Vintage Backpacking Gear - Horrible old geezer gear!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 พ.ย. 2024
- I take a trip down memory lane and talk about some of the old backpacking gear we used in the 1970's and 1980's. Tell me about some of your vintage gear in the comment section below.
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How do you know you're getting old? Its when your old gear becomes valuable antiques.
Back in the day. My best friend and I were 12 years old. (1972). My father would drive us 70 miles to a trout lake up in the mountains. He'd drop us off on Friday and come pick us up on Sunday Afternoon. I've still got my old Coleman lantern and 2 burner cookstove. Same fishing pole, same tackle box. Those were the days. Imagine what they'd do to a parent that did that today. We didn't have a worry in the world, even with a couple bear visits in the middle of the night. Still have my hatchet from then too. Now you've got me thinking, I've still go alot of that old stuff buried under my new stuff.
That’s great. I would have been 13 in 1972 and my mom dropped me and my friends at trailheads on Friday nights too! I think they enjoyed the peace and quiet with us gone. Yes they would be in trouble today but those were different times! I was one of 5 kids so no big deal if I came up missing!
I'm thinking about doing a vintage backpacking trip in honor of my dad - this was great!
Awesome, thanks for trip down memory lane. I had a smile on my face the whole time. You know I still use my old Camp Trails pack that I got as a birthday gift in 1979. I've tried to replace it several times over the years, but I keep coming back to it.
Thank you for sharing! Was hoping you were going to whip out an original backpack too. The good old days😁
Vintage gear is fun as a hobby and still fun to use for car camping. You should form a facebook group for vintage gear heads and do a meet up once a year!
HOLY CRAP, I can't believe you still have that stuff. All the crap I bought back in the 70's is long gone.
It's awesome that you still have it and can show it. Brings back some great memories! Thanks for sharing.
I too, love old school gear. I'm a life long camper/hiker and I started in the early 80s with my BSA scout master grandfather. I remember my load out for the Desolation wilderness hike I did in the late 80s; a jansport external frame pack, I thing a 40L pack, and other random gear. I mostly wore milsurp clothes and I had a pair of mountaineering boots just like the ones you showed, red laces and all. I was young enough to not really know what uncomfortable was, so I can't complain. Since then, I've upgraded a lot of gear, but I've never became a gram counting lunatic.
Age has made me change to get lighter but I love the old gear still!
Brings me back to the early 80s. Still have my Jansport external frame pack and Alpinelite kit sleeping bag my mom stuffed and sewed. Of all of it, I miss the Sierra cup the most. Oh yeah, had the snake bite kit too. Thanks for sharing!
I meant Frostline kit, not Alpinelite...
The Jansports were top of the line in the 80's! They even had padding in the straps. I remember the kits you could order and sew yourself. It was a cheap way to get some decent gear if you could sew. Thanks for that memory.
Excellent video. Took me back to my youth, at least in spirit.
always look forward to your videos. Thanks
Love seeing the old gear, thanks for sharing!
This was a fun video to watch (and I bet it was a fun one to record too). Loved hearing your perspective as you've embraced newer technologies and a more current approach to backpacking. It's a shame people have generally stopped using the Sierra cup; if there was a nostalgia item to bring along on a trip, that seems like a pretty reasonable one (yours looks like it's a non hard-anodized aluminum).
I really enjoyed your video. It brought back a lot of memories. If you have other old stuff you should do another one. I'm 65 and have been backpacking since I was 11 in Boy Scouts. We used these cotton filled sleeping bags that our parents got us at Sears (mine had a lovely pattern of deer grazing). They were bulky and heavy and we strapped them on to the bottom of our canvas Boy Scout packs. . We didn't use stoves or tents either. We always cowboy camped and if we thought it may rain we brought shower curtain liners or some other plastic sheet to cover us. We used a fire to cook on with pots we brought from home. We carried steaks, eggs and potatoes for food. Weight was not a concern and in fact the heavier your pack was the more credit you got. When I was in my early 20s I got seriously into backpacking. I got a Kelty D4 backpack(3.5 lbs), SVEA123 stove(1.3lbs), Northface Bigfoot fiber fill sleeping bag(3.5lbs) and a Jansport Mountain Dome tent(10lbs). The tent was the first thing I ever bought on credit. The only thing I don't still have is the SVEA123 stove because I got pissed off about it always leaking fuel and threw it into the trash. Wish I kept it now. I replaced it with a Coleman Peak1 around 1990 which I still have. All the old gear is still in excellent condition. Just for laughs a few years ago I took the Kelty backpack on a weekend trip. The rangers I ran into laughed and said, "going old school aren't you?". I went car camping with some Boy Scout buddies last month and let one of them use the Jansport tent and Northface sleeping bag since he had to fly in. All this stuff works great considering each is over 44 years old. I'm thinking of doing a video like yours that shows all the old stuff. Technology (and some experience) has come a long way. On my last trip my pack base weight was 12lbs and that included the backpack, sleeping bag, tent and all my other stuff except food and water.
LOL we have very similar experiences and gear. I lend mine out to noobs. It still works. You need to make a video! It was fun making mine. My brother had that SVEA stove too and it was fussy but really cool!
When I was new to backpacking in 2007, I used a military-issue LC-Large (ALICE) backpack that was given to me by a friend when he returned from his stint in the Army in 1987. Aluminum-framed and heavy. I was advised to train with it by going on shorter hikes (great advice) before using it on long backpacking trips, so it worked for me for a few years.
I love a trip down memory lane! Had to laugh about the boots. I had a pair of heavy duty Vasque hikers in the 70's - weighed a ton. But the topo maps were my favorite - I'd have them with me today if I did any serious hiking. Thanks for sharing.
We perused our maps for hours before, during and after every trip. Navigated off trail often in my youth with these trusty maps and compass.
Hi Ape Man,, another great video. Thank you. I have a couple of Coleman canvas and flannel sleeping bags. My parents bought them in 1970. FIFTY years old! They are gigantic when rolled up, take a week to cram them into a stuff bag. But they’re great for car camping. Probably only rated down to 40 degrees, but oh well. Of course they are a big “no” for any backcountry excursions. Boy, I really miss the Sierra Nevada these days.
Ah yes the good old Coleman sleeping bags. I am one of 5 kids who all slept in Coleman bags in our canvas tent every summer. Great memories! I'm a big fan of the liquid gas Coleman stoves and lanterns and have several of each for car camping. It's my link to my childhood camping trips. My favorite is a large 2 burner version that fits 2 large frying pans. Bought it off an old dude on Craigslist for $25. He bought it in the 70's and it sat unused in his garage for 40 years and it works perfectly. I use it all the time and will pass it on to my daughter when I'm done with it.
I still have ( and use ) my Primus 123R stove. I also still use my Norlund Voyageur hatchet, my Boker pocket knife, my Sierra cup ( Ome Daiber cup ) metal match case, metal flashlight, snake bite kit just like yours, army mess kit, leather boots with Vibram soles, Zippo lighters and many miscellaneous small items. Boy scouts are especially interested in such things. If you want to confuse a youngster, you can always sharpen your pocketknives on an Aluminum Oxide stone while wearing a wool Pea Coat.
Grew up in Modesto got all my gear from the original Robbins Mountaineering Shop. Svea stove that had to be primed. The pocket knife that had a fork & spoon. The tube tent which if you touched when it was raining meant that spot would drip for the duration. Good times.
Never touch the tent! Oh yes the huge Swiss army knives that had the fork and the spoon and the kitchen sink!
Child hood into my teens (1940s and 1950s) I slept in an army surplus down mummy bag often on pine boughs Car camping. That thing was a bear to roll up, no stuffing it in those days but comfortable in the snow and well below zero, Probably weighed 10 lbs or more. Blue jeans and flannel shirt, of course with whatever jacket that would be warm, often wool. When I hiked the Grand Canyon in 1988 rim to rim and back with a few side trips, (80 miles) my gear weighed up to 55 lbs depending on my water carry. I loved my little Kelty Apollo tent, just about the lightest available then at 6 lbs. Still love it but now take my 28 oz Desert Walker pyramid tent. The pack was 80 L also 6 lbs with compartments and pockets that made it possible to leave most gear in it at night, and the sleeping bag is 6 lbs. I still have my Mark Roberts II stove/lamp combo but the canister fuel is no longer available. A set of pots quite a bit larger than the 1 L pot I now use but I could cook anything with that set up. Polypro thermal wear was the greatest latest stuff. I wore a cotton shirt and cotton shorts. Danner hiking boots. Felt like boards on my feet but took on all terrain, and wool socks with polypro liners. I used a yuca plant stalk as a walking staff, very light and strong. I couldn't carry it now so am grateful for modern gear, just wish it was as affordable as my vintage gear that I still have in great condition. I lost some height as I've aged so my pack no longer fits right. I also still have one of those external frame jobs, also around 5 or 6 lbs.
Hi Trilby! You probably get nostalgic too when you smell wet canvas. It reminds me of crawling in the family camping tent during a rainstorm and playing board games. The old stuff brings back a lot of good memories. Time to create some new memories with the new high tech stuff and be thankful it helps us to be able to get out on the trail safely at our ages!
Thanks for shaking out the cob webs . My old 69 Bill Dodge green pack . Gaz stove, used a tube tent. Yep and you always had fires at night . Always had the fishing poles. First trip was out of Wrights Lake to Grouse lake with my brother in 69 great memories. Thanks for your videos, fun to watch.
Remember having to prime those old stoves? Our trips always involved fishing and cooking them in foil on the campfire. Sometimes we lived almost exclusively on fish on longer trips. I can be at the Wrights Lake trailhead in and hour from my front door. Let's hope it will be open for hiking soon. Thanks for watching!
Great video. I've been going through my old gear as well and can enumerate a Marmot Mountain Winter Solstice tent (cutting edge for its time, but with a total weight of about 6 lbs), a Kelty D4 with extra pockets I added, hip belt I upgraded years ago (ditto, over 4 lbs), an original Thermarest pad (back when they had metal valves), five stoves (Hank Roberts, MSR XGK, Enders 263, Coleman Peak 1 circa 1976, Optimus 80), Fabio hiking boots (over 5 lbs for the pair) and ...wait, where's my Sierra cup! who stole my Sierra cup!
Awesome Video! Thank you for uploading. Can't wait to see more 😊
Don't forget the old school aluminum 5 piece mess kits that everybody and his brother had. Then there was the fork/spoon/knife set that locked together, and all slid into a pouch.
Oh and don't forget the old sheet metal Rayovac 2D flashlights.
Lol yup I had those. At the time we thought they were pretty cool!
Enjoyed the old stuff. My first backpack trip was around 1968 with my Dad who was a eagle scout. We went to Lake Arrowhead by Mammoth. My pack was an old boyscout canvas one with no frame. My bag weighed more than me, all cotton. We used a SVEA stove from Switz. It required liquid fuel and an eye dropper to take fuel and light at the base to get the air flow going. It still works and once in awhile I take it car camping with troop 26 and they get a kick out of it. Our tent was plastic from thrifty. Food was usually steak the first night and hamburgers the next night. My Dad would freeze the meat and we would store it in a snow bank which means I climbed up a mt to stash it in some snow. After that we relied on good old chef Bordee in a can. The first freeze dried food was pretty bad. I still backpack several times each year and the modern gear is so much better, but oh what memories.
Great memories. We often brought frozen meats too. I usually brought a big can of Chef Boyardee Ravioli. A bear once bit a hole in a can before I could chase him off but I ate it anyone including the bear slobber. Sounds like we liked the same foods!
very cool, thanks for sharing! hearing about the good ol days makes me a little jealous--we have it pretty good as young folks now, but backpacking sounds so unrestricted back then
Life in general was much more unrestricted back then Erik
Well done, Ape Man! Some 10 years ago when I started backpacking and climbing again and I loaded up my D4 Jansport and strapped on my Eddie Bauer Kara Koram down sleeping bag (that thing was the tits in the 70s!) and headed out of South Lake for Bishop Pass. A couple of younger hikers passed me on the trail and one said, "Hey, cool antique backpack. Did you get that on eBay?" "No," I replied, "I got it out of my closet." I've since upgraded to Granite Gear, Marmot and so forth to a base weight of 12 pounds or so.
And I remember the Co-Op in Berkeley. Talk about ahead of its time! Also the early REI. I was there when the Seattle store opened and they used 4x8 sheets of plywood and saw horses for their product display tables. It all seemed so modern at the time. That should remind us how quickly things become dated. Best to you! Can't wait to get back to the Sierra!
Ha Ha! You were stylin in the 70's with that bag! I made a couple trips to the first REI in California in Berkeley. My Co-op was on El Camino Real in Mountain View. They had organic food and even sold USGS maps. The only antique stuff I bring on the trail now is myself!
"RayBay", it's sure a sign of the times, when people, have NO idea, of what an heirloom, an object of sentimental value, IS. They think that EVERYTHING, including specifically our anachronisms, comes out of those magic houses called "eBay" & "Amazon", and that it all comes out of thin air! These overly narcissitic Millennials believe that the world did not exist, prior to what you and I would acknowledge to be the year 1999.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUDDY!! I am 70 and like you I still have that stuff too. When I started backpacking there were NO pack frames. It was a painful experience for sure. They didn't have all the freeze dried " goodies" they have today. 40 pounds was the norm. Along with the 4 pound boots and the water weight.. BUT you are right! We didn't care! We just wanted to be out there. Still going and loving the weight difference. Don't ya love a chair by the campfire that only weighs 1 lb! and a stove that is 5 oz1. Hike on brother..
I hate the prices but I love the light gear and am becoming a bit of a gear snob. My friends are jealous when they feel my back weight! You hike on too! That's awesome you are still getting out there!
@@ApeMan Nothing wrong with becoming a gear snob at our age. Would love to see what gear you have upgraded to now. Still using my Optimus or my Coleman Peak 1 Feather 442. Cheers!
Cool. I bought the old Swedish military's "filthy jar". Bought it cheap and thought it would be useful, but never used it. Have lighter cookwear
Not that different from my ole vintage gear from the late 90s. Some of it I still use! I can't give it up. It's my "old trusty".
So true. Weight wasn’t even a consideration in the early 90s
Let's not forget the "white gas" stoves - mine was the Opimus 99. Must've weighed 2Lbs w/o fuel. Had that hand soldered little brass fuel tank....
I have all that same gear except my stove was a bluet and my net hammock (always admired by my fellow hiking buddies) was white. I never used my snake bite kit. I believe I hiked Yosemite several times with a 65 pound pack. I had a thing for rigid soled mountaneering boots because they woud protect my feet. Yikes. Irrepairable damage does occur when you are that foolish...especially to the toes. There was nearly no one on the trails in the late 60's excpt for the Yosemite area. Thanks for the trip into yesteryear.
G Henrickson Bigger was not better in regards to boots. How I miss the solitude on the trails and that primo camp spot that was always open because there were just not that many people on the trail. Hope your toes recovered!
My backpack had a “summit pack” attachment. It was a very small pack that zipped onto my pack. That way you could just take that to the summit. My old pack (from the late 80s) was three times (120L) what I️ bring now.
Cowboy camping with rocks next to me. I️ still have that habit to this day. There’s always a half dozen rocks right outside the zipper of my tent.
Haha! I forgot about the rock piles. Always always had a pile of rocks next to my head ready to repel the nightly bear raids. They were out of control in Yosemite in the 80's. We used to throw firecrackers at them which I know is not totally cool but it's basically what the rangers do to the Yosemite Valley bears in the campgrounds. They shoot them with beanbags too.
I had a peak 1 expert back in the late 90s. It was a great stove but fuel was hard to find.
I used to buy my camping gear by catalog either from Sears or Service Merchandise in the 80s.
Oh yea! We had Best catalog stores too. My first backpack was a $19 dollar pack from a catalog store. Just nylon straps with no padding and my shoulders would be bloody from the friction on long hikes. I would stuff clothes under the straps for padding.
This just randomly popped up in my feed today . Surprised by the sleeping bag, didn't think Woods was sold outside of Canada, not a lot of videos about their products either.
A lot of US chains carry these cozy flannel sleeping bags like Cabelas, Eddie Baer and LL Bean. Love mine!
@@ApeMan I meant that brand name in particular because it doesn't seem to be very well known in the US
I have and still use the dreaded m1928 rucksack I got in the 70s as a teen. Not shabby for an 80 year old pack.
I still use an Alice system with a military pistol belt, h harness, 2 mag pouches and a butt pack that weighs less than 6 lbs without the waterbottle. Yes that includes a 10" knife(kukri). Ok I'm cheating cause it has a modern emergency bivy, frogg poncho, ultralight hammock and led flashloght.
But hey my kids will inherit the pack, harness and lavvu(additional 3.3 lbs per half not included above) before it wears out. Lol
While I look like a dinosaur from the 70s the weight ranges from a minimum of about 5 pounds and tops out just over 20 pounds with everything.
1972: my first backpack with external frame... 1983...my first Lowe Alpine backpack...and An Optimus 8r... My aluminium kettle is now...51 years old...
You got me beat. My first trip was 1975. Old guys rule!
We were capable. If you screwed up and got injured the best you could hope for was a couple buddies who could triple time it back to the cars, then race down the mountain to a pay phone. So 70 pounds might be a tad exaggerated but we carried gear. We carried redundancies. What we did not carry: bear canisters, bear bells, pepper spray, solar panels, water filters and poop tubes. For bear safety you slung a bag and for protection you either had your knife & prayer or a revolver, knife & prayer.
What about tube tents? That is what I used and I can tie it off into any configuration with a couple of stakes, these rubber ball grommets with wire eyes and lots of tent line. I made a single walking stick out of a broom handle and drilled a couple of holes in it to run tent line and and a rope loop for the walking stick for hiking. Also, on external frames packs, I ran with a CampTrails pack (still got, though it is retired) with a frame extension. It was a status symbol to see how far up you could carry your gear plus it rode better the farther up the weight was distributed. Thanks....
I never understood why someone doesn't make an ultralight tent using rope and a couple hiking poles? Tube tents were great! The higher the better on the packs. We used to scrape all the low hanging branches on the trail. For the undisputed champion of pack extensions do a search in TH-cam for the flextrex 37 trillion pack!
@@ApeMan yep, yep, yep, I remember that. I was down here in the San Gabriels and San Bernardinos scrapping branches and being macho. I forgot about the branch thing!
@@ApeMan Flextrek Whipsnake. You just had me laughing on that link. I had a rough day at the job, so thanks. Price of oil just went down the toliet. So take care and thank you!!!!!! I will watch more later...
Howdy, "Ape"; we need an Elaine Update, please, thank you. Back in the day, the good ole Military Surplus stores were these grand meccas for us backpackers. I got my Combat Boots there, and they were surprisingly comfortable to hike in. If they can carry a Soldier or Marine, "comfortably" over long Recon Patrols, and keep his mind from being dangerously distracted during intense firefights, by bunions and blisters, then that's one thing that the guvmint got right! And I also used to carry Italian Stiletto Swinguard Switchblades, too. The fingerguard collapses neatly along the handle, so there's nothing to snag 'em on. I suppose we can go on correcting and re-correcting each other, "Ape", but I'd always thought that USGS stood for United States GEODETIC Survey--their maps are actually priceless--because, compared with Google "Topo" View, they were GOOD for cramming far more detail upon them, than a Google View of comparable magnification; plus Google puts name places on top of places, areas, where you'd want to see what the contour squiggle is doing. These "old" maps are good for keeping imaginations fired up, for future trips.
Elaine appears to be fully recovered. On long trips we had to carry several of the old trusty USGS maps because their scale was detailed and you hiked into the next map pretty quickly. In our youth we would sit in camp looking at off trail lakes and trying to hit as many as we could where the contour lines suggested they were reachable. We learned there were many swampy bogs in meadow areas and learned that the shortest distance was almost never the fastest and avoided them if possible. Stick to the sidewalk!
Im young and i think that most of the older gear is better. That excludes the things that have actually improved which aint much. Think about it, the older things were made to last now there not to say the least. I often joke that the companies back in the day had the mindset of make the people happy so we dont have to see them again.
What. No tube tent? And let's not forget the left handed bacon stretcher.
Ha we couldn't afford the 10 dollars for the tube tent. That was enough gas money to get us to the trailhead and back!
How's your daughter doing? I hope you're all well. Looking forward to your next Sierra videos.
Elaine seems to be fully recovered. I'm looking forward to my Sierra hikes too! Hopefully it will be safe to hit the trails sooner than later!
Kelty BB5 alloy frame backpack.
That was a classic!
Yup, I bought one in 1972 and still have it!
We can all get by on less
Let’s get crazy & go camping without cell phones ... I’ll bring the compass & you bring the map... Thomas Guide lol
Remember the boy scout tube tent?
Yup - Those were high tech back then!
That was my go-to tent in scouts
Is 60s too old to start? Or stick to site camping/day hikes.
Now use cannibus
Never too old to start! THC is part of all my trips now. Great sleep aid! Start off with short overnighters with small elevation changes and go up from there.
WAYNE CO DETROIT MICHIGAN NOTICED THAT, CAN U GET A GUIDED TRIP THROUGH THE J M T.?
Yes there are several companies that offer guided trips. They can help the less experienced and do the planning and food preparation for you. The cost is very high in the range of several thousand dollars per person.
@@ApeMan THANK YOU ON A SCALE OF 1 TO 10 OUTSIDE HUNT FISH CAMP ARE 10 BUT HIKE 4 AND I WANT TO DO THE SIERRAS...JMT YEARS OF ADMIRATION...WILL BE THERE GOOD LORD WILLING...BUT WANT THE EXPERIENCE OF SOMEONE THAT I COULD HIKE WITH THAT COULD AND WILLING TO TELL AND SHARE THERE KNOWLEDGE AND ALL THE PARTICULARS,HISTORY OF THE COMPLETE AREA ,THANK YOU FOR THE REPLIE, THATS WHY I SPENT MY TIME WATCHING YOUR CONTENT, JUST FEEL YOUR PASSION AND EXPERIENCE...I JUST NEED TO PULL THE TRIGGER...SINCERELY FROM WAYNE CO DETROIT MICHIGAN SKILLED TRADE
Still have my Kelty Tioga pack i0.wp.com/popupbackpacker.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Kelty-Serac-Expedition-Front1.jpg and my Svea 123 stove
A legendary pack in the day. The Svea 123 was one of the original ultralight stoves!
I still have my Kelty BB5! (1972)
Rainmaker
☔
Went light and right. I respect it
Resources just were not there back then...neither was the knowledge or technology
We sure had fun though. I actually think some people did have knowledge because they didn't have technology but we did lots of really dumb dangerous stuff.