If you’re going modern, why black powder? The only reason I could think would be the opportunity to make your powder in a pinch. But, it would have to be flintlock or else you’ll be limited by the supply of caps. If you’re going to be limited by caps, why not go modern and cartridge?
You’d be fine until you came to the first river you’d need to cross. The Mississippi would be a rather difficult crossing without some kind of floatation apparatus.
You can carry 1000 caps in the space for 10 rounds. And dudes will have ball and powder to sell or trade.
Not if you cross at the head waters in northern Minnesota.
NSFW
[url=http://muttonbone.com/store.html]Meh.[/ulr]
That’s not a nice site to send dudes to w/o a warning. It’s not terrible but it could be NSFW.
Fair enough. In my mind, I was taking this trip a bit earlier in history than that, though. It comes from reading the Lewis and Clark journals and the John Coulter story. I would give a month’s pay to have been in John Coulter’s mocassins (on the good days) for a little while.
Whatever you do, dont caulk your wagon. Pay the damn Indians!
I’d just pack what I usually pack for long wilderness canoe trips, and ad a rifle, a shotgun, and ammunition.
Chainsaw? No one?
Have to live at the other end of the road, however safely or quickly you get there. So I’d probably take at least three (for parts) and fuel for them.
Given that the Cessna doesn’t have the range, I’d probably end up going horse and carriage, but try and get some modern tractor wheels and suspension for it. And maybe a dyneema (or something) canvas instead of natural cloth. Point in fact, if possible, I would probably try and replace the body of the carriage with some sort of modern material that was lighter and tougher than wood, but that wouldn’t transfer heat like metal would. Plastic with a metal frame maybe? The horses are good though since they will be useful for farming (or as meat) and are all terrain.
I would check to see if the military has any sort of small, lightweight, collapsable bridge things that can be lowered into place (and picked back up) with just manpower.
I would probably want some sort of machine gun just since I would personally want to be able to take on an army of indians singlehandedly if it came to it (none of the “shoot one and hope they go away” stuff.)
I would get a whole bunch of nutrition bars, multivitamins, and some sort of small water filter.
Seeds
Shovels
See-through tarp for greenhousing
Couple of hunting rifles (and lots of ammo)
Topological maps of the whole US
Bungee cords 
Battery powered power tools (and extra batteries)
Food
Compass, chronometer, sextant
Hydrogen peroxide
Bandaids
And various other stuff that people already mentioned
You could if you asked nicely.
All the maps and compasses are a good idea. But I would make sure I have a sextant and know how to use it. A compass and maps will allow you to orienteer, but I suspect there where many, many areas of deap forest all the way through Missouri that would make that type of land navigation difficult.
Once you get to Kansas and the great plains, IMHO, there are not enough land marks to locate yourself.
A sextent and maps and the ability to use it could put you back on the map.
I’m assuming that with knowledge and maps, this would not be a ‘just head west’ type of trip, and specific river crossings and mountain passes would be goals.
All of this sounds like it’s just a modern-day survivalist’s list.
Seems to me that a sextant would have some of the same problems in a forest that a compass and map would. Don’t you need to be able to see where the horizon is, not to mention the moon or sun, in order to use a sextant?
Oh, and since nobody else seems to have mentioned it: A good pair of stylish sunglasses. Just because you’re roughing it doesn’t mean you can’t look good doing it.
Good point. But I think with a good bubble level sextant, the horizon becomes a moot point. The sun and the moon are usually easier to see than a low hill a mile away. Especially in a forest. Surveyors have done this for hundreds of years. May also want a theodolite and tripod.
Just a thought.
I don’t think anyone has mentioned a modern shot gun. I would probably take a 20ga, just for lighter weight than a 12 ga. The prairies would be full of game birds that would be easier to take than larger wildlife.
A .308? Probably a good choice. I would definitely take a scoped hi-power hunting rifle. I would also look to something like a .223 as well for protection and smaller game. The rounds are also lighter to carry, as is the gun (thinking AR-15).
I might forget about the pistol. Maybe a .22mag revolver.
You need a gun that can take out a Grisly Bear in one trigger pull, or you’ld better not try shooting.
I wouldn’t bother bringing a handgun, and certainly not a lot of ammunition for a handgun. A scoped .30 caliber/7mm centerfire rifle–something like the Steyr Scout–will do for the vast majority of hunting and protection needs. A 12 guage shotgun should cover pretty much anything else. The only real utility a handgun has is that its size makes it less awkward in polite society; handgun calibers are not big enough to stop large game and not small enough to be useful for shooting small game. If I decided I needed to take small game for food I’d rely on deadfall traps and snares rather than labor intensive hunting.
Someone suggested a sextant; I think it’s a good idea in the general sense, but it would be a hard thing to carry securely if on foot or with a single pack animal. And in general, particularly on land (where your ground reference isn’t constantly shifting) you can rely on dead reckoning to get you pretty close to where you’re going. Once you get across the Great Plains, a few references on the Rockies or other terrain features should give you your drift.
I wouldn’t rely on anything that requires batteries or electricity (even if solar powered), but I’d be hard pressed not to take along a powerful LED flashlight for emergencies and a headlamp or two for night use. Other than that, I’d bring along durable hiking gear, including rain and snow protection, a bivy sack and synthetic fill sleeping bag rated for 0°F, a couple of large knives, a smaller folding knife, a collapsable saw, a folding shovel, and volumes of Mark Twain’s novels and short works along with Feynman’s Lectures. (I might stick the Complete Works of William Shakespeare in there as well if I can find room for it.) One must not become intellectually impoverished after all, even when cross-country survival is at stake.
sigh Bears, even brown/grizzlies, very rarely attack people and almost never without provocation. The best thing you can do about a bear is to avoid it. On the other hand, if you’re going to hunt bear, then yes, you’d best select a caliber that can stop the animal in one shot. But that’s true of hunting any game.
Stranger
Yep Sam. It sort of is.
But the OP asked an interesting question.
Many of the people that have responded don’t live in a city. But we support them with agriculture, mining, manufacturing, fishing and any other number of things that it takes to live in an urban area.
I’ve lived in the city. I don’t like it. I have friends that don’t like the sticks. It takes all kinds I suppose.
If I’m ever lost in Bankok or NYC, I will find a local to help me. The same rings true for those of thus that live in the sticks. If, you are ever in trouble in my neck of the woods, hope that the guy that you flag down is in an old 4x4 and not a Lexus.
There are specialised target shooting handguns - the Thompson-Center Contender, with interchangeable barrels, they are extremely accurate to great distances.
The Lewis & Clark expedition 1803-1805 gives us the most complete picture of what was expected and needed for such an enterprise.
30 to 40 people, for a start. Ammunition was the one thing that the expedition did not skimp, Lewis probably came up with the then-novel idea of transporting their powder in soldered/sealed lead canisters which weighed out in rough proportion to the number of rounds required for each unit. Completely waterproof, and luckily so - their cache often spent time resting on the bottom of the Missouri in various Sundry Accedents &c &c, Proof of their wisdom is shown that upon return in 1805, they had enough ammunition left over to complete the entire journey, but otherwise reduced to wearing rags and elk-skins, all their clothing had long since worn out or been traded for food-stuffs.
They had access to the best maps and geography books of the time, but there were still huge swaths of land that were of the “here be dragons” variety. I happen to have a nice volume on the equipment and artifacts of the expedition, surprisingly little remains that can be directly attributed to the “corps of discovery”.