Lightning the Load

[Sford13]

So in this day and age of all the gadgets and gizmos for camping. How many out are looking at their gear and actually trying to reduce it than add to it. There will always be items like possibly a coffee pot that we would never think of leaving behind. I am talking more some of the redundancies we carry. Like firewood and a propane stove. Why not leave the stove at home and cook over the wood. Isn't camping suppose to be getting back to doing things simply and getting back to nature. But we want to drag along all our comforts. Even us tent campers are guilty of this. One of my goals this next year is to reduce my gear by roughly half. And I really don't think it will leave me wishing I had brought something either.

[Bigdog57]

Having become a 'motorcycle camper', I learned quickly just what is and is not needed. I can carry more than a hiker but less than a car camper.

[renodesertfox]

I'm guilty! Yet with all of our children grown and out of our nest except the last one, you would think that we don't need much. The more we have the deeper we can get into the desert or mountains. I like the idea of not carrying much but when push comes to shove when younger I slept under the stars, cook on campfires and backpacked quite often. We like our tenting creature comforts!:eek:
I'm not signing up to carry less.

[Sford13]

Well I can truly say that I have been on both extremes of this. With revolutionary war re-enacting it was what ever would fit into a bag over your shoulder. And for fire it was flint and steel. Not fancy modern day flint and steel either. Also did a bicycle trip where all gear was hauled on the bike. Those were the bare minimum roughing it for real days.

Than I have gone camping where I hauled an extra tent to use more or less as a storage shed for all the stuff I brought along and most of which never got used. Just trying to get us to think about things we pack along and feel are necessary but never ever use.

For me I hope to find a happy medium between the two. Maybe a little more on the bare minimum side. But I am sure as years go by what I today see as a luxury will then be considered a must have. After the re-enacting a good sleeping pad or air mattress is one of those items.

[Eaglebait Ranch]

Now, here is a thread I can get in to........ Susan and I cut tags/strings off of whatever it is in order to lighten our load/s. Granted, it has been difficult wheening Susan away from her propane stove, but she has come around. We carry a small pie cooling rack as a "grill", one pot, chopsticks, and a bowl for food preparation. The food we eat when out on the trail we dry from early fall (fresh fruit/veggies from garden) through winter (sauces, etc) and rehydrate the next meal on the trail.

That is just a quicky of some of the things we do. If anyone wants suggestions, help, ect., on this, please let me know.

Chuck

[Sford13]

Now, here is a thread I can get in to........ Susan and I cut tags/strings off of whatever it is in order to lighten our load/s. Granted, it has been difficult wheening Susan away from her propane stove, but she has come around. We carry a small pie cooling rack as a "grill", one pot, chopsticks, and a bowl for food preparation. The food we eat when out on the trail we dry from early fall (fresh fruit/veggies from garden) through winter (sauces, etc) and rehydrate the next meal on the trail.

That is just a quicky of some of the things we do. If anyone wants suggestions, help, ect., on this, please let me know.

Chuck

Chuck

Do you find that water is an issue with rehydrating foods? I know from doing some bicycle touring and camping that I took canned foods because the water was important to hydrate me. And the savings of space/weight of the dehydrated food was not worth the water it would use to rehydrate. Now the fruits and stuff that you can nibble on still dehydrated love that. Apples are some of my favorite.

Steve

[Eaglebait Ranch]

Steve,

No problem rehydrating. We have two Tupperware drinking cups w/lids. In the AM, put sauce "leather" pieces in cup, add water, put on lid, store in pack......... By diner time, and the bouncing around of the pack aids the hydration and sauce is now ready to be added to angle hair noodles for dinner!

After evening tea, add 3 halves of dried peach or apricot to the "soaking cup", add extra hot water (left over from making tea/whatever), & put the lid on. By morning, there is rehydrated fruit w/ a medium thick syrup. We also use dried strawberries and blueberries, and see no reason why apples wouldn't work, too.

All winter long, Susan and I make extra sauces for whatever we are going to enjoy, knowing we don't follow recipes so they all taste different. We then dry them and store them in quantities of "individual servings" in sip lock bags - putting a soda cracker in each bag to absorb any extra moisture.

Then, when we get a wild hair to head out, all we have to do is start collecting 3 pieces of dried fruit for each breakfast, and put them in one zip lock bag, and grab zip lock bags out of the "sauce" box for the number of dinners we plan on, and we have breakfast/s and dinner/s almost covered.

I hope that helps, some. If not, ask away.

Chuck

[Bigdog57]

Chuck, that would work well here too! With a source of water never far, as long as we have a filter or other purifying means, we always have water, so hydrating stuff isn't a problem.