Duluth packs. Oh, I have a Camp Kitchen pack and a #2 Cruiser Combo with a pack basket that I still use for car camping, but no way would I take them tripping. Duluth No 3's not even useful for car camping.
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Happy Caesar Crosses the Rubicon (49 BC)! "alea iacta est" 🎲
I agree with Conk on the spork... I too am a stick-whittling forker... but I have to agree with Glenn on the ice cream thing... All I carry anymore camping though, is a Lexan tablespoon... I did once learn that a tablespoon does not make a good spatula... but if you dip it in boiling water for a bit, you can get back the bowl shape. Now if i need a spatula, fork, or whatever, I'll whittle it up pretty quick... gives one something to do around the fire in any case. On the two trips my wife's been on with me, she kept them and still uses them in her kitchen.
I rate a fork by the pointyness of its tines. To be worthy, they must be able to pierce a piece of spinach struck to the bottom of a smooth salad bowl. My wife will testify that I will bring my own fork into a restaurant or to someone's house when invited to dinner. I am very passionate to my eating utensils. Hence, my distain for the marketing gimmick with a cute hermaphroditic name. Sporking a perfectly good spoon halves its soup holding capacity while making it impossible to slurp from. Terminal notches may enhance the ability to gouge into a rock hard entrée but gouging is not part of my dining etiquette. Think of the unnamed character, who after continuous pestering, finally gives in to Sam-I-Am. He did not sample green ham with a spork but a finely sharpened three tined fork.
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For me it's heavy aluminum canoe, jeans, leather boots, rain pants, large axe, tent (I hammock now) and large lantern.
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I noticed that a couple of people had rain pants on their no-longer-bring list. To each their own and etc, but I can’t imagine not bringing some kind of rain pants, especially for off-season trips.
I admit even “breathable” rain pants are useless in a warm summer rain. I’d rather be soaked with clean rain than salty sweat, and I’m usually in shorts then anyway.
Same for strenuously sweaty work. Or for busting through some overgrown trail or greenbriar patch, where they quickly become GoreTex tatters. I am still trying to break my bad habit of snapping small deadwood over my knee while wearing rain pants. OHHHH, that’s where all those little slices and cuts mid-leg are coming from.
But for rain in cooler temps, in the canoe or puttering around camp, I sure like wearing breathable rain pants. Or just in cooler temps, sans the rain, wearing them as a wind barrier over fleece and long underwear.
What is the functional alternative for a cold rain or wind barrier?
I dont like rain pants either. I buy long raincoats that come to the knees. Problem solved.
Yep, same with me. A long enough one to keep my butt dry and I'm good.
Campmor used to have a lightweight rain shirt called a cagoule which came down to your calves but discontinued it last year. Another piece of practical gear lost to corporate expedience. Luckily I have the original I purchased, but it just reinforces my theory of buying two of everything you like, or else it will fall into the catagory of stuff you once took .....
Stuff you once took and now do not...
Attitude.
I was once young, full of vim and vigour...and full of myself. Over these years I may not have acquired wisdom, but I have felt the pangs and pain of love and loss. Humility is a good thing. Picking others up to carry, and being carried by others is a humbling experience, but also a strengthening one also. Bowing ones head to others, and seeing others bow their heads to you is not a sign of weakness, but rather a sign of strength and character. Respect and resignation is often experienced in times of woe, but it needn't be forgotten. Offering a steadying hand to a stranger's canoe as they slide up to a take-out, helping up with a heavy pack for a portage, and waving a wayward stranger in at dusk to your friendly fire is a means of paying it forward, even if it hasn't yet been paid forward to you.
I no longer have anything to prove, but have everything to learn.
Attitude.
I was once young, full of vim and vigour...and full of myself. Over these years I may not have acquired wisdom, but I have felt the pangs and pain of love and loss. Humility is a good thing. Picking others up to carry, and being carried by others is a humbling experience, but also a strengthening one also. Bowing ones head to others, and seeing others bow their heads to you is not a sign of weakness, but rather a sign of strength and character. Respect and resignation is often experienced in times of woe, but it needn't be forgotten. Offering a steadying hand to a stranger's canoe as they slide up to a take-out, helping up with a heavy pack for a portage, and waving a wayward stranger in at dusk to your friendly fire is a means of paying it forward, even if it hasn't yet been paid forward to you.
I no longer have anything to prove, but have everything to learn.
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Really well said sir and I've been trying to live by that to!
Odyssey , I think that's the spirit of sportsmanship, something sadly being lost in this here world.
Bungee cords. If any of you still use them, and like them, that's okay. When I finally forced myself to memorize a few knots, fastening stuff around camp with rope and cord became so much simpler and secure. I'm not gonna rant against bungees; they still have their uses. My wife swears by ( I swear at) a clothesline bungee with little metal clips. It's losing it's elasticity, but I'm not allowed to throw it out. Even when I tie up a taut cord clothesline, she'll rummage through our gear looking for "the real clothesline".
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In a windy camp where things refuse to stay put on the clothesline I use a two lengths of rope, one twisted a dozen or so times around the other and then pull them taut. Stick the socks and etc between the twists and there they stay.
I used to carry rain pants but never wore them so quit bringing them along. That will still be the case on some trips but after much cold and rain a few weeks ago I can see the wisdom of bringing them along. When it's been raining for days and my regular pants are wet it would be nice to take a little walk around camp without soaking my thermal underwear against all the soggy underbrush. And yes, they would have made good wind blockers on a couple chilly and windy days. Add one more thing to the shopping list for this winter.
For the same reason my camp shoes will be goretex, or something else that's waterproof, going forward.
Alan
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The wet end of rainpants is the cuff. I stopped bringing serious leather hiking boots and with my usual cheap/light nylon sneakers the water ran down my pantlegs and soaked my shoes. I wanted waterproof camp shoes with some moderate tread and arch support.
GoreTex trail runners, lightweight, comfortable, waterproof.
It is unlikely you will see me running on a trail unless I am being chased by a bear, but now my feet stay dry,
Wooden paddles.
For 60 years I was an inveterate xylophile. I loved wooden paddles and you couldn't convince me otherwise. I've had them custom made, traveled hundreds of miles to meet paddle builders, paid lots of money for many, repaired them, re-shaped them, held them, oiled them, varnished them, caressed them, slept with them, decorated rooms with them, and have two Mitchell's standing right here in my bedroom.
But I no longer paddle with them.
I've been carbonized. Inveterately.
My sacred pair of paddles for the past several years for all waters has been a 48.5" ZRE bent shaft and a 57" ZRE straight shaft. Both have the flexible shaft option, which will flex like wood and are much easier on old joints than the standard stiff carbon shafts. The 57" paddle is really two or three inches too long for flatwater touring, but I bought it longer for potential whitewater use. I probably should cut it down, but I don't have the right tools or skills.
For 60 years I was an inveterate xylophile. I loved wooden paddles and you couldn't convince me otherwise. I've had them custom made, traveled hundreds of miles to meet paddle builders, paid lots of money for many, repaired them, re-shaped them, held them, oiled them, varnished them, caressed them, slept with them, decorated rooms with them, and have two Mitchell's standing right here in my bedroom.
But I no longer paddle with them.
I've been carbonized. Inveterately.
My sacred pair of paddles for the past several years for all waters has been a 48.5" ZRE bent shaft and a 57" ZRE straight shaft. Both have the flexible shaft option, which will flex like wood and are much easier on old joints than the standard stiff carbon shafts. The 57" paddle is really two or three inches too long for flatwater touring, but I bought it longer for potential whitewater use. I probably should cut it down, but I don't have the right tools or skills.
It doesn't take skills or tools (hardly), just a little courage.
Heat the shaft where the handle joins with a heat gun and pull them apart. Once I did this and it came apart as easy as could be. A couple other times I've done it and I was sure the whole things was going to melt down or break before they finally came apart. Hold the blade in place between your feet and twist the handle. If it doesn't come loose add more heat.
Carbon cuts like butter so to shorten the shaft a hacksaw blade is perfect. Then just epoxy the handle back in place, preferably with a couple small pieces of fiberglass in the joint for extra strength. Have some denatured alcohol on hand to clean up the joint and maybe tape on either side of the seam to keep it tidy.
If you were going to cut off 3" you could probably skip the heat altogether. Cut 3" off the shaft and then use a hacksaw blade or similar to cut through the shaft lengthwise to break it off and remove the handle.
I took a wood paddle on my recent trip thinking I needed something that could handle more abuse. Dumb. My Zavs, at half the weight, have taken quite a bit of abuse without the blade splitting, which is more than I can say about that wooden club.
Alan
Alan, I know you mean well, but you have inadvertently demeaned, diminished and derogated a reputation I have spent decades perfecting: that of the most tool-less, tool-skill-challenged, chore-unmotivated and lazy-slobbish paddler (if not homo sapien) ever. And now, as icing on that upside down-cake, I'm old.
As an example, the only way I know how to glue two pieces of plastic together is to drive 290 miles to Mike McCrea's house and beg him to do it for me. (Bewilderingly, he actually volunteers to do these kinds of engineering marvels.) I'm now reluctant to do that, however, because he may have found out that I snuck a headlamp into his rec room.
I like things done right, which means most processes can't include me.
But I am good at research and can usually figure out how things should be done and at the least cost. In addition to all that fancy paddle shortening equipment you list, I figure I'd have to buy a vise and a mitre box or maybe some clamps. And then store those useless-to-me contraptions, in my midden mound masquerading as a garage, afterwards.
Final answer: Mail the bloody paddle back to ZRE and pay them to do the surgery. Maybe they'll agree to do it for free if I keep hyping their products on the world famous CTN.
To fess up, much of this diatribe has been a deflection and distraction from the most important thing I no longer take on canoe trips: Me.
I haven't paddled in almost two years now. I could, but don't. Boring story. So . . . I don't post much about my former hobby anymore either.
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