Techniques

If you aren't into backpacking, but are interested in spending more time in the outdoors and don't really no where to begin, this is our gear list for day hiking in the summer (we have a list for each season). If you plan to head out for only a few hours then this might be overkill, but it is a good place to start. This list is everything we need to be in the outdoors for the entire day. It is also the foundation for our backpacking list.

The night before our hike, we have the kids pack their gear and make their snacks. The process is pretty hands-off now, they are used to the drill, which makes getting out the door a lot smoother than it used to. To make the list easir for the kids digest, we broke it up by parts of the body; from head-to-toe, from inside-to-outside.

Unless otherwise noted, all clothing items in this checklist are made out of quick-drying fabrics like nylon, polyester, or merino wool. We avoid cotton for all of our outdoor clothing.

Head

• Sun hat: A hat with a stiff brim is important for both shielding the sun from your eyes and keeping the bug net off your face.
• Bug net: Much more effective than bug repellent, we always pack these in the summer.
• (Optional) Sun glasses: If we are going to be hiking in wide-open areas, above treeline, or near the water we bring them.
• (Optional) Buff: A buff is a super handy item to have on hand. My son likes to use his as a hat. My girls like to use them to manage their hair. They can also be used as a bandana to keep the sun off your face, as neck warmer, as a towel... the possibilities are endless.

Torso

• Undershirt and/or t-shirt: All of our kids have close-fitting sleeveless shirts, and they love them. Renee and myself prefer lightweight baselayer t-shirts. Some of our kids also bring a lightweight t-shirt in addition to their sleevless shirt.
• Long undershirt or lightweight fleece hoodie: We always bring a warmer layer no matter what the weather. If things get cooler especially near the evening, having a little extra insulation is helpful.
• Wind breaker: Also known as a windshirt, these are absolutely essential. The lighter weight the better, as you want it to be very breathable. Besides keeping the wind off, they can be used to keep the bugs and sun off as well.
• (Optional) Rain jacket and/or umbrella: If the weather forecast is for rain, we will pack a waterproof/breathable rain jacket. In addition to the rain jacket, some of us will pack a lightweight umbrella too. Umbrellas are great because they don't get hot and sticky like in a rain jacket. The downside to an umbrella is that they don't handle the wind well.

Legs

• Underwear: Underwear that can double as a bathing suit is very handy for kids.
• Hiking pants: We always bring long pants. They keep the wind, the sun, and the bugs, and the thorns off our legs.
• (Optional) Shorts/skirt/skort: If someone wants to bring one of these items, we let them as long as they also have long pants. Convertible pants that zip-off into shorts are a great option.

Feet

• Thin wicking socks: Thin is important as you want them to dry quickly, not be too hot, and not absorb too much water in the rain.
• Minimalist footwear: Of course!

Other Gear

• Lunch
• Snacks
• Water
• First aid kit (includes fire starter and water treatment tablets)
• Toilet paper and potty trowel
• Bug repellent
• Sunscreen
• Camera
• (Optional) Towel

I have had tents on the brain quite a a bit lately, especially in light of our last backpacking trip. I thought it coincidental then that Ryan Jordan posted his thoughts on what he thinks is a good group shelter, the GoLite Shangri-La 6/8. It so happens that we have one of those too, however while I like it a lot, I am finding my satisfaction waning. Am I just not seasoned enough in the backcountry to fully appreciate its greatness, or is there something else to it?

We appreciated our tent's wind-worthiness during our last
car-camping trip on the coast of the Gaspe Peninsula.

I was thinking back to when we lived in Alberta, and the terrain and climate of the Rockies. The air was generally pretty dry, and the nights could get fairly chilly. Although there were trees, there were also many exposed places, including those above-treeline where the storms could get intense/nasty/windy. The main bug we had to contend with was the mosquito.

Thinking about that context, I see how a floorless shelter like the Shangri-La would be quite ideal. You stake it to the ground, kill the mosquitoes, and away you go. The heavier-weight silnylon fabric, the sturdy poles, and guy-line tie out points make it a very mountain worthy shelter for a larger group.

Then I thought about our current playground, the east coast. Here in Maine the air is generally humid, and the summer nights can be quite warm. The land is mostly dense forest everywhere, with the (infrequent) open areas being on the rocky peaks of mountains (there is a reason the AT is sometimes referred to as the Green Tunnel). There can be a lot of rain, but wind is less of an issue due to all of the trees. The bugs we have to contend with are mosquitoes, blackflies, and ticks. While living in Alberta I had heard of blackflies and never knew what a tick or Lyme disease was until we moved East.

You would never know it, but in this photo our tent is setup over a nicely leveled tent
pad in the White Mountains. Our shelter was so large that it covered the entire
pad, including the logs that were placed around it's perimeter.

Our current shelter configuration consists of a Shangri-La 6 with a Shangri-La 4 Nest underneath. It's actually a pretty cool combination that allows us to have full protection from the ticks and flying bugs, a decent sized vestibule, and the ability to open up the doors at either end for good ventilation (even in the rain to keep the humidity down). The downsides to this setup are the weight (10 lbs = 2 lbs per person), and the fact that there is NEVER (OK, rarely) a good backcountry location to set up a tent of this size.

Considering the density of trees where we are, sizable clearings are hard to come-by. When we do find one, it is guaranteed to have huge roots, rocks, or fixed objects sticking up into the bathtub floor - there is just no way to avoid it considering the Nest covers over 90 square feet. Proper site preparation for keeping the floor protected from puncture would require bringing some form of excavator. It is only a matter of time before the floor will be riddled with holes; no matter how gently I tell the kids to tread.

At a glance, this may look like a nice clearing for setting up a tent. What
you can't see here are all the huge roots and rocks throughout.

I have been thinking through some possible solutions:

• Use multiple tents: This would certainly open up our available options for selecting a tent, as most manufacturers top-out their light-weight tent capacities at 4 people (we need 5). This would also make it easier to find suitable tent sites because we wouldn't need such a big area to setup on. On the flipside, this is not ideal from a togetherness standpoint. I like it when we are together under one roof, and I like being able to reach over and help out a child if they wake-up in the night with some sort of issue.
• Have a custom-made, lighter-weight bug shelter made: This option could certainly save some weight (but probably not more than 1.5 lbs). The downside would be that we would still have the issue of site selection, and the lighter-weight materials would probably make the floor even more prone to holes.
• Go floorless: This would certainly allow us to save a lot of weight; using our Shangri-La 6 without the nest would shave off over 3 lbs.  This would also give us more options for selecting a lighter-weight shelter by going with a single-poled pyramid/tipi styled design from a company like Oware, Titanium Goat, or Kifaru. Site selection would be much less of an issue because we woudn't have to worry about puncturing a floor. It wouldn't really matter what the ground was like and we could even setup over small shrubs if we needed to. The downside of course we be that this would afford us little protection from bugs because we keep the door open for ventilation, and even if we did close the door we still wouldn't be protected from ticks.
• Go floorless with light-weight bivy sacks: From a weight standpoint, using the Shangri-La 6 with bivy sacks would save us about 1.25 lbs. Using a single pole tipi-style shelter as described above could save more. Since bivy sacks would be carried by everyone, the shelter weight would be more evenly distributed in our packs. One downside of this configuration is the cost: 5 bivy sacks cost a lot more than a single bug nest. Another is the added complexity for the kids. The upside is that the bivys could also be used without the tent when sleeping in shelters along the AT during bug season.
• Lighter poles: The poles for the Shangri-La 6 weigh about 14 oz each, that is almost 2 pounds in poles alone. For strength, you really don't want to go with anything lighter as it would most certainly be too weak for a shelter of that size. The best bet to save pole weight would be to try to find a single-pole shelter instead. Perhaps some sort of hooped/tunnel design may work as well (i.e. Hilleberg, Warmlite, Integral Designs, etc.), but that would require more investigation.
• Use a tarp: This certainly would solve the ventilation problem, but I have no experience with using group-sized ones. Anyone have any insight on that?
• Other options? I am open for ideas! If you have any, please share!

So where does this leave us? I am not sure.

At the moment I am leaning towards a light-weight pyramid shelter with bivy sacks as it seems (in theory) to solve most of the problems for the least amount of weight. I am open to change however, and will be spending some time exploring the possibilities over the coming year to see what I can find.

Up until recently, toothpaste has been an issue for us on backpacking trips. Not a significant issue, but one of those little things that annoyed me enough that I found myself continually looking for a solution:

• Toothpaste is messy, it seems to always have this way of sticking on things, especially the kids.
• The tubes are not convenient for packing. They are either too big, too small, almost empty, getting a hole, etc.
• It's not easy to bring only the amount that you need.

Some possible solutions I found were:

• The Toob toothbrush. This device is a combination toothbrush/toothpaste container. Overall, not a bad idea, but we didn't want to have special toothbrushes that required specal heads just for backpacking. We like using our regular home toothbrushes on the trail, it just makes life simpler.
• Dr. Bronner's. Some of the more hard-core backpackers will use their Dr. Bronner's magic soap for everything - including brushing their teeth - so that they only need to pack one cleaning agent. In theory this sounds interesting, but I tried brushing my teeth with it once and couldn't quite get into-it. There was no way I was going to get the rest of my family to buy-in to this idea either.
• Toothpaste dots. Take your favorite toothpaste and dehydrate it. Overall not a bad idea, and one I seriously considered until I discovered an even better idea...

Tooth powder

Tooth powder is basically dry toothpaste in powder form. It is what was used for oral hygene before toothpaste was invented. For backpacking, we have found it has a lot going for it:

• You can put it in any sized container you like, and a little goes a long way. Before we head out on a trip, we fill up a .25 oz mini dropper bottle with tooth powder and it is more than enough for our family of five for a three day weekend - we usually have lots left over.
• For gram-counting backpackers, it is very light-weight.
• No sticky mess.
• Some brands can be really wholesome, much more so than toothpaste. We don't like putting chemicals in our mouths and have found tooth powder to be a really natural way to clean our teeth. Our current favorite brand, Uncle Harrys, is made with only a few ingredients: Calcium carbonate (natural chalk), mustard seed powder, sea salt, natural plant essences. This means we can swallow it without ill effects and makes for simpler brushing because less rinsing is required.
• You can buy it in large quantities. We buy it in 16 oz containers which lasts us a really long time.

Our family likes the tooth powder so much (the only reluctant member is Brienne who finds the powder too spicy and salty tasting - sounds like good Indian food to me) that we have made the switch for everyday use. In doing this life gets a little simpler and the outdoors feel a little more like home - integrating home life with our outdoors/adventure side is always something we are striving to achieve.

If you still are looking for the ideal oral hygene solution for outdoor use, you might want to consider giving tooth powder a try.