Some Thoughts on Gear subtitled, A bit of a gear nut tries to get sensible

Ok, there really is no way around it, trekking requires loads of equipment. Expensive fancy stuff that ones sees in flash adverts in outdoor magazines, or in those exclusive outdoor shops. One could spend a lifetime, and a life's fortune in such shops and still not have everything that some people would have you think is needed to go trekking. However, if one build up a collection of carefully chosen gear, you can be suitable equipped at a reasonable cost. One of the great secrets to buying gear is borrowing gear. Trekking with borrowed gear, or with people who have a range of gear will give you a much better idea of what's available and how well it works. The only items that one needs purchase reasonably soon are a sleeping bag, backpack and gaper mat. Other items can follow, and indeed a lot of people who do a fair amount of trekking never see the need to buy something like a tent themselves. One could spend hours going in great detail about various technical aspects of all the bits of gear, but unless one is a bit of a gear guru, it all become rather dull and filled with long fancy brand and patent names. But if you remember that as far back as the 1920's some mad men had almost climbed Everest and been to the poles in little more than hobnailed boots, tweeds and canvas backpacks and tents. Admittedly they were very hardy individuals, but then conditions on Everest are more severe than anything you will ever encounter in the berg. So, if you can't afford Gore-Tex, super down, pertex and 7000 series aluminium, fear not. Just draw inspiration from those earlier adventurers and make do with what you can afford. It may not be next years K2 fashions, but Mallory, Irvine and Scott would no doubt have given an arm and a leg for such simple things as Nylon ripstop, propane gas canisters and hollow fibre. Indeed, perhaps with such technological marvels they may well have formally replaced Hillary and Tensing and the like in history (who, by modern standards were also woefully underequipped) What follows is a breakdown of some of the more important things that one should know when looking to buy some outdoor gear, as well as an idea of what will suffice, and what people like me, who spend enormous amounts of time trekking and thus make very high demands on gear, use

Sleeping Bags and Mats
Backpacks
Tents
Stoves
Boots
What the Fly uses and has