Emergency Kits for Mountain Climbing, Surfing and Off-Piste Skiing

This article is emergency bag inspired by the film 127 Hours, the true story where Aron Ralston, is the mountain climber who became trapped by a fallen boulder for 127 hours in Bluejohn Canyon, in Utah, USA. I've seen the film with James Franco playing Ralston and the story is incredible, if Aron had even endured half of what the film depicted and survived to tell the tale then he's quite a phenomenal human being. And that's before you've considered that he hacked off his own arm with a dull and minuscule blade (that must've really, really smarted...) it's wonderful that he has a family and is leading a great life, but Aron's experience started me a'thinking, do any of us really recognize the dangers that may be looming when we we go off on our adventures? Our checklist probably goes a little something like this: bikini? CHECK cuddly toy? CHECK (no? just me? ok.) suncream? CHECK cool shades? CHECK iPod? CHECK lucky pants? CHECK gum? CHECK, you get the picture...

We adrenaline junkies like to think we're a unique group of people who partake in a bit of extreme sports here and action packed adventure there as well as write an extreme sports blog but I'm sorry to break it to you, its become main-stream. So, is it due to this fact that we feel overly comfortable in doing them, safe and taken care of when what we should be thinking is "I can't frikkin wait to do this, but shit, can you imagine what I'd do if I broke my leg? Think I'd better take that mobile phone and some bandages" So with this in mind I thought it'd be helpful to trawl the net and compile a list of emergency kit contents for you to squeeze into your suitcase. Push the gorilla suit and blowup donkey to one side and make some space people!
At the very least carry a 5-in-1 survival whistle containing a shrill signal whistle, signal mirror, compass, waterproof match container, flint, attached to a lanyard, small enough to fit easily in your pocket/round your neck. Learn more about avalanche safety and equipment which gives you a greater chance of survival

I know this may sounds a bit bonkers but I'm telling you from personal experience bag which ended up in a good friend being helicoptered to hospital, taking an emergency kit surfing is a good idea especially if you're surfing a reef, the list below is for UK surfing, hot climate kits will need things like anti-malarial and water purification tablets

 New style waterproof medical emergency bag