Logisitics: Evolution of gear

In the three years that Julie and I have been backpacking together, we've managed to cobble together a pretty respectable collection of gear. We've got everything from sporks to stoves to headlamps to a spiffy little kit for spices and such in the backcountry. However, it was not always this way...

About 5 years ago, when I first started serious camping, I had nothing. On the first trip I went on without mooching off someone else, my friends and I headed to the Boundary Waters. We had no stove, no sleeping pad, and all our gear was packed into LUGGAGE. The kind of luggage with WHEELS. Also, there was about 3 times as much gear as we needed. It was a harrowing experience. We spent 6 hours portaging 2 miles, and when we finally got camp set up we were tired and starving, except with no stove we had to build a fire and slowly cook our food. And cooking over a fire takes FOREVER. We did bring a tent, which at least makes me better than Art.

I learned from that trip, however, and in future trips I made sure I had more than enough things to get me through a trip. However, this quickly lead to a critical mass of camping equipment that made me look like a very sad hobo:



Notice the 45 degree angle of my back.

So now, the key for Hobo Trip will be smart packing. We got two fancy new camp pads today (Thermarest ftw!) and a brand new pack for me (as my old pack cost 40 dollars, and worked about as well as you'd expect a 40 dollar pack to.) With a few more key purchases, we'll be set.