When you’re backpacking in the wilderness, every piece of gear you carry needs to work properly. If critical gear fails, you may have to cut your trip short. So it makes sense to carry a repair kit of some sort to deal with common problems. But what do you put in the kit?
Murphy’s Law really does hold true: If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong. Unfortunately, it’s not really practical to bring along everything you’d need to repair everything you carry. So you need to consider what’s likely to go wrong with each piece of gear, how big of a problem that failure would really be, and whether you’d be able to fix it if you have the right tools.
You should also consider whether you have a backup item or technique that would serve the purpose. For example, if my stove failed I could build a fire instead, so a broken stove is an inconvenience, but not a disaster (unless there’s a fire ban at the time).
Some considerations vary from trip to trip. How long is this trip? Could you get to a store to find replacement equipment? How much are you willing to carry?
Our basic repair kit
We used to carry a fairly large repair kit. After a few trips, we learned what we used on a trip and pared down to a fairly small essential kit. Both of our pocket knives have small scissors on them, so we don’t carry them in our kit.
I chose a bright orange thread for the kit so that I can easily find the repair when I get home and do a neater job of sewing. We always have cord for hanging food bags and as extra guy lines for the tent, so we can use some of that for repairs if needed. Our current tent only has a couple of short lengths of pole, so we don’t carry a repair sleeve for that, but have in the past.
For a longer trip, we may add a couple of spare buckles for our packs. We had a trip cut short once due to a broken buckle. I also add a couple of buttons.
We often use hydration systems when we hike. A hydration system is plastic bladder with a tube and a valve for drinking liquids on the trail or during other exercise. The bladder is carried in a pack and the tube can be clipped to a pack strap. When we use the hydration systems we carry a spare bite valve or two in case it is damaged.
Purchased Kits
There are some really good kits on the market these days, so it’s easy to use one as a starting point. You can purchase tent repair kits, patch kits, zipper repair kits and stove repair kits. If you get a stove that has a repair and maintenance kit available, you should buy it and know how to use it.
Patch kits are going to be specific to the type of material you are trying to patch. Walt talks about repairing his sleeping pad in this post. If the patch kit is not the right one, the patch may not stick or it may even damage the fabric. And most patches are permanent!
Here is an example of a nice sewing kit from GearAid. Everything fits in the plastic tube at the bottom. It’s about 3.5 inches long and an inch in diameter. This kit has a seam ripper, which is helpful for removing stitches and a couple of safety pins. A thimble is nice for pushing a needle though thick materials.
You can start with a pre-made kit and add or remove items as needed, or you can assemble your own kit. There are plenty of articles about the necessary items for a repair kit, and you can find one here from REI and another here from Nemo Equipment.
Don’t take that!
There are a few things that you probably shouldn’t take along in a repair kit. Some things like seam sealant (to waterproof the seams of your tent) or Shoe Goo take a long time to dry or cure. Shoe Goo works great to fix holes and loose soles on shoes but takes at least 24 hours to dry and can take as long as 72 hours if it is humid. Plus the surface needs to be clean and dry before you start.
Many people like to carry a multi-tool when they are camping. We did for a while, mainly because it was helpful when we had issues with our stove. Once we changed to a different style stove, we found little use for it and couldn’t justify the weight.
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