There are tons of books and articles on how to pack a survival kit. Take a peek at Adventure Medical Kit’s website. They have an item for every possible disaster that you could encounter in the backcountry, and yet for our trucks we just take off without giving a thought as to what lies in wait for them.
So my point is that everyone has a survival kit, but do you have a survival kit for your truck? If not, you should. Nowadays nearly everyone has a four-wheel-drive vehicle, which means you can get back deeper in the woods. If you break down, you’re really in trouble.
When you think about it, our trucks are our legs and feet. You lose them and you’re sunk, so I think it’d behoove you to sit down and give it a thought. This is fresh on my mind right now. I’m up in the mountains helping a buddy build a cabin, and my truck wouldn’t start. Luckily a neighbor pulled up about that time and helped me get started. I then parked it on a hill so I can jump start it when I head home in a few days.
Oh, one more recent problem. Just a few weeks ago, we were running over to Oregon fishing. I had a blowout. I normally carry two spares but I had my jon boat in back of the truck and only had one.
When I took it in to get fixed guess what had caused the problem? A rock. Want to know how that I knew this? A 3 ½-inch rock had punctured the tire and was still inside. The worst I’ve ever had was years ago on a moose hunt north of Pocatello. I woke up three mornings in a row with flats. I had to go to town at lunch every day and either purchase a tire or have a flat fixed. Now I carry two spares. You can pick up a tire/rim semi cheap at the junkyard.
If you’re like me, you’re probably not much of a mechanic and even if you were, you couldn’t carry a shop full of tools, but there are a few tools and tools/items we should carry to get out of the obvious disasters.
I don’t always carry them, but in the winter, you should: tire chains. In snow and ice they give you get traction. And as with a lot of situations in life, put them on before you get in trouble.
You see a lot of trees fallen over in the woods, right? What if one falls behind you on a backcounty road? You’ll be stuck, so carry an ax and chain saw. I’m surprised this doesn’t happen more than it does.
No matter what the season, I always carry a shovel. In the winter they’re good to shovel snow, dig snow out from under your truck if you high center. Last spring I was out whistle pig hunting and bottomed out in a badger hole. I had a shovel so I jacked up my truck, filled in the hole and off I went.
And for sure, do not trust the rinky-dink jack that came with your truck. Throw in a Handy Man jacks. I’ve been stuck a million times and had to jack up my vehicle and lay rocks or sticks under the tires to get unstuck (Curse of all curses).
Carry two sets of keys. If you lose your keys, that’d be a bad deal. Leave the extra set in your truck. You can break a window if necessary. Plus, you need to leave a set with your buddy. We were bow hunting over in Nebraska and a blizzard blew in. My buddy made it back to the rig before me but was half froze because he couldn’t get in.
When you replace your old fan belts and hoses, carry them for backup. I’ve heard you can use a pair of panty hose as a fan belt, but I don’t wear panty hose.
I’ve noticed that 90 percent of the time my truck starts sounding a little weird before it whacks. I’ve had this happen three or four times only a couple of days before I headed out on a hunt. Get it checked. It won’t get any easier to fix in the woods.
A few other items to carry flashlights, jumper cables, chain and a plug-in the cigarette lighter tire pump. Hopefully we’ve listed a few common problems that you can be prepared for.
Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop.
