SummitPost.org

Bought these about 1967 when I enrolled in the Seattle Mountaineers "Intermediate" class. They wouldn't let newbies in the "Basic" class use 12 point crampons (back then that meant front point). So I climbed with a ten point crampon for a year with no forward facing prongs, which I still have... These pictured pons are lighter than anything I can find now accept aluminum which are no good on mixed routes climbing over rock, so I just use these for memories and the practical value....they work fine. Post your old gear you still use. 1/17/15

The only large backpack I have ever used was given to me when I was 12 by a family friend because he knew I was going to be very tall. It is one of the old REI traverse evening star packs that are like 120 liters! It's a giant tube pack that i think came out in the late 70's or early 80's. I've used it for 13 years and although I've taken it to Rainy Pass repair in Seattle a couple times for a small tear and to replace the waist belt, it still holds up to anything. He used it when he was in college and he is now almost 60! This pack I am using is at least 30 years old

This photo isn't of my pack, but it's a photo of the same one I have. I may use it my whole life since packs these days are not durable at all and never fit me.

I have some old Chouinard biners and some angle pitons that would make you want to fall on a small copperhead than clip into it! I'll have to take some pics.

I still use a pair of Charlet Moser Super 12 RFL crampons from the early 90s though I bought a new pair in the mid 00s. They are tough you know...

I still use my ice axe which is 55 years old. I was 22 when I bought it. - I have crampons from the same time, but don't use them any more

I have a picture of the ice axe on this link from facebook which I don't know how to download to summitpost
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... =1&theater (log in to facebook)

Cy, they robed a similar ice axe to us though it was newer (80s). We went to the beach after The Pyrenees so they stole it in a beach village

Still use my 33 year old North Face down sleeping bag (5F). Still seems to work pretty well, even when the temps dip down below freezing. I even have the original stuff sack that came with it, although that is starting to show its age.

Whoa, this is a cool thread... I always tell my friends (and any others I meet in the field) that my twin-burner propane Coleman Campstove is THE oldest piece o' gear that I have, since I bought it in Seattle in 1982 and no other field gear or climbing gear has lasted anywhere near as long. This excludes previous climbing racks, which I sold when I needed money, LOL. Ah, well, now I could buy a sweet rack, but my drive to climb mountains or even burly local crags has diminished in recent years... I keep thinking of buying top-rope gear, but I'm not sure this stinking Third World ObamaCare will cover a frightfully-hard whipper, LOL.

Some of my favorites here:

http://larsonweb.com/blog/?p=662

EMS Mt. Robson -25F sleeping bag and North Face VE-24 tent, both of which I bought in 1978. The fly on the tent is starting to delaminate but I still use it for car camping. Sleeping bag is still really warm after all these years (too warm for most West coast use, but good for winter). I have a couple of second hand steel 72 scuba tanks I still use that were manufactured the year I was born (1960) but I assume we are only talking about mountain gear here.

Maybe we could amend the Title page or start a parallel post... "Old gear I still have but don't use, but could" ??? something like that... I have an old Bluet Stove that was one of the early or earliest butane canisters, punctures the canister and you have to keep burner attached. Also I have a Brakebar for rapelling. I will see about pictures, but I don't use either anymore...just can't throw them away...

Remember those heavy square Coleman car-camping tents from the '60s, the ones with the sturdy aluminum poles? Half a dozen people could sleep in each tent, they were that large. Back in '68-'73, my family lived in Europe, and every summer we'd load up the VW Bus with full-length roof rack and tour Western Europe on the cheap... no kidding, in those days you could camp along primo lakes and rivers for a couple bucks a night, mountains in the background and everything groovy. Those tents were bulletproof, but they weighed about half a ton each... backpacking with 'em was out of the question, unless you were built like Andre the Giant. We must have logged 100,000 miles or more while hauling those things around, pitching them every night unless we spent the night in town. I put 'em up for grabs on Craigslist about a decade ago, and some dude showed up to bag 'em... there's no doubt in my mind that those tents are STILL in use today, probably as nuclear fallout shelters to back up the cheap FEMA junk, LOL.

A CampTrails external frame backpack bought in the mid-1970s. Unlike the cheap, screw-together external frame packs available today, this one has a welded aluminum frame (no screws), its made of high quality aircraft aluminum, and has survived numerous falls, being tossed around through airports and on third-world buses, and still keeps going. The actual nylon sack has been repaired many times over the years, mostly due to squirrels tearing through it to get to food (amazing how fast those little varmits work when you turn your back for just a few seconds!). Its easy to adjust the hip belt and shoulder straps for different size loads, too. I've got an internal frame pack, but if I'm going on a trip thats just trail hiking or easy off-trail stuff, its the pack I'll choose first. This picture is off of Ebay, and its in pristine condition compared to mine. The seller wants $75 for it.



About that same time I was working in the SF Bay area and purchased a 'factory-second' North Face Superlight sleeping bag (5 degree F) and a North Face Westwind tent (a three hoop tunnel-style tent) from the old outlet store in San Leandro. Still use the sleeping bag occasionally in summer, haven't used the tent in a few years (kinda heavy). Picture of a similar tent (no, its not my rifle either).



I did have a SVEA 123 stove from the early 1970s, but it got crushed when I backed over it with a car in the late-1990s. Not a lot of heat output for its size/weight, and eavier than today's stoves, but it was extremely reliable.

When we're car camping, I still use a super old coleman two-burner propane stove like the one here, except about 40 years older. It's stupid simple and indestructible. That and my dads old external frame pack, which is heavy as hell and wildly uncomfortable. But if you rock a flannel and some big 70s glasses, you feel pretty cool.

In 1978 I bought set of rigid Friends on sale at REI. I still have the three biggest ones and use them all the time.

In 1980, The Sierra Club Mountaineering Committee purchased Marmot -5 F Goretex bags for me and Miguel Carmona to try a new route in the Sierra in winter. We both still have those bags and use them in shoulder seasons. BTW the route has not yet been climbed, summer or winter.

I still have Chouinard North Wall axe and hammer that I bought in the late 70s. They are great for alpine climbing. I still use them.

I also use Marmot Taku Goretex tent. At 4lb 8oz with vestibule, it cannot be denied ever today.

My Mountainsmith 4,000 c.i. pack still carries my gear in J Tree and on Tahquitz. I bought that one in 1978 for cragging and it still works well.