Ray says that he can smell when my backpack is in the house. Ray really dislikes the smell of backpackers in the car when he picks us up at the trail headed for town and a shower. We backpackers can’t smell ourselves when we are trail dirty, but when I’m not on the trail and I’m clean, I can smell my backpack and all the contents/clothing that come out of the yucky pack. By the way, it’s suggested when we backpackers are hitching a ride to a trail town we attempt to clean up a bit for the poor driver that stops for us. I wonder how many other backpackers carry wet ones and little individually wrapped deodorant packets?

I have once before cleaned this 8 year old McHale pack. I wouldn’t carry another backpack because of the way this McHale carries weight. I just hope it holds up for another 20 years! It just might. But it definitely needed a good cleaning. I brought a brush and laundry detergent into the shower with me this morning. The pack may still look dirty but it no longer smells! There are two emblems sewn on the backpack, one is the McHale logo and the other………Is one of three of the most important items I own. The emblem sewn above the McHale emblem is the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail) 2600 mile finisher emblem.

The second of the most important items I own is a plaque a very special friend (I never hear from anymore, and I don’t know why) had made for me after I thru-hiked the PCT in 2002. Under a photo of me on the plaque is written, “If you have a goal you want to accomplish….Just go do it!!!” uffda
And the third of the most important items I own was made for me by my best buddy, LR. I was on an Outward Bound in September, 1977 attempting to learn how to backpack. That’s where I met LR. One of the days during this Outward Bound we all had to do a mountain peak ascent. I got altitude sickness and had the worst time of my life, but made it. A couple weeks after the Outward Bound ended, LR sent me a wall hanging containing two photos of me, one photo where I am exhausted and passed out with my backpack resting next to me, shot after my very first mountain ascent, Mt. Henry in the Sierra. The inscription under the photos reads, ” You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true.”

Pack drying, after a good scrub in the shower.

Most backpacker’s carry less weight than I do. It’s been said that the more fear one has, the heavier their pack will be. Well, my base backpack weight is still heavier than most other lightweight backpackers. My base weight, no matter how I try to lesson it, always remains about the same at 21 pounds. But…….my pack carries weight better and lighter than the ultralight backpackers’ packs do with their really light-frame-free backpacks.

Gear layed out that's going back in the backpack.

Boy, this blog was supposed to be about my backpack and gear. I just went down memory lane. Fond memories.