Hey TheWoodsman!
This topic isn't entertained by most people on this board. They regard it as impractical and unattainable, and will sometimes chide you for bringing it up. I'm not one of those people! This is one of my favorite topics, and I will happily talk at length with you about my experiences in this long-term living scenario. I'll give you a brief survey on what I've learned, and then address the question of what I carry!
I'm assuming, based on your gear list, that you're talking about long-term woods living out of a backpack, and not a humvee full of supplies. This is also my forte, and, in fact, I have taken long-term backpack living to the next level by pioneering lightweight long-term backpack living. I think the lightweight aspect is mandated by the miniscule ammount of calories you will find. If you're only taking in 800 calories a day, even if you wanted to, you're not gonna be hauling around a 40lb pack. I'm working on a 20lb limit, although I keep hovering between 20-28lbs.
I find food acquisition, preparation, and storage to be the largest obstacle to long-term backpack living. Calories are everywhere, and, if you're willing to expand your palate you can easily garner enough to get you through a day in a few hours. The fact that backpacking makes us transient complicates the issue of food preparation and storage, but actually helps the issue of food acquisition. So, while we may find more food because we are constantly moving, we will be able to store less of it because we can only carry so much. This means that our caloric buffer zone (how many days we can go without finding any food) is real small, and, the food that we do store will have to be prepared to be stored, which requires time. Time and calories are the currencies when you're talking extended primitive woods living, or long-term backpack living.
Bushcraft and indigenous living methods are also paramount to the task at hand. Since your calorie intake will limit the ammount of weight you can carry, you simply cannot carry enough shelter to see you through winters, and you must engage in bushcraft in order to survive. Likewise, since you cannot create food from thin air, you will need to learn indigenous methods of hunting, foraging, and plant identification. At first, this seems like an overwhelming task, and it is a lot of knowledge to learn, but find solace in the fact that indigenous peoples were capable of eeking out a living in almost every square inch of North America. So, with the right knowledge, so can you!
I suppose another main underlying theme is that, no matter how durable your gear is, it will eventually become unservicable. At that point, you will need to know how to bushcraft up a suitable replacement or do without it.
I have many, many, many, many, many more thoughts on the subject, and I apologize for not being able to adequately organize them, but I'm hungry to bounce ideas off of someone else who will entertain this idea in a rational and openminded fashion, so feel free to make some more posts on the subject or PM me. I think long-term backpack living is possible, but I think it will frequently come with a high suck-factor.
Regarding the gear I would take:
I bounce back and forth between favoring weight and time with my gear selection. On the one hand, if I set my gear up so that I can lay camp in a matter of 10 minutes, I can cover a lot more ground in a day of hiking. On the other hand, if I set my gear up so that I will have to bushcraftp up a shelter everywhere I want to sleep, I've just taken 4 hours out of my day, but also 15lbs out of my pack. In the same vein, my Katadyn Pocket Pro weighs 778g, which is fairly heavy for a single-function item, but it saves me the hour it would take to start a fire from scratch and boil water to drink, every time I want to drink.
My pack contents are always being revised, and, because this is a hobby for me, I still have many ideas I'd like to test out, which would involve different pieces of gear. But, these are some established items that I have found to be indispensible in my long-term backpacking ventures. I put these items through freqent hard use everytime I go out:
USGI Canteen, Cup, and Cover
Fully Enclosed Stainless Steel Container
Gerber LMF II
Fiskars retractable Saw
USGI Poncho
USGI Bivvy Bag
20L Sealine Drybag
Cordage - trotline, fishingline, paracord, tarred decoy line.
Fish hooks (Can be used for so many other things than fishing)
Bic Lighter / Firesteel
Wool!
My ultimate long-term backpack living pack will undoubtedly contain a few of those items, and a few others. That's the best answer I can give you right now, lol. :thumb:
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