Dumbest thing you ever carried

When I was a first-year beginner backpacker, I went on a short winter trip with three other people. I carried a heavy piton hammer to use for pounding tent stakes into the ground.

–B.G.–

The small, single mantle version of the white gas Coleman lantern. Glass surround and all.

(One of my first trips mind you) a friend's .22 cal pistol for "protection".

A good 2+ lbs of paperweight not powerful enough to actually protect against the threats that in all probability, aren't even there.

Design:

A metal-bodied, 35 mm SLR camera with a telephoto lens, plus a wide-angle lens, some filters and several cans of film, in a big camera bag strapped across my chest. Not because I'm a photographer, but because my GF at the time wanted me to "take really good pictures" with her gear.

Mistake / unwittingly:

A couple pounds of "pretty rocks" my 6 y.o. daughter put in my pack during a weekend up on San Jacinto. I discovered them because she put them in the pocket where I had the return tram tickets; otherwise they'd have made the illegal trip home with us.

My first time backpacking, I brought this:

It was from my car camping box and must weight 2-3 lbs.

^Hey, you never know when you may need to tidy up a bench cut.

5 lbs of peanut butter from the student co-op I was living at in college, with a 2 burner coleman car camping stove, one gallon of fuel…maybe one gallon of water too with all of my borrowed gear from friends who had been in boy scouts.

All to Little Yosemite Valley for a Half Dome trip with college roommates.

I distinctly remember NOT seeing Vernal Falls as I was just looking down at the granite steps with the weight of my ill fitting pack crushing me to the point that it was difficult to breath while wearing the pack.

Ah, to be young again…..I would say young and stupid, but now I am just older and still stupid.

Tony

My second trip out, I decided to have a "nice" meal for all 12 of us one night. I packed in 12 foil-wraped dinners, total weight over 20 lbs. The day after I got back, I started serious research into lightweight backpacking.

4 days of food for a 2 day shot between resupply spots… thru hiker shopping hungry.. watchout! I got to have more snacks those days though :) whole bag of chex mix.. nomnomnom

Tent, the entire Long trail I could have done with just shelters. hard to commit to that though.

SLR camera.. not sure i got any shots that made it worth it that trip. luckily only a weekend.

An "extra" pair of JEANS.

"What if I NEED them?????"

Oh – having wet jeans sure makes hiking and climbing over large, felled logs E-A-S-Y!

At the age of 15, on my first trip backpacking in a place where bears are prevalent (Smokey Mountains), I realized that I needed some rope to hang my food. The only thing I had was a 50 foot coil of 1/2" utility rope, so I threw that into my pack at the last minute. Good thing I had a large external frame pack and was otherwise very minimalist!

I don't have a smartphone, but I have and carry my older flip phone for emergencies and to keep in touch with home. Since it's not a smartphone, it's a dumbphone. The dumbest.

Beyond things from the past like extra full sets of clothes, camp stools, metal grilles, and full-sized axes, I guess 2L of water when I was walking along water the whole time, plus tent, pad, and bag for an overnighter while carrying a 150ft rope, harness, hardware and anchor materials for rapping a waterfall, then hiking back out to the TH where my car was parked and camping out there.

+1 water. I used to carry 3+ liters of water on trips where I'd cross a river/creek every 20 minutes or so. I rarely carry more than a liter these days.

I once brought a 6ish ounce camera that has a sensor the size of a postage stamp the first time I hiked a section of the Wonderland. I just brought an iPhone 4S the second time. While lightweight, the weather was dreary thus I had poor light for both of these trips and as a result, most of my pictures from these trips were unsalvageable. I learned the hard way that I'd rather carry camera gear three to four times that weight that'll get the job done than 6 ounces of dead weight.

Cast iron skillet to a high base camp on a climbing trip. We were starving students and it was all we had. Might have been multi-use as a piton or chock though.

When I was much younger I used to carry a larger knife. Other than using it once during an all-day rain layover to carve an entire chess set from twigs, I never found a use for it.

A rifle to shoot rabbit when I wasn't even hungry.

A large plastic mallet for tent stakes when I was first starting out in the 1990's. It was kind of lightweight for the size of the deng thing.

I would add that 18-pack of Budweiser plus cans of green beans and ravioli when I was in college renting out that 1960's gear for almost vertical bush-whacking in '88 …. but wasn't too bad of a trip.

Ah yes, water, the dumbest thing I continue to carry, far worse than the 1/4 lb of salt.

I too have carried 2L of water when I was crossing streams all the time. Last trip I more or less convinced my wife we don't need to carry so much water, but I doubt she'll take a step without a full liter each, even if we're walking along a stream expecting to pass a few lakes and the rain is supposed to continue the entire day.

One thing that helped was to carry some extra Platypus 1L bottles (3/4 oz) instead of full ones, just in case…she figured we could tank up if we were approaching a dry stretch.

On my first trip, I carried a baseball with me to use in my bear hang throws. When I was teaching myself to do a hang (PCT, natch) in my parents' backyard, I somehow couldn't manage to find one usably-sized rock, and I was worried that I'd have the same problem on my trip. (Note: this was Shenandoah, so rocks were not exactly hard to come by).

In the end, the weight penalty was only about 5oz (yes, I just looked that up), and the 3.5 liters of water I carried for a 5-mile overnight round-trip probably hurt more, but it's kinda galling that I brought something out of the fear that I wouldn't be able to find a rock on the side of a mountain.

Many years ago I went on a difficult backpacking trip with some close friends. When we arrived to our site that evening, they asked if I wanted some wine. My response was “Are you crazy, you hiked up here with full bottle of wine?” Their response was “No, but you did!” At that point I learned that one never leaves their backpack alone with friends at the trailhead while making a trip to the restroom.

Circa 1987 – My aunt worked with a group that provided meals to Sr. Citizens and had a abundance of "THE GOVERNMENT CHEESE", from which she bequeathed me a 10 lb brick. My buddy and I gnawed on the beast for 3 days, and it worked just fine until the water ran low and we became dehydrated and dobbed up. Lesson learned…..moderation in everything!

Also – Have you figured out the best stories are where it didn't quite work out as planned?

Heineken mini keg packed in ice.

A hot tub.

My ex-girlfriend's gear. We argued the whole trip. Now THAT was dumb. :(

Billy