Quoted By:
If you're bringing a rifle, only bring the rifle and its supporting gear. Weight spent supporting a pistol when you could spend it on rifle support is dumb because the rifle is going to be better at everything.
Consumables for basic needs
>If hunting, focus on stuff for cooking small animals like ways to start a fire and so forth.
>If packing food in bear country, have the stuff you need to cook / heat the food if it's that kind of food.
>Have a way to stash your cache away from where you sleep in a way that bears won't get into it. I've done bags but they won't reliably work unless you put in the effort to set them up hanging from a high-up taught line going between two far-apart trees. Bite-proof buckets are reliable but they're ground level and don't pack down.
>In addition to enough storage, bring water treatment if you're planning on resupplying from a natural source. Potable aqua is small but tastes bad, micropur is bigger but packs flat and only kinda tastes bad. Filters will not denature viruses.
Shelter
>Have provision for keeping yourself out of the weather. You can bivvy or do a tarp tent or whatever you like, but you will not sleep well exposed to wind and rain.
>Also bring a poncho.
>Insect repellant.
>Permethrine treatment on all exposed fabric.
>Sun screen.
Getting in and out
>Print out USGS topo maps at the local office store and get a compass with a UTM grid scale on it that you can also sight with.
>Since you're bringing a phone, install opentracks and the elevate map for your area on your phone. You'll marvel at how slow you're going, and you'll have a track on a topo map in case you get lost.
