Written by Ed Jankins
Daylight was just breaking when my alarm clock went off,
it was mostly useless noise as I had been lying in bed half awake for close
to an hour, anxious. From my window it looks as if it was drizzling although
the forecast was for clearing skies. Now for the tough part, getting my son
out of bed.
No worries, the car was packed. The coffee would perk while the breakfast
sandwiches heated in the toaster oven. We were, like all good Boy Scout,
Prepared! But being prepared was no accident, it takes, well it take
preparation.
If you are like me you want to get out into a tent as often as possible, and
again if you are like me, your life is pretty busy so planning and
preparing for a trip gets put on the back burner. So how can you make being
prepared a lot less preparation?
Throw it out, you know that sleeping bag from 1983 that is still OK, and someone might be able to use, give it to Goodwill so someone can use it. Rule: if you haven’t used it in 5 years, guess what?
Make up a box with all the essentials you need for a two or three day backpacking trip, nothing more. Tent, backpack, stove and fuel, cooking and eating gear, water purification, water bottles, head lamps, stuff sacks, sleeping pads, rain gear, everything except your sleeping bags and batteries.
Make up a box with all the stuff you use just for car camping but nothing else. Big two burner stove, wash basin, big lantern, ax, big tent.
Label the outside of you boxes and bins with an index card that has an accurate inventory if what is inside.
Separate your sleeping bags by season, keep the ones not in use hanging in the closet (not stuffed) or loosely folded into a plastic containers clearly labeled.
Organize what you put inside your storage containers, use a small cheep plastic tool box to keep all your small stuff in it, head lamps, extra batteries, flint/steel, matches, carabineers, tent spikes.
Keep a separate stocked supply of zip lock bags and food containers, don’t rely on your house hold supply.
Keep a separate container for specialty equipment like crampons, mosquito netting, water shoes, stuff you don’t need on each trip.
Keep your backpacking clothing separate from your day to day and don’t wear it for anything but your outdoor fun, you look silly in wool socks and boots at work anyway.
Keep a stocked supply of “personals” baby wipes (unscented), Purel, camp soap, matches, bug spray, all the exhaustible supplies.
Buy a good battery tester.
When you return from your trip, leave some time to recover but also time to clean and repack your gear so it is ready to go again.
Keep a pad and pen near your storage area and make a list of what you need to buy and notes of what didn’t work and what did on the last trip, like the food that was good (and not), like you might want to get like better tent spikes.
Always have extra camp fuel stocked away.
Don’t be afraid to use a few moth balls or big red
cedar blocks in your containers that might be susceptible to rodents and
bugs, the smell will go away.
