Hi I'm Bob, Welcome to my mountain survival site!

This site is about very simple, rugged outdoor equipment. I'm a man of few words, I like to get to the point immediately so here goes...

Knives  

You need to have a very good and heavy duty knife. Bringing a Leatherman Tool or a Swiss Army Knife is fine but you have to bring a real knife as well.

Fire Starting Tools  

Just use a regular cheap disposable cigarette lighter for starting fires but carry a magnesium block for emergencies.

String  

Good old fashioned heavy duty string could be the most important thing in your pack.

Alcohol  

Absolutely necessary to disinfect open wounds. Also comes in handy to start a hard to start fire.  

Camp Stoves  

Don't get a propane stove whatever you do. If you smell the top of a campstove propane tank you will smell propane leaking out guaranteed, we have never come across a propane tank that doesn't smell. That smell is a poisonous and explosive gas leaking out slowly, and you're gonna put that in your backpack??? Of course not!

Alcohol stoves are easy to use and the fuel is quite safe and not stored under pressure like propane. Normal alcohol stoves are very hard to find, stores only seem to carry ridiculous high tech contraptions with all kinds of knobs and nozzles, absolutely ridiculous! You can make one yourself pretty easily with some cans. A big disadvantage of alcohol stoves is that they need a lot of alcohol to run, if you get stuck you will run out of fuel rather fast.

Wood stoves seem to be making a comeback after a century of fossil fuel dominance. Wood stoves have the great advantage of never running out of fuel. The "Trailstove" backpacking stove is my personal favorite, it weighs a little bit below a pound which is more than a lot of fossil fuel stoves but since you don't bring any fuel, the pack weight actually comes out lower than fossil fuel stoves. It cooks a bit slower than a propane stove but that's a quite acceptable compromise when you consider all the advantages.

Sorry to keep rambling on about stoves like this but it is because I lost my whole backpack once, with pretty much everything in it to a leaking propane container that turned into a great ball of fire. I was lucky to escape with minor burns. I vowed never to have anything to do with gas stoves ever again.

Tents  

Don't pay more than $25 for a two person tent. I've been using a $20 tent from Target for the last five years, sometimes in snow storms, it's starting to get a bit faded but it's still OK. Unless you're gonna climb K2 an expensive tent is a complete waste of money, unless of course you're one of those people that buy expensive gear to impress people.