Prime 10 Survival Gear Items for Hikers

The Garmin inReach Mini 2 is a pocket-sized satellite messenger that can send an SOS message to Search and Rescue in an emergency when you’re out of cell phone range. It can also send email messages and text messages to friends and family, whenever you want to update them or share your GPS coordinates. It has an easy-to-use push-button interface but can also pair with a smartphone via Bluetooth to display GPS maps and navigational information. Weighing just 3.5 oz, it’s small enough to tuck into your pants pocket.

The SOL Escape Lite Bivy only weighs 5.5 oz and is durable enough that you can use it multiple times (unlike most space blankets) as a sleeping bag cover in addition to emergency use by itself. Lined with foil, it is waterproof and windproof. It reflects 90% of your body heat and is best coupled with a foam sleeping bag like the Switchback below to provide insulation from the ground.

The NEMO Switchback is a folding closed-cell foam pad that you can sit on to rest or lay on if you’re injured and waiting for help to arrive. It has a high enough R-value to prevent the cold ground from robbing your body’s warmth and causing hypothermia. Many hikers strap them to the outside of their backpack, especially in cold weather, because it’s considered a wilderness first aid essential to insulate a patient from the cold ground.

Most of the ultralight first aid kits that many hikers buy are a complete ripoff, but we like the ones in Adventure Medical Kit’s Mountain Series because they contain a rich set of tools and supplies that are sufficient to stabilize both minor and major injuries until help arrives. When gifting a kit like this we also recommend gifting a wilderness first aid course (see below) so the recipient understands how to use it in the field. Accidents do happen and gaining the knowledge to help is priceless.

Give someone you love a Wilderness First Aid Class. The most important gear you carry in the backcountry is between your ears. While it helps to have a good first aid kit, there are a lot of hiking injuries that are too severe or life-threatening for you to treat. Wilderness First Aid teaches you how to stabilize a patient until medically trained search and rescue personnel can arrive to transport them to advanced care. This training is very useful if you hike by yourself, with family or friends. It’s primarily scenario-based, so you get to practice the skills you learn in life-like simulations which make the lessons hard to forget.

Water Purification Tablets, and specifically these Chlorine Dioxide Tablets, are a fast and easy way to kill all the bad things in natural water sources if you run out of water or your water filter doesn’t work. The size of an aspirin, they come individually wrapped and take 15 minutes to kill most of the organisms that hikers encounter in natural water sources or 4 hours in more heavily contaminated water, particularly internationally. I always carry some as a backup in case my water filter craps out. They’re also the best way to purify and sterilize water for wound irrigation in a medical emergency. More effective than iodine, the purified water is clear and only has a slight chlorine taste.

If you get lost, it’s very useful to have a simple but high-quality compass to point you in the right direction and prevent you from walking in circles when you can’t summon help in a survival situation and need to hike out to survive. Unlike a phone or satellite messenger, a compass doesn’t need a power source to operate, and a simple, small one like the Suunto A10 is easy to stow in your backpack, so you always have it when needed. It’s also handy to make sure you’re hiking down the trail in the right direction after leaving a water hole or shelter!

The Black Diamond SPOT-R is a USB rechargeable 400-lumen LED headlamp good for hiking, trail running, and camping. Its settings include full strength in proximity and distance modes, dimming, strobe, red night vision, and digital lock mode. The SPOT-R provides up to 400 lumens on its max setting, 200 lumens on medium, and 6 lumens on low with a 1500 mAh battery that provides the light with an average run time on high at 4 hours; medium: 8 hours and low: 225 hours. It has an integrated battery meter and digital lockout to prevent accidental power drain.

If you carry a USB-rechargeable device on a hike, it’s quite helpful to be able to recharge it if the battery runs out of juice. Most smartphones, GPS satellite messengers, headlamps, and even cameras can all be recharged with a battery like this. I always carry a battery like this and frequently use it on long hikes and backpacking trips to top off my phone or headlamp. It has saved my butt more than once! Weighing a hair over 5 oz, the Powercore 10000 can recharge Android or iPhone Smartphones two to three times and only costs $26 bucks, well within stocking stuffer range.

This $6 whistle is one of the most effective emergency signaling devices ever invented. If you need to shout for help, you’ll get very tired, very quickly, using your voice alone. But you can blow a whistle all day long; it is much louder and can be heard above environmental noise like the wind or machinery. This Fox 40 Whistle is so loud it can be heard a mile away. It’s also much louder than the dinky whistles some pack manufacturers put on their backpacks, which fewer manufacturers bother with. The international distress signal is delivered by producing six whistle blasts every minute. That’s something worth remembering, too, especially when traveling outside of North America.