Hello again from St Louis

I've come back to roost after a ten year break. My userid here used to be KEN in the 90's. Last time I was here the SD divine lightning and stephensons was the cats meow, both of which I recently pulled out. Interested to see the newest innovations in lightweight hiking. I gotta lot of catching up to do.

Welcome back! I started lurking here in 2005, hoping to get my gear light enough that I could take up backpacking again after a severe knee injury. I cut my base weight by more than half!

If you want to find out all about the latest and (maybe) greatest in gear, in addition to this site try Mark Verber's website, which I've found very useful--he keeps it updated. However, before you either scream in horror or max out your credit card, note that he offers low budget options in every gear category as well as some links to low-budget sites.

I'll have to check those out. On a sidenote, my stephensons tent is still waterproof as the day I bought it. My modified nikes will have to be retired. All my patogonia clothing seems to be intact as well. My feathered friends bag has a hole in it. I'll be fixing that one. I may try out a mild hike this weekend. Actually as odd as it seems, the price of gear seems to have gone down. So far my old gear seems like it's comparable to the new stuff. I'll have to see.