Camping Gear

I'm going on my first proper hike and camp since doing it for a living in the Army in a couple of weeks. I needed gear so I did some online shopping from this Finnish surplus site, Varusteleka.

Properly cracking surplus goods. Resoled combat boots that are nice and broken in. This goes against my never buying used shoes, but for 40 bucks, so be it. A vintage Polish two person tent that breaks down into two pieces and doubles as wet weather gear. A Hungarian Army mess kit circa 1985. If you need gear, the site is worth a look.

If you need anything else my brother owns this store in GR (formerly in Marquette). I'm sure I can get you the hook up for missing stuff.

goswitchback.com/

the_jake_1973 wrote: I'm going on my first proper hike and camp since doing it for a living in the Army in a couple of weeks. I needed gear so I did some online shopping from this Finnish surplus site, Varusteleka.

Properly cracking surplus goods. Resoled combat boots that are nice and broken in. This goes against my never buying used shoes, but for 40 bucks, so be it. A vintage Polish two person tent that breaks down into two pieces and doubles as wet weather gear. A Hungarian Army mess kit circa 1985. If you need gear, the site is worth a look.

As someone who hikes quite a bit, I would never buy surplus boots. Going cheap on hiking boots is the last place that I'd try to save money. Buy a good pair of fitted Keen or Merrell over-the-ankle, waterproof, breathable boots. Lately, I've been partial to Keen hiking sandals.

The military surplus gear isn't the the best though--it's just what the lowest bidder produced.

If you want to really go cheap, cheap, then checkout this site for ideas: bushcraftusa.com/forum/

Agree with Stoic on all counts!

Campmor.com has good cheap real outdoor gear too. Now that I'm wealthier (and there's one in town) I use REI, but when I was a grad student we 100% used campmor and discount outlets. I wouldn't go military surplus though, tbh.

You mind if this is the perpetual hiking/camping thread, jake? I'm going to the Tetons with my wife and two friends in two weeks for a 4 night backpack and I'm pretty excited. Been hiking around on long and short day hikes with a weighted pack. Tough. I'm at 35 pounds right now. Hope my pack doesn't go more than that for the trip, I can probably handle this amount.

Having done my fair share of humping a ruck with standard infantry boots, I'm not terribly concerned with about the ones I bought. Boots
Thankfully, I am not prone to foot/ankle related problems, so these boot with inserts will do fine. They breathe as well as expected. I will likely just wear a pair of knee high hose under my socks to ward off blister potential. If we were going somewhere with an abundance of slick rocks or a moisture rich environment, I'd have to go with something that had a different sole.

I went vintage with my tent: Tent
When my wife and I start hiking and doing kayak trips, she may want something different.

This little overnight trip will be a light shakedown for my ruck setup (Molle, large) so that I can prep for hikes with my wife later in the fall. There is a goal in the distance of doing some decent trips in the UP and out west. Much of that will be dependent on how much time she can take away from her salon.

David, thanks for the link. I am also shopping around for a road bike so I can have a better triathlon season next year.

Stoic, that link will be useful indeed. I'm pretty light on the bushcraft skills.

Have a good time with whatever gear you choose! There's a million right ways to be outdoors! The one thing you will get from more specialized gear is that it tends to be lighter, which can help everyone's time on a backpack. For car camping or short hike camping, though, my attitude is that most gear works fine.

On a side note, one thing I do consistently feel bad for people about when I see it is people who buy these *huge* tents for small numbers of people in the mountains thinking it'll be more comfortable. Big tents get SO cold!!!

Gary Sax wrote: Agree with Stoic on all counts!

Campmor.com has good cheap real outdoor gear too. Now that I'm wealthier (and there's one in town) I use REI, but when I was a grad student we 100% used campmor and discount outlets. I wouldn't go military surplus though, tbh.

You mind if this is the perpetual hiking/camping thread, jake? I'm going to the Tetons with my wife and two friends in two weeks for a 4 night backpack and I'm pretty excited. Been hiking around on long and short day hikes with a weighted pack. Tough. I'm at 35 pounds right now. Hope my pack doesn't go more than that for the trip, I can probably handle this amount.

Watch out for the effects of altitude in the Tetons.

I live in Flagstaff (7k).