I have an old notebook from 1971 with my gear lists.
1971 general comping gear list:
boy scout canvas pack
Sears rectangular cotton batting stuffed sleeping bag
matches
flashlight and spare bulb
first aid kit
8'x10' 6mil plastic ground cloth/tarp
compass
tooth paste and brush
spoon
Sierra cup
1 quart aluminum pot from BSA cook kit
large coffee can with top half cut off - for heating water
green plastic Oasis belt canteen
home made 4" sheath knife - kept only sharp enough
chap stick
comb
pen
notebook
map? if I could find one
bandanna
handkerchief
hat
gloves
Levis
socks
boots
2 tee shirts
sweater
wind breaker
cotton long underwear

Jim

Cotton clothes, canvas packs, cotton-shelled bags - how ever did we survive?

Answer: by knowing how to stay dry inside our non-breathable rain gear, and how to pack our gear so it didn't get soaked. Oh, and by being able to select a proper campsite. We couldn't substitute high-tech gear for knowledge, because high-tech hadn't been invented yet.

Of course, I'm not advocating a return to those days; I dearly love my lightweight, high-function, comfortable gear. It's still no good without the knowledge, but it sure makes things easier. I agree with the song: "These are the good old days."

I always had clean undies, socks and shirts every day and a spare pair of Levi's hanging off the back. Synthetic fill bag not cotton. Still 5 lbs. Dogs came in handy later in life.

I like it. I wish I had lists from some of my trips in the early 80's... cotton long underwear and levi's figured prominently in them too.. and I have "fond" memories of cooking a pound of frozen hamburger in an alpine storm using an army surplus pan on a coleman peak one beast....

And you tell the young people today that... and they don't believe you...

phat,
You had a pan and a stove? I had to hold the hamburger in my hand and cook it over a campfire. Long underwear? I was lucky to have any underwear. Another guy claims he always had clean underwear. I didn't have clean anything. The tooth brush was to brush off a place in the dirt to lay. Theres a reason they called us dirtbag climbers, thats all we had to climb, was bags full of dirt, and we had to scrape up the dirt ourselves. And as far as tents, when it rained I slept under the ground cloth, in the middle of the trail with people hiking over me, it was so bad I had to get up at ten o'clock at night in the morning to clear out before the rangers came along and hiked over me. Modern backpackers don't even believe me.
Jim

Jim, you sound like that Monty Python skit about how good those 'young uns' have it because we ....

On a similar note, I have a vivid and much beloved memory of hiking a section of the AT as a Boy Scout. Although this trip had no rain, it had been raining for what seemed like forever and everything was flooded. External frame packs, heavy welted leather hiking boots, blue jeans ... you get the picture. The scout in front of me stepped in what looked like a puddle and fell down, covered in water up to his waist. When I told him to get up, he replied, "I am up! I'm floating on my sleeping bag!" Oh, the stupid things we did and the fun we had doing them.

Jim: how many miles did you walk to school through the snow, uphill both ways, with your little brother on your back?

Sir James,

It's a wonder we survived those days! D@mn BSA canvas Yucca pack, kapok sleeping bags, etc. EGAD!

Backpacking kids these days have no idea how we suffered - and still had fun. "Nostalgia ain't what it used to be!" (Yogi Berra)

But I've seen a few backpackers on the AT in the '90s with nearly your equipment list. Poor dumb Noobs.

Eric

IM not sure, but I am almost certain Some of us went to different schools together!!!

LAte 60's and early 70's I was using a synthetic bag, and I am sure my pack was nylon then. But what I remember about those days was sleeping in a tube tent, praying that there wouldn't be mosquitoes; cooking everything over an open fire, usually balancing the pot on three stones; and drinking water straight out of the creek, any where we wanted to do it.

And yes, jeans were what everyone wore in the mountains.

Balzacco
Yes balanced the pan on the rocks, how else?
And thanks for reminding me. When you were thirsty, in the Sierras a least, you stood still and listened for the tinkling of running water and you lowered your self to the ground and put your lips into the cold running water and drank like a horse, and it didn't kill us. You could just drink the water any where.
Jim

Cotton kills! You should be dead!

Because I had to - even in those days Jasper alpine turf was mainly designated stove only. - not to mention that lots of places up high there's really nothing to burn

When I started I had one of those sleeping bags the had roof that you used your hatchet to chop sticks to hold up the roof, and a trench tool to dig trenches around your sleeping bag. Later when I got a tent I had a "camping" whisk broom to sweep it out. Used to carry a large pickle jar filled with water to carry eggs in. Plus used to carry a large can of Van Camps pork and beans. Ah the good old days BC before Colin. (Fletcher)

I also like to look at my old lists to see where I've improved. In the early 70s my total skin-out weight was usually in the 60-70 lb range for a week's trip. It is now less than half that.

For example my 9 lb tent, 5 lb pack and 5+ lb sleeping bag came to nearly 20 lbs and I was usually wearing another ten lbs(boots, wool Marine Corps pants, wool shirt and socks, etc.) for a total of nearly 30 lbs before I got to the other stuff.

My current backpack, sleeping bag and tent now weigh less than my boots used to weigh.

There's a similar nostalgic thread on "Over the Hill". Just left same kinds of memories there. Much fun. jcp

I lived in Yosemite for 3 years, (1968-1970) and your memories are correct. We drank the water anywhere. And I did most of it in cut-off jeans, as my shorts, the summers there being quite benign by my current standards. I didn't worry about cotton until I hit the White Mts in NH later on.

You forgot the bare foot part.

You had feet? All we had was knees.

Knees?!? Sheer luxury! We had to propel ourselves with our tongues. Across broken glass. Chased by vipers and fire ants.

(/yorkshiremen)

You win!

Sorry as I can't contribute much in the way of nostalgia as I'm a little too young as I was born in the mid 70's. The funny thing to me is that whenever I organize a trip I send out a list of gear that should be taken and a list of stuff that shouldn't.

It seems like all the noobs show up with the wrong list of gear. Jeans, big quilted flannel shirts, two man cotton sleeping bags, cans of food, WWII trenching tools, bayonets, 4 man tents, bow saws, hatchets, machetes, two way radios, full size frying pan, 15' x 15' plastic tarp, folding stool/chair, some kind of music player, weather radio, lantern, Rambo's knife, and the like.

In some ways some of these people must have gone back in time and seen you guys backpacking in the 60's-70's and thought that this was the way to still do it. I have a friend that goes with me who is a great guy but he is kind of todays version of yesteryear. Shovel, hatchet, three man tent, 0 degree bag, binoculars, full on camera kit, radios, gps (no clue as to how to use it), all manner of army surplus gear, you name it and he probably has it. I am very slowly converting him to lighter weight ideas and he is starting to ditch some of this useless junk.

This thread is a good one and reminds me of when I was a kid in a scouting type group. We were a ragtag group and had crappy stuff that was not very reliable. I remember on two of these trips the little pup tent leaked so bad my cotton bag ended up weighing about as much as me. I went back and slept in a truck. On another trip in the winter we had great weather that quickly changed to sleet and snow. I had soaked tennis shoes and frozen wet jeans. We were instructed to not wear any long johns or anything else when we got in our sleeping bags. I had layers to put on but froze the night away. Memorable trip.

Memorable, yes - but not for any of the right reasons. One of the biggest lessons I learned early on was that you didn't necessarily have to do what "They" told you, if your own logic backed up by knowledge (not opinion) told you something different.

I carried two quarts of water with me, because that's what They said you should carry. Eventually, I realized that when I was in familiar country, crossing a stream every hour or so, I could easily get by with no more than a quart - which took a quick two and a half pounds out of my pack: two pounds of water, and a quart Nalgene bottle that weighed half a pound.

If They want to do something a certain way, let Them. But don't follow blindly along.

Skippy
you had me laughing there. It just won't do to tell people what not to take. "Campin" as everybody knows whose never done it, is a test of manhood, a contest between you and wild beasts an rapists and thieves. What did Daniel Boone take with him, why a Bowie knife, a musket, and a fire steel. People who never owned a gun or used a knife in self defense suddenly imagine themselves as Rambo. Never mind that taking a knife or gun for self defense is about the worst way to get seriously hurt, or to spend the rest of your life in jail. Then there's axes, machetes, knifes sharp enough to shave with, heck axes sharp enough to shave with, saws, knives big enough to chop wood, heated tents (except in Canada), ice chests, booze, boom boxes and spare ten pound "emergency kits",(just in case) and I might add the unreasonable concept that having a compass will keep you from getting lost. Why with a gun you can live off the land and make clothes from animal hides, and be completely self sufficient. You need a spare sleeping bag and a bivy bag inside that canvas 3 man tent, a 20 pound first aid/surgical kit, and a 5 pot cook kit with a gas lantern. You need a hammer to drive tent stakes, 100 feet of rope, spare liners for your boots, camp shoes, and a welcome mat to wipe your feet before entering the tent. Don't forget to leave a complete itinerary including maps and cell phone numbers with three people and don't forget your SPOT. Mace is a good thing, you can use the pepper spray to season your food with. Most of this is based on fear of the unknown. Personally I always carry a feather to put in my bandanna in case of Injun attack, they'll think I'm one of em.
Jim

My most memorable scout trip was to an island I knew that we canoed out to with the troop. As I had been there before I thought I'd pull a fast one and tell everyone stories about the bears all over the island and to make sure food was hung, etc. etc. Troop hung all their food. Leaders (who were camped about 100 meters away from the rest of us) did not, and got their camp visited by *four* skunks the first night, who proceeded to clean their dishes for them, eat their pot scribber, and darn near every bit of food they had brought, they got to watch it all from their tent, being unable to "scare off" the brash critters. One of them was then obliged to canoe back across the lake and go buy themselves more food since they had nothing to eat. skunks had cleaned them out.

Of course the other reason it was probably memorable was that since the trip was done in the canoe, I didn't have to *carry* the obnoxiously heavy boy-scout kit on my back much.

This was a great post and had me rolling. It reminds of an author I used to read as a kid, Patrick F. McManus. That guy was a nut and he had a book called "A Fine and Pleasant Misery" that was full of these types of stories.

I have all of Pat McManus's books. Jim Shaw reminds me of more than a few McManus stories

There are some times that I think he channels Retch Sweeney.

This whole thread I've really enjoyed as it brings back so many memories of being a kid in Idaho and of listening to my uncles tell tall tales around the campfire.

I had one very good outdoor leader who used to have us boys gather around the campfire and he would tell the McManus stories nearly verbatim from memory and with great inflection in his voice. I always felt as if I was there, riding my raft through the "narrows" and paddling with the dog.

I've just started reading these stories to my kids and my oldest (10 years old) really gets his brand of humor.

Very good times....

-Skippy