Understanding Equipment

Personal Gear

This is another one of those wonderful catchall phrases that can cover everything from an 8 x 10 view camera to a few sheets of toilet paper. For a day's walk in the woods, take what you will need and what will enrich the jaunt. When you're carrying your whole house on your back, you have to be more ruthless with your whims, or you'll wind up toting forty pounds of lightweight, high-tech stuff you don't need.

What do I think is necessary for a random scoot in my nearby Huron National Forest? Sunglasses, insect repellent (which I very rarely use), toilet paper in a ziploc bag, a pocket knife, binoculars (mine are big old fat ones; I'd love a pair of the vest-pocket lightweights), a bird guide and wildflower guide, a small notebook and pen, and the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church. To me, a walk in the woods is a time for both external and internal exploration. You may be happier with a Frisbee and a harmonica. But — don't forget the bug dope, sunglasses and toilet paper!

Where To Put All This

In a pack, of course. But not the pack you'll be using for overnighting and longer trips. For day trips, you want a small pack that will comfortably hold everything you'll need, with a little extra capacity for winter jaunts.

Our family has grown up and flown the coop, taking most of their gear with them, so Molly and I range the local countryside by ourselves. We each have a small day pack and mid-sized rucksack from which to choose, and the most common pairing is one small pack each. In cooler weather, one of us will take the larger rucksack. In winter, we'll each take a large rucksack if we plan to have a hot mug-up for lunch.

When you go looking for small and mid-sized packs, you'll face a bewildering variety of gear and wide price range. Keep these hints in mind as you look.

1.Bells and whistles are only useful if they're bells you usually ring and whistles you usually blow.

2.While a subframe is usually superfluous for a light pack, a thin foam pad built into the pack helps the pack keep its shape, helps it to carry better, and keeps the edges of your bird guide from excavating a hole in your back. It is NOT sissy to be comfortable Just remember old Nessmuk's classic dictum from the turn of the century:"We do not go into the woods to rough it. We go to smooth it. We get it rough enough in town."

3.Even the most slender waistband helps to keep the pack stabilized and keeps it from bouncing. You don't need to worry about magical phrases like "transferring the weight to your hips" when you're carrying eight pounds.

4.Firmly padded shoulder straps are mandatory.

5.Lots of cute little pockets and zippers look official, but are usually more trouble than they're worth. However, a teardrop pack that's divided into a top and bottom compartment is well worth the price, and a larger rucksack with either a header (the pocket on the flap), a front pocket, or side pockets (make sure they fit your water bottle — or buy water bottles to fit) is very handy to use.

6.The price of a pack reflects its materials and its sewing time. By and large, you get what you pay for.

7.If you hike with kids, remember that they'll fuss if they carry a tiny pack-and they'll fuss more if they don't. Make them a part of the adventure rather than an onerous duty. If you walk with kids, get packs for the kids.

Strangely enough, probably the second most important piece of backpacking gear (after your head) is neither bedroom nor kitchen nor pack itself. It's what you wear on your feet-which is more than just a pair of boots. And if we didn't talk about boots when we were chatting about a day's walk in the woods, it's because casual walking with next to no equipment on your back can be done in casual footgear. Specialized terrain requires at least a look at more specialized shoes, and putting 20-25% of your weight on your back and schlepping it around up hill and down dale requires more than a look, unless you're young, strong, immune to pain, and plan to live forever. So ... let's look at boots. And at how to walk!

Boots

I've never liked the word"hiking" except as it dealt with sailboats, and "backpacking" has a macho sweatiness about it that grates on me. But "boots" has a solid, honest ring to it. There are shoes; they're made to look pretty and to protect my feet from dog droppings and broken glass. And these are boots, made to keep my feet comfortable and provide a solid working platform for me while I roam around in that wonderful country north of Highway 20. There's a difference.

Time was when boots were leather. Period. Time was when the very best backcountry boots (as opposed to mountaineering boots) were made of either full hide roughout or smoothout leather, oil-tanned, stitched to an eight-iron leather midsole, with another eight-iron midsole doubler and a ten-iron rubber filler. The union of the midsoles and uppers would be effected with a Norwegian welt, and the outsole would be a heavy-duty black Vibram lug. The resulting boots weighed maybe five pounds per pair, took forever to break in, required maintenance, and were nearly indestructible if you had the sense God gave a goose. That was then. In 1968, boots built like that could be had for under $60 a pair. Today? Don't ask.

But this might not be all bad. I think we made too much of a fetish of the Superboot back then. We all wanted to be heroes; we all wanted to look like we were departing for the North Wall of the Eiger tomorrow. Lightweight boots were bought by women, children and birdwatchers. Real Men, by God, wore Real Boots!

I still have a pair of Real Boots, bench made by the French firm of Galibier. They're masterpieces. And unless I was going on a snow or mixed snow and ice climb where I needed crampons, you wouldn't ever find me wearing them. They're just too much boot!

Hear this. If the criteria for real estate is "Location, location and location," the criteria for backpacking footgear is "Fit, fit and fit." Yes, your footgear should be sufficiently sturdy as to hold together throughout a trip. Yes, it should provide protection for your feet. Yes, it should provide a firm foundation for walking and scrambling. BUT ...

No, it need not be bombproof. No, it need not last forever. No, it need not be "waterproof."

Good grief! Uncle Harry Roberts, the Last of the Old-Time Tech Warriors, advocating what amounts to "throw-away" boots?

Yeah. Sort of. The last few years have seen a genuine revolution in backcountry footgear. The new boots, derived from athletic shoe technology and essentially untouched by human hands in manufacture, are light, comfortable right out of the box, engineered by some person who has made computer studies of what happens to feet when their owner is toting a pack up a hill, and functional. Do they last forever? Who cares?

Let me expand on that idea a bit. The only activities I can think of where the durability of a piece of equipment is often considered to be more important than the functionality of the equipment are backpacking and canoeing. I'm constantly mystified at this. I'm even more mystified at the collateral notion that "performance" is a dirty word, right up there with "stylish" in the lexicon of the average woodchuck. Thank you, I'll carry the very light tent, even if it requires more care and even if it won't withstand a summit gale on Rainier. Thank you, I'll paddle the quick canoe that weighs under 50 pounds, even if it might be a hair less rugged than a plastic bruisewater. Thank you, I'll ski on the very lightest touring skis that meet my needs rather than on some flattened water rollers that will withstand collision with a tree. Why? Because the gear that's light, responsive and designed to perform is simply a lot more fun to use. It may take a little more skill-or even a lot more skill-to learn to pitch the tent in the sheltered area, or miss the rocks with the canoe (yes, you can miss the rocks!), or miss the tree on your skis. But you spend your life doing skill-oriented things — unless you regularly stop your automobile by bouncing it off the end of your garage!

Get the neat stuff, the light stuff, the fun stuff, and learn to use it. That way, you'll return again and again to the outback, and you'll enjoy it more each time. Get the clunky stuff, and you won't enjoy it — unless you're into flagellation.

Footgear

As a Total Concept. The boot is only a part of the picture. Generally, when you buy a pair of boots-or shoes of any sort-you try them on with socks of the sort that you plan to wear with them. Otherwise, the shoe doesn't fit well. The socks, then, are a part of the whole package of protection for your feet. Unless you hike regularly in hot, damp conditions, consider wearing one pair of fairly heavy socks (I prefer a stretch rag wool) and one pair of light liner socks (again, wool is my preference) next to your skin. Why the dual sock package? The contemporary lightweight boot flexes nicely and breaks in easily, but none of us are very compulsive about keeping our boots laced properly, so they fit snugly but comfortably and don't shift on our feet as we walk. So the boots slop around. If you're wearing one sock, the boot and the outer sock tend to move as a unit, and scrub against your heel and the top of your toes at the metatarsal heads. If you're wearing a lightweight liner sock, it will tend to hang on to your foot. As the boot moves, the socks rub against each other. And I don't care if my socks get blisters!

But footgear encompasses more than boots and socks. If the trend in contemporary bootmaking is toward lightweight boots, which may be somewhat less protective and "waterproof' than boots of the past, it behooves you to look for sneaky little ways to increase protection without greatly increasing weight. (Remember that old saw about "one pound on your feet is like five pounds on your back"? You do? Take it to the bank. It's sure.) Let's look at a piece of gear that was very popular with both backpackers and ski tourers in the past-ironically, when boots were heavier. It's called the gaiter. It's nothing more than a tube of coated nylon with a zipper up the side, and a cord that goes under the bootsole. It covers the top of your boot, and excludes rain, ticks, sand, pebbles and other things that make walking a chore. Gaiters-low-cut ones for three-season travel-are simply worth their weight in gold. Don't leave home without them.