I’m not sure how interesting this will be to you guys as it isn’t strictly about flashlights- though they play a major role- but here is a look at the EDC gear that I brought along on my family’s most recent RVing vacation.
Pocket EDC, vacation variety, was pretty standard for me. Knife, light, MT, bandana. The essentials.
For the last month, I’ve been carrying one of the new G10 Griptillians from Benchmade. For the last two and a half decades, I’ve never gone more than three or four days without a Spyderco Endura as my EDC, so it was a little strange for me. As you’d expect, the G10 version, or “Grippy”, as I like to call her, performed flawlessly for EDC and camp chores alike.
Honestly, given Benchmade’s reputation, would you have imagined it would ever be otherwise?
Still and all, I have some strong feelings about why the Endura is a better overall pocket knife, and for me, still the Grail knife, but I will put that into a separate review of Grippy at some point further down the road.
Anyway, here she is on the AT heading north off the summit of Mt. Washington (6288’).
I took along my BLF A6. It still is, imnsho, after a year of near constant carry, the best EDC light out there, especially considering the price. We were not staying where there was electricity, so, it was also the main lighting inside the popup at night with the addition of a translucent silicone cone for it.
It left home with a fresh Thrunite 3400 mAh cell and finished the trip with the same cell. Pretty amazing. About three nights from the end, I noticed that it was starting to step down from mode three or four to lesser levels, but since we never needed that much light after dark, it wasn’t really an issue. I had about a dozen extra 18650s- way, way too many- so I could have put a new cell in, but, at that point, I wanted to see if that cell could make it the full two weeks on its own.
Here is the A6 in the Saco River.
A Leatherman Wingman and a cotton bandana rounded out the pocket stuff.
I took two “EDC” bags along.
A Vanquest MOBIUS loaded up with trauma gear which I carried if we were doing touristy stuff where there would be a crowd; in this case, exploring Fort Ticonderoga, shopping in “downtown” North Conway, NH, eating at restaurants, and the two factory tours we took at Ben and Jerry’s and, later, at King Arthur Flour. Is it likely that something would happen at any of those places, no, of course not, but better to have and not need than the other way around, right? Mostly, it stayed locked up in our Wrangler’s trunk box.
I’ll note here as an aside that at no time did anyone question what was in the bag or did I ever get the impression it was raising anyone’s awareness of me. Fat, middle-aged white guys, especially those with families in tow, as we know, are pretty much invisible.
I also took along my Vanquest Javelin as a camera/electronics bag. Never a fan of this particular bag, but it’s padded interior and adjustable dividers sort of make it an ideal bag for this application. It never left the trunk box as we would all just grab what we needed as we needed it.
It may be difficult to believe that a family of neo-luddites like us would need a bag the size of a Javelin for their electronics, but the thing was chock full of cells, batteries, chargers, cameras, testers, multimeters, and other assorted stuff including an iPad and a Kindle (neither of which were very useful given that there was no internet but for occasional WiFi while transiting from one location to another or doing errands like grocery shopping or laundry.
Tools I brought along and actually used.
- An EESE Junglas for batoning and heavy duty bushcrafting.
- A Mora for feather sticks and finer work.
- My cheap knock-off Pocket Rocket and a full canister for the the so called traveling mornings when my wife needed to make coffee while the big, propane camp stove was packed away.
- A Baofeng UV-5R+ set to local NOAA; for days on end, this was our only source of news.
- An Orcatorch T11 was used by Clone Two as an EDC and night security light; like the other lights, it made it the whole trip on a single cell.
- Actually, I think it is the same cell that came with it, so it had two weeks of EDC use on it before we left.
- An Anker 20100 battery pack; used to charge cameras in the field or when charging in the truck, while on the move, wasn’t an option. After two weeks, it still has three out of four lights lit on its “power bar”. Impressive.
- A Skilhunt H2O headlamp; honestly, probably better than a flashlight around camp and like the A6, survived two weeks of use on just a single 18650.
Other tools I brought along but didn’t use.
- Two Uniden FSR radios; there were times when we were separated while hiking and they might have come in handy then, but I honestly thought I left them at home, though found them in the Javelin while unpacking.
- A SOG Tomahawk; I have other axes and hatches- real axes and hatchets- but this was chosen because it is light weight and I didn’t think I’d actually need it anyway as the big EESE can get most any job done by herself. It would have also been handy if the zombie apocalypse had kicked off.
- An Uniquefire UF-1405 26650 zoomie; stayed in the trunk box.
- My Lumintop TD16; stayed “bedside”, but I never even turned it on.
- My Xtar VC2 USB/12v charger; I simply never needed it.
- 12+ 18650 cells; what was i thinking What can I say, I’m a known over-packer.
Day packs that saw action- two MAP 3500s, an Osprey Kira, and Lowe Alpine Countor Mountain 40.
A Hi-Tec Flash 18 (I might have a the name wrong, but it is a copy of the REI Flash 18) was brought along, but never carried. Also, Clone One took along a Jumbo, just never carried it anywhere; I think it mainly stored his optics and several pair of sunglasses in it.
I won’t post pictures of all that ancillary stuff unless anyone wants to see something in particular. I hope it goes without saying that if you have questions about specific gear, I’d be happy to give to my two cents.
For whatever that is worth.
Anyway, here is a video where some of this stuff is can be seen. Gear wise, the video isn’t that thrilling, but my wife is making fun of me and my gear obsession pretty much throughout, so…
