Discontinued, MYOG, or Repair gear you wish still existed?

Yellow MSR fuel pumps with a METAL stem.

Visklamps

Discontinued Fuel Canisters that render stoves obsolete

The Patagonia Fitzroy PARKA, not the wimpy underfilled short fitting hoody selling under the same name, ditto the original Puffball series with the quilting on the INSIDE

I managed to snag a Duplex Tarp (no longer made) on gear swap, but I would love to have a Duplex Net Tent to go w/ it.

Sierra Designs 60/40 parka

I will second Nick’s visklamps or the more recent version made from nylon? which also vanished. I can’t remember which UL gear company sold them. I foolishly gave mine to a friend so I can’t even take a picture.

I miss Frostline kits which at the time were originally cheaper than finished gear.

While there are better performing for the weight shelters today, I still miss the sierra designs 3-man tent from 1969.

Vintage Patagonia pile.  Not like this 2002 one:

But the super-basic, super-plain ones from the early 1980s.  Looked like carpet worn inside-out.  Some warmth and great ventilation by itself, really good insulation with a shell over it.  You could fall in an ice-cold stream, take it off, and shake almost all the water out of it and put it right back on.

But the super-basic, super-plain ones from the early 1980s.

@davidinkenai Is this anything like?

@thegrizz Good one! The ZPacks Hexanet looks like it would be a winner as well under the their Pocket Tarp. The deep bathtub would block wind blown rain and I appreciate the modularity of that approach over other options. 

Same with MLD’s old Cricket inner which had a splash panel that faced the open beak.

This maybe doesn’t count but I miss the DIY parts you could buy from Luna sandals. They not only had their original Vibram Cherry kit but they also sold the mono footbed and a variety of laces.

David, Baby Retro circa 1992, 3 decades, still going strong….

Pre-2012 Houdini

I have a Kelty White Cloud fetish: 

@kaptainkriz Mike Cecot-Scherer designed the groundbreaking Kelty White Cloud way back when. We chatted about that during our long interview, which will be published in part three someday. Parts one and two covered other topics.

It’s also listed on his resume:
http://thetentlab.com/didthat/resumeofsorts.html

— Rex

@ngatel & @verber Visklamps plus Visqueen (4 mil white polyethylene plastic sheeting) were highly praised by Colin Fletcher, who devoted more than four pages to them in “The New Complete Walker” published 1974. In that book, he said Visklamps were sold by REI. You can still find them “new old stock” on Ebay.

BTW, Fletcher was not by any means a lightweight backpacker in spite of mostly tarp camping. Scanning a couple of his early books, total pack weights for different trips ranged from 44 to 66 pounds (20-30 kg)!

— Rex

While far from Ultra Light I’d like to add the Eureka Caddis Expedition to my list, the first tent to make Australian snow season camping really fun, I could sleep not worrying about my tent being strong enough

David, when I read your post I was thinking of the earliest fleeces from Patagonia, the ones that were made from toilet-cover fabric, with the smooth outer face that pilled tremendously and the nubby inner pile. If that’s what you’re looking for, search for a USGI Bear Jacket. About $10-20 on eBay or $25-35 new old stock from surplus stores, as compared to $500-1,000 for the vintage Patagonia ones. Flap pockets and elbow reinforcements could be seam ripped to save weight. Sounds like they might run on the small side; I see suggestions to size up. There are also matching trousers!

@Rex that’s very cool! Besides the 4500, I’ve also got a 6500 and a 3400. The 3400 is my main pack. There was an accessory listed on the tags called a “Megaton Overpack” that I also see on his resume that I would love to get my hands on.

David,

I checked out the used Patagonia pile jackets on EBAY.  They are still selling for as much as they probably cost new.

I have mittens with similar pile inside.  They are the warmest per weight of my mittens and do well in wet weather.

Given my heavy sweating I think a pile jacket might be worth considering.

Greg,

Thanks for the tip.  Just ordered a Bear jacket from Ebay.

Phoenix produced its Phreeranger, now made by Trekkertent, and which was a forerunner of the Rainbow, made by TarpTent.  But Phoenix also made a two pole side entry dome tent with two pole crossings, one on each side of the canopy.  It had a lot of attractive design features.  But somehow I lost my photo of the tent and the old product page, and cannot recall the name.  Maybe I’ll run across it when I eventually get to cleaning out some cabinets where I put old trekking magazines and tent designs.  Did throw out all the Backpacker mags except the gear guides and some seminal test articles, like the one that drew fire from a popular waterproofing company.

And J.S. Burly’s mini Ti carabiner McGizmo clips. So light that they might be used to clip an inner to an outer tent.  So gave up that approach, to combine inner and outer tents; with a solid inner DWR ceiling, but  with WP vestibule beaks  front and back that are sewn onto each side of the ceiling.  The ceiling is made of mini-ripstop silpoly, and while a structural part of the tent, will only keep water out for the few minutes it takes to pitch, and attach an outer WP fly.  Some might see this as bassackwards, but the design with the smaller fly makes pitching much easier.  And all because tiny Ti clips could not be found for less than the price of gold.

EMS boot laces.  They had just the right diameter, just the right flex, and never came untied.  Then everyone went to low cut glorified sneakers.  And then EMS in our town sold its big box to REI and moved up the street to smaller quarters and marginal stocking.   So corporations do have life cycles.  But still do not believe the Supreme Court about them being people.

The original granite gear crown 60. With no hip belt pockets or brain. Using 550 parachord for most compression points. It is for me a almost perfect lightweight pack. The new one looks like it belongs more on the shelf at REI but I don’t like the mandatory hip belt pockets and the compression/closure system as much.

Rex,

When you mentioned Colin Fletcher and the Complete Walker I was flooded with good memories from the 70s.

It was my bible.  I studied it and examined every item over and over.

I recall him saying that he preferred to keep his pack under 40 lbs.  That was a good number for me because I was only about 30 years old.  Now at age 76 I shoot for a skin-out weight about 25 lbs or less for multi day backpacks.  Back then I was sometimes carrying a skin out weight of 75 lbs.

Snow Peak folding titanium spoon