PACE stands for (Primary, Alternate, Contingent and Emergency). For those of you military guys that will sound very familiar. In the Marine Corps, they constantly drilled into us being prepared and having multiple contingency plans. The theory behind the PACE lid is to have a place to keep those needed items in the event something unexpected happens and you need to deviate from the original plan.
I originally wrote up a short article on the PACE Lid when they were getting it off the ground with their Kickstarter campaign. Since then I have purchased one for personal use to see how I would run it. Depending on the time of year and activities I’m involved in will dictate the contents. Right now I only have 1 PACE Lid, so the contents will have to be rotated out as my needs change. Maybe in the future, I’ll purchase a few more to have them pre-loaded and ready to go depending on what I’m doing.
For the sake of this quick article, I have my PACE Lid setup for my trail running or minimalist hiking. I know all the trails I run and hike on, so for this specific loadout, I don’t need a bunch of survival items for signaling, fire starting and trap making. I’m more concerned with the condition of my feet and hydration.
The contents of my PACE Lid are as follows: