My dad was actually a state park ranger in the summers, so I grew up in the business, as it were. Even so, my first backpacking trip was with my sister and her girlfriend--they were about 15, I was eleven. And my pack was a pair of my dad's jeans, tied together so the legs created the shoulder straps and the torso held my sleeping bag. We took a tube tent, slept on the ground, and cooked over an open fire (no stoves then.) I think I must have carried an old canvas and flannel sleeping bag. And we drank water straight from the stream.

I don't miss the bag, the tent, or the pack. I do miss the days when we drank out of every stream without thinking about it.