Talk Urbex – Recommendations on Urban Exploration Equipment
Imagine, you have traveled 3 hours to get to the exploration site, you get geared up and head in – only to realise you left a key bit of kit at home. The outlined equipment described is for a generic kit bag, for things like caving, your kit bag will need some additions.
Photography
So you would like to accommodate each and every situation however this could start to get cumbersome, below are some of the necessities
- Camera body
- Spare SD of CF cards – always good to change for spares/blanks to minimise potential loss if caught and asked to wipe
- Spare battery
- Waterproof bag – useful if you have to get wet trying to get to a remote place
- Camera remote
- Lenses – depends on what/how you shoot
- Tripod
- Dust cleaner/mirror cleaner – try to take care when changing lenses to avoid a bunch of time with the clone tool
Clothing
Needless to say, you are going to get covered in something. Things that are important are usually based around security and hygiene, here are some of the basics
- Solar dry trousers – quick drying and thick but light at the same time. Scratches lead to infections so its good to cover up
- Gore-TEX jacket – who knows, if something went wrong this could be pretty important
- Gore-TEX hiking boots – foot protection is important, lots of instances where decent boots have saved some sort of unwanted foot penetration
- Respirator – asbestos rated is best for crawling through access tunnels
Kit
So this is where things can diversify – I usually think about the common small stuff I can carry that may get me out of a few potential situations.
- Small first aid kit/antiseptic stuff – important for small cuts/grazes and mild infection
- A Leatherman multitool – these things are built for this, can get you out of a lot of situations
- Waterproof matches – you never know
- GPS locator – this tracks my current position and reports via email, critical if the worst event happens
- Spare food/water – again in the case of survival
- LED Lensor P7 Torch – awesome thing!
- Petzl head torch LED
Apart from the obvious – you can argue the point on taking all this equipment, I do it because sometimes things go wrong and when they do, I want to be prepared. You may also need some other stuff like rope, harness etc however these are quite specific to certain activities
Whatever you do, have a frickin kick arse time…
