Survival Kit Bags

I wanted to talk a little bit about the bags survival kits come in. If you are familiar with survival kits you know that most kits come in mini-backpacks. These backpacks are made of thin nylon that do not hold up well in the back country. They are also worn on your back which prevents you from carrying anything else. The other downfall to this is that if you are carrying your survival kit on your back you always have to take it off to get to your survival kit.This can quiet often be a problem. The reason they come in these cheap nylon bags is because they are cheap. If you search for wholesale backpacks you will see you can buy them with your logo on them for as little as a couple dollars each.
At Rocky Mountain Survival LLC we break the norm to bring you practical survival kits. Although cost is a factor true usability drove us in our decision to not use the norm in bags, after all, it is your life we are talking about. So like in many other areas we have raised the bar to bring you the ultimate in survival kits.
Our wilderness survival kit comes in a 600 D Polyester (canvas like) material that holds up very well in the back country. It is a drop leg bag which means it hangs from a belt and sits on your upper thigh and is strapped to your leg for stability. Because of where it is worn, it is out of the way of your other gear such as a full backpack, guns, bows, etc. It is also always accessible even while wearing the kit, so you do not have to remove it to get to your survival gear.
Our Bug-out-bag comes in the Leapers UTG tactical messenger bag made of the same type of material as our wilderness survival kit. This kit is worn over the shoulder and also has a belt strap for stability. This bag also has a concealed carry pocket for carrying a pistol and has plenty of room for personal gear. Because it is worn on the side it is also out of the way of your other gear and you can get to your gear without removing the bag. We thought about using the Maxpedition bag for this kit but could not find a reason to switch. They are both USA made out of the same material and the UTG is much less expensive and better designed so we stayed with the UTG.
These bags cost us 20 to 30 times what it costs for the typical survival kit bags but we felt that usability and dependability really mattered in this case so we went with the much better bags. We are talking about saving lives and some things just are not worth skimping on. We take survival seriously.

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The perfect everyday carry for all outdoor enthusiasts

In a wilderness survival situation food, water, and shelter are your top priorities, However, not everyone wants to carry a complete comprehensive survival kit with them. Some people would rather carry just the fundamentals. So I got to thinking about my everyday carry which consists of a knife, fire starter, water purifier and para cord. Well actually I carry 2 knives as my everyday carry because I find it difficult to do small precise work with a large knife and hard to split firewood with a small one. This is not to say that it can't be done, it's just not my preference. So with all this in mind, we at Rocky Mountain Survival have developed a survival knife kit. What I used to carry was a crude version of what we are now selling on our site. It took quite some time to find the right pouch to put the contents of the kit in. It had to be durable, the right size (not too big or bulky but big enough for the must carry) and as we learned, it had to have the right type of closure. Snap closures didn't work as they would crush the filter straw if you were not careful and Velcro was a little to easy to come open. We finally found the right size, with the right look. and a snap lock buckle closure from Blackhawk. As far as the contents of the kit, we wanted to keep it small, simple, affordable but most of all practical. The first item was a no brainer. It had to have a fire starter so we added a nice thick flint fire starter. The second item for the pouch we had many discussions about but decided on a water purification filter by Aquamira because we felt that pure water consumption was one of the more important and harder things to achieve. The knife decision was easy. It had to be carbon steel, affordable, and big enough to shelter build, etc. We chose the Cold Steel GI Tanto. A nice 12 inch, thick, heavy knife with a tanto style blade which covers many uses. Lastly we mated the knife and pouch with 10 feet of para cord which left just enough at the bottom to use as the leg strap for the knife sheath. This combination makes for the perfect everyday carry set up that is very practical, affordable and really looks nice as well. This set up has a combined retail value of  $ 72.00 Check out our kit at the bottom of our survival kits page for the price of $ 55.00 with free shipping for a limited time.

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Rocky Mountain Survival releases their disaster survival kits

We all remember the Mt. Saint Helen's eruption. Well, I remember it better than most, for I was living just shy of 20 miles from it in the direct blast path. It was the most awe-inspiring thing I have ever witnessed in my life. This was my wake up call. We were totally unprepared. We spent many, many hours believing we were going to die. First, from the debris that was crashing all around us, and then by suffocation from the ash that was raining down on us and seeping into our home. It became so hard to breathe that we were using T-shirts to cover our faces and filter some of the ash. Now one of the important things to remember about Mt. Saint Helen's is that the general public while aware that there was going to be an eruption, nobody had any idea of the magnitude to which it happened. Here's a good video showing the eruption of Mt. Saint Helen's:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=njV9ski1gB4

 Many years later, while living in Florida, my family & I survived several category 3 hurricanes. This time we were a little more prepared but each event has taught me something about surviving disasters. While you are always warned that a hurricane is on its way and to stock up on water and food, nobody ever thinks about the fact that when the water goes out so does your toilet. It's funny actually, nobody thinks about the toilets until you need to use it. Therefore, I feel the need to remind everyone that sanitation plays a large role in disaster preparedness. While departments like FEMA provide a lot of valuable data collection and speculation after a disaster to provide their recommendations for survival kits, there is no way to compare that knowledge to the knowledge that you gain from actually living through it. Many people have told me that I am very unlucky to have been involved in so many disasters. Well, I feel the opposite. I truly feel lucky to have witnessed the amazing power of mother nature and to have survived it and learned from it.  It was with this knowledge and a lot of research that we have developed our disaster survival kits. As with most kits it contains the basics: communication, shelter, warmth, first aid, lighting, sanitation, hygiene, food and water. We stand out in some areas over the others such as, we have much better first aid than most, but where we really rise above the standard, is in the food. It has been my experience that after a major disaster it takes days, if not weeks, before utilities are restored. Days before you can usually get out to a store but generally longer than that before they re-open. So instead of offering 1 or 2 days worth of food bars, we offer a full weeks worth of wholesome easy to prepare meals in 2 serving pouches. Unlike most kits with food bars that have a shelf life of 5 years, these have a shelf life of 25 years so you can store your kit and forget it until it is needed instead of monitoring your food and rotating your food every couple of years. Are you really going to remember to rotate the food in your disaster survival kit if you haven't used it in the first couple of years? It is also my belief, from experience, that you will require more than a day or two worth of food.
 Our kits come in 2 and 4 person kits. You may inquire for pricing on 1and 5 person kits or more by emailing us at info@rockymountainsurvival.com. The 2 person kit comes with a 56 serving bucket which is enough for 3 meals per day for 2 people for 1 week or 2 weeks at 2 meals per day. Our 4 person kit comes with the 84 serving bucket to give 4 people 3 meals a day for 1 week.

Again, Rocky Mountain Survival is raising the bar in survival kits. We design each kit as if our family will be using them. They are not designed solely for profit, but for practicality and true usability. All our kits are truly designed to assist you in staying alive in the event of an emergency. You will not find more practical, well thought out or thoroughly tested survival kits anywhere on the market. So go now to http://www.rockymountainsurvival.com/Disaster_bag.html and get your kit now at the introductory prices as these prices won't last long.

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Survival Kits

Ok, I will say what I have to say about commercial survival kits and be done with it. Commercial survival kits are lacking so much in design and practicality that I feel compelled to write this article. To begin with almost all kits come with water purification. These tablets purify 1 qt of water, but commercial kits do not give you anything to purify water in, this is a serious lack of foresight. Since Rocky Mountain Survival has pointed out this short-coming some kits are now including 1 qt ziplock bags (not exactly a good way to transport water). I even saw one kit that now says the bag the kit comes in holds 1qt and can be used to purify your water in. Ok, so what are you supposed to do with everything in your kit while you purify and drink your water.  Commercial kits are just plain not well thought out. I could go over point after point but I do not want to bore you so I will just hit on one more thing. The bags they come in, if you look at the market you will see that kit after kit all come in cheap nylon mini backpacks. Ok, so you are a hunter or hiker and going on a back country trip for the weekend. You grab your regular backpack with all your clothes and bedding etc. so now where do you put the survival kit? Your regular pack is full of gear. Ok, so you have 2 choices, lose some gear out of your regular pack to accommodate the survival kit or attach it to the outside of your other pack. Neither is an option I would want but lets say you do drop some gear and manage to get the survival kit in your other pack. So now your in the back country and something happens. God forbid, you've just taken a fall and your leg is caught in a some brush. You need to get to your saw but its in your survival kit. So now you have to manage to get your pack off to get to your kit. Again not good ideas. A survival kit should be easy to get to at all times. That's why we pack our wilderness survival kit in a drop leg pouch. It sits on your thigh where it is always easily accessible. Even our bug out bag which is often used as a multi-day pack in the back country comes in the UTG tactical messenger bag which hangs at your side for easy access. This is why we spend so much time in the back country testing and honing our kits. Ok, I am not going to talk up our kits anymore I shouldn't have to, they speak for themselves. As when you purchase anything, think about the practicality and usefulness of the product you are purchasing.

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