How do you store/organize your gear?

[Rebecca Canode]

Over the last few years, my family has accumulated a lot of camping and backpacking gear. There's a combination of car camping gear, backpacking gear, and things that are used for both. Sometimes outings are just 2 of us, and sometimes it's a family of four. Every time we pack, I end up pulling almost everything out of our gear closet to figure out what we need. My boys tease that it looks like REI exploded in the room.

With my oldest about to start boy scouts, I think things are going to get worst instead.

Any ideas on how to organize and store gear?

[Link .]

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=16956

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/all_the_gear_issue3.html

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/get_out_now_issue_3.html

[HkNewman]

Might want to check out Mike C's new book where he has everything in one large cardboard box. Put in your vehicle and go. Might be good if you do not want to the neighbors knowing you are going out for a few days.

[Ken Bennett]

Yeah, that's a problem here, too. I have car camping gear stored in the garage, an entire closet in the basement full of backpacking gear, another closet in the guest room full of backpacking gear, all the kayaking gear stuffed behind the couch in the basement (including two touring kayaks!), not to mention each member of the family has some of his or her hiking clothing in their own closet.

I ended up storing gear sorted by type and use. So the basement closet has packs, cooking gear, and other hard goods. The upstairs closet has sleeping bags and backpacking-specific clothing (i.e., things we don't wear in town.) Each person has two Rubbermaid tubs with clothes and personal gear in that closet.

When it's time to pack for a hike, I can go to each closet and get out exactly what I need from each bin. So I grab out one or two or three packs from the closet, reach in the box of cooking gear and take out the stove and pot that I want, grab the appropriate water treatment and containers from their box, etc. Same thing in the upstairs closet – take out the right sleeping bag, then each person gets the clothing they need from their containers or their own closets. I usually sort gear on the bed in the guest room – each person gets a small pile defined by their sleeping pad, and all the gear is laid out on the pad for organizing and packing.

What makes all of this work for me is having a good packing list. I have a standard list for solo hiking and for hikes with my wife and family. I'll start with that list, tweak it for a specific trip, print it out, and start grabbing the gear. Packing for a weekend trip doesn't take more than an hour or two if I've spent some time tweaking the list.

Now, car camping is a whole different story. That's when our garage looks like a bomb exploded in an REI Scratch and Dent sale. Not pretty.

Good luck.

[spelt with a t]

I keep everything in one area, as compact as possible. I use rubbermaid tubs or appropriately sized boxes.

I sort items by category. I have separate containers for: outerwear, bottoms, top basewear, top midlayers, stoves and kitchen gear, camp tools, shelter, packs/sacks, and bags/quilts. No, I do not hang my bags. They are piled loosely in an oversize tupperware and aren't compressed. It's much more convenient to have them in a container that can be easily moved and stacked. I also have small containers for misc small accessories like biners, for first aid and field repair kits, and for at home repair/diy stuff like seam sealer and cordage. My hygeine stuff is combined with my normal travel kit b/c items overlap. I grab what I need from there instead of keeping a separate hiking kit. My hats and gloves likewise stay with the normal winter accessories.

I'm still working this out and intend to greatly pare down my gear once I have a satisfactory setup, after which I should be able to (hopefully) keep a "to-go" box and a "less-used/special use" box.

I think about this too much.

[Terry Trimble]

I store all my gear in one rubbermaid roughneck plastic storage box that stack for easy storage that is my Bug out gear box. I store my pack, sleeping quilt, ridgerest in the closet and with Bug out gear box. So if their is ever a fire or emergency I just grab the box,pack,quilt,ridgerest and I am out the door. I can pack the pack after the emergency.
If you get a big enough rubbermaid box you could store everything in the box and just grab it .
You could also assign one box for each family member and they they just grab their box.
Plus storage wise you have bug,water,rodent proof boxes that stack in one corner of the room and your garage.

http://www.rubbermaid.com/Category/Pages/ProductDetail.aspx?Prod_ID=RP091418
Terry

[Paul Magnanti]

As with others, I am a big fan of rubbermaid (or similar) boxes. I place them on shelves.

My climbing gear is all together, my ski gear is all together, same with car camping gear, backpacking gear, and so on. Plus, my pack of choice for the season is more-or-less always pre-packed.

So plastic shelves and plastic totes organized and pre-packed = much goodness.

Here's an example. All my car camping gear (except for clothing, sleeping bags and pads) is one tote:

I can be packed and ready for a trip in a half hour or less (well, depends if Adrianna goes or not…then it takes longer. Much longer. :D)

[Rebecca Canode]

Thanks for the ideas. I thought I had everything down to a pretty simple system when we just did car camping. I have a big tub in the garage that keeps most of the cooking and misc gear and then sleeping bags and tents were kept in a closet. When we came home from camping, I would wash our clothes and re-pack our bags so that we would be ready for next time. I also had a food box packed with staples that was restocked after each trip.

Now we have 7 tents, 8 sleeping bags, 8 packs, 8 sleeping pads plus a lot of other gear. It's a lot harder to pull things out.

[Chris S]

Last weekend I was at Point Reyes and as I was approaching the campground I saw a guy a little bit ahead of me wheeling in a cooler (closest trailhead is less than 2 miles away). As I got closer I realized it was not a cooler, but a rubbermaid box with "Camping" written on the side. I guess that's one way to do it.

[Randy Nelson]

How do you store/organize your gear?

I would have to say poorly. :) I do use the storage tubs but have not figured out an efficient way to do so. There's too much overlap. A number of things that go backpacking also go on day hikes or winter trips while other items are very trip specific. If I was rich, I'd just have duplicates of the things that go on multiple types of trips. Instead I separate them the best I can and use lists to make sure I get everything I need for each outing.

[Gerry Volpe]

Does anyone store all their gear in an unheated space like a garage? My house is tiny and I am thinking of building a small workshop/gear storage building. I am mostly concerned about sleeping bags,tents/tarps, pads, skis, and maybe packs everything else should be fine. Is there worry of any kind of moisture build up that could cause mildew or rust due to the space being unheated? I would definately insulate it and make it tight as possible, I have been tossing ideas around about built in storage. I am also concerned about rodents. Does anyone see a downside to keeping sleeping bags uncompressed in rubbermaids? I am probably overthinking it and may be a bit paranoid but I would not want to have to replace a three hundred dollar sleeping bag or get rust on the edges of nice skis.

[Bob Gross]

"Does anyone store all their gear in an unheated space like a garage?"

I store stoves, fuel, skis, some tents, and a few other items in my unheated garage. I store sleeping bags, backpacks, and some tents in an unheated storage room. All of the sleeping bags are uncompressed, although I don't bother to put them inside any containers.

One of the good things about storage in the garage is that the waste heat from my auto seems to dry out anything stored there. In thirty years, I have never seen any rust on ski edges.

–B.G.–

[Richard Scruggs]

Hope someone posts a great solution. Think the winner will be someone with minimal collection of gear serving the greatest variety of circumstances.

That would be the ultimate solution — simplicity.

The biggest items (i.e., greatest volume when stored) present (quite naturally) a huge storage issue == especially if there's a concern about moisture.

That means sleeping bags/quilts and insulated jackets/parkas/vests/pants get stored in big cotton sacks stacked in a basement room.

Rest of backpacking gear splits up by category into rubbermaid boxes w/lids (or into baskets and drawer units for smaller items) stored on basement shelves (packs, tents, bivies, tarps, groundcloths, stuff sacks, pots, cups, utensils, stoves, lights, tarp/tent poles, stakes, guylines, first aid kits, hydration gear, etc).

Sleeping pads get stored in large duffels or on top of basement shelf units.

Long items (hiking poles, ice axes, skis and ski poles) fit into corners.

Non-insulated clothing items (jackets, wind shirts, pants, shirts) either get hung on clothes rack or (especially the wool items) folded into rubbermaid boxes placed on shelves.

Bulky non-backpacking gear (canoe, kayaks, paddles, life jackets, fishing gear, car-camping stuff (cots, shelters, kitchen/tables) goes into garage (not heated, but rarely below freezing).

Definitely do not look forward to ever taking a long-distance road trip that would include canoing, kayaking, skiing, car-camping, fishing, and backpacking!

[David Thomas]

I got a bunch of standard sized boxes at an office-supply store, printed up labels on the computer and taped them on. I should group them more thematically: outdoors stuff, house & yard, auto, etc because I started grouping big boxes with big, medium with medium, and the beer boxes together. Two walls are like this, but longer:

For the repurposed beer boxes I was able to slip in two shelves above the water heater and chest freezer but below the stitch-and-glue wooden triple kayak:

[David Thomas]

>"Definitely do not look forward to ever taking a long-distance road trip that would include canoing, kayaking, skiing, car-camping, fishing, and backpacking!"

Richard: We had friends show up, literally equipped like this:

kayaks, mountain bikes and skis were mounted on top of their Subaru. Backpacking, fishing, etc stuff was inside. Really it was a pick-up truck loadfull. But hanging off of a Subaru. Which they drove 2,650 miles from Seattle to Kenai, Alaska.

One trick (they didn't do) is to realize that you can rent the big stuff on location. Another trick (they also didn't do) is just borrow our stuff – we've got 3 or 4 of everything.

[Matt D.]

An entire bay of the garage … four season stuff for the whole family. Packs, tents, bags, pads, snowshoes, skis (nordic & alpine), boots of all kinds, traction, ice tools, stoves, cookware, shells, insulation, harnesses, rope, rack, fishing stuff, life vests, paddles, maintenance & repair equipment, and spares of most things so we can take friends along.

Yikes.

[Diplomatic Mike]

I live in a small flat/apartment, and would be ashamed to post a photo. There is gear everywhere. Sometimes i can't open my front door for gear, and have to navigate a canyon to get to bed at night! :)

[Edwin Morse]

"Does anyone store all their gear in an unheated space like a garage?"

Most of my gear is stored in my garage. The exceptions are sleepingbags, pads and (now) water filters. The first winter I stored gear in the garage I forgot and left my water filter in a box in the garage. There was a large crack in the ceramic filter in the spring. Now, anything that freezing might damage is in the house even though we don't have much room.

[Nick Gatel]

I have the opposite problem. Extreme heat that is hard on seals and coated fabrics. Those stay inside.

[Ryan Merritt]

I use three large and two small Rubbermaid Action Packer containers on a shelf in my garage. One of the large ones holds all of my car camping gear, another one holds all of my tents, summer bags and and pads, and the last one holds packs and boots. One of the smaller ones holds all of my misc. backpacking gear, and the other holds all of my fishing gear. My winter bags are hanging in my closet along with all of my misc. hiking apparel. All of my kayak gear is stowed inside my kayak which is hanging from the ceiling at the back of the garage.

[BlackHatGuy]

I've got an extra room in my house that is my gear room, but the gear is pretty much confined to a closet and some stacking plastic shelves. I love Ikea, you can really organize a closet with a bit of Ikea.

My closet:

.

My quilts on stackable plastic racks with packs hanging off the sides:

.

[Tim Zen]

[BlackHatGuy]

"What is the libation in the lower right corner of picture 1?"

Fuel! Two bottles of Everclear used exclusively for fuel. Or, at least, that's what I bought it for. Then I went esbit. I've tried to give both bottles away with some alcohol stoves twice, but neither person was interested!

[Brian Austin]

Holy frack guys, seems like most of you take days/hours to pack as nothing is in your pack to start with. Its not like the item list changes unless switching between mountaineering and backpacking. It shouldn't take longer than 15 minutes to pack.

Keep everything in the pack sans sleeping bag and insulated jacket. Keep the clothes 2nd set in! Put on what you are going to wear before entering the car. Grab a 2nd set of clothes for car along with pop to put in a local creek for the drive home. Day of hike, throw in sleeping bag/food check fuel level by weight is how I do it, in the car and off ya go. At trailhead stuff BBag usually in bottom of pack and place food exactly where you want it along with water. Otherwise it takes forever looking through boxes of trash you don't use anymore and putting it in the pack. The pack list rarely if ever changes. I suppose if in a giant group one brings a larger cooking pot otherwise…

Things that NEVER change:

TP! except for those super hardy souls who use rocks(actually snow works pretty darned well)
Cooking Gear
Water Purification
2nd set of clothes
Compass/altimeter/Signal mirror/duct tape/1st Aid Kit
Sun screen
Lip/nose/ears zinc oxide paste
Water Bottles
Stuff Sacks
Liner
Ice axe
Emergency repel line
Emergency food
Camera
Prepackaged sugar water mix
Headlamp

Some of this one puts in after returning so always ready to go at a moments notice. Like when your friend calls you at 11 the night before and says, "Hey meet you at your place in 2 hours so we can drive 3 hours and go climb Snowfield Peak in the middle of winter tomorrow in an epic 1 day push and you stupidly(not that I would ever do this of course! Oh my no!) say yes to +8000 feet vertical and approx 18 miles of climbing/snowshoeing. Of course what I really wanted was sleep, but I know that I am already packed so, I got 2 hours of sleep, my friend got none and was still a half hour late picking me up…

In my other mountaineering pack I keep Iceaxes/Ice screws/Crevasse prussics/harness/shoes/helmet/rope/pro/tat/crampons. Strapped on its side I keep winter mountaineering tent and bottom Closed Cell foam sleeping pads for snow. The half length closed cell foamie keep on the summer backpack. Snowshoes are separate though.

In CAR, Put Black "trash" garbage bags to stuff junk you take out of pack and don't haul. Trailhead thieves less likely to smash into your car to steal "trash bags" than a nice looking container that is usually plastic and LABELED telling said thief exactly what he gets to place on craigslist tomorrow. My car at said trailhead won't have its window smashed in while others will be. Happened to me twice so far and been grateful both times I used black "trash" bags to hide my climbing gear I didn't take.

[chris smead]

Haha! I was actually at point Reyes in late Dec and saw 2 people hike in surf boards 6 miles to wildcat camp!

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