What was your most catastrophic gear failure/break?

1) One of the guys in our party of three didn’t lash the tent properly to the outside of his external frame backpack and it fell out somewhere bushwacking off the peak of Mt Lafayette. We didn’t discover the loss until we pulled into camp, too late to backtrack. In lieu of the tent, we made a shelter out of tightly layered spruce boughs that kept off most of the rain that fell throughout the night, giving us much needed rest before hiking out the next day.

2) DCF backpack tumbled down 200 meters from a pass, breaking the fabric, the frame, and the hip belt. I patched the fabric with duct tape and walked two more weeks without a hip belt.

3) Got one of the first MLD Duomids in DCF just the night before leaving for a 2 1/2 week hike in Central Taiwan. Seam sealing in the dark, I missed some spots that became huge leaks during the catastrophic torrential rains of Typhoon Morakot. Patched with duct tape.

Smaller failures include holes burnt into the shells of down sleeping bags (down everywhere), GF who sliced through a SW tent canopy (luckily no rain), CF trekking pole snapping in two (hung the mid from trees), hiking boot sole total delamination/disintegration (walked for days with what basically amounted to smooth mocassins), etc.

I’ve made a lot of repairs to tents/poles, sleeping pads, and clothing over the years, but I don’t know if I can really say that any of the failures were catastrophic. I’ve also had to get by without stuff that I forgot or broke on many occasions, which is always an interesting learning experience about what is really required.

This was also not a dangerous failure, but I happen to remember it because it was relatively recent and the gear was non-functional without the repair. My dog Max is very clumsy and hard on his gear, and somehow totally ripped one of the straps off of his pack. In my sewing kit I had some thick thread and a large needle that I was able to use to attach the webbing directly to the pack fabric. It was hard to push the needle through the webbing and nylon, but it worked. He only needed to use it for a couple more days on that trip, but the repair is pretty solid, and we could still use the pack if we wanted to.

One of my tent tent stake loops ripped off so I put a small rock inside the fabric and tied a piece of line around it, fabric constraining the rock, and used that as a tent stake loop.

My new DCF Hammock tarp got shredded to pieces during a snow storm on Hunter Mountain in the Catskills just before nightfall. Thankfully I always carry my eVent bivy and ccf pad.. and even more Thankfully there was a lean to close by.. got pounded all night with strong winds and a lot of snow/ice.. since that night, I lost all faith in DCF tarps/tents.. if not for the durability.. the cost!!!

Pole break multiple times.  Fixed was some combination of the “repair sleeve” than came with the shelter or stay from a pack  held in place tape + guy lines. Not me, but friends on a trip where storm flatted multiple tents and one of the cases a pole ripped the fly.  doubled up in some of the shelters and one set of folks spent the a miserable but safe night using the fly more like a bivy.

friends backpack seam blew-out. combination of duct tape and guy lines that we sewn through holes we made into fabric we reinforced with tape

Not break… forgot a pole for a pyramid tarp. Fix was smooth stone placed at the inside  top, on the outside wrap cord around the rock and suspended from a tree.

corner of tarp attachment blew out.  Like the tarp above… smooth rock inside, rope around the outside.

Growing up my group of friends used to say everything can be fixed with WD40, duct tape, and baling wire.  These days I would say extra guylines, tenacious tape, and a bit of superglue.

Don’t forget zipties also, Mark. Repaired a bike rack in the outback once with a spare spoke, tape and zipties. I had an extra gallon H2O strapped on. Corrugated sand roads are tough on bikes.

Back when I wore boots with bonded soles, I also blew a pair of Vasques out. Duct tapes on that.

Fiberglass pole broke on a tunnel type tent. Whatever. Became a bivy.

Proper preparation cures 90% of issues. As for the rest, assuming you survive, that’s how you learn to deal with adversity. Nothing is guaranteed, no matter how experienced you are. Does improve the odds though.

Figure out a backup plan for water and you’ll survive most issues. Helps if you can prevent hypothermia also. In case of injury especially.

Guess what I’m saying is gear failure is a lessor worry than lack of knowledge/preparation.

Zipper on my tent broke. Luckily, the tent had two doors, so I just sewed one of them shut.

And got a new tent once we were back home.

In the middle of a trip, I had a shoulder strap on my SMD Starlight pull out of where it was sewn to the hipbelt.  I’ve tried the “Ray-Way” idea of simply slinging my pack over just one shoulder, but a buddy of mine was carrying the Starlight and had a bit more weight in it than I normally carry.  Also, the idea of doing the next 30-40 miles with all of the weight on one shoulder (without being able to flip back and forth) was unappealing.  I used dental floss and a needle to fix it, using a small stone to help push the needle through the webbing.  After that trip I threw a thimble in with my repair kit (@Mark – take note!).

SMD fixed it “for real” without charging me when we got home.

I can only think of one “catastrophic” break in almost 60 years of backpacking. When I buy gear I try to balance cost, weight, and durability, with durability the first priority. I still use a lot of backpacking gear that is 30-50 years old.

A bigger problem, for me, is gear that I like becomes obsolete.

Back in the ’80s, on the first night of a week-long trip, my stove broke. It was an Optimus 732 “Mousetrap” stove. The stove used Hank Roberts style canisters and somehow, I broke the needle that is inserted into the canister. Optimus did replace it for free, but that didn’t help for this trip.

I needed a new stove, as I was in a wilderness area that didn’t allow campfires. I was able to hike to a small mountain town, which was two days away. This required a complete change in my route, to include my return point.

I was able to buy a Gaz Globetrotter stove in this little town. It became one of most favorite pieces of gear of all time. It included two small pots, a pot lifter and the stove is stored inside the pots. The pots also fit my 50 year old Svea 123. I soon bought a second Globe Trotter, foreseeing that it would probably be discontinued at some point in time. I did not foresee the canisters would also be discontinued, making the stove obsolete.

Roger will chime in that those canisters are dangerous. I never have had a problem. I still have a couple full canisters.

A while back, I was able to fit pieces of a Coleman stove into one of my Globetrotters and can now use standard canisters.

I documented the conversion in this article on my website:

http://popupbackpacker.com/camping-gaz-globetrotter-stove-35-year-review/

As people mention things, I realize I’ve also experienced them. I recall rigging a tent using sticks and spare guy line when a pole broke (actually, I clumsily broke it). I also had a stove failure a number of years ago, and built small twig fires to boil water. I didn’t really see these as catastrophic, just inconvenient.

I guess if one had a stove failure during a fire ban, one would have a dilemma since it’s probably not really a life-threatening issue. You can generally rehydrate using cold water if necessary.

Nick you made me go out to the storage shed and dig out an extremely dirty set of gas canisters from the 80’s and my old Hank Roberts stove. I ran out of fuel and saw a propane supply store and showed him my canister. He reckoned there might be something up in the attic. To the attic we go and sure enough there was a case of coleman canisters. Asked how much and he said $5. Bought it and mailed the other 11 home. Still have those three. Sorry for the thread drift. Now I wonder if the still work. You can hear the fuel inside.

They’ll probably work, but the rubber might be hard. I’d spray something on it to lubricate it. The fuel is butane, not iso-pro, so not going to work at 32 F or lower.

I finally threw this away a couple years ago

Okay, time to get back to catastrophes. Never happened to me, but there are probably some folks here who turned their liquid fuel stoves into a fireball.

Not a gear failure, per se. Two friends and I were hiking in the Trinity Alps in late fall. The weather called for possible rain. We camped in the last group of trees at alpine level. The trail ran above us; we were down below. This was to be my first night using a Zpacks hexamid solo plus. I’d never used a single wall tent before, and my experience setting this up was minimal. The rain started coming down in buckets when we set up camp. I got the tent up, and twenty minutes later, in driving rain, noticed a rivulet coming inside, instantly drenching almost everything. The trail above had filled and run over, draining down into our site. The temps had continued to fall. I gathered up my bag, that was on top of my pad and still dry, and stuffed it in its wp sack. then I jumped out to try to find a dry spot to set up the hex. My freinds’ site was better; Nate got up and gave a hand, though neither of us were familiar with this tent’s set up. Anyway, I thought I would have to hike out in the dark and rain and near freezing temps. Instead, since my bag was still dry, but little else, I managed to weather the night. Condensation rained down inside my tent all night: welcome to single wall heaven!  Snow was falling 300 feet up from our site. It was very cold. my friends’ clothes and mine were drenched; in the morning, we delayed getting out but the rain kept falling torrentially, as it had all night, and we just donned wet clothes, packed up and got moving as fast as we could. We met folks all heading out on the descent to the car.

so, my take away: keep the damn bag dry above all else!

No real catastrophic gear failures per se – only “people” failures, compounded by bad weather.

Several years ago in the Wind River Range we picked a bad, heavily impacted campsite (mistake #1). There were two of us in a Duo Mid XL (mistake #2 – I’m 5’11” and my hiking partner is 6′ 5″, so it was tight). Finally – our packs were inside with us and overlapping/pushing down one side of the bathtub floor (mistake #3). And of course it poured rain over night. I woke up in the middle of the night noticing a pair of crocs near the door were moving (they were floating of course). Turning on my headlamp – it was apparent that we were now camped in a small pond. Fortunately the next day was sunny and warm so we could dry out – but the next night we got hammered by high winds and rain turning to snow and hiked out the next day in steady wet snow.

Mid-September weather in the WRR is wild.

re: stove failure. Hasn’t happened to me! Still, I carry the outer cylinder of a Caldera Cone to use as a wind break. It’s excellent and super light. If I do have a stove failure, there are slots in the Cone for inserting tent stakes. I could easily make a twig fire inside the cone and settle the pot on the supports. So, a good backup stove/ windscreen.

I had a boot spilt at the soles.  I happened to have some duct tape but that only worked for a few miles.  Ended up bailing early.

I carry a couple of long wire ties that would last a little longer than duct tape for a boot failure, but we wouldn’t get 50 miles out of it.

Probably the time my Svea123 decided the pressure relief valve needed to blow.  The one cup of white gas blew a massive fireball that cleared my eyelashes, eyebrows, and curled my hair.  Fortunately, there were 4 of us and we had a 2nd stove.

Then not so much gear failure, but a critter decided to snack on one of my shoulder straps.  Used parachute cord and a folded t-shirt to cushion.  Glad it was the last night of my trip.  The pack I use now has spectra fabric for the shoulder straps just in case the critters again want a salt lick.

And my first memory of a gear failure, late 60’s, Boy Scouts.  Our troop leaders got access to some super low cost gear made by Newco.  Several of the guys bought packs (I bought a tent) ahead of our annual Sierra “50-miler.”  Morning of day 3 one of the packs’s grommets just ripped out and the pack dropped from the frame.   The pack was wrapped in a poncho and tied to the frame with a diamond hitch.  I can still tie one today, but external frame packs are now few and far between.

Had plenty of broken trekking/tent poles, ripped seams in backpacks, holes in sleeping pads, clothes and quilts (just a good reminder that our ultralight gear is indeed pretty fragile and needs to be treated right).

The one most catastrophic failure I had was my UL rain fly ripping in the insane winds of an Icelandic storm up in the highlands, on a solo trip many days of walking away from the next civilization. Not ideal. And once again a reminder, that those Hilleberg tents have a right to exist in some extreme conditions.

Anyways. I miraculously managed to super glue/stitch together just enough to hold up til the next morning. Never wanna have to experience that again though – fumbling around with stiff, frozen fingers in extreme winds, being hit by sharp pumice stones that get blown around like sand and freezing rain on a foot-long tear really isn’t ideal…

Only two I can remember. My Be Feree filter clogged so badly on the second day of a week-long Winds trip that it took about 10 minutes of exhausting squeezing to get a liter of water. One of the other folks on the trip also had a Be Feree, his clogged up nearly as bad (iirc) the next day, so we had two really crappy filters for the rest of the trip. Nothing we did would get them ‘unstuck’. At least that’s how I remember it.

The second was during a bicycle trip around the south island of New Zealand a number of years ago. We were in a pretty remote spot when my last tube got trashed, and my touring buddy had no more tubes either. I did, though, have a spare tire. Rather than push our bikes for over 10 miles to the nearest town, my buddy somehow got the spare tire over the existing tire, and both onto the rim, and that’s the way I rode, kinda slowly, until we hit town and I could get new tubes for the rest of the trip. (and Nick, I believe I was still using my Gaz Globetrotter stove on that trip. I loved that stove, it was on nearly all of my cycling trips around Europe).

“Never happened to me, but there are probably some folks here who turned their liquid fuel stoves into a fireball.”

That’s not a catastrophic failure or even a failure at all

It just singed my eyebrows.  No big deal.  They grow back.

My canister stove does that a little occasionally.  If it doesn’t light right away.

It just singed my eyebrows.  No big deal.  They grow back.

LOL! (Me too).

I had a Kodiak bear eat the foam seat out of my sea kayak about a day into a three-week solo expedition paddling around Kodiak Island. It took about 45 minutes and half a roll of duct tape to put the slobber covered three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle back together. I must’ve done a pretty good job, because I kept using that seat for years.