I went to Wal-Mart recently and the aisles are overflowing with gear greedily grasping for any prospecting buyers. Two compasses grabbed my attention, and like dyslexic children they shewed me North in opposite directions. A whistle seemed a bit too high at four dollars. And then there were the plethora of knives, some sharply contrasting from each other. I felt like a starving man faced with a buffet of delicious food and only a saucer on which to capture it. What do I want? All of it! What do I need? I need hardly any of all this variety of mediocre gear. As a hiker you will soon grow from newbie packer to thinned down traveler. It is said that in the Civil War soldiers looked like pack mules bundled down with a laughable array of useless gear even including entire small metal ovens! This soon changed as red welts and screaming feet lent to a general unburdening until the roads were littered with their debris. As a hiker, camper, or dedicated survivor you will realize there is a specific genre of gear you need, namely addressing the needs of Fire, Signaling, Navigation, Shelter, and Sustenance. Thus you can breath an enormous sigh of relief knowing that you don't need a two hundred pound pack to hike five miles! Enjoy the beauty of nature without trails of vaporized sweat and sounds of agony ricocheting through the forest. Learning what to take and what to leave behind is a somewhat personal journey that can be much enhanced by sound advice. Don't compile and save every list of essential gear! Bookstores and articles online are spilling out hundreds of items every hiker must have! Instead take the essentials. Don't know what the essentials are? Good, then keep reading!
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