Wilderness First Aid Kit Calculator

A SAM splint is only added when remoteness is backcountry or wilderness (2+ hours to evacuate) AND risk level is moderate or high — both conditions have to be true. Low-risk frontcountry hikes never get a SAM splint recommendation, since it's aimed specifically at stabilizing fractures or dislocations when self-rescue and helping evacuation are both harder to arrange.

Once remoteness is set to backcountry or wilderness, the calculator adds 4 extra gauze pads on top of the base count, and emergency blankets scale up from a flat 1 to roughly group size divided by 2 (rounded up). Both changes reflect that a farther evacuation means you may need to manage a wound or hypothermia risk for a longer stretch before help arrives, so the kit carries more redundancy.

The calculator starts from a fixed 8 oz base kit weight, then adds each supply category's estimated contribution: bandages at 0.1 oz each, gauze pads at 0.3 oz each, tape at roughly 1 oz per yard, moleskin at 0.2 oz per piece, medication doses combined at 0.05 oz each, elastic wraps at 2 oz each, a SAM splint at 4 oz if included, and emergency blankets at 2.5 oz each. All figures sum to give both a pound and ounce total for pack-weight planning.

No — the calculator explicitly assumes at least one person on a remote or higher-risk trip already has Wilderness First Aid (WFA) or Wilderness First Responder (WFR) training. It only scales supply quantities and weight; it has no way to verify or account for whether anyone in your group actually knows how to use the splints, wraps, and medications it recommends.