"Fun with Gear" or "Playing with your Junk"

Ok, the title is a bit 'tongue in cheek', to be sure, but I find tinkering with my backpacking gear very enjoyable. There is something about taking your gear out of storage, making sure everything is clean and in working order, then putting it all together into a better configuration than was before which I find extremely satisfying.

This past weekend I did a bit of pack maintenance. I removed the pack from the frame (yes, I'm still using an ancient external frame pack) and I used some silicone water repellant spray on the nylon bag. After the bag dried, I put it back on the frame, then went through my gear and refined it, cutting out whatever weight I could. (When you have a pack that weighs in at 10# empty, it helps to have a light gear list.)

Please continue reading after the jump

As I mentioned before, I'm preparing for a trip to the Cranberry Wilderness. I will be taking a small crew, just one or two others, and I am a little nervous. The Cranberry is pretty remote and rugged. I want to make sure that I have everything in order so that I can be prepared for most any issue that my arise, while still packing light enough that I'm not miserable while hiking. This is going to be the most elevation intensive area that I have hiked and I'm hoping my fitness level is such that I don't die out there. Well, I won't die, but I'd rather not find myself wishing that I were dead. I have been on those types of hikes before and I don't find them enjoyable.

In preparation for this hike I have picked up a few items. I bought a pair of Platypus water bladders, a 1 liter and a 2 liter bladder. I've been wanting to buy these for a while to replace my Nalgene bottles. They take up less room and work great for storing filtered water in camp.

I also recently picked up a collapsible cup and bowl set made by Guyot Designs. I seriously debated picking these things up because of the cost, but I'm glad I did. These things are great! They fit inside my pot and because they are squishy, they sort of "fill in the cracks" keeping the rest of the contents of my pot from shifting around.

Before...

After

As you can see I can fit the pot handle, my stove, spork, bowl, cup and a little cleaning kit inside my pot. This is pretty convenient and saves quite a bit of room.

Another purchase I made was a new pair of boots. My old Vasque were really showing their age. The leather uppers were cracking, the material was faded, the tread on the bottom worn and it was just time. So I picked up another pair of Vasque. I bought the Breeze GTX boots. They seem to fit my feet pretty well in the store, but since the pair in the store had a big mark on them and the store did not have another pair in my size, I ended up buying the boots from an online retailer. I should be getting them this weekend. I have had excellent luck with Vasque in the past, my current boots are over 10 years old, but I've heard that their quality has gone down hill since they moved their manufacturing to China. I hope this is not the case, but I look forward to reviewing them soon.

That's about it for my new purchases. The only other thing I am looking to buy before the trip is a pair of used ski poles that I can utilize as hiking sticks. I just can't bring myself to pay good money for the rickety looking collapsible hiking poles you find in the stores. Cranberry is going to be challenging and I've read more than one person who wrote that a pair of poles is recommended.

Well, that's all I have for right now. Coming up soon, I have plans to make a freezer bag cozy and I'll be showing off my gear and pack. Thanks for reading and feel free to comment!

~Occasional Hyker