One blanket comment I'll make on a few posts that have been made. The posts have been "I take xxx, if I needed to do yyy I'll take zzz." I think all that's good for trips where you can easily recover from something unexpected happening but if you run into a "not normal" situation then you need a versatile and durable set of "things". The comment also made up there somewhere is that one can over-prepare for what may or may not happen. That's true. Very very true. What I like to do is see something that makes me go "Hmmmm...." and test it out. If it stands the test of time and usefulness I'll see if it can replace two or more things that I normally carry, or replace one thing and do a better job. Or I'll include it if it fills a hole I know I have in my "stuff".

Either way I'll beat it up and try it out and see what comes of it.