When I first started serious canoeing in my own first canoe in northern California about 43 years ago, I bought all these books on canoe tripping and canoe camping. These books, all written prior to 1975, had lists of gear to bring. The lists were all somewhat different. So I combined the lists from different books into one master list, and bought a lot of that stuff.
And brought it all in a giant Bill's Bag on my first trips with the Sierra Club and Redwood Paddlers in NorCal.
It didn't dawn on me that these lists were often made for weeks-long wilderness trips and all I was doing were day trips in whitewater. So, why did I need a shovel, saw, hatchet, stove, candle lantern, canoe pole, and an emergency fishing kit for these day trips? DUH!
So time passes, experience grows, and I've now become a pretty lightweight canoe camper, though not a total gram weenie.
Yet, I still bring a couple of articles of clothing I never really need or use. And a compass (or three) that I've never used since having topo mapping GPS's for the last 20 years, and that I really would never need in the not-real-wilderness places I paddle in the U.S. And a plastic bowl that I never use for eating, since I eat out of my cookware or freeze dried food packets. And that diver's knife clipped on my PFD, given that I have three other knives with me.
I just found that Early Winters candle lantern after 35 years of being lost in my cathedrals of entropy—AKA garage and basement—and am now thinking about bringing it again. DUH!
And brought it all in a giant Bill's Bag on my first trips with the Sierra Club and Redwood Paddlers in NorCal.
It didn't dawn on me that these lists were often made for weeks-long wilderness trips and all I was doing were day trips in whitewater. So, why did I need a shovel, saw, hatchet, stove, candle lantern, canoe pole, and an emergency fishing kit for these day trips? DUH!
So time passes, experience grows, and I've now become a pretty lightweight canoe camper, though not a total gram weenie.
Yet, I still bring a couple of articles of clothing I never really need or use. And a compass (or three) that I've never used since having topo mapping GPS's for the last 20 years, and that I really would never need in the not-real-wilderness places I paddle in the U.S. And a plastic bowl that I never use for eating, since I eat out of my cookware or freeze dried food packets. And that diver's knife clipped on my PFD, given that I have three other knives with me.
I just found that Early Winters candle lantern after 35 years of being lost in my cathedrals of entropy—AKA garage and basement—and am now thinking about bringing it again. DUH!