>>2123885What is your purpose?
The first priorities should be food, water, and shelter.
>Food-Knoife
-Cook kit. Soup is the most basic food, so a steel/titanium camp mug is my first recommendation.
-fire, a flint or firesteel is handy for when your Bic runs dry
>Water-kniv
-Nearly every backpacking filter is fit to the nalgene widemouth. I recommend getting a steel equivalent, so you can boil water in it directly.
-you can get a cook kit that fits around your canteen to save space. Again, nalgene standard.
-A twig stove can boil water quickly, requires very little dry food, and can be cooled instantly to pack out. Mine is stamped steel, fits in the front porch of my canteen carrier.
>ShelterDepends entirely upon your environment. Consider overnight temperature; rain/snow possibility; wind severity; animal activity; and weight.
I use an all-in-one hammock/rain fly/mosquito net, that can also be ground deployed with gathered sticks.
But it's uncomfortable garbage, and if I had the money, I'd go for a real hammock camping setup. But I'm also in the PNW rainforest, and will literally never be without trees.
Also, staying off the wet ground is nice.
-knife
Your first kit should be a mora or buck fixed knife, two nalgene widemouth bottles, a nesting mug, two Bic lighters, a first aid kit (with real gauze bandages), and a 2 person WalMart tent/sleeping bag. Put it all in a pack, walk 2 miles from your car, and carve yourself a spoon.
Pack food for the night, and enjoy the peace of Creation. Don't go home until morning, because you will fuck up.
When you get home, reflect about what worked and what didn't. Do research, learn techniques to compensate, and do it again a couple weeks out.
Like every kind of prepping, skills are more valuable than any measure of gear. If the forest wasn't teeming with desperate morons, the day of the fan, I could live pretty comfortably with a good blanket and a solid knife. Pretty much just building things as the need arises.
