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Your EARLIEST Digitized Backpacking Photo
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Jan 15, 2010 at 7:56 am #1254137
No doubt many of you have digitized your treasured backpacking photos. So what was your backpacking like way back when? Post your earliest backpacking photo(s)! Bonus points for campsite photos with you and your gear!
I grew up in the 70's; but alas, I didn't backpack (or even day hike) until 2004! Sigh.
Here's me with a silly grin @ Wind Rivers circa. 2004 — my first multi-day hike:
Jan 15, 2010 at 8:54 am #1563062It was pretty interesting looking back for my earliest photo. I had no idea what it would be. I haven't digitized most of my old photos, and I lost all of my digital photos from before 2001 (sad news). But my earliest photo is this weird digital picture of a panoramic still photo. I think that it's the only photo that I have of hiking the JMT in 2001. Mine's not photochoped!
Jan 15, 2010 at 9:05 am #1563067Jan 15, 2010 at 10:55 am #1563101Jan 15, 2010 at 11:34 am #1563112Tetons, about 1975, wearing Lowa Alpspitz, probably the heaviest backpacking boot ever made:
On the snow somewhere in Idaho or Wyoming, mid-70s, with Trailwise pack, Lowa boots, Sierra cup, and Frostline gaiters:
Ski trip, Idaho, mid-70s, with wooden Splitkein skiis, Northface Tuolumne tent, and Svea stove:
Jan 15, 2010 at 2:21 pm #1563160It was maybe 2006 or 2007 and I was 12 or 13, on a ridiculous day hike on good friday starting at New Found Gap.
This was a couple weeks later at Big South Fork, it was a really long day.
I usually take the pictures, so I'm not in 90% of them, enjoy this pic and the one after of some strange things I've taken pics of
Jan 15, 2010 at 2:26 pm #1563164This is my earliest digitized backpacking photo. I was introduced to hiking at 54 years of age in 2008. This is a shot of Max Patch just outside of Hot Springs, NC.
This is a shot of the head waiter and bell hop at the Spring Mountain Shelter on the AT.
Anyone who has been there will understand this next entry. Buzz buzz buzz, buzz buzz buzz, buzz buzz buzz my @$$.
Party On ! 2010
Newton
Jan 15, 2010 at 4:51 pm #1563214John, I love Max Patch! I pretty much make it a requirement that we go every year.
Jan 15, 2010 at 4:58 pm #1563216Ken you're using my gear! I had both the Alpspitz and the Civetta's (the Civettas were heavier for sure!)
OK I am loath to do this but 40 years ago this August on the AT in Vermont
I won't say which one is me.
Jan 15, 2010 at 5:09 pm #1563217Ditto Ken. Your pix bring back memories. Almost exactly the same I gear I was using in the 70s… gaitors, tent, stove, skies, etc. Only difference was a Kelty pack and Vasque boots. I don't have any pictures from that era. I will have to see if my dad stashed any away.
–mark
Jan 15, 2010 at 5:15 pm #1563218@Alex, this is an absolute classic, well done!
Jan 15, 2010 at 5:25 pm #1563223Ken, those boots are badass!
Jan 15, 2010 at 5:30 pm #1563224These are cool photos! Far out, man!!!
Jan 15, 2010 at 5:30 pm #1563225Warren,
Check out the photo below. "Lazarus" and I had enough and bailed out at Allen Gap. First all water but Spring Mtn. Shelter had dried up and then we saw two of every kind of animal in creation following this old guy carrying a set of really big boat plans. We hitched a ride to the Hemlock Hollow Inn Hostel while dodging lightning bolts. This was the same 2008 hike as the above Max Patch photo. I must confess that we visited Max Patch by car one day prior to setting out on the trail. "Lazarus" and I met up and spent the night in Hot Springs, NC. We began our trek together the next morning. "Lazarus" had already been on the trail for a week prior.
Find anything in the photo interesting or familiar?
I think I could guess where the pack on your gear list came from.
Party On ! 2010
Newton
Jan 15, 2010 at 6:41 pm #15632361977
I still have the pack. Found it cleaning the attic this Fall.
Jan 15, 2010 at 6:55 pm #1563238Hiking Mt. St. Helens on a hot July day in 1987:
Jan 15, 2010 at 7:11 pm #1563241@ George:
Do you still have the female companion? Was she in the attic as well?
Jan 15, 2010 at 7:12 pm #1563242Just off the AT in Harriman State Park in NY in June, 1973.
Jan 15, 2010 at 7:48 pm #1563250One of our winter campsites in Arizona, Pinal County.
Jan 15, 2010 at 7:58 pm #1563253Jan 15, 2010 at 8:42 pm #1563267Mean I don't know, but she sure is pretty! Your pic a few posts up… are those your arms or tree trunks? :)
Jan 15, 2010 at 8:52 pm #1563269A couple of shots from about 32 years ago.
The first is about 30 min up from our house in the village (3300') I am in the foreground and my parents are ahead of me. This was a short day walk to an Alp at 5300'. The second is a couple of hundred meters (vertical) from destination (about 8200') . I am the first on the right.
These were day outings. From 3300" to 5300-9200'.
Note my minimalistic attire.
Franco
BTW, I was doing those walks at 6-7 years of age.
Jan 15, 2010 at 9:07 pm #1563274This one goes back a few years- Mt Rainier climb in 1974- I was 17.
I'm perched on disappointment cleaver.
In those days we would go down to REI (the old "real" store) and rent a pair of boots, crampons and ice axe and climb the mountain over the weekend.Jan 15, 2010 at 9:21 pm #1563282Don't have any of my earliest backpacking photos digitized, but here are two:
My first alpine climb (Kitadake, South Japan Alps, 1984) and I did it solo… I hadn't a clue what I was doing…and almost died two days after this shot. Note the dashing fedora and cotton shorts. Those are Danner Mountain Light Boots that I bought in 1980. I used them until around 1988. Amazingly my pack was very light compared to what I carried ten years later, but I had everything I needed, including a brass primus kerosene stove that weighed a ton, and a relatively light Slik tripod that you can see on the right side of my pack. The pack itself was only 40 liters. Ten years later I was using a Dana Designs Terraplane filled to the BRIM! I almost toppled off a razor ridge one time carrying that thing on a gusty afternoon!
Not backpacking, but I have been doing long distance bicycle tours for longer than I've backpacked. This is the same tent I used in the picture above, a Japanese single-skin, non-breathable, Nippin dome. I don't remember ever having had bad condensation problems with it and I still don't know why. In Miyagi Prefecture, 1978.
Jan 15, 2010 at 9:54 pm #1563286One of my favorites and earliest. Myself on the left at age 14. My son on the right at age 14. Didn't know we were taking a picture in the same spot 35 years apart until we got home.
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