I was recently asked to give a brief (a relative term; I was there for over an hour) equipment show-and-tell to some Duke of Edinburgh’s Award candidates. In my talk I gave an overview of my gear, summarised why I had chosen certain items over others, and then outlined what I might take with me on a four day ‘expedition’. It was an interesting event, and I enjoyed talking to the guys about their plans. We were supposed to cover a lot more info, including how to pack a rucksack, what sort of clothing to wear, and appropriate footwear, but ran out of time – it appears that I can talk almost indefinitely about camping gear.
As I’ve passed most of my old gear to friends and family I used some of their instructor’s demo gear, which was more the sort of equipment one might expect a DofE group to be carrying – large tents, Trangias, 2kg sleeping bags, foam mats etc. – to demonstrate that one needs to find a happy medium between low cost and low weight. It also highlighted the fact that light gear is not always the most expensive; several Poundland items (mug/plate/cutlery) were lighter than my titanium equivalents (I chose not to argue the point that if I tried to heat water for a cuppa in a plastic mug it would melt) and a heavier tent split between a group might still be lighter per-person than taking several solo tents.
I got a couple of questions at the end centred around the cost of some of my lightweight items I’d brought along and asked for possible alternatives – I could see that one or two of them were especially taken aback with the cost of my big three (tent, pack, sleeping bag) so hope I haven’t put any of them off. I think the majority understood that lightweight stuff was an option, not a necessity, and that the most expensive kit wasn’t a guarantee of comfort, but I thought it might be useful to put together a list of equipment they might want to investigate further. It’s a list of relatively low cost, reasonably light camping equipment that has received favourable reviews and looks like it’s up to the job. I hope this will demonstrate that you don’t have to spend thousands of pounds on equipment to get decent gear that doesn’t weigh a tonne! I’ve also stressed to them the importance of trying on things like rucksacks before buying them, not just finding the best bargain on eBay.
What advice would you give a group about to undertake their first DofE expedition?