Durable Gear

[azbackpackr]

Bullet Canyon--awesome place!

I still have a Blue Kazoo.

In the youth group I volunteer for (Apache Rescue Team) we use a lot of really old beat-up gear. North Face Windy Pass Sleeping bags. The kids all call them "Windy Ass" bags. Perfect! Either someone at the North Face has a sense of humor, or they were asleep at the wheel when they named that bag!


As for the military, I've told you about my son elsewhere today. Semper Fi and all that!

[Dean]

This thread reminds of how far gear has come just during the time I've been hiking (spans over 50 years now). Everything was heavy army surplus stuff, the miserable packs, the awful sleeping bags, no sleeping pads and pup tents. Clothes weighed a ton and thank goodness most of my camping was in the Sierra Nevada mountains of Cal where it seldom rained. Of course, I was delighted to have even that gear and loved
to get out and away from the sprawling suburbs of so. cal.

Today, all my gear is so nice and light and I appreciate it even more after remembering
what we used to have to depend on.
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http://www.summitpost.org/user_page.php?user_id=1160

[Suz]

This pack was handed down to me from my father. He used it in the 70's. It's a fully adjustable external frame pack. I love it! Although I have purchased and use an internal frame pack I have never found anything that feels as good as this old gem.

[IGO]

[IGO]

My first BP was with a Navy seaman duffle slung over a shoulder. Kmart flat bottom work boots and blue jeans. It was to Hance Creek. I thought I was gonna die. That was a very long time ago.
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"Surely all God's people, however serious or savage, great or small, like to play. Whales and elephants, dancing, humming gnats, and invisibly small mischievous microbes - all are warm with divine radium and must have lots of fun in them." John Muir