I was talking to a fellow hiker and when he told me of some of the things he always packs I didnt have the slightest clue what he used them for but after he told me it made sense.. What are a few odd ball items that u always pack and what are the uses???

Care to share some of the items he told you about to get a feel for what you are talking about? Your 'oddball' may be and probably is different than many other people's definition of "oddball"...

Agreed --- some things seem normal after you've gotten used to them, whereas from another perspective, almost everything in our packs could seem odd to someone with no backpacking experience.

I'll start, nevertheless. I carry a couple of bread bags, i.e., the plastic bag that a loaf of sort of standard sliced bread comes in. Get the food smell off it, of course.
Why carry these? I have just one pair of hiking footwear, quick drying (but quick to get wet) trail runners. If it's wet (and possibly cold) then when I setup camp I change into dry socks and put the breadbags over them to keep the wet shoes from getting the socks wet. In unusually cold weather they double as a poor man's VB (vapor barrier) socks.

Okay, here's another one --- use a snow/sand stake (a single one) in lieu of a trowel. Not as good as a real trowel, but it's light, and doubles as a good soft-soil tent stake (or just spare tent stake) when needed.

How about small squares of ccf to put into the backs of socks for colder nights? I.e., increase the effective thickness of insulation at the backs of heels.

a frisbee. It serves as a cutting board, a plate, a snow shovel, a seat, and of course a frisbee!

Carrying around twenty inches of Colombian steel is odd to many, but a necessary tool here. Brum

Do you mean something even more odd ball than myself?

I don't know if these items qualify as oddball, but I don't see many people carrying them. Since I'm a high lakes fisherman part of my routine is to perform lake surveys on all the alpine lakes I visit. I carry a water thermometer, a fish weight scale, and sometimes a length of cord to measure (plumb?) the depths from my raft. I enter this data as well as other water/shoreline info into a database.

Cliff

BrianLe
I usually have at least 4 spare plastic shopping bags, and have used them as you do with your bread bags. Great idea since those are obviously a bit more "sock" like...
My shopping bags are used to carry out rubbish,hold wet gear and as a back up for my food bag, a heavier duty version from a clothing shop.
Sometimes, particularly when I use the ULA Amp, I have a garden knee pad with me, that is my frame pad,my seat and part of my pillow
My pillow is usually a wine cask bladder wrapped up with a shirt inside a stuff sack covered with a pullover or puffy jacket. Tot extra weight less than 1 oz.
Franco

No, Cliff, that's not odd... that's actually pretty cool. Good for you, thanks for your effort. Brum

I often take my favorite teddy bear Dewey on dayhikes and 2-3 day trips. He is the best little morale booster I know of (aside from my fiancee).

Hi Franco. I bring a couple of light shopping bags too; bread bags aren't big enough to put my trail runners into at night, and shopping bags are better (bigger) for a food bag liner or picking up trash.

Wine bladder pillow:

"My pillow is usually a wine cask bladder wrapped up with a shirt inside a stuff sack covered with a pullover or puffy jacket."

I tried this, and I could just never get the "old stale wine" smell out, and was a little concerned about the possibility of nasty stuff growing in there. I guess I could have used some more serious cleaning attempt, but unless I'm missing something, the only way to try to clean out one of these is to pretty tediously encourage a very small stream of water to enter the bladder via the built-in plastic fawcett.

I'm going to try the Montbell UL mattress and pillow, once the pillows are in stock again, but am curious whether I missed a trick with the wine bladder idea, as they do seem tough and pretty light. And also offer more backup water capacity at need. The price is right and, dang, "sorry dear, but I need to drink a bit more wine over the next few days so I can get a pillow in time for my next hike" ... <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

BrianLe
Just rinse the bladder with some water mixed with a few drops of bleach. That will kill anything....
Franco

Well first things first - Most people think I'm just pretty oddball on the trail. When the look a me (big) and the little bitty pack on my back they often ask "where did you come in from?" - the usual
reaction of someone who meets me halfway through 50-60 km of trail, looks at my pack and thinks
I'm an adventure racer or something, then looks at my physique and if you're carefully watching them you can kind of see the moment when their brain goes "does not compute..."

I get the standard slew of oddball questions about my stove, my hammock, my tarps, etc from traditional backpackers. Most of them are then astonished with how little I'm carrying, and then think it a little weird that I still carry a butt sized square of ccf for a bum pad and to stand on under my hammock in the morning. if they comment my ususal reply is "Any fool can be uncomfortable" <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Those that actually get past the usual lighter weight stuff that nobody here would find that odd often find I'm a little strange for My underhammock insulation. which starts with an ID silponcho rigged under my hammock bottom. I carry (depending on how cold it is) a couple of wadded up ratty space blankets that get added up between the hammock and the poncho to act as an airgap for insulation. In colder weather I also carry hammock sized sheet of wally world sewing department insulation - smushed into an ultralight compression sack with my sleeping bag. I've been talking to strangers while rigging that up and if they don't look at me a little funny when I pull out the space blankets and stuff them inside, their eybrows go up pretty good when I open the compression sack and start pulling out what looks like a destroyed sleeping bag instead of a sleeping bag.

Well, I almost never find myself with my cribbage board. Excess weight? Yes. Essential...yes. Suppose I could use it as a cutting board too, but never have.

Matt

Water and baking soda will kill the smell. I had cranberry and vodka in a nalgene for 8 months and one wash and some baking soda its good as new.

I've started carrying a couple of doggy-poo bags (unused of course) to use as others use bread bags for. They seem like they'd be a little more durable to me. They work great to keep socks dry in the winter or as a waterproof mitt. You can flip it inside-out and it makes a dandy wash basin as well. Not too shabby for 4 grams.

Adam

I was wondering who taught my scouts this! It never ceases to amaze me how our 11-13 year old scouts always has a stuffed animal with them. My youngest son took a dragon.

I see some cool pillow ideas here!

Some friends of mine always have a stuffed toy with them. He's ended up in a few of my pictures:

There's a squishy pillow company I posted about last year that makes a Camo Bear; and it works great for a kid's, or adult's camp pillow, and companion on those bad weather nights <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

I carry a large, used FedEx envelope. They are made of a form of Tyvek that is waterproof but not breathable. Around here (Missouri) the ground is usually a bit damp. I use my envelope to sit on when I'm tired, kneel on while I cook, and set my pack on when I'm packing/unpacking. I got something in the mail one day that was fairly large and as I was getting ready to throw the envelope away a light went on in my head. It weighs almost nothing and takes up almost no space and now I don't have soggy knees at dinner time!

Oddball but very useful.

Heber

You use doggy poo bags for your feet, whereas I use the plastic shopping bags for doggy poo! I keep half a dozen in the bottom of my dog's pack and have been known to use them on my muddy boots in the tent.

I always double bag the doggy poo ever since the time I discovered, about 20 minutes after I'd bagged the poo and tied the bag to my belt loop, that the bag had a hole in it.... <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Another item I have that is a little oddball is veterinary wrap in my first aid kit. It can serve the same purpose as ace bandage (with a little exterior reinforcement from duct tape) but is much lighter, is self-adhering and, of course, can be used to bandage my dog.

Like others here, I probably have some other items that would look weird to someone else but are just what I need.

Pringles. Always gotta have them. Then I always end up with the can which ends up being useful for all sorts of things. Mostly for packing out garbage and setting up chipmunk traps but it seems like everytime we go out we discover a new use for the pringles can.

My 16 year old son because it's just habit now....as for uses, i don't believe he has any , yet........... <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

tell me about the chipmunk trap <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> You can use the pringles crumbs for really good firestarter since they're 50% oil <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" /> Of course no pringle eater would let you use a good whole pringle, that would'nt be right <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

You must be VERY careful with those Pringles, especially the ones made with olean (sp?)

Here is a link from Whiteblaze that had me crying tears I was laughing so hard.

Be warned though - this is really graphic and gross!
Foul language has been edited out but you'll get the meaning.
If any moderator wants to delete this they can.

http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/showthread.php?t=21020&highlight=olean

Man! Another danger to add to the list: Sunburn, hypothermia, snakebite, bears, mountain lions, blisters, and now..."anal leakage."

This could spawn an entire thread of "accident" anecdotes. Mine was in Turkey, but I'll spare you...

Ok, crude yes, butt, I'm still laughing here.

Here's a link to a news article (not so crude), but it gets the point across. Brum

http://www.cspinet.org/new/olestrapr_041602.html

Dude...that's just TOO manly ! Now where did i leave my Mountain Hardwear hiking kilt? <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

http://www.backpacker.com/article/1981

http://www.mountainhardwear.com/Product.aspx?top=1241&cat=1282&prod=39

Newspaper. Can use it for extra padding on your back, stuff it in your shoes when you get a soaker, and it's always nice to have a back up in case the tp runs out.