Wilderness Gearheads

After packing my own gear for a five-day backcountry kayak trip (see previous post), I figured it was time to check in with the others to see what I'd forgotten. Paddler Mo sent me his high tech gear list. While my husband and I are taking tide charts and topo maps of the river, we're depending on Mo and one of the other paddlers to put the coordinates into their GPS systems.

Here's Mo's list for a five-day backcountry paddle:

1. A Canon G5 point and shoot camera with a Hitachi 1GB microdrive. He writes that he keeps this on his top deck in a waterproof Pelican box.
2. Also in the box is a three-LED Petzl Zipka headlamp and a spare battery for the camera. Good to keep within reach.
3. A Nikon D-100 with a 17-35mm lens and a 70-300mm zoom lens with a 4GB compact flash card is kept in a dry bag that will stow in one of the hatches. In a separate dry bag, he keeps two extra Nikon batteries and two extra compact flash cards (2GB each) and a 1GB IBM microdrive.
4. Mo brings a Nixvue Vista 30GB digital album that he can copy the filled flash cards to, giving him even more digital film to shoot. And of course, since the battery life of the Vista is not too good, he carries a spare battery for it as well.
5. Other gear includes an older ICOM IC-M3A VHF marine radio and also an older Garmin GPS 12XL, both carried in waterproof pouches. They both use AA batteries, so of course Mo carries a bunch of extras along.
6. For additional light Mo uses a second Petzl three-LED headlamp and for good measure carries a Pelican SabreLite LED submersible flashlight. He says it's extremely bright and can be seen a long way.

What strikes you about Mo's gear? Two things strike me. One, it's going to be a tight fit to get that gear in alongside the sleeping bag and tent. Two, we really need a better answer for long-lasting batteries if we're going to keep taking gear along on our trips, don't we?

We'll keep you posted on how our gear holds up, whenever we can.