ACCIDENTALLY PREPPED FOR THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

Well disaster yes, the gear most certainly will come in handy. Zombies?….to hell with the pads bags and stoves, my pack will be laden with ammo. The rest I can acquire at will from all those who unfortunately didn't believe in amendment #2 :)

jimmyb

3 kinds of water sterilization, ✓
5 stoves, ✓
3 tents (well, 8), ✓
1 tarp, ✓
4 bags (8, actually) and mattresses ✓

at least a plastic storage bin of trail food, not to mention trail clothing for every season, etc., etc. ✓✓✓

BUT, it's all dual use because I have six kids, one wife, and we can use it for camping too.

I thought about that a few times. Then it happened (well not the zombie apocalypse but I got to use my gear).
After Christmas I flew back to Dallas then started driving home to Midland. Well I drove into a nasty ice storm and slid off the road. So packed some survival gear in my pack changed into hike clothes and hiked to Abilene. I ended up finding a hotel but I could have gone off in the woods a short distance and camped out if I'd needed too. After a few days I hiked back to my car and drove home.

Good that you were prepared for that winter "off road" foray.

I don't want to sound paranoid but "Even paranoids have (zombie) enemies". hee, hee

Seriously, I gotta say I feel much more comfortable with my mountain of gear and knowing i'm ready for at least a week-long emergency. I don't see it in LA or other big cities but 'Vegas periodically puts out televised Public Service Announcements regarding Homeland Security's disaster preparedness and a website for the gear lists.

My youngest daughter, living in a southern California quake zone, has family camping gear, 1st aid kits, water, etc. ready "just in case".

I did mention post-Katrina that any good thru-hiker could walk out of the disaster zone after the weather calmed down. Getting across the bridges and the suburban cops would have been the challenge. A pack raft would be handy!

I do count my gear as part of our disaster supplies. I keep pry bars and a splitting maul outside the house so I can get back in to get the gear if needed.

I guess you could call any self-supported backpacker a survivalist. It IS nicer to be able to donut with some notice and minus the terror and panic :) A good hiker knows the physics of staying warm, dry and hydrated. In that vein, I've been wanting to expand my foraging skills. Improvising is easier when you know what the end product is— stoves and pots, effective layering, making a sling pack, etc.

I need to add a covered firesteel to my pocket survival keyring. I always have a knife, whistle, LED light and spare meds on my ring.

Almost forgot— I can add my bike to the list now. The bike paths may be the best means of travel post earthquake.

Wrote this soon after the floods in Colorado

http://www.pmags.com/outdoor-gear-and-disaster-preparedness

I have a habit of stockpiling wine corks and those thick blue rubber bands on broccoli bunches. I explain to my husband, when the zombies arrive we will be glad we have them.

And I have enough camping pads to host a slumber party.

If wine corks and thick rubber bands help, I'm all set. There are probably 50 of each in our garage, along with dozens of coffee cans, empty toilet paper tubes, yogurt containers, pipe cleaners, Pringle's cans…

This is what comes of helping run multiple Cub Scout dens & Girl Scout troops.

It would be interesting to see how far the venn diagram overlaps between backpackers and so-called 'preppers'.

Coming from a 4 year stint in the Washington DC area amidst the great recession and terrorism panics I was always stocked to both shelter in place for 30+ days or to evacuate with a few minutes notice for at least a few days. I don't consider myself a prepper by any means but I think it's prudent if you have the means, to be able to hunker down for a few weeks if necessary and not be a drag on strained govy resources should something break down temporarily.

With modern conveniences like just-in-time inventory in most stores, it doesn't take much of a natural disaster to really grind things to a halt temporarily. I recall one recent trip back to DC during the summer, there was a huge summer storm that blew out electrical and data networks for 15+ miles around DC for a few days and lots of people didn't even have physical cash enough for breakfast or anything in their pantry to eat (DC people eat out constantly and lots of 30-something yuppies don't keep any food in the house at all…)

TL;DNR, I know from experience – keep some physical cash on hand, some water in the house, and a necessities bag in the front closet and/or trunk.

The best prepared will be the first to die.

My wife and son will be set for a disaster. :)

I did the same.

Now I hear that it will likely be an extraterrestrial apocalypse. :

Back to the drawing board! (and I'm going to stock up on foil to make thought-proof hats…)

With Swiss Francs.

Except it's going to look ridiculous fighting off zombies with a Spyderco Ladybug and hiking pole. I'd have to team up with my Republican neighbors for a proper chainsaw and assault rifle.

Love the Murphy's Law …. The most prepped will have a falling piano hit them on the way to the cache……. lol

"and lots of 30-something yuppies don't keep any food in the house at all…"

Thats why I have two dogs: eat the little one first and keep the big one for protection :)

I do think that backpackers have an edge over, oh I dunno, say, golfers, if the SHTF. :-)
IMO, the most common weak link in disaster preps is a lack of adequate water. The residual water in your water heater and toilet tanks will only get you so far. It doesn't take much to survive for a day or two, but when you start talking about supporting a family for a week or more, the volumes become somewhat daunting. Five gallons a day for a family of four for only a week works out to 140 gallons.

Fortunately, municipal water systems are a very reliable utility and things have to really go sideways for the taps to go dry.

Living in a active a VERY earthquake zone (was a 3.2 this morning) my hiking rucksack is 98% packed any ready to go.

Only things i need to grab is my down sleeping bag and pullover as i don't like keeping them compressed.

It's pretty much my multi-day hiking packs except for:
Copy of important docs like ID, home insurance etc etc
Portable hard disk with all a scan of all important docs and back up's like family pics etc,
A bit of a more comprehensive FAK than i take hiking
Tarp

Figure it should see us through the worst of the aftershocks

I am not really concerned about world ending events. I think it is better to be prepared for more plausible scenarios. For me that means blizzards and being cut off due to a flood.

My wife grew up under Communism and had grandparents and older uncles and aunts who survived WW2. Of course my in-laws were born just after and had the pleasure of growing up in recently war devastated Eastern Europe.

What the means is there a family history of storing crap because you never know
A) When things will go south again, or, as a relative peace and stability followed
B) Buy the crap because it may not be avail again anytime soon

In, giving in to ethnic stereotypes, my own family always food stocked up. You never know when you need to make an impromptu dinner for someone and God forbid you run out of food. (No. Seriously. This was how I grew up. No complaints, though!)

And, throw in the Blizzard of '78 in New England where people DID run out of food because they were woefully unprepared. Because of this blizzard, my parents, and their peers, made a habit of stocking up because you never know when you will be cut off from groceries again for 3+ days.

So here it is 2015. My wife and stock up due to our combined family histories I suspect that we learned from without explicitly being told the lessons.

And, perhaps more importantly, if you have backpacking/camping supplies on hand at all times, you can go on a trip super easily. I HATE shopping on a busy Friday night before a trip. That's why we are stocked up.

I'd rather pack Thurs with food I already have on hand and then drive after work on Friday to the wonderful place I've had a last minute opportunity to see

I simply buy more food on a regular shopping trip to resupply the camping and backpacking pantry after.

Having these supplies on hand in bulk also happens to work out for blizzards or floods, too.

Back around 1978-1980, I found myself in need of lots of freeze dried food for group backpacking purposes. I found a store within ten miles of home, and they had f.d. in #10 cans, plus air dehydrated food, plus related bulk food. It turned out that the store catered to members of the Mormon church. Apparently those people believe in having the basement filled up with food of this nature, purely in preparation for the apocalypse. So, next time that you are looking for large quantities of food like this, you might check out the stores in your area who sell to the Mormons.

The Mormons seem to buy lots of this stuff, then rotate it through the basement and consume some of it. That avoids some of the staleness problem. It isn't a stupid idea.

–B.G.–

LH, you are keerect, water can be a big problem, especially here in 'Vegas in the Mojave Desert. I only have an extra 10 gal. of water stored, aside from the commodes and water heater you mentioned but it's only "The Boss" and me in the house.

My wife is Filipina and has lived during her childhood in what we would call primitive circumstances with kerosene lamps, a water well and two charcoal stoves. Yet her family of 8 "survived" very well for years and all the kids went on through college. So she already has her survival skill set and mentality.

As a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Philippines in the late '60s I also had to live a very basic life style, boiling all my drinking water and storing it in a big clay pot, cooking on a gravity fed kerosene stove and having no refrigeration, not to mention no air con. (Horrors!)

So maybe, for backpackers, the biggest worries in a huge disaster are:
1. breakdown of law and public order
2. spread of diseases like typhoid and amoebic dysentery.

Staying current on prophylactic shots is easy. Get your tetanus, typhoid, etc. shots when needed.
The "law'norder" thing, not so much.

I think about this every now and then. It would just de-evolve to "The Road" in a few months. 9 million people without food, but lots of guns. After all the rodents, rabbits, dogs and cats have been eaten, then what? And what happens if it is winter?

The east coast power failure 10 years ago. We were 24 hours from not having potable water.

On the other hand, we did see the milky way and that was way cool and it was so quiet.

As a boater one piece of advise that is taught early on is stay with the boat, even if capsized and still buoyant it offers a better advantage to survival than going into the water. IMO in all but a tornado or hurricane event, God forbid, smashing the house flat, out here in New England I wouldn't consider leaving the house for quite some time. We cheap buggers buy food in bulk when on sale and have plenty of real food on hand for and extended period of time, especially if rationing. A stream behind the house offers plenty of filtering water. As far as gear, the most valuable would be the cold weather stuff. We often get electrical outages and as others are whining about the "sky falling" we consider it an opportunity to do some in house camping. Throw on some warm stuff, break out the camp stove and we're good to go. We are even saving money on home heating expenses :) Honestly I am amazed at how incapable most folks have become in this day in age. Not all but I would comfortably say MOST really have no idea what to do if the power goes out for more than a few days and you can see the sheer terror in their eyes when they are without their phones for more than an hour or two. I am confident no one here fits either of the above profiles.

In the event of civil unrest, as we are not in the city we would fair well at home for a while. If the nations infrastructure were to go all to hell it might be time to head for the hills and join like minded friends and resort to strategies in my first post.

Don't know if I would have the heart to make canine stew but I sure wouldn't mind making feline fajitas out of the cats that continually sh*t im my yard if it came to it.

-this one would do nicely

jimmyb

Mormons believe in having at least 6 months food storage in case of natural disasters among other things. Freeze dried keeps well. Mostly about being prepared and self reliant. Pretty sound advice really.

Disclosure…wife of 20 plus years and kids are church going Mormons. I'll be in hell with all my friends.

I don't worry about Zombie apocalypses nor alien invasions. Ponder them, sure, like I watch Star Trek or Walking Dead, but not take any action in that direction.

But earthquakes, forest fires, and tsunamis all happen here more than almost anywhere else and I give it some thought. Extra water, extra tools and supplies. It would take two months to get through the food stores, alone. And that's without deciding, "Screw the F&G laws, I'm There are fresh-water groundwater seeps on our beach, so that's just a scramble over the bluff. After a week, I'd get tired of that and install a well and bail out the water I needed (yeah, I've enough well screen, pipe and bailers to do that).

Like on a backpacking trip, having skills and knowledge often trump having stuff. With a doctor and an engineer, there are lot of unanticipated issues we could figure out.

One thing almost all Alaskans do in the Winter is to keep some survival gear in the trunk: sleeping bag, food and water, shovel, gloves, CCF pad, jacket, tow rope, etc. An avalanche, bridge failure, or bad accident could leave one stranded for a day.

However, the best survival gear on any road trip is a reliable car and a full tank of gas. Even running continuously, my Corolla and RAV4 will idle for over 48 hours. And in a pinch, I'd cycle it on about 1/5 of the time and have a heated shelter for over a week. The Prius cycles automatically and would automatically maintain climate control for 3 days on 10 gallons. Or much more if one manually shut it down for 20-30 minutes at a time.

As long as the engines still runs, the worst road trip is more comfortable than the best snow-camping trip – something we lot do for fun!