Woodsie
Trail Wise!
Colorado
Posts: 272
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Post by Woodsie on Mar 23, 2016 15:02:59 GMT -8
Ohm's thread about getting rid of old gear got me to thinking... Do you have any old gear you no longer use but just can't part with for whatever reason? I still have my old Optimus 8R stove. I haven't used it in over 25 years, but can't seem to part with it. I guess I have a sentimental attachment to it since it was my first backpacking stove. I bought it in 1976 or 77. I also have a wooden staff I no longer use, but am very fond of. Her name is Matilda and she accompanied me along many miles of trails.
What do you have you can't part with?
Here's my old stove...
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Post by Lamebeaver on Mar 23, 2016 15:19:54 GMT -8
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.
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Post by hikerchick395 on Mar 23, 2016 16:41:24 GMT -8
I think I had that same stove. I wonder if I still have it. (first used in 1976...it must be somewhere...all my gear is sentimental )
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2016 17:27:43 GMT -8
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.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2016 17:37:50 GMT -8
I don't usually have attachment to things but one thing I kept. When I first took up skiing in 1975 I purchased a Woolrich down jacket. In 1990 I started taking it on backpacking trips. One of my dogs who was a year old at the time used it as his sleeping pad so I always brought it along just for that purpose on every other trip we took. He last went backpacking with me in 2002 and passed two years later. I hung it in a closet after his last trip and it's still there. Never even thought about taking it for any of my other dogs. One of these days I'll give it to Goodwill.
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christye
Trail Wise!
Livin the Life
Posts: 31
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Post by christye on Mar 30, 2016 6:11:09 GMT -8
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.
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FamilySherpa
Trail Wise!
Tangled up in Rhododendron
Posts: 1,791
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Post by FamilySherpa on Mar 30, 2016 7:00:53 GMT -8
I still have the first backpack I ever purchased (have since been thru 4 others). Convinced to this day I will use it again.
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Post by hikerchick395 on Mar 30, 2016 8:03:36 GMT -8
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.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Mar 30, 2016 9:32:58 GMT -8
I have a pair of Fabiano alpine climbing boots I used with crampons on Gooseneck glacier on Gannett Peak (in the Wind Rivers) in about 1990. I haven't done any real alpine climbing in many years, but I've kept the boots.
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Westy
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Diagnosed w/Post-Trail Transition Syndrome
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Post by Westy on Mar 30, 2016 10:20:19 GMT -8
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.
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Post by hikerjer on Mar 30, 2016 10:30:03 GMT -8
Lets see. I still have my original Optimus 8R and it works like a charm. I have an REI McKinley down bag purchased in 1974 that's lost some loft but it's still serviceable. I have my original Kelty Super Tioga pack which I use on rare occasions. And a blue closed cell pad that's slowly beng cannibalized for various uses. I have two Wilderness Expreience day packs - circa early 70s - that I still use for knocking around town. Thery are among my favorite pieces of gear and a lot of odds and ends laying around I just can't seem t part with. Too many good memories. Oh, and an old pair of Fisher Europea && cross country skis.
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Post by Grizzly James on Mar 30, 2016 13:43:17 GMT -8
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
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christye
Trail Wise!
Livin the Life
Posts: 31
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Post by christye on Mar 30, 2016 13:44:01 GMT -8
I would post a pic if I wasn't stuck in Fairbanks for a couple weeks. I broke the lift in my truck It is break up here... the road to my cabin is more of an atv trail. The perma frost has turned into a massive sponge and in some areas the mud is up to my floor boards.. Quite deep since I have a pretty hefty lift on my truck. I guess when I was plowing through I hit something that broke a leveling spacer thingy that's not suppose to ever break.. lol
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Post by High Sierra Fan on Mar 30, 2016 17:18:49 GMT -8
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. Muir Trails? Those were a suede. Loved mine but they were too light for a lot of my scrambling.
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rebeccad
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Writing like a maniac
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Post by rebeccad on Mar 30, 2016 17:31:52 GMT -8
I marched along, my boot treads flapping in the mountain breeze. Loose rubber slapping against almost loose rubber with every stride. Reminds me of the old Bill Cosby routine about the loose sneaker sole and the cordouroy pants... "Vroom-vroom-flap. Vroom-vroom-flap."
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