So ... the following scenario was propounded on a forum several years ago. It’s based off of one of those post-apoc TV shows, where government, law and order has collapsed. The two characters are military brats, the older boy sixteen, the younger girl fourteen. They live in central Florida. The closest surviving relatives are in Georgia. They have what gear is in that upper middle-class home. The food they have available is candy and 20 cans of Chef Boyardee, for which they somewhat imprudently traded dad’s shotgun. Start walking. (And by the bye, what gear do they take?)
Anyway, while this is out of the usual fantasy scope of my blog, herewith my answer (and obviously referencing other posts):
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| What the teen fashionista is wearing these post-apocs ... |
First, a couple principles to consider. You're not auto campers here. You're backpacking teenagers, and you have to travel as lightly as backpacking campers. Weight is your enemy, and bulk is your enemy. Cans of ANY kind of food are far too heavy. Here's a good test for you: get a backpack and load it as full of books as you can manage. Hoist that on your back. Pretty heavy, isn't it? That's about 20-25 lbs max. The backpacker's rule of thumb is that you should never carry more than 30% of your weight, and go-light backpackers seek to keep their packloads under 25-30 lbs. I'd say that unless your character and his sister were on their high school cross-country teams, they oughn't be carrying much more than 60-70 lbs between them.
Second, this is survival here. Your character absolutely needs to get that shotgun back, THE best close quarters weapon for the combat-inexperienced. In a breakdown of civilization AND in the middle of settled country, you have to worry a whole lot less about whether you've got bleach to disinfect utensils than of whether the pack of looters the next town over thinks they can gang-rape your sister with impunity.
Presuming your house has ample camping gear, this is what you take:
* Axe - THE indispensable survival tool. Yes, this is heavy, but if all you bring is a hatchet, you'll be POed you didn't have an axe. 3 lbs is about the lightest you should manage; 5 lbs is about the maximum you can handle. You're a sixteen year old chopping down saplings, not a 230 lb lumberjack felling old growth trees a yard wide. (Bring that 1-lb hatchet too, though.)
* Knife - The camp knife you want is out of the kitchen, a good strong filleting knife. Never mind the "survival knives" you see out there, which are perfectly suited to dressing alligators or stabbing looters (or would be, if they didn't usually have stupidly thick hilts), but are piss-poor for basic camp tasks: for those, you'll either want a lighter knife or a hatchet.
* A compact first-aid kit, no more than a half pound. Definitely bring that medical tape, because it has many more uses than medical.
* If your home has camping gear, you have 10x10 blue plastic tarps. Cut some poles, rig one with rope, that's your shelter. 2 lbs, about. Yes, a tent would be better shelter. No, you don't want one, for two reasons. First is you can't afford the extra weight. Second, most factory-made tents these days require factory-made poles to pitch (and the "popup" ones that don't are pretty fragile). Third, you can't afford to have to fiddle with zippers when the marauders come at 3 AM.
* Clothing: Leave cotton behind. The reason *why* is that cotton (unlike wool) is a terrible insulator when wet, and Florida's not notably dry.
* The classic RPG standard is to carry 50' of rope, but that's rather a lot: about half that will serve your needs. Carry a spool of heavy-test fishing line, a small ball of string, and a small spool of copper wire, which take up little room and fulfill various camp needs.
* Cooking gear: You don't need a kettle and you can't afford the weight. Boil water in your pot. You do need (a half-pint of concentrated) detergent, but not for the clothing ... it's to wash your cook gear, because mishaps there will mess you up a lot faster than dirty undies. You'll want a quart-sized pot and a small skillet, minimum ... and two pots, really, if you can manage it. (One cooks your meal, the other heats water for washing.) Bring a couple of those thin nylon scouring pads. A pressed tin bowl apiece and a tin camp cup will suffice.
* Food: The one spice you'll need is salt: clean out a secure plastic jar (like a cold cream jar) and fill it up. You'll want some sugar too, for energy, about the same amount. The camp drink for backpackers is tea: a single tea bag can make three cups easily.
* Foam mattress pads: You're teenagers, and you don't need anything more for your sleeping bags. Avoid air mattresses; if they're heavy-duty enough not to be easily punctured, they're too heavy for you. Bring a couple small sacks that can be stuffed with your spare clothing for pillows, and those sacks might be useful.
* Small stuff: waterproof matches, needle and thread, two lighters, a penlight, a few cyalume sticks. A few plain 3" wax candles have many invaluable uses, not the least of which is light and heating when you don't dare have a full-scale fire (pour some sand in a tin can, put the candle in the sand, there's a lamp). Melted wax makes good emergency sealant for a tarp or a poncho. By the way, bring a poncho apiece; you'll absolutely want those. Bring a compass and a road map -- never mind topo maps, which unless you're skilled at orienteering won't do you a lot of good.
* I'm not counting it against your weight, but if you've got a kid's dirt bike (bicycle, not motorized), you can rig it to carry gear. It wouldn't be too heavy or awkward to carry in a pinch, it'd be available if you needed to get somewhere fast, and it can go most places you can. I'd avoid an adult's ten-speed; more fragile, harder to maintain.
Let me go through the list: axe (5 lbs), hatchet (1.5), knife (.5), multitool (1), first-aid kit (.75), 2x sleeping bags (5), 10x10 shelter half (2.5), 4x plastic tent stakes (.25), 2x foam mattress pad (1), titanium 3-piece ultralight cookset (2 pots, 1 skillet, .5), 2x titanium sporks (2 oz), 2x titanium mug (.25), 2x titanium bowl (.5), ½ pt detergent (.5), headlamp (3 oz), mini hiking binoculars (1), 4x spare wool hiking socks (.5), 4x spare wool shirts (2), 30' high quality nylon rope (1.5), spool high test fishing line (.25), 2x poncho (.5), miscellaneous equipment (2).
That's just short of 28 lbs, half of your capacity, right there, and you can see a bunch of stuff you'd like that isn't there. This also presumes that your parents were backpackers, not auto campers, and had very expensive ultralight gear. This also presumes you're cooking over a campfire instead of bringing a camp stove and fuel, a task that rookie campers usually botch.
A gallon of water weighs eight pounds. A can of Chef Boyardee ravioli weighs a pound. If you're planning on defending yourself, a Remington 20 gauge shotgun weighs over six pounds, and a box of shells weighs a pound more. Carry just two gallons, carry that shotgun and 25 shells, carry just nine cans of ravioli, and you have weight for NOTHING else.
This is a challenging scenario, especially for kids unused to roughing it on this scale.
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