- Wool Blanket
- Hatchet
- Rambo-style survival knife
- Chicken (frozen) and potatoes w/ enough aluminum foil to wrap and cook a cow
- A bottle of Jack Daniels
- Full-blown Gordon Fisherman style rain suit
- Dinty Moore Beef Stew, still in the can
- Half a dozen cans of chewing tobacco plus a couple packs of smokes
- Pancake mix (the add water & shake kind)
- Tripod-style seat
- 3-man Dome tent, w/ bathtub floor & full coverage rain fly
I could go on.
These things were all in the kit that my friend and I took on a backpacking trip along the Appalachian Trail back in college. This was not 1978, unfortunately, though perhaps if it were the packing list would have been more excusable. No, this was the 90's, and by this time I had been backpacking for years. My buddy was a farm boy who rode horses competitively in 4-H and spent plenty of time outdoors. Neither of us were city folk with no appreciation for what it takes to live outside.
