backpacking stuffz

This past summer I took my family camping with my dad to the rio grande reservoir. Its been many years since I'd been there...always for backpacking. We hiked part of the wemenuche trail, just a small section. I'd hoped to make it to the waterfall bridge. My now 5 year old son burned out before we turned up the creek.  My girls (8 and 12) did better.

Then I found out that my brother, his wife and an old backpacking buddy wanted to hike up to flint lake later in august. So of course I started having ideas about taking my 8yr old daughter on this trip.

My old equipment (ca 1996) dana designs astralpane 120L expedition pack, ca 1995 msr alpine cook kit (1.5l and 2.0l stainless pot) thermarest camp rest with chair kit some 20F rei sleeping bag. northface 3 person 3+ season tent MSR whisperlite internationale stove some goretex type raingear (which doesn't work worth anything, btw, breathable fabrics will get you killed).

All this crap is heavy, not a big deal for a 28 ear old. One trip I went in with 80 lbs. I had kids, married etc and all this stuff got shelved. The MSR stove disappeared while on loan. the zipper broke on the northface tent while on loan. A lot of little stuff disappeared as well.

A couple of years ago we started some limited car camping. I monitored slickdeals and grabbed a 2 person mountainsmith and 2 person northface tent (flint II), both noticeably lighter than the old tent.

I also bought a z-rest, some nasty rollup pad and a small scout thermarest pad.

I also bought a chinese msr XGK knockoff, a campsor 9.   I'm a little scared about parts availability. Also bought a tiny pocket rocket stove clone on amazon sale. More to come...