Sleeping Bags, Broken Stoves, and the Art of Forgetting Gear
- Chris Smith
- 6 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
Sawtooth Nights and a Cold Lesson
When I was in high school, my buddy and I headed up to the Sawtooth's for a weekend getaway. A little hiking, a little fishing, and mostly me being as obnoxious and annoying to him as humanly possible. That was my role back then, and honestly it probably still is when we are together.
We had been camping for years by that point. Scouts, weekend drop offs from our parents, and quick overnighters the second one of our friends got his license.(And for the record, Spam spaghetti is not good. Story for another time.)
One of those trips taught me a lesson I thought I would never forget.
Late that night, when it finally got cold and we crawled into the tent to lay out our sleeping bags, I reached into my pack and mine was not there. We had done weekend trips like this so many times that I did not even think twice. I just assumed it was in the pile. It was not.
He made me beg. A lot. Eventually, I appealed to whatever humanitarian side he had left as I lay on my mat already shivering. He finally sighed, unzipped his mummy bag, and said, “I will share, but do not touch me.”
“I will share, but do not touch me.” My buddy, moments before we attempted a two-person mummy-bag survival arrangement
I tried extremely hard not to touch him because we still had one more night to get through. It might have been me touching him, or snoring in his ear, or stealing the bag to stay warm. Whatever the reason, the next day he handed me an oversized stuff sack and said, “Use this.”
Needless to say, that was a cold night.
That weekend burned one lesson into me:
Never forget your sleeping bag again.
The Proposal I Almost Froze Through
I have always been the kind of person who learns by living, usually the hard way.
But life has a way of reminding you that lessons do not always stick.
Years later, before we got married, my now former wife and I went camping along the coast of Big Sur. The plan was to propose in the morning. In my haste to pack and in my nervous anticipation of asking her to marry me, I forgot the sleeping bags again.
It turned into a night of turning the truck on every couple of hours to warm up and putting on every layer we could find.
“How do I keep forgetting the one thing I promised myself I would never forget?”
We froze through the night, but she still said yes in the morning.
Even grown adults forget the one thing they swore they would never forget. And that is kind of the theme here. I might forget, but I like to think I learn eventually.
Chaos Versus the Color-Coded Campers
As I have gotten older, the forgetting has not gone away. Never an engagement ring. Never my kid. But gear? Absolutely.
Everyone packs differently. Some people show up with:
color coded spreadsheets
perfectly dialed checklists
gear staged two days before a trip
And then there is me, throwing things together on my way out the door, half guessing what is in the bin, hoping for the best.
Part of me resists the hyper organized packer, but another part admires them. Meanwhile, I am tearing through bins wondering why I own three headlamps but can only find the dead one.
The Stove Fiasco of the Salmon River
A few years back on a river trip, we pulled into camp after a long day and went to make dinner. I pulled out my stove, hit the ignition, and nothing. Dead. I had loaned it out a month earlier and they told me it worked great. They were standing right next to me, equally confused.
We tried everything. New canister. Cleaning the ports. Shaking it. Lighting it manually. Even praying to the river gods.
Nothing.
There I was pounding on the regulator with a rock like it might magically wake up.
The sun was dropping behind the canyon walls, everyone was hungry, and we had a group of ten adults and eight kids to feed. We gathered wood, rationed our little charcoal, and made every meal over the fire pan all week.
Not an easy task for breakfast or dinner.
Luckily, on our very last night, the group camped at the end of the beach let us use their stove so we could finally cook pasta.
Fast Forward: Same Stove, Same Problem
A year later, different river, different group, but the same friend remembered the fiasco. I knew it needed a new regulator, but life has a way of getting away from us. Work, family, a job that had me on the road constantly, time simply slipped.
I asked a friend to fix it. They thought they had it covered.
We brought a backup stove just in case. Good thing, because the original was still broken.
Out of sight, out of mind works great until you actually need your gear.
The Gear Abyss
As I started collecting more specialized gear, the organization problem only grew.
I tried every system:
bins
shelves
hooks
seasonal closets
pretty labels
But gear still disappeared into the abyss.
Not because I did not care, but because life happens, trips come fast, and the outdoor world requires a ridiculous amount of stuff to keep track of.
Eventually, I realized I needed something better.
The Moment You Start Building Systems
I needed:
A way to know what I own
A way to track repairs
A way to see what I have loaned out
A way to stop buying duplicates
A way to stop relying on chaos and memory
That is why I built the Gear Closet inside TripForge.
This whole thing started because I forgot a sleeping bag twice and a stove failed on the river when eight hungry kids were watching.
A Friendly Warning
After reading all this, you probably understand the twofold purpose of this story.
First, to share why the Gear Closet exists at all. And second, to give you a friendly warning.
If we end up on a trip together and I look over with that nervous smile, there is a very real chance I am about to ask if you are willing to share a sleeping bag with me.
We Need Your Help!
We’re training the AI for TripForge’s Gear Closet, and we need real gear photos to help it learn.
If you can upload just ONE picture of any piece of your outdoor gear, it makes a huge difference. More is amazing, every item helps us push this feature forward faster.
Here’s the quick link it takes 30 seconds per item:
If you’re packing for the weekend, even better — snap a pic as you walk by something. Thank you for helping us build this!
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