(Old Timers) Items you carry now that you didn’t many years ago

[AK Granola]

I see you’re allowing 50-somethings onto this thread, so I’ll join in. I carry a sit pad now, never did before. I love it so much! Most fav piece of gear. I used to use just a bit of foam to sleep on, now I have an inflatable. inReach mini. Nutella. Where was Nutella when I was 20?! Such an essential.

[David Thomas]

The backpacking trip I met my wife on had a few rules and one of them was to “bring a toy” – something you’d not normally bring backpacking and she brought a star map.  It was a plastic hemisphere of 9-inch diameter (imagine a totally deflated soccer ball) with ALL the stars printed on it.  You twirled the edges to get your lat/long/season into the inside and them could see the star dome from inside exactly as it was overhead (the stars were glow in  the dark).

And, as Nick points out, “there’s an app for that” now.  That weighs nothing (if you bringing the smart phone anyway).

[Edward John M]

A mattress, a real honest to god mattress AND a real proper pillow and lots of pain killers, LOTS

[Jerry Adams]

“I met my wife… she brought a star map”

Love at first sight : )

[bradmacmt]

I had a pretty light “base weight” in the 1970’s, but I’ve found the one item that has made the biggest difference are lightweight trail shoes rather than the heavy leather “waffle-stompers” of that era. I also prefer my ULA Catalyst to my old-school external frame of the 1970’s (I was a Jansport guy and used a D3).  Starting in 1978 I switched to inernals and never went back to an external.

Light shoes are a revelation.

 

[Kimberly Wersal]

I can’t say for sure how long Nutella has been around, but I KNOW that it was around when you were 20 Karen, because it was around when I was 20, and I”m older than you are!

[Dean F.]

An inflatable sleeping pad.  I hurt more than I used to to, and if you can’t sleep then you aren’t “camping”.  You’re “enduring”.

[AK Granola]

Oh here’s one most of you probably also bring now – reading glasses!

[Elliott Wolin]

“Oh here’s one most of you probably also bring now – reading glasses!”

Amen to that one!

[Mike M]

yeah, but not just regular reading glasses- fancy folding, telescoping ones that have a hard case :)

 

 

 

[Jon Solomon]

Along with a lot of things that other people have already mentioned, I carry my own homemade dried food.

Back in the 70s and 80s I didn’t have a dehydrator.

I hate going into town to resupply. Not because it’s town, but because you have come down from altitude.

[Elliott Wolin]

“but not just regular reading glasses- fancy folding, telescoping ones that have a hard case :)”

Wow, great idea, I think I’ll get a pair, my old ones aren’t strong enough anymore!

[Brett A]

Sadly, I find that I now have to keep the reading glasses on a strap around my neck so they’re always at hand…backpacking or not.

[Brett A]

I just had to edit my last post due to the fact that I DID NOT have them at hand.  Ugh…

[Bob K]

Bic lighters. Back in the day it was kitchen matches.

[Eric Blumensaadt]

Nick, you look like Father Time in that hat and pack with yer silver beard. At 77 I say “Getting old beats the alternative.” And like you i do NOT carry my iPhone 10 on trips, only training hikes.

Cameron, I like the way you think, but only if you have a “vigorous” lover. Otherwise why bother? ;o)

HW, I get closer and closer to the Helinox chair purchase every month.

Dave H., Yeah I too had Pivetta boots. Beautiful but heavy and I sold them B/C they were too narrow even in a Medium.

.

[Russ W]

Dave…bring a toy….ha!

I remember when my Steripen Ultra showed up in the mail and my wife took one look and asked me if there was anything we needed to talk about!

[Nick Gatel]

I remember when my Steripen Ultra showed up in the mail and my wife took one look and asked me if there was anything we needed to talk about!

Years ago I was in the living room packing for a trip. My wife picked up my Micropur packages and in an accusing voice asked what they were for.

I knew how this was going to go.

”Why do you want to know?”

”I want to know why you have condoms and why you ate taking them on a trip without me.”

”That isn’t the problem. The problem is your lack of trust.”

”What do you expect me to think.”

”I expect you to read the label. And if you still don’t trust me, open one of the packages.”

 

[W I S N E R !]

Man it feels good to be 44 years young and not need all of these comforts yet…

I’m still travelling pretty light and simple ; )

[Tom Osborne]

Butt Ointment

[Ryan Jordan]

When I started out, I had limited $.

So I cooked on a twig fire with a 3/4 pound pot I stole from my mom’s kitchen.

Now my main solo cook kit is an MSR Titan Kettle and an MSR Pocket Rocket Deluxe Stove, and a canister of fuel. It’s more than 3/4 pound.

I sometimes use trekking poles, so that adds a pound.

I sometimes add an REI Flexlite Air chair. There’s a pound.

The phone (/gps/camera) is 6 oz, which is a lot lighter than my old film(SLR) kit which weighed 1.5 lbs. The inReach Mini adds 3.5 oz. The Fenix adds 2.5 oz. The battery pack adds 3 oz on short trips and up to 16 oz on long trips.

My old blue foam pad weighed 6 oz, this new-fangled Nemo Tensor weighs a little more than a pound. But I’m liking what it gives me that the blue foam never could.

My shelter, sleeping bag, clothes, ice axe, crampons, backpack, shoes – all that stuff’s lighter now.

But the net effect – that I take fewer numbers of things, and most of those things are lighter things than what I took before, is that I’m carrying a lighter pack now.

And yeah, the eyeglass thing. That’s a killer. If I don’t wear my contacts, I take my regular long-distance glasses, long-distance sunglasses, and close/mid-distance glasses which are better for switching distances because it reduces eye strain. But if I wear my contacts, I have the case, solution, close distance (reading) glasses…maybe it’s time for laser but Canada won’t let me in right now due to Covid…!

I’ve replaced the anxiety of adding a few pounds with a few more hours a week spent on physical training, eating well, and just trying to take care of myself a little better than I did 30 years ago.

[Geoff Caplan]

Ryan – you, sir, are a mere stripling…

When I hit the hills in Scotland in the ’60s I was camping in a canvas tent that weighed a ton when it was dry and required a yak when it was wet:

We walked long distances in these:

We cooked with this brass beauty:

We slept in FairyDown mummy bags with heavy cotton linings and low-loft feather fillings – I found one recently during a house move and it weighs nearly two kilos. And in winter we used heavy rubberised lilos

I took my photos with this lightweight lovely:

We wore heavy cotton anoraks, neoprene cagoules and tweed breeks:

 

And it was all carried in this heavy canvas ergonomic tragedy, fondly dubbed the “potato sack”:

Add a hawser-laid rope and a rack of stainless steel gear and you needed good technique even to get the bloody sack on your back without it swinging you off your feet. Just as well we were young and fit…

It’s not what we’re carrying now that we didn’t carry then – it’s what we were carrying then that we don’t have to carry now. Never mind the phones, the kindles, the PLBs and all the other newfangled conveniences. The biggest change by far is the developments in materials and gear that mean we can now backpack light…

[Roger Caffin]

@Geoff

You are not the only one …

That pack – is it a Whillans?

Cheers

[Geoff Caplan]

The pack is a Joe Brown. This is the Whillans:

They were both from Karrimor, I think. They gave a lifetime guarantee, and every few years you would send them down for rehab. They would even fit new bottoms! Not something you’re going to find nowadays…

But they were woeful to carry – narrow shoulder straps with thin felt padding, no structure at all, and no hip belt.

[Roger Caffin]

Yeah, no quite the same. I still have a Whillans.

Not much good for walking, but they did haul up a cliff face very well.

Cheers

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