The Things I Carry

San Jose, California
September 30, 2001

A few days into my Nepal trek - don't carry too much or you too will have a sore back. I had about 50 pounds of stuff.

My new Eagle Creek World Explorer backpack refuses to accept one more thing. Not a roll of film. Not a waaaahfer thin mint. One-third of my clothing and equipment still lie on my bedroom floor, mocking my planning and packing skills. Doooooooh! Revelation: a 5,100 cubic inch car engine is big, a 5,100 cu in backpack is not.

My medical kit hogs the most space. Covering every possible medical contingency, from blisters to broken bones, the custom designed and meticulously arranged gear takes up the size of a large dictionary: Band-aids, gauze, Kerlix, EMT shears, cloth tape, tweezers, Hibiclens, Second Skin, moleskin, latex gloves, ace bandage, butterfly stitches, iodine, Ciproflaxin, Flagyll, Benadryl, Larium, Vicadin, Motrin, Immodium, and condoms. I could support a SEAL team in Afghanistan. I must be getting old.

Nothing in the pack feels familiar to me. I just bought everything new since ‘regular’ clothing does not ‘work’ when backpacking around the world. This endeavor requires more ‘specialized’ gear, made of new fabrics: polypropelene, capilene, bergelene; everything ends in –ene, except my Gore-tex. I flip over the label on my new clothes: 100% polyester. Wait a minute, this is what our astronauts wear!? High-priced polyester, which fashionistas lampooned in the Eighties?

Backpacking, as I discovered driving across America, is not cheap. No longer content with Army-Navy surplus, we carry $300 Eagle Creek packs, filled with $50 Columbia convertible pants (“Two zippers open makes you comfortable. Three makes you a pervert”) – I love that!

Columbia shirt with epaulets $45, Patagonia boxer shorts $30, North Face fleece $65, EMS thermals $60, North Face rain jacket $225, Merrell hiking boots $140, and my favorite Thor-lo hiking socks $14 (four pairs)…and a slipped-disc carrying all this…priceless.

Some guidebooks suggest three categories of gear: essential, nice-to-have, and luxury, when packing for a trip. After two weeks of staring at the array of stuff on my floor, arranged like a surgeon’s tray, I cannot tell the difference. Years of business trips spoiled me; I wore a suit, packed an extra shirt, tie, and toiletries, then hopped a cab to JFK. Packing for climates from tropical Amazon jungle, Antarctic wasteland, Saharan desert, and Himalayan highlands boggles the mind. I decide to cut my packing list in half, solving my dilemma. Setting aside supplementary gear ‘packages’ at home, one for mountains, one for tropics, one for Antarctica, I will rely upon Mom and FedEx to keep me properly equipped on my journey.

As I travel, I expect that new acquisitions of native garb, with resplendent colors, will replace worn ‘high-tech’ clothes as I meander. Local products might beckon, despite the Gillette, J&J and Duracell products lining shelves from India to Uruguay. My pack, meticulously filled with oh-so-familiar items from home, will give way to more new, exotic finds. After all, isn’t shedding the familiar and embracing the new what travel is all about?