This week­end was my first real week­end camp­ing trip of the sea­son.  It’s pri­mar­i­ly my go-to place for camp­ing in the sum­mer. It also may/could func­tion as a sec­ondary Bug Out loca­tion.  But more on that anoth­er time, and to my point, there was a LOT of work to do when we got there.  The grass in the field was waist high.  I could imme­di­ate­ly see there was a lot of work to do over the course of the week­end.  It was 7:00 p.m. EST by the time we got to the camp site.  We had about 90 min­utes of day­light left to get a com­mon area mowed, and set up for and start a small fire, set up the tents, and get din­ner start­ed for the evening.  For­tu­nate­ly, we have a pret­ty good rou­tine going after years of camp­ing with the same guy(s).

So, I had some plans to bring some gear and test it our and post addi­tion­al arti­cles about how it per­formed, but it turned out the week­end was more of a main­te­nance week­end at the camp site than not.  How­ev­er, I did get the chance to test some new gear, by way of actu­al­ly hav­ing to use it, so here are some of the basics for you.

I brought with me the fol­low­ing new items; new being dif­fer­ent from what I might nor­mal­ly car­ry, and I will explain each one as we go…

My fold­ing knife: I nor­mal­ly car­ry a $20.00 Ger­ber Paraframe I fold­ing knife with a ser­rat­ed edge.  I love my Paraframe II.  But recent­ly I have been romanced by the idea of assist­ed open.  That said, I also receive emails from read­ers time to time, ask­ing for any low cost preps, so as mod­i­fi­ca­tion to I picked up a low cost open assist knife from Unit­ed Cut­lery.  It’s a Assist­ed Open Tail­wind G‑10, and it only cost me rough­ly $14.00 deliv­ered to my door.  Here are a few dif­fer­ences between my Paraframe I and the G‑10.  First the han­dle of the G‑10 is sol­id, tex­tured and is easy to grip.  The assist­ed open fea­ture is nice as well.  The G‑10 has a lan­yard holes on the end of it, does not have the ser­rat­ed edge, like my Paraframe I, but does have a tan­to point.  The blade is coat­ed, and is 440 stain­less steel.  440 is a lit­tle soft­er than I like to use, but the knife impressed me as being well built, heavy, and has the belt clip I like so I can slide it into my pock­et and keep it handy at a moments notice.  It arrived, pret­ty sharp out of the box, and with a lit­tle coax­ing from the sharp­en­er is now razor sharp… It per­formex well all week­end with every­thing from cut­ting raw and cooked food to slic­ing away on wood… I may have found a low­er cost knife that may replace my Paraframe as part of my EDC.  I did learn that I need­ed to be care­ful, how­ev­er, after cut­ting myself Fri­day evening…

My Mag-Lite:  I gen­uine­ly like Mag-Lite flash­lights… All my LEO friends have and use them, and I have always had and used them…  I have one in my night­stand that takes two D‑Cell bat­ter­ies, keep one in my truck that takes three D‑Cell , and is the one I typ­i­cal­ly use for camp­ing.  I’ve been think­ing about replac­ing it, how­ev­er with some­thing small­er and LED late­ly, pri­mar­i­ly for porta­bil­i­ty pur­pos­es, and bat­tery life.  While at Lowe’s I was walk­ing by the cash reg­is­ter area and noticed a stand with flash­lights.  I took the moment and looked them over.  A mini Mag-Lite caught my eye.  It was a Mag-Lite LED XL50.  Armed with my smart­phone, I did some quick research on rat­ings, and not being out­side the price range of many online out­lets I decid­ed it was a good pur­chase for me.  Here’s my com­men­tary:  It was a fan­tas­tic addi­tion to my gear because it was brighter than my three D‑Cell Mag-Lite, lighter (3 AAA bat­ter­ies) and has three modes.  Full bright­ness, 25% bright­ness to save pow­er, and a strobe light mode for emer­gency sit­u­a­tions… In all a good buy.  Now for the bad (in my opin­ion), this should have a belt clip so I could slip it into my pock­et and clip it to my pants pock­et, shirt or jack­et pock­et, or my belt… That was the only bad item, and I think it was a great addi­tion to my EDC.

Firesteel:  Nor­mal­ly, when I camp, I bring a lighter, match­es, and a firesteel… This trip, being the first and grab­bing gear and get­ting togeth­er rather quick­ly, I for­got the lighter and match­es (or so I thought).  I think I was just a lit­tle excit­ed to try a new Firesteel.  Recent­ly, I picked up a Bear Grylls (Ger­ber) Firesteel.  Pri­mar­i­ly I pur­chased it because the whole unit was under $10.00.  Here was the lit­tle bonus.  First, it is a good size, com­fort­able to hold, and inside has a 3/8″ thick Firesteel as the core rod.  The end cap on the end where the rod is stored comes off and hous­es two cot­ton balls… Good thing, because when I got around to think­ing about start­ing the fire, I could­n’t find my match­es or my lighter… It was get­ting dark and I was eager to get a fire start­ed, and to relax.  So I pulled out my new Bear Grylls firesteel, pulled a cot­ton ball out of the oth­er end, squirt­ed a lit­tle hand san­i­tiz­er on the cot­ton ball to keep it burn­ing longer,  scraped the  the coat­ing off the firesteel, and then scraped hard­er for spark.  First shot, lit the cot­ton ball, lift­ed it with the steel scraper to the tin­der (admit­ted­ly in this case it was paper), but my point is that we had fire, and if it were not for the cot­ton ball at the end of the new firesteel from Bear Grylls, I would have had to come up with a dif­fer­ent solu­tion, ala, run around in the woods putting togeth­er a tin­der bun­dle to start the fire with…  Oh, and it has an emer­gency whis­tle

So for less than $50.00 I have three new EDC tools that can enhance my abil­i­ty to sur­vive if I need­ed to.  I like the fact that I added some addi­tion­al porta­bil­i­ty to my gear as well with a small­er flash­light.  Well worth it.  The only down­side to the camp­ing trip is that there are now cell phone tow­ers near where we go camp­ing.  So much for seren­i­ty…

In the end it was a fan­tas­tic week­end for a camp­ing trip…

Final­ly, I don’t feel that I am too good at writ­ing reviews, prob­a­bly because I have not real­ly set cri­te­ria for review­ing equip­ment and gear yet.  I may do that in the com­ing weeks.  In the mean time, I hope some of this helps you to decide on some gear.