Bedroll Backpack

2016-08-07

Angie and I are hanging out in the Adirondaks, and decided to play with bushcraft. So, we went on a little backpacking trip. To make it interesting I decided to try a really minimal kit.

Here's all the gear I carried: It's a linen sheet underneath (mostly because I'm allergic to wool) and a sheet of wool felt on top (left over from the wool coat I made a while back). The stuff off the blanket was all carried seperately, mostly on my belt. The pot/water-bottle was carried on a string slung over my shoulder.



The only plastic here is my fly-fishing kit, my drugs, my flashlight, my poncho, and food packaging... pretty cool!. I wore a pair of pants which are part nylon as well, and leather shoes with rubber soles. I also used to nylon straps as shoulder straps (because I didn't happen to have leather straps lying around at the time).

Here's what it looks like packed up (with a saw tucked in as well, we thought we might try and build a shelter, rather than using the poncho).



The trip didn't work out so well, it was solid boggy swamp, perfect moose habitat (as demonstrated by the moose dung and moose prints virtually everywhere). We got pretty wet and gave up when we realized we had to ford chest deep mud to continue...

BUT, back and camp, I slept out with this gear anyway. To make it a bit warmer I slept next to the fire, and since the fire was in a car-camping camp-site the ground was solid, so I used a foam pad. It was neat using a fire to stay warm overnight, and worked surprisingly well. I had tried it before, and have a hole in my backpacking quilt to prove it, but using wool I could actually be close enough to really stay warm without worrying about that problem.

I think I'm going to try this setup again. It's getting really close to an ultralight backpacking kit that I could actually use. It's not warm enough to handle cold nights without a fire, but it definitely opens some new possabilities