Useless gear, equipment and garments

[PaddlingPika]

Cheap solar shower. It wasn't a high quality product - one time the shower head fell off the hose in the middle of a shower, and it was a bit awkward to fill and hang the bag in a suitable place. Also, maybe the water would have heated up enough to be worth it if left in the sun all day, but it wasn't often I would want to plan for that.

Heavy plastic and aluminum 250 cm double blade paddle with canoe grip handles that could be used to turn it into two canoe paddles. It was too heavy to be of any advantage in circumstances where one might use a double blade and when split into two canoe paddles they were a bit long (as well as heavy). The idea of multifunction gear appeals to me but as others have noted sometimes multi-function means not really useful for any function.

 

[Marten]

This July five of us flew into Atikaki P.P. in Manitoba. All had a complete kit that allowed freedom to go off on their own. With a few years of no Canadian tripping due to covid we were a little rusty on packing for going light. I think all took all of the obsolete and useless gear they owned. Our gear was pulled over the scales before loading and totaled 902 pounds not counting the two canoes tied to the thwarts. This leg of the trip never portaged off the lake we landed on. Thanks to an In reach we could contact the airline and change the first change out location. As different parties came and went in the coming weeks a lot of that useless and never used gear was flown out bringing normalcy to the packs. There was even horse trading going on with items we did not care to see again.