Squatch Survival Gear

We're at the Leander gun show this weekend, August 29 and 30.

Come by and put hands on the gear. Photos are fine for deciding you're interested and useless for deciding whether something fits. Try a pack loaded, see where the belt sits on your hips, pull on the hardware.

Bring the pack you're carrying now if you want an honest read on it. We'll tell you if it's fine.

Show details: gunshowtrader.com/gun-shows/austin-leander-gun-show/

There's no universal weight where you suddenly need a frame, and anybody handing you one number is guessing.

Two people can carry the same load and have completely different days, because torso length, conditioning, terrain, pace and the shape of the load all change the math. Water is dense. Winter insulation is bulky. Tools make pressure points. A pack has to manage the shape and movement of a load, not just the total on a scale.

So skip the number. Load the pack with the gear and water you'll actually carry, adjust it properly, and walk it far enough that pressure points show up. Can the hip belt take weight off your shoulders? Does the bag stay upright and close? Does it still ride right after you've eaten half the food and repacked?

Those answers are worth more than any advertised limit.

Full write-up: squatchsurvivalgear.com/blogs/news/do-i-need-a-framed-backpack-framed-vs-frameless-packs-explained

If your shoulders hurt after a loaded carry, the pack might not be the problem. The setup might be.

Sternum strap about an inch below the collarbone, snug enough to stop the straps splaying, loose enough to breathe deep. Load lifters pull the weight in toward your spine instead of letting it hang off the front of your shoulders. Waist belt on the hip shelf, not the stomach.

Two minutes. It's the cheapest upgrade you'll ever make to gear you already own.

Fatigue reduction is a design goal for us, not a marketing word. Every pack we build gets carried by the people who built it before it ever ships.

Here's an argument you'll find in every gear forum: Box-X stitch, or bar tack?

Wrong question.

A Box-X looks strong, that's exactly why it gets used as a shortcut. But stitch pattern alone doesn't decide whether a connection holds. What decides it is the direction the load pulls, how the webbing sits underneath, where the reinforcement lands, and how that joint behaves after a few hundred cycles of weight and abrasion.

Get the direction wrong and a beautiful stitch tears out anyway.

Neither one is inherently better. They're tools. The engineering decision comes before the stitch selection, and most customers will never inspect one, which is the point. That's our job, not theirs.

Full write-up is on the blog on our website. Link in bio.

You can tell how well a pack fits by how often you touch it.

Constantly hiking it up, rolling a shoulder, stopping to re-cinch a strap, that's a pack fighting you, and after eight miles it wins. A pack that carries right just goes quiet and lets you get on with the day.

That comes from load path and strap geometry, not from a padding spec. It's why we build ours in the States where we can stand over the machine and fix what doesn't work.

See the lineup: Link in bio.

Here's a test worth running on whatever pack you own.

Close your eyes. One hand. Find your knife, your light, and your med kit.

If you had to set the bag down, dig with both hands, or think about it, that's a design problem, and you found it on a calm afternoon instead of a bad night.

Layout isn't a spec-sheet feature. It's the difference between a pack you carry and a pack you fight. Ours gets laid out by people who've had to work out of one.

That's the Squatch difference.

Three of anything means help. 🧭

Search crews are trained to read it. Three whistle blasts. Three fires in a triangle. Three flashes off a mirror or headlamp. Space them out, repeat on a cycle, and make every signal bigger than feels necessary.

Be loud. Be seen. Be found. Shop the link in bio.

Your feet are your ride home. 🥾

A blister ends a trip faster than a storm ever will. The second you feel a hot spot, stop and tape it, don't tough it out. Dry socks, honest fit, and a strip of tape beat a slow limp-out every time.

Treat the hot spot, not the blister. Shop the link in bio.

Clear doesn't mean clean. 💧

Three days without water and your body starts shutting down — but what's living in that creek can drop you just as fast. Kill it first: boil one hard minute (three above 6,500 ft). No fire? Run it through a filter, then finish with tabs or drops.

Build water into your kit before you need it. Shop the link in bio.