Craig Caudill - Ultimate Wilderness Gear: Everything You Need to Know to Choose and Use the Best Outdoor Equipment

AUTHOR OF EXTREME WILDERNESS SURVIVAL,
CHIEF INSTRUCTOR AT NATURE RELIANCE SCHOOL

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TO MY CHILDREN, LILY AND ZANE.

IF I COULD COUNT THE TIMES YOU HAVE BROUGHT ME JOY, IT WOULD OUTNUMBER THE TREES IN THE WILDERNESS.

In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he or she seeks.

John Muir

Lets get right to it. You want to spend more time in the wilderness. You should. Countless studies have proven that spending time outside is beneficial to the enrichment and development of a better you. If you picked up this book for one of the following reasons, you have done yourself a great favor:

You are new to being outdoors and dont know where to begin when it comes to buying gear.

You are an experienced outdoorsperson, but you like learning about and using ideas from someone else with different experiences.

You are a buy once, cry once type of person, meaning you dont want to fall victim to slick marketing or sales pitches and would rather learn how to make the right decisions for gear purchases.

You are a gear nut, and you like all things related to gear.

You have picked up the right book, because this one can do all that and a lot more. I have had an incredible range of experiences in the outdoors over my near-50-year lifespan. From backpacking through mixed hardwood forests in my home state of Kentucky to fishing in Alaska, I have seenand useda lot of gear. I have spent solo time in a wilderness living off the land with nothing more than a knife, and I have spent copious amounts of time in campgrounds with my family when we took along the proverbial kitchen sink.

I have spent the better part of the last decade teaching others how to safely make their way in the outdoors. This means I have seen thousands of students who have brought with them nearly every piece of gear available. I have worked with people who have never spent a night outside and members of the Special Forces with the most technologically advanced gear in the world. I have watched as gear pieces have exceeded expectations for some and failed miserably for others. Therefore, I have a broad knowledge of gear founded on my diverse experiences as well as my observations of what has and has not worked for others. I want you to have that knowledge, and that is why I wrote this book.

Author (right) and friend hiking the Sheltowee Trace in Kentucky, circa 1989.

This book is not a sales flyer for certain brands. It is a guide to help you learn how to make sound decisions on gear. However, with that said, I will give you my recommendations for gear and brands from time to time when they have proven to exceed my expectations. This is the book I wish I had had many years ago. My experiences and knowledge have been achieved through valuable hard work. I have loved every second of it. This book is a compilation of my experiences (good and bad), the students I have taught and an exhaustive amount of research.

You need to spend more time in the wilderness. It is good for you. This book will assist you in avoiding the pitfalls of poor gear choices and reward you with knowledge that only comes from decades of experience, making your time in nature that much more enjoyable.

As I say in all of my Nature Reliance School programs, Come on, join in and lets learn together!

Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.

Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

I WILL NEVER FORGET MY FIRST BACKPACKING TRIP WHEN I WAS EIGHTEEN. Until that point in my life, I had spent a great deal of time participating in period-correct reenacting. I spent much of my childhood learning the skills of a prerevolutionary scout. That means I spent a considerable amount of time living off the land so to speak. This included trekking, hunting, fishing and more. My dad and I often stayed in period-correct shelters like tepees and lean-tos. These were situations in which I had an established base camp and would venture out in search of resources that I needed (or just to play in the woods). Often, though, I came back to camp and ate what my dad brought to eat. I had a fair amount of security waiting back at the camp.

Backpacking is not like that at all. A friend and I got the crazy idea to go backpacking over spring break. Spring break in Kentucky is nothing like sunnier spring break destinations. Often it is cold and snowy. Regardless of this fact, however, I wore the work boots that I donned while working on the family farm, carried an ancient canvas Boy Scout pack my dad had lying around, and ate canned spaghetti and chili mac. My sleeping bag was 100 percent cotton and I had an old canvas military-style tent that felt like it weighed 300 pounds (135 kg). I was tough enough to make three days and two nights on the trail, but I was not comfortable at any point during the trip. My sleeping bag got wet, my feet stayed wet the whole time and cold canned chili mac is not the best breakfast when you cant get a fire built to warm it.

Fortunately, no unexpected challenges came up that put me into survival mode for any reason. It was snowing and moderately cold. Had I experienced something drastically unexpected (such as a broken ankle), I would have most likely succumbed to hypothermia. In short, it was a small slice of heaven being out there like that.

I was hooked. The refreshing distance from civilization, the smells, the quietnessthey were part of me immediately. There is something right about carrying your own needs on your back into the wilderness. It made me want to spend more time in the wilderness on backpacking trips. That trip was the catalyst for many future adventures and the book you now have in your hand. Experience is often hard-won. The gear that I use is a testament to that mind-set. I am very excited to share many of my life experiences with you so you can save a lot of money and gain valuable insight. There are certain truths that remain constant no matter what your purpose in going outside is. I want to share those truths with you here, as well as consider how some very accomplished outdoorsmen in history took care of themselves with their gear.