• Happy International Mermaid Day! 🧜🏼‍♀️

​What have you forgotten on a trip?

Batteries for headlamps.
Didn't use any of the three headlamps anyway
Got TP soaked . Wet TP works as well as dry
 
Couple years ago, I forgot matches ... fortunately, we were camping with some family, so they had plenty to share. This past May I forgot the drop-in middle seat for the canoe on our first family trip of the season. My daughter had to sit on a plastic gear box that I strapped to the yoke, but it was a few inches too high.
 
Does a "reverse forget" qualify?

I spent 20 days in Alaska a few summers ago. My last day I paddled a lake full of mini-icebergs a few hours before my plane home took off. I took some last photos of my canoe and the magnificent mountain scenery, put the camera on the hood of my car, packed away some gear, and drove off. I didn't realize my camera was missing until I was on the way to the airport. I lost my entire vacation.

Otherwise, I rarely forget anything because all my gear, including water and food, is always packed the same in my magic bus. I still have some Mountain House dehydrated meals from 2004 . . . seriously. Do you think they're still good?
 
I forgot to take my phone off the hood. The shuttle driver took the truck left and the phone wound up getting run over by a semi on Rt 17 in LSPP
Bent but it worked. The driver of the shuttle retrieved it
 
I've forgotten mosquito repellent at this time of year when bugs weren't supposed to be around. Some parts of the world have little reminders posted, haven't seen this in Northern Ontario yet.


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I've always used lists for packing, so I haven't forgotten anything critical. Of course, the problems with lists is that if something is not on the list, it won't get packed. Consequently, I have occasionally added things to my lists. Or created entirely new lists, such as when it became abundantly clear that my usual canoe-camping list could not also really be relied upon to be used as a car-camping list. But again, I can't remember forgetting anything critical. Unless, of course, there is a motel fridge involved. Those little fridges can be counted on to be black holes into which beer or other refrigerated items disappear. I'll put them in at night to keep them cold until the trip starts the next day, and then at camp the next day I will open the cooler to finally remember that its contents have been left behind, out of reach. After this happening a few times, I developed an obsessive compulsive need to check motel fridges multiple times before I leave, even if I know I have not put anything into them. And sometimes I'll find things I don't remember putting in them, lol!

-rs
 
For us the new wrinkle was the trailer. We're ending a 12000 or mor mike road trip of 80 days
We had the list of what to pack in the packs at home

But complicating factors were the list of what was being used in the trailer that had to be transferred to packs, last minute grocery list that could not be filled at home. Then allocating the load to be exactly 60 lbs which is the cart limit
The remainder to be portaged. For the reason that the first day has 6000 meters portaging the booze was off the list. Tea is so much lighter. Batteries are heavy.
Someone brought five lbs of books. DH was in the doghouse. He had kindle too.
Our trip was 7 days in Bowron
 
Glenn,
The MH stuff will be fine. A recent story is that guys at the MH processing plant opened some that were over 30 years old, tested and then ate them. They were as good as the day they were made. I believe they no longer put expiration dates on the packages, just manufacturing dates.
Regards,
Dave
 
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This is not something left at home, but I've twice forgotten to close the stopper on my fuel bottle after dribbling some fuel on my Svea 123R to prime it. Makes a bit of a mess in the pack. After the second time I scribbled a friendly reminder on the bottle and that seems to have helped.
 

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Earlier this year I had a shelter blunder, I did not forget to pack the tent but brought the wrong one. Mrs. Conk was participating on a weekend event and I had forgotten to switch to a two-person tent in place of my normal solo. It was not a big problem as I was able to do a little swapping at the event (with tents that is) and we made out ok.
 
On last weeks trip to LaVerendrye I forgot my portage pads for my center thwart. The portages where not too long so the pain wasn't too bad. I had two beavertail paddles and was considering using them tied to the seat and thwart, but I just winged it instead.
 
I did leave the SPOT once which got my son, home recovering from Gall Badder surgery, a bit nervous when the Allagash River went from around 1700 to 8000+ CFM in 3 days.
 
I forgot to take my phone off the hood. The shuttle driver took the truck left and the phone wound up getting run over by a semi on Rt 17 in LSPP
Bent but it worked. The driver of the shuttle retrieved it

dang Kim, I didn’t want to be reminded of the stuff I have left on the cab or cap roof.

Too many travel mugs half full of coffee to recount. At least I have usually heard those clatter off onto the road. None have worked well after recovery.

Worst truck roof loses; a rolled up 115L dry bag, hurriedly fleeing Big Bend in December when a Texas ice storm was forecast. Worst of the worst, a pair of Zeiss 8x20 binoculars. I discovered them missing 100 miles down the road, realized my stupidity and drove back to scan the shoulders looking for them. Nope.

I have gotten a lot better about setting things on the roof or cap. Or at least better about not forgetting them; I now tend to do a full circle-the-truck inspection before driving off, and again at every stop. Check the lines, look at the tires, feel the hubs, eyeball the roof.

The most inconvenient thing I have “forgotten” recently wasn’t actually forgotten. I packed for a road trip wander and lengthy paddle in the desert SW. I even packed light (for me) since I would have three companions and their gear stuffed in the van. Two pair of short pants will do methinks; one to wear, one to wash and hang to dry.

I could not find the second pair of shorts when I organized before launching. They must be in a dry bag somewhere.

Or not. They were in a friend’s truck 2000 miles away at home. A truck I was never in, much less pantless. WTF and how the heck?

I wore the same pair of short pants for 3 weeks. And threw the ragged remains in the trash when we headed back east.

Worst thing(s) I have ever seen someone lose; heading east on I-10 across Arizona we spotted a lost Turtle-top carrier lid on the shoulder. And a few miles on, a burst stuff bag and downy feathers everywhere. Then a shattered tent, followed by assorted roadkill clothing. I felt so bad for whoever that was. At least there is an REI in Tucson.

Most curious roadkill was a 10 mile stretch of battered stuffed animals. WTF?

I eventually caught up to a carnival convoy. Near as I could deduce one of the box trailers full of stuffed animal prizes had a hole in the floor.

Oh the humanity, the Winnie the Pooh and Tigger too humanity.
 
About 25 years ago, 40 Mile River country just on the AK/Yukon border for a paddling and float trip. The outfitter air service asked for the shells or firing pin of the shotgun that the group carried.* The group was divided into two and ultimately two separate planes to make a bush entree on a landing strip that from the air none of us could see.**
Somewhere down the line the shells were meant to be handed over to the second flight (the gun was on the first) but weren't. So we had a very big club that we could have tried and scared off any inquisitive wandering bruins if need be! And there was plenty of wonderful food on that trip.

*didn't strike me as strange at the time, but it was the only time in 35 years of very occasional bush flights up there that we were asked to do that step.
** the take off was from a AK highway leading into Eagle on the Yukon River, traffic and all, a bridge too! Landing was spectacular but in an underwear needing to be changed sort of way...:eek:

Been plenty of other things on different trips (that one too, though I won't throw my brother under the bus on this forum:rolleyes:) but that was one we talked about for days...
 
This is in the category of crucial things forgotten at the take-out.

In 2004, sick of my profession, and never having paddled or even seen in person a Hawaiian solo outrigger canoe (va'a), I had one custom made for me in Sacramento, California. I drove my magic bus 3,000 miles from Connecticut to Sacramento to pick it up.

Some terminology is necessary. The main hull of a va'a is connected to the outrigger hull (ama) by two black aluminum tubes called iakos. The va'a cannot function at all without the two iakos, which completely disconnect from the main hull and ama for cartopping.

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My plan was to "paddle" back to Connecticut via a 7,000 mile route through the western and northern U.S. and Ontario.

About 10 days into my return trip, I was on the Pacific coast of northern California, paddling a tidal creek near Arcata, California -- the Mad River -- with two women kayakers who worked in the trailer park nearby. After the trip at the take-out, I had disconnected my iakos and put them on the ground. The women asked if they could help me carry and load my hulls, so I said yes and helped them do likewise. We chatted a while and said goodbye.

I then began my eastward journey by traveling about 120 miles inland into the Trinity Alps coastal mountain range.

Yep, you got it. About 7 p.m. I realized I didn't have the iakos in my van. My $3,500 va'a and my entire return "canoe trip" were USELESS!

So, I drove all the way back to the take-out. It was pitch black by then. And remember, this was a TIDAL creek. We had taken out at low tide and the tide was now high. The place where I put down my black iakos was now under about four feet of black water -- stinking, fetid, mephitic, brackish, mucky, marsh-estuary tidewater.

I shined my flashlight into the mire, and a big severed fish head looked back at me.

Yet, I saw a metallic glint under the water. I submerged into the yuck and . . . good golly, Miss Molly . . . found my iakos wedged between some rocks. Thankfully, otherwise the high tide current would have washed them other-where.

So, after a 250 mile wasted drive in and out of the Trinity Alps, I had saved my iakos, my va'a and my return trip. Then I had to drive back into the mountains to get to Lewiston Lake. But I was too tired. I stayed in a motel instead of sleeping in my van for the first time in two or three weeks.

(I have pictures of this entire event and trip, but don't know how to get them off the hard drive of my very old Mac computer.)
 
I met some kayakers on a ww daytrip who offered to give us and our boat a ride back to our car. We forgot our paddles in their van and I thought they were gone forever, but my wife remembered one of them saying he wanted to stop at McDonalds. We knew which direction they were headed on the interstate and headed that way looking for the golden arches. We finally caught them after going about 40 miles in the wrong direction.
 
This is in the category of crucial things forgotten at the take-out.


I then began my eastward journey by traveling about 120 miles inland into the Trinity Alps coastal mountain range.

I would have said a first trip or even a forced second trip back to the glories of the Trinity Alps was worth whatever the cost!
 
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