I really don’t know why I chose camping and backpacking as a hobby.  Like most hobbies people really enjoy, I believe it kind of chose me through a series of chance occurrences.  This type of fateful manipulation reduces my need to make a decision on the subject, thereby effectively leaving me out of the loop.  In this kind of situation I am free to stand by with a confused look on my face…this is the kind of situation with which I am comfortable.

          One of the original facets that drew me to camping was the fact that it was distinguished by its lack of formal equipment as a prerequisite.  This is where the outdated term “roughing it” came from.  I recall gathering a bedroll, which I utilized until my grandmother gave me an old, used sleeping bag she had repaired.  The sleeping bag was quite a welcome piece of equipment, which saved me from a great deal of anguish associated with camping.  Not that my bedroll wasn’t warm enough – the blankets and quilts I used were usually more insulation than needed for the mild weather camping I did in my youth.  The primary problem with the bedroll was the unerring selection of my mothers’ best blankets and quilts for camping use.  I never could quite pick up on this lesson, generally commandeering materials which garnered me “wait ‘til your father gets home!” status.  I would then be alienated from my siblings and any other neighborhood kids who heard my sentence, since they didn’t want to be seen associating with a convicted person.

          Aside from beginning without a sleeping bag, I also initially did without a backpack.  It’s not that I deemed it unnecessary, it’s just that, well, when you rolled everything up in the bedroll you really didn’t need anything else …although a tandem axle trailer might have been helpful.  Naturally this didn’t carry very well but I was much too young and naïve to realize it.  Heck, the only reason I didn’t take the family barbecue and charcoal with me was the poor packing and carrying dimensions of the kettle grill.

          Anyway, camping this way was fun mostly because I was much too stupid to know how back-breaking, barge-toting , bale-hauling hard I was working.  I may have caught on to my intellectual discrepancy earlier if all my friends hadn’t been equally ignorant.  Add to this the fact that, as a kid, a hundred yards was a substantial distance (once you could no longer see your house), we never did the marathon twenty mile days some hikers do as adults.

          As I grew older I acquired more sophisticated equipment such as cold weather sleeping bags which displaced the same volume as a twin mattress and frame, a portable stove about the size of an apartment-size range top and a canvas tent with roughly the same weight as the equivalent coverage in sheetrock less the 2×4 frame support.  Of course, by the time I collected all of this, I had to buy a ’67 Chevy pick-up with sagging springs and sloppy steering in order to carry all of my junk.  Well, actually, I didn’t have to buy a vehicle with bad springs and steering.  That’s just all I could afford.

          Today, however, it is much easier to pack a great deal of equipment and necessities due to synthetics, dehydration and redesign.  For example, a warm, ultra-light, hi-tech synthetic filled mummy bag will weigh you down only about 5 pounds and further reduce your load by relieving you of anywhere from 150 to 500 dollars.  In addition, you will have time to appreciate the warmth of this technological sleeping system since you’ll probably be awake all night wondering how to sleep with your legs bound together after the fashion of a Harry Houdini escape illusion.  As a matter of fact, though many people don’t know it, I believe Houdini died while attempting the mummy bag escape trick while hanging upside down from the gear loft of an ultra-light geodesic dome tent.

          Cuisine and the preparation of food in the backcountry have also advanced on the trail of progress, so to speak.  A given amount of fuel today will release much more heat energy for cooking than an equal amount in days past.  Today’s fuels with modern camp cooking equipment heat foods quickly and efficiently without the soot and smoky-burnt taste of wood charred, er, cooked, fare.  Since many people used to cook with dry wood they picked up from the forest floor, the use of other fuels also reduces the depletion of fallen deadwood, which provides valuable habitat for wildlife.  Of course, nowadays I pack in a stove and fuel instead of burning wood so I actually have a net weight gain of several pounds.  However, this extra burden is suffered for the purposes of taste, convenience and environmental responsibility.  But then, I personally preferred the sooty palate of smoke to the delicate flavor of white gas.  Come to think of it, it would also be more convenient if I didn’t have to lose my eyebrows to the obligatory “poof” of flame when lighting the modern ultra-light, high efficiency campstove.  Environmental responsibility aside, it leaves me yearning for the days of a two-pine bonfire.

          The food we cook is also less of a burden.  It’s already lighter simply by the removal of excess fat, cholesterol, processed sugars and salt.  In many cases, if backpacking during the proper season, I simply grab a handful of the nearest available plantlife with a pinch of wild-growing herb for flavor.

           Besides the restricted diet, any food from simple fruit to shrimp Cantonese can be carried easily and lightly thanks to dehydration and freeze-drying.  This is a process whereby the food solids remain the same and only the water and flavor are removed.  Food preparation then consists only of adding boiling water.  This very naturally leads us to another recent camping concern…

          Water.  This substance used to come from the closest stream, river or brook.  Dip it out, let it settle a bit and your thirst was gone.  Today, civilization has brought us giardia lamblia, cryptosporidium protozoa, psoriasis, arthritis and a possible connection to nuclear-emotive psychosis – all from untreated water.  That’s not to mention the additional susceptibility to cavities from drinking unfloridated water.

          To combat these dangers you need to:  A) carry your own water, or B) buy a filter system you have a great deal of faith in.  If you choose to, A) carry your own water, you have to leave a little extra room in your pack and probably do without a few luxuries such as clean underwear and your portable electric nail clipper with diamond dust emery board since water weighs in at about 8 pounds per gallon.  If you choose option B), buy a filter system, you should be prepared to leave more liquid assets than just water.  Many of these systems work well in removing unwanted organisms from your water to be filtered.  For instance, it’s often so dry in the badlands that if you manage to find water, you have to blow the dust off the top before you can filter it.

          All in all, a beginning backpacker or camper can get by fairly inexpensively.  However, if it comes to the point you feel it necessary to replace some of your simple, useful, bulky equipment with swoopy, light, technologically advanced camping systems, please keep this in mind…  for this kind of money you can trade off the ’67 Chevy pick-up for a new Suburban and drive to the campsite with your old equipment neatly stowed in the back.

          Now that’s progress.