I've been doing Mt. Man type stuff since about '64, and started serious acquisiton of camp gear and foo-fa-raw about '73 or thereabouts. I accumulated just about every primitive or 1834-1840 looking gadget and gilchiky you can imagine. Then about three years ago I noticed that for me to go alone to a rendezvous I would fill my heavy duty half ton pickup so full of stuff, I required a cargo net cover to keep it all in and it took me an hour and a half or longer to set up camp. Me, who used to go hunting for a week with everything I needed in a 40 lb pack. Wha' hoppen?
So now for the last few years, every time I come home, whatever didn't get used except my medi-kit gets set aside to be looked at with a serious fish eye as to whether or not it gets retired. My fire iron set is now downsized to an 18" x 9" fire grate, and that's looking at a pink slip soon. Last rondy I boiled every thing I ate in either a 1 qt HBc boiler or a 1/2 pt tin cup. I did keep my wooden bowl my wood and horn spoon.
The big stuff is my humoungus cot, my wall tent and the deep cycle battery for my CPAP. I'm looking to leave the queen size cot home, replaced with a Therm-o-Rest Camp Rest pad and two or three HBc blankets. I've decided to experiment with a queen size air bed for me and the pup, what's inside my tent is my own dang bidness.
I'm retiring my dutch ovens and only taking the wall tent if I have someone along to help set it up and live in it. My 9' pyramid is plenty for me and Ozzy.
I have a Hudson's Bay Cassette with 90% of my stuff in it and a 16"X33"X12" pine box wtith a removeable center shelf that is my grub box and kitchen. It's my table and food prep counter too. I gave in to a comfy take down rondy chair and a candle lantern so I can see to load my needle for insulin.
I've done it once and I can do it again, to spend a weekend only with what I can conveniently load into my '83 Civic Hatchback.
Very soon it will be a tin tipi. Age and decrepitude continue taking their toll.
Three Hawks