Diane wondered, "Ok, Dale, next question, what are the two little pods on the keyring?

....also, I see you have the strikers for the storm matches jammed in the case--I take it that the striking surface on the inside of the cap doesn't work well for these matches?"

The little pods are called spy capsules and are waterproof aluminum containers with a screw-on top and an o-ring seal. The larger one is from Bison Designs and you can get them at REI. The larger one has about 4 Tinder-Quick tabs inside-- treated cotton that is used for fire starting. You could use cotton balls coated with petroleum jelly in the same way. The premise is that dry tinder is one of the mist critical first steps to get a fire going in wet weather, which is near universal in Western Washington hiking. The smaller capsule contains personal medication. You can get larger ones that look like a mini SCUBA tank.

There is a whole cult of small carry cases, capsules and survival tools like this with the EDC (Every Day Carry) crowd. http://edcdepot.com/survivaltools.aspx


The inside of the cap on my K&M match case is milled aluminum. You must use the red phosphorous striker to get the REI/UCO storm matches to light-- they are not "strike anywhere" type matches.