Somehow my brain jogged from a 6:14 am text from my stepsister about a wildfire near Durango to the Facebook group Vintage Backpacking through the 1970s and thinking about out my own gear from the 1960s.
Before the fancy Sierra Designs aluminum frame pack, I had a wooden packboard and canvas packbag from the great old Smilie outfitter store in San Francisco, which also sold Wilson bacon bars and chunky dehydrated potatoes, post-John Muir luxuries if you could afford them.
I bought the Sierra Designs pack in Point Richmond, Ca., in 1967 or 1968. My late friend Holly drove us there in her VW bug. She bought a blue one.
I think my father bought me the Alp Sport sleeping back for my 16th birthday. I believe he bought it at the North Face store in North Beach, San Francisco, and gave it to me at a birthday breakfast at Sam’s in Tiburon.
After all the gear talk, though, I wanna say my favorite backpacking image is of a lone walker I passed near sunset on Donohue Pass in the Sierra Nevada in about 1965. He didn’t say a word as he headed down toward the Lyell Fork of Tuolumne River and maybe Tuolumne Meadows, 13 miles north. A beat-up saucepan flopped against the back of his pack. He looked like he cared more about walking than gear.
dream ranch 