More on old gear...

The Optimus is a true classic.

I have a Coleman external frame pack I haven't used in years. I also have an old Coleman white gasoline lantern that hasn't been lit for a long time. The propane model is much more convenient, but when you really want to make a lot of light, nothing beats the old one.

I still have my first hiking boots with Vibram soles — purchased 45 years ago. It's been 29 years since I last wore them. I don't know why I still keep them. I'm not really big on sentimentality. The one kind-of-sentimental object I have is a clipboard. On the back I can still read in faint Magic Marker ink: "written April 12, 1966 . . . in Study Hall." — almost 50 years ago.

I still have my very first pair of mountaineering boots "Pivettas". I was 14yrs old at the time and hiked from Yosemite to Mammoth and back. Total life changing experience for me... that is where it all started.

Well I do still have the first backpack I ever bought and it is the only one I've ever bought and used. It's wearing thin in a couple of places but it will be in use, 40 years later, in June...

I washed the thing in the tub a few years back and was a bit scared that only dirt was holding it together. I can say, though, I liked the color dirty better than clean.

Woodsie, Thanks for the memories, I still have one, not used in decades.

Oldest gear we still use are late 80's Lowe Alpine Contour Mountain packs. Still great for ski touring and rock climbing.

Ah yes, my brother has had one of those stoves for the better part of 5 presidents, I should wager. Still works fine as far as I know, tho he always had to have an eye dropper in the kit somewhere to prime it just right. But there is a fine example of what good gear does. It stands the test of time.

I've come to a point in the gear hoarding cycle that I suspect every backpacker goes through, where I've got all the best gear, or least wise gear that I'm content with, and I'm just trying to wear it out now, so I can get new gear. But that's the trouble with buying high end gear to start with, it takes the better part of your life to wear it out, it seems. Well except for boots, that is. Indeed, I can wear out a pair of them in about 8 years flat. Even so, I find them still hard to part with.

I remember one romp in Glacier National Park, listening to the snickers and chortles of my trail mates as I marched along, my boot treads flapping in the mountain breeze. Loose rubber slapping against almost loose rubber with every stride. Like a tire on a semi truck about to give out. Holes in the sole, tattered leather to match the miles those boots hath seen. But I couldn't get rid of them. I always figured I could get one more trip out of them. And I did. Until one day they spontaneously dissolved in a pool of hydraulic fluid. And my socks got so dirty, and wet, I just up and threw them out, boots and all. It was time.

But it's the same story with all good gear. It will earn a place in a sentimentalist's heart. Mess kits are a real weakness for me. Tents too. I have this old 1 quart kettle, blackened from a thousand and one camp fires, up way of the Canadian shield. It is dented and abused. Tattered and scarred. One large dent from the time the trailer door came open whilst driving down the highway. All the gear stayed in the trailer, except of course, for my dear aluminum kettle, of which I could see flipping end over end down the tarmac in the rear view mirror. Of course I went back to get it. It's my kettle, after all. My port hole to a kindly tea in a savage wilderness. Save for a nice ding at it's mouth, it was none the worse for the experience, and lo, the lid stayed on the whole time. Little stories like that with your gear, is how they worm their way a little deeper into your heart, I guess. And it's hard to let them go. Nor in the case, would I want to. I feel sorry for the chap with a brand new and shiny pot, with no abrasions nor dings to report. No dents or war wounds. Means he has no stories either. No epics in the field of play. And that is the joy, the true, lasting joy of old gear - in the interwoven memories attached with those kits, of the places we campaigned, and those intrepid souls who dared to go with us. Amen.

-GJ

Muir Trails? Those were a suede. Loved mine but they were too light for a lot of my scrambling.