Money won't buy you happiness, I gloated (privately) as we set out on our experiment to see what measure of satisfaction different budgets will get you on the trail. I was going to prove once and for all that the gear revolution and all its billions in sales was nothing more than a big con, a marketing triumph of style over substance. Yes I was. Fancy suspension-loaded packs? Pshaah! Cushy down sleeping bags? Camp comfort for wusses. I was the Ray Jardine of the Blue Ridge and money wasn't going to come between me and my backwoods.

The rain that had been threatening all day finally got its gas as we tromped down the Old Rag fire road back toward our campsite. We'd already set camp for our first night and, after a super-fast pelt up the rocky ridge of Old Rag, we'd sure earned our sleep. But, to the first test—the rain.

My three-season abode, a roomy Kelty Gunnison 2 ($140; www.kelty.com), welcomed me back like the alien mothership as we approached our soggy camp off the Hughes River, the tent's two side entrances stretched like wings across the forest floor. Her big wingspan serves a double purpose: easy exit-entry for midnight toilet runs without disturbing your slumbering tentmate, and as perfect backcountry nightstands to keep his and her stashes dry and out of the way until daybreak. The one slight detraction of such girth is that you'll need some room to pitch this two-person marquee, as I mistakenly discovered when first misjudging the proximity of a sapling to my sprawling fly... much to the amusement of my competitive campmates. Round one humiliation aside, I fell asleep to the pitter-patter of rain on the Gunnison's fly, drifting off safe in the knowledge that the tape-sealed seams had my cozy nook covered.

Whatever you end up spending on your backcountry getup, waking up in the wild is priceless. And the Gunnison had me enjoying that treat all the more, with two see-through ceiling panels letting me suss out the sky and a breezy nylon-taffeta interior—with cheery ying-and-yang teardrop openings—filling my morning canopy with floods of light. If you're out in the woods with a loved one, this is one tent that will put the happy in campers without breaking the bank. Sure, you could go cheaper—think L.L. Bean's Microlight ($119; www.llbean.com) or an REI Camp Dome 2 ($99; www.rei.com)—but the Gunnison's specs will have you primed for short backcountry trips or easy car-camping in mild conditions.

I packed along L.L. Bean's 40-degree Katadhin ($79-$89; www.llbean.com) sleeping bag for the trip, which provided ample coverage for the mild-to-hot summer temps. Tapered at the base in a mummy-bag configuration, the Katadhin was more than enough for my nightly slumber. A Polarguard 3D fill adds insulation without the cost of more expensive down, while standing up to moisture and condensation. Additionally, the fill doesn't shift like down plumules might, allowing for reliable, warm coverage the entire night.

The big downside of a cheaper bag like the Katadhin, though, comes back to the old adage of less is more: As in, less money means more weight. Down and some other specially engineered synthetic fills, being that much lighter, decrease weight and increase compactability. But you pay for that luxury. Yes, I confess: I did glance over wistfully as my fellow campers folded up their bags to the size of small fruit. The four-pound seven-ounce Katadhin, even with the added muscle of a compression sack, felt heavy and bulky in my pack, especially as we got to some hard uphill pushes on day two. Other, lighter sleeping bags in a similar range might include the two-pound five-ounce Slumberjack Superguide ($80; www.slumberjack.com) or Marmot's two-pound 13-ounce Trestles 30 ($89; www.marmot.com).

As we shouldered our loads for our traverse to Shenandoah National Park's popular Whiteoak Canyon, my wispy, one-pound five-ounce GoLite Jam ($89; www.golite.com) backpack had me worrying I was taking to the trail with the skimpy support of a laundry bag. However, as we started a steady, grinding ascent up into the park's backwoods, I did derive some evil pleasure from the fact that my pack was surely several pounds trimmer than those burdening the backs of those with the bling.

You get what you pay for, though, and the Jam is pared down to the absolute minimum: 2,300 cubic inches of packing space, a small bellows pocket at the front, two mesh side pockets, and a wafer-thin foam back pad that you can actually ditch should you want to take minimalism to that extra ounce-counting extremity. There's no room for weighty fripperies, my friends, not even a top lid. I had originally planned to take GoLite's bigger 3,600-cubic-inch Gust, but abandoned the relative behemoth at the last minute because I just couldn't live without the external trimmings, conspicuously lacking in the bigger pack. Out with that spare pair of underwear, then, I was going light.

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And that's the thing I took from my time getting to know my GoLite ghoul. If you're going to play at being Ray Jardine, you've gotta walk the walk. You have to embrace the ultra-light backpacking ethos hard to make the weight savings count in such an unfussy pack. Yes, it's a stylish beast with cross-check detailing and robust, grippy Dyneema body fabric. And the Jam did make me pack consciously underweight, a good thing in any backpacker's book. But it's also a pack you may either love or hate: I loved hefting the bantamweight as my trailmates groaned to shoulder their heavier packs after a break; I hated when the unpadded fabric shoulder straps began to bite like cheese wire after a long day on the trail.

One component of my frugal, Jardine-esque setup that did get an unequivocal thumbs-up, both for value and for performance, is the highly regarded PocketRocket from MSR ($40; www.msrcorp.com). Whip this tiny go-go-gadget fire breather from its four-inch-long holster, thread it onto your iso-butane fuel canister, snap a match, and away you go. Camp cuisine has never been so easy. Pumping out enough juice to boil a liter of water in just over three minutes, this three-ounce workhorse is the Tyler Hamilton of the backpacking world. In less than half an hour, we were dishing out Backpacker's Pantry curry and pesto pasta fit for a king. Stable, easy to control, and super light, the PocketRocket should find its way into any backpacker's load regardless of how much dough you have to burn.

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