Best emergency shelterFor the day someone cannot walk further
SOL Emergency Bivvy
A hundred grams that keeps an injured or exhausted person alive while help walks down for them — you will almost certainly never open it, which is exactly the point.
Best whistle
Heard where a shout is not
Fox 40 Pealess Whistle
Pealess, ~120 dB, ~10 g
Carries across a valley when a voice does not and works when you are too cold or too winded to shout — pealess means it still works soaked or frozen, which the corked kind does not.
Check price on AmazonAs an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you.
What you get
- Audible far beyond shouting range
- No pea to freeze or jam
- Weighs nothing on a zip pull
What it costs you
- Useless if it is in your pack rather than on you
- Piercing indoors, which children discover
- Easy to forget you have
Do not buy this if: Nobody. Clip it to the chest strap, not inside the lid.
The alternatives
Everything else we recommend in emergency & comms, including the ones we think suit a different trekker.
Best emergency shelter
Most used item nobody listsSplits a boot, a pole, a mat and a duffel back together
Tape and a small repair kit
A metre of tape wrapped around a trekking pole has salvaged more trekking days than any other single item we carry — it will not fix a delaminated sole permanently, but it will get you to the next village.