Core77

Products are interesting, but highly specialized products even more so. One of the reasons we get more excited about high-performance cars than regular passenger ones, or precision machine tools over the sort you find in a typical garage workshop, is that such objects tend to wear their functions on their sleeves. Fast cars look fast because that's their primary reason for existing -- anything that doesn't work toward this end tends to get left off, and a new development that speeds them up tends to find wide acceptance in short order.

I don't drive fast cars, but I like to go on long walks. And in a smaller, more humble way, backpacking gear has a similar clarity and honesty to its design. Aesthetics, accessories, and comforts still exist in such goods when they can, but almost always in profound deference to function, durability, and most crucially, light weight. This is what makes such gear so fascinating, and why I spent dozens hours in my teens and early twenties poring over Campmor and REI catalogs the way some kids I knew obsessed over automotive magazines.

I'm off on vacation starting this weekend, and we all agreed it would be an interesting exercise to catalog the gear I'll be hauling along, especially given the nature of the holiday: a 211 mile walk called the John Muir Trail, that rambles at high altitude, without meeting a single road, from Yosemite National Park to Mt. Whitney in California's Sierra Nevada mountains. It's by far the longest trail I've attempted, and the weight and durability requirements on accompanying gear are exceptional.

Here's what's coming along, categorized (with a respectful nod to the late, great Colin Fletcher, who used similar terminology in his classic Complete Walker reference series) by the "room" of the house that the gear approximates -- for a backpacker's kit is nothing more than an extreme distillation of the home he or she has left behind:

Kitchen (left to right): butane lighter, double-walled plastic mug, Victorinox Swiss Army knife, polycarbonate spoon, spatula, coffee maker with lid, microfiber rag, hard anodized aluminum pots, MSR Dragonfly stove with fuel bottle and windscreen

Comments: Food is eaten out of the pot or the mug, which is quite well insulated and extremely light; a great example of materials advancement translating to improved performance. The knife is a "Tinker" model, one of the few to dispense with the corkscrew in favor of a Phillips head screwdriver -- I've yet to have need of either, but it seems more likely I'd want to screw something down than open a bottle of wine at 12,000 feet. The problem with Swiss Army knives is that I usually only carry one when on vacation, which isn't all that frequently, so I lose and re-buy one roughly every two years. Good thing they're still under US$25.

The coffee maker is a new investment, brought on by an increasing caffeine addiction and aversion to instant. I'm kind of in love with it as well...the epitome of backcountry design. All you really need to make coffee, after all, is hot water and a filter. That's it. Anything else is an accessory. The stove is pricey, but incredibly light and powerful. It's also easy to fix, an advantage of minimal construction. The burner broke loose from its gimbal last year, and was repaired in five minutes with some bailing wire and a pair of pliers. Try doing that with a microwave.

Living Room: paperback book, magazine, candle lantern with spare candle, notebook and pen, LED headlamp, deck of cards

Comments: The lantern is a bit of a luxury -- you can get by on just headlamps, but this is 5 oz of pure atmosphere when writing or playing cards after dark. I'd like to say I chose a reporter's notebook for its efficiency or ease of handheld use, but it's all I had around the house that was lighter than my Moleskine (and that's too heavy). Curious to see how it works out. Reading material is non-negotiable.

Workshop/Panic Room (for lack of a better term): steel mirror, first aid kit, whistle, bailing wire, parachute cord, fishing kit, space blanket

Comments: The emergency stuff you hope to never need: the mirror is for signaling rescue aircraft, the whistle to signal distress, the blanket and fishing kit to keep you from freezing or starving. One of the weirdly compelling things about backcountry travel is the degree to which extreme situations must be acknowledged and prepared for. It's one thing to have airbags in your car, but quite another to carry their equivalent around in your pocket all day.

Plumbing: collapsible bucket, water bladder, iodine tablets, MSR Sweetwater filter pump with carrying bags

Comments: Strange to think that a good 10% of the weight on your back is there solely to prevent contracting waterborne gastro-intestinal disease; in the Sierra, this usually means giardiasis. The iodine is for backup in case the pump fails; the Ziploc keeps the contaminated intake hose separate from the rest of the gear after use.

Roof: North Face Tadpole 23 two-person freestanding tent

Comments: Not much to say about this...it's a tent. It keeps the wind and rain off. It looks like this when assembled:

Storage: Mountainsmith Revolution 6000 internal frame pack

Comments: I've had this for over a decade, and it's not a great pack. The padding on the back is too soft, leaving the metal stays to rub against the spine occasionally, and the compression straps don't secure the load sufficiently. It is big, though, and the detachable summit pack is nice. Mostly I hang on to it out of sentiment and frugality: it's got chew holes in it from salt-seeking marmots, and a decent replacement would cost upwards of $400.

Transportation: Komperdell Ultralight trekking poles, Adidas Supernova trail runners, Danner Mountain Light boots, Suunto liquid-filled compass, topographic maps

Comments: The poles are a new thing for me -- I've historically used a fallen branch as a staff and played Gandalf -- but the need for light weight and stability over high passes made me a convert. The tag says they're from Austria, but they feel like they were made on Mars, with carbon fiber shafts so light they seem ready to float away. The snow baskets seem like affectation but they're not: high passes in the Sierra frequently stay snowbound into August.

The boots are among my most treasured possessions. I've had them for 14 years, have walked at least 1000 miles in them, and recently had the outsoles and heel stays replaced because the uppers are still doing just fine, albeit at a repair cost greater than the purchase price of a cheap pair of new boots. The shoes are for camp use and peak-bagging. The maps are probably the most important piece of gear depicted in this entire series.

Bathroom: plastic trowel, toilet paper, toothbrush, razor, "sun & bug" cream

Comments: This "room" is unusual for containing the most "real world" items: the toothbrush and razor are the ones I typically use, and TP is TP. The trowel is kind of cool because I bought it 16 years ago, and the ones on sale at outdoor stores today are absolutely identical. Sort of like a shark, it's gotten so optimized, there's no need to evolve any further. The cream, by contrast, is a recent invention. After decades of applying sunscreen and then insect repellent, someone had the bright idea a few years back to put them into a single bottle. Evidence of our ingenuity, or idiocy?

Bedroom: LL Bean High Camp down sleeping bag, REI self-inflating sleeping pad

Comments: At a half-pound premium over a simple closed-cell foam mat, this is quite an indulgence.

Not pictured: food (packed in locking bearproof canisters), clothing (the typical combination of fleece, nylon and Gore-Tex that pretty much everyone sports these days, in an array of earth tones), more extensive first aid kit carried by my walking partner, camera.

Notably absent: GPS, digital watch, digital compass, or anything else (other than the headlamp and camera) electrically powered. As you step away from electrical infrastructure, relying on batteries for anything is a dicey proposition.

Three weeks hence, if all goes well, there'll be a follow-up post comparing expectation with performance. Does an inflatable pad become an unforgivable extravagance once you haul it over a 13,000 foot pass? Would a GPS have averted a tragic death? We'll let you know. Meanwhile, wish us luck.