A while back, I decided to see how well my always carry fire-starting setup would work in the rain. In my head, this was going to be a quick confidence-building exercise but it was not. The lighter worked great... for about two lights then everything got wet enough that it stopped being the hero of the story. My backup matches would have been perfect, except for one small detail: I'd taken them out of my kit a few weeks earlier to lighten my pack.
So now I'm standing in the rain, questioning my life choices while digging out a ferro rod that suddenly seemed a lot less fun than it did when I bought it. Four frustrating minutes later, after enough sparks to start a small fireworks show, I finally got a flame going. The good news is the fire worked and the bad news is I learned that my backup plan had a backup plan because I'd accidentally removed the actual backup plan.
The experience was a good reminder that gear doesn't help much if it isn't with you when you need it. Since then, I've been a lot more serious about redundancy. My rule now is simple: have three ways to make fire and keep all three on your person...not in your backpack, not back at camp but on you. Because when the weather decides to test your preparedness, it usually doesn't send a warning text first.
So now I'm standing in the rain, questioning my life choices while digging out a ferro rod that suddenly seemed a lot less fun than it did when I bought it. Four frustrating minutes later, after enough sparks to start a small fireworks show, I finally got a flame going. The good news is the fire worked and the bad news is I learned that my backup plan had a backup plan because I'd accidentally removed the actual backup plan.
The experience was a good reminder that gear doesn't help much if it isn't with you when you need it. Since then, I've been a lot more serious about redundancy. My rule now is simple: have three ways to make fire and keep all three on your person...not in your backpack, not back at camp but on you. Because when the weather decides to test your preparedness, it usually doesn't send a warning text first.
