Backpacking - Old School

Bob

Bob

Trailmaster
Joined
Mar 3, 2013
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Not doing much today, so lets try something fun...... post things you've done old school...for some it will be the way we did it, for others it may be you tried it..... or just comments...

First long backpack trip, 88 miles down the Little Colorado, circa 1998.
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Is that you in the blue button-up shirt?
 
This is the first image of my gear, a Korean War surplus pack I got for 10¢ and my bedroll is a wool blanket pinned to a canvass sheet for some wind and water resistance. As you can see I favored trail runners, probably Converse All Stars. Ha ha. Other than that I had a knife and cans of food. The pack had inner sleeves that originally held c-rats or k-rats that the soldiers used before they invented MREs. I did write the county and told them I was 12 years old and what area I was taking my kit and disappearing into the wild. They sent me three 7.5’ USGS Quads which fascinated me so much I later made a career as a mapping photographer.
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Arches NP 1981.Before you had to have a permit to backpack. Jeans, jorts,cotton tube socks and I don't think that water filters for hiking had been invented yet.Arches 1981.JPG The guy in front had one of the first internal framepacks,a Gregory, that I had seen although they had been around for a few years. We did quite a few desert hikes with water jugs in those days.
 
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scatman said:
I want the rundown of what's in your pack @Bob, it looks kind of heavy. :)
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I'll have to think what was in it..... camptrails external frame, svea stove, Trailwise down bag, MTN house food, odds and ends. I remember it was 65 lbs at the start.... 11 days, no resupply.
 
Wyatt Carson said:
This is the first image of my gear, a Korean War surplus pack I got for 10¢ and my bedroll is a wool blanket pinned to a canvass sheet for some wind and water resistance. As you can see I favored trail runners, probably Converse All Stars. Ha ha. Other than that I had a knife and cans of food. The pack had inner sleeves that originally held c-rats or k-rats that the soldiers used before they invented MREs. I did write the county and told them I was 12 years old and what area I was taking my kit and disappearing into the wild. They sent me three 7.5’ USGS Quads which fascinated me so much I later made a career as a mapping photographer.
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Lol .... No pics from when I first started either.....was canvas pack Coleman bag.... All the tech stuff for boyscouts
 
ZLmtns said:
Arches NP 1981.Before you had to have a permit to backpack. Jeans, jorts,cotton tube socks and I don't think that water filters for hiking had been invented yet.View attachment 85337 The guy in front had one of the first internal framepacks,a Gregory, that I had seen although they had been around for a few years. We did quite a few desert hikes with water jugs in those days.
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Hadn't invented giardia yet
 
Bob said:
Lol .... No pics from when I first started either.....was canvas pack Coleman bag.... All the tech stuff for boyscouts
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My actual first gear list was comical. No pictures but picture this. My first intentional over night was when I was four years old with no permission of course. The woods were right across the street and we lived in Mississippi Delta country. I took a green plastic bow and one suction cup arrow and the matching green plastic knife that came with it. I stuck the knife in my shorts and lost that somewhere along the way. They found me the next morning a mile away on the other side of the woods, asleep in a burned out ditch. I liked it so much that I tried to do another while still four. They caught me before nightfall that time so I had to work on both a better gear list and stealthier tradecraft to do it right after that. :lol:
 
From a trip my roommate and I did in 1979 down Harris Wash to the Escalante, with his homemade tent.
It did not work very well. Note the Chuck Taylors.
This was my 2nd backpacking trip, no stove, and a couple of #10 cans to eat and cook in.

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I think I have posted this already somewhere, but it seems appropriate here. From the same trip to the Escalante. For some reason we missed the mouth of Harris Wash and ended up here just up river from the mouth of Harris Wash.

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My brother and I as kids took on the Big Blue Wilderness (CO) with packs full of canned goods and space food sticks (remember those? - didn't think so), and forgot the can opener. We didn't last long. We were our own mentors. o_O
 
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