Monday, June 3, 2013

Get Home Bag (Bug Out Bag) Creation

I have slowly been building up a Get Home Bag (GHB).  GHB is a more specific and accurate term for something more commonly called a Bug Out Bag (BOB).  The idea behind the bag is to hold items that you would need to safely get home if something were to happen while you were away (at work, running errands, etc) and you wouldn't be able to just drive back. 

I live away from a major population area in a smaller town and most of my work and errands are 20-30 miles away from home in the larger city.  My bag is being built around the idea of a couple/three days of foot travel through populated and unpopulated terrain.  It consists of items I think I might need that I don't normally carry on my person.

It's not finalized yet and honestly probably never will be as I get new ideas and new stuff is acquired to add or replace current items.  Let's take a look at how it has progressed so far:

Current GHB contents

Broken up we have the bag:


LAPG Bug Out Gear Bag with a couple affinity patches

The first row of items:

 

A Gerber takedown saw with bone and wood blades; a Cold Steel Bushman knife with a small, folding sharpening stone in the pocket; a generic led flashlight with a beam head, wide area side and magnet base; a Buck Revolution XT; a couple tubes of superglue in an old pill bottle; the large white square is an Emberlit collapsible stove; under that is a Cold Steel Voyager; a countycomm widgy pry bar wrapped in small paracord; bug repellant; two butane lighters in a larger pill bottle; and a double bagged, hand rolled, bunch of TP.

The next row:



The white square is a handkerchief; an led, elastic banded headlamp; then a small bottle of water purifying tablets.  Below those are a handful of instant heat pads; a folding metal stove; hexa-mine fire starting tabs; a roll of gauze; and a roll of medical tape.  The gauze and tape are spares from my first aid kit that are here since they fit and need to be somewhere.

The bottom row:



Warm gloves, dry socks, and a watchcap.

The water bottle...



... is a Sport Berkey that will safely filter water from any source so I don't need to carry heavy water filled bottles around.

The cold weather items are things I will swap out with warm weather items when it gets hot... if I remember.  As much as possible I have tried to pack for the "two is one and one is none" theory which is why I carry several items on my person and some in a different bag that is also generally with me when I am out and about more than a few miles away from home.

Several things missing from here that I either carry on my person or elsewhere in my vehicle are a multi-tool, defensive firearm and reloads, decent but not extensive first aid kit, tarp or other waterproof covering, pen and paper.  Things I need to get loaded in the GHB that I don't currently have are some extra batteries, food, duct tape, cordage, and one or two more fire starting methods.

So let's discuss this: 
-What am I missing that I need to consider adding? 
-What do you have in yours that's completely different from mine and why?  
-Do you have a completely different take on your GHB? 
-Any questions about why I have a particular item here?

Now... What Will You Do?

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