatically down to five all right I have four corners on my tarp so I'm going to want at least four and then one of them is in case I break a steak on the fly or something like that I have a spare stake or I can use two of these Stakes on my guy lines where my prostate glutes are and have four Stakes for my shelter if I'm not going to use one to make a fire so there's a reason for this many Stakes okay six Stakes is the minimum I would carry they don't weigh very much they're ABS plastic but they burn gives you an advantage for fire cordage all right now there are four pieces of utility line here that are six feet long and they are laying here on top of the shelter bag and there's 100 feet of number 36 Bank line if I need cordage to tie lash and bind other than a shelter this stuff right here is the ticket it's I can carry more of it with less space and less weight and it's more versatile in my mind than paracord and it definitely does a better job of lashing and binding things than paracord does however I've got these four lines as extensions and if you go look at my video on the cordage management system all four corners of my tarp already have one of these lines on them and the bowl and loop at the end of that line is just big enough that when I pass it through in Lark's head fashion there's enough room left of the loop to shove a stake in so number one it gives me a stake Loop already on the tarp and number two it gives me a way to pull that tarp out and fly the tarp carrying stakes and carrying a tarp is great but it gives me no versatility with the tarp as far as how I'm going to set the thing up because if I don't want the thing on the ground maybe it's a hot weather day and I want Total Breeze out of there I want to fly all four corners of that tarp I'm either going to put Bank line on there at that point or more paracord that I'm carrying or I'm already going to have it available and if I'm trying to just put a rain shelter up really quick and I've already got four lines on there boom boom boom boom I'm done simple simple that's what I'm trying to achieve this entire kit weighs about four and a half five pounds dry without water okay so you're not carrying a lot of weight and all of it truly speaking can be laid out on a table you could put the trash bag on the bottom the shelter inside of that pull this bendy out of the bag and stretch it out inside there put the stakes in the ropes in for that keep that separate maybe roll everything up into a nice tight little package and put it in your kit and then the only thing that you really have extra in your kit is not in one package it's a water bottle and cup a knife that you probably would have on your belt anyway this and a roll of cordage this is easy enough to carry just about anywhere haversack whatever you have this will probably carry it this is on your belt you've got what's in your pockets you're pretty well set for a minimal kit that will actually do the job it's supposed to do an emergency and not cause you to sit out there and have to build a giant fire all night to stay warm or shiver all night because you can't build a fire because you don't have anything to keep you warm these elements that trap heat are the key to that and in an emergency scenario you don't know that you're going to be able to build a fire so you have to be able to manage that scenario as well really trash bag space blanket I'll lay down the table other components are laying right down here for that kit now what we're going to try to do is we're going to try to put this in a surplus butt pack so you want that entire package to be about that long piece of cake they will easily easily go that small I'm going to fold this over to the middle and I'm going to fold the other side over to the middle kind of even those up see where I'm at gonna be about the right cut those ropes inside and fold this over keep everything neat and tardy now I've got my extra ropes my Ridge line is going to be the last thing I put in because it'll be the first thing I want out right last in first out my extension can go inside here my tent Stakes can go inside here I'm going to keep one of those extension lines out to use it to lash everything together so my Ridge lines out my extensions are out now I'm folding all of this to the middle starting on the end offsetting my Stakes hold everything into a small package and I'm going to begin to roll this up if only ever think to the middle as I go to give her everything where it needs to be so when I get to the end of this I'm going to fold the last bit of it over make sure all my lines are tucked in this envelope right here rapid deployment Ridge line finish rolling it up all right remember that I still have a piece of cordage left over here I left out I'm just going to take that piece Bring It Around in a loop a little Lark set in there but one side the One Direction of that large side one side through the other direction that large side just like this crank it all down on itself get it centered up and zip it down just like that and that's going to give us everything we need to tie a nice neat bow right there so everything we have now is in a nice neat package we have a military surplus butt pack here we have a water bottle carrier on that for a water bottle and cup and we have an external pouch right here we can put our cordage in we can put our Ferro rod in there anything else that we might want to put in there a headlamp if we wanted to would easily fit in there a compass would easily fit in there no book and Pen would easily fit in there there's plenty of extra room here that we could tuck things into if we wanted to but our Bare Bones kit fits in this very easily into a nice small neat package okay guys listen I appreciate you joining me out here today at the Pathfinder Outdoor Classroom for this video on kind of a five C's minimal type kit and you know bear in mind that I spend about 120 days a year teaching so 120 days a year I'm out in the woods with students not all of them overnight many of them overnight so I set up shelters a lot I watch people set up shelters a lot I use gear a lot I watch people use gear a lot and over time because I've been doing this for a long time now you know what probably six seven hundred students a year I learn what works best and I see what works best and what doesn't work best and when I develop things in the path on your system I'm trying to always upgrade things to give you the best knowledge and also give you the most effective way of doing things so I appreciate your views I appreciate your support I thank you for everything you do for school for family for business all of our sponsors instructors Affiliates and friends and I'll be back with another video as soon as I can guys thanks

Channel: David Canterbury

Views: 244,785

Keywords: Survival, Davecanterbury

Id: reGn-LYF-Mg

Length: 21min 19sec (1279 seconds)

Published: Tue May 02 2023