Organizing your outdoor gear

Wow Brett. That is an impressive system. My own storage is built around 2 medium sized plastic tubs from Target. One houses cooking and water storage/treatment gear. The other houses general BP gear — headlamps, first aid, stuff sacks, etc. These totes are stored on shelves above my bedroom closet.

Typing this makes me realize that I’m not nearly as consolidated as I’d like to think. Backpacks, tarps, and outdoor clothes are in a hall closet. Sleeping bags are in the tops of 2 different closets. sleeping pads are under the bed. Foodstuff is in a cabinet in my home office, next to the kitchen. Some old, heavy gear (used mostly as loaner for Scouters) is in the garage.

The next stage in the life game is where our teenage sons are out of the house. Maybe that will be the day where all my toys can move to a central location. However, as PJ points out, this could suffer by making all gear available for visual inventory. The current distributed storage scheme doesn’t make the multiple generations and options quite so obvious.

Personally, the value of a storage system is how quickly it enables me to pack for a given trip. Since most everything is within a few steps of our bedroom, I can be assembled and out the door in 30-45 minutes. Someday, I hope to have that down to a 5-10 minute range.

Phil, Thanks for the comments. The ‘multiple generations’ of gear you mentioned is something I am painfully reminded every time I reach into one of those bins you see for the 20% of stuff I actually use.. the remainder, uh.. ‘Krill’ lights, steel pots?, brass match holders?, 11.5mm rope?, cotton clothing?, 6lb Kelty5400, 4xD cell maglight, geeez what was I thinking.. Thank you BPL!

When I was living in the mountains of Glacier National Park I kept my gear as ready as could be and always had denydrated food and energy bars on hand so that when the weekend came I could be ready to go in as little as 15 minutes. Keeping all non-loft insulating items in their stuff sacks and having sleeping bag, backpack and garments in the same location makes for a quick and easy out-the-door.

I’m a city dweller now in Northern Minnesota so being as fast isnt necessary as there’s usually more planning goes into a trip. I now keep car camping gear in one set of boxes and backpacking gear in another.

I built an extra bedroom, with an extra 8 x 10 doored off void in the back for storage. Funny thing is, only backpacking / camping gear is in there. Don’t have Brett’s nice shelves, but it works.

Sam, I lived in northern WI and have been in northern Minnesota. There is not so much city and even where there is a city nice forests are near by. :) Brett B, that was one impressive set up. I don’t think the military even keeps there stuff that organized. I am in a constant state of transition (moving every six months or so) my stuff is kept in Rubbermade bins for easy moving.

I also have some steel racks and plastic bins to hold my gear.

That being said, my natural “organizing” method is to create piles of gear on the floor next to the nearly empty racks.

Brett, you should start a business organizing gear rooms!

I have been thinking about Brent B picture with the impressive setup. I noticed the rolls on the middle self top. Are these sleeping bags? I always thought you were to store your sleeping bags loose so the fill does not loose its warmth quality. Is this true or not?

I apologize, it is Brett B.

Well, our kids have grown up and left home, so one kid’s bedroom is my office. The whole wardrobe … is MINE! It is wise to keep the doors shut though – looks neater. The built-in drawrrs hold a lot of the active smaller items.

The overflow … well, there’s a large 8′ storage cupboard in the shed which one daughter left behind. And a full chest of drawers that I inherited, also in the shed. Useful.

Of course, some of the specialised food lives in the back of the pantry. And much of our ordinary walking clothing hangs in the walk-in robe in our bedroom. Takes less than half the space there.

We haven’t got THAT much gear … truly … but it helps that almost half the gear belongs to my wife. :-)

Thom, thanks for your comments; I suppose I organized my gear bins like the ‘supply room’ at my previous military units. I used to look with envy through the locked fence walls at the multitude of cool survival gadgets, gear, and clothing. Going Lightweight means I can have the functionality of that cool gear, without carrying a 30kg ruck.

Regarding storage of down and synthetic insulation, you are absolutely right. The two puffy white bags at the top right and extreme right of the pic. are my two down bags stored uncompressed. The Rolls on the top shelf are synthetic sleeping bags stored lightly stuffed, tents, sleeping mats, and pole bags. My Snugpak synthetic bags do not loft much anyway, so I dont worry about storing them lightly compressed, and in fact since I bought my down Montbell bags (at 1/2 the weight) I have not used those other ones.

The down and synthetic clothing I actually use is hanging uncompressed.

Thanks, Brett for your inspirational storage system. I thought if I started with a small box with stuff that I take on every hike that would do it. Now that gear has spread to two boxes. When I am not sure what category to put gear, it usually goes in the every-trip box. It now has well-maybe-not-this-trip gear mixed in.
The one box that stays constant is the winter gear only box, which, of course, gets dipped into this time of year, ie. late fall. Carry-all canvas bags are nice, too, because they can be hung. Clutter seeps in with gear I have not used in a long time, it’s the hey, maybe-some-day category. I know it is clutter, but I can’t get rid of it just yet. I read about a guy who kept empty paper grocery bags in the kitchen slot between the refrigerator and the counters. Theyn he found other such space around the kitchen, much to his wife’s frustrations. One day they were gone. His wife was over-joyed. What she did not know was that he had saved up boxes, put the bags in them and found closet space for the boxes.

Well, let’s see…
Mostly three plastic boxes for UL stuff at the top of the attic stairs. One has all the usual suspects (minus quilts and insulated clothing kept in cotton bags and placed on top of the bins), the second has all the maybes and extended season goodies (ditto compressibles), and the third has substitutions for when my wife or other friends join me. A supply of fuels, batteries, and bp foods are kept on a special shelf in the mudroom. My up and out time is around half an hour.
Family/car camping with nephews, etc is relegated to a far corner of the attic in large covered plastic bins. I think there are four or five of these. Up and out time here can be an hour or more due to the extra rummaging required.
To keep things trim, I donate old/unused/replaced-for-a-newer-sexier-model to my nephews and friends. This is a good approach because if in a moment of over-generosity I give away something I shouldn’t have, then I can always borrow it back.
(In thirty plus years, I have yet to borrow anything back).

I’m lucky. I went from two 14″x16″x32″ tubs stuffed under the crib in a condo, plus more gear at my sister’s house in another state … to a 12’x12′ room in a house, with shelving on three sides. I have space to lay everything out and organize it nicely. My gear room also houses the boiler and hot water tanks, so it’s warm and dry. I use open bins for clothing, and boxes or tubs to store tents and sleeping bags. The other big change was switching from a pair of bodysurfing fins in the trunk of my car to a barrel of skis in the garage!

Come on Ryan–I’ve slept in your gear loft! Post the picture of your impressively organized gear collection–there’s probably not a larger or better organized one in the country! It rivals some stores I’ve shopped in.

Douglas, outstanding! I especially like how you integrated hanging clothing storage into the rack space. Going to have to try that..

Ryan, I would also like to see some pics of your collection; it must be quite impressive.

Agreed, I’d love to see Ryan’s gear closet. I’m sure its a thing of beauty.

Adam

me too!

You guys are cracking me up! I thought I was the only one with a spreadsheet fetish and the whole back wall of a LARGE walkin closet that looks like Brett’s! My coworkers also comment on the WHY of what we do…especially when I have a knack for getting into “trouble”…not a trip goes by for me without some story of buffalo attacks, face plants (ugly ones), falls from rock ledges into rivers, broken and sprained limbs, poison ivy…you name it…I’ve had it happen. I’m a legend! (not in a good sense) and still I go out…I think I figure if I organize and can survive this part of my life, the shambles the rest of my life find themselves in are trivial little bumps in the night…LOL!