hokiebobwise
July '23 (CF/Astorga)
- Time of past OR future Camino
- CF/Astorga July 2023
Good day everyone. My son and I returned from the CF (Astorga to SdC) and I wanted to share our gear, as well as some thoughts about the gear.
The following items were in my pack, totalling 6.2kg
The Bossman bar soap was charcoal based and it made a mess. I kept it in a ziplock back and that resulted in the soap never drying and by day 5 it was mushy and would cake off when you touched it. Luckily, around the time I got sick of it, we were staying in places that had body wash/shampoo in packets or on the shower wall. I chose ziplock back to save weight, but maybe there is a better way to travel with this type of soap so that it would properly dry and not become mush.
In Spain I bought a lighter, to assist with blister care, as well as a pocket knife. However, the knife never made it through Leon train station as it was 7" long when fully open, and the limit is 5". Had it been in my son's pocket, instead of pack, we may have been able to keep it. Granted, only 1 time would we have needed it. We only had 2 periods of rain where the poncho was required. It was mid-60's and with the poncho on, it might as well had been 160. It was a heat box and not enjoyable. If I were traveling in winter, it would probably be perfect, but not when you are walking in 60's and 70's, it trapped so much heat it was unbearable. However, I wasn't interested in my pack and gear getting wet.
In hostals/hotels/pensions, we did our laundry, most times, in the bathroom. Even though the clothes were quick dry, they rarely dried; I would even use the hairdryer in an effort to dry them. In the Albergue, they dried great outside on the clothes line. By the end, I happily paid the 5 to 10 euros for the establishment to wash our clothes.
As I mentioned, the pack without water, weighed in at 6.2kg, on the airport scale, and it was not a problem. I had REI help me in sizing my pack, so things sat perfectly on my hips. I will say, the design of the "water sleeve" was terrible. It was virtually impossible to get the water back in the sleeve without unstrapping, even retrieving was difficult if I had my load lifters set for uphill. When walking with my son, we could help each other, but when alone i had to unstrap the pack in order to get the water back in. My pack had a place for a water bladder, but that would have been too tedious to pull things out and add back when filling up at a water fountain.
I bought items from REI (USA) and Amazon. Overall, I spent close to $1,800 for all of my gear (2 people) since I had to buy everything in order for us to go. I also made an attempt to not go cheap with what I bought, as I wanted my gear to be used again and again. We have already decided we want to go back again, and again, and again.
You will notice that I did not mention poles. We opted to allow for the Camino to provide and sure enough it did. We each found supportive sticks along the way, and while they weren't fancy or the "proper" size, they did us right and gave us the support we needed on the more difficult slopes of the Camino Frances.
Bob
The following items were in my pack, totalling 6.2kg
- Osprey Stratos 36L (REI)
- Aleader Water shoes
- Longsinger Rain Cape (Poncho)
- 1x Quick dry T-Shirt
- 2x REI wool socks
- 2x Duluth Copper boxer/briefs
- buff
- 2x 1.5L Camelback water bottles
- when filled they added ~4kg of weight so rarely filled them to capacity
- Sea to Summit Airlite towel
- Venture Travel neck pouch
- passport, credit card, debit card, drivers license + cash
- Curtsod rechargeable Headlamp + charger
- Browint Silk Liner
- Wise Pilgrim Travel Guide (paperback)
- Journal + pen
- Shell
- Sunblock
- lipbalm
- Sea to Summit Wilderness wash
- 5x S-hooks
- Small sewing kit
- spork
- Power adapter
- Ear plugs
- 10x clothes pins
- 6x diaper pints
- Osprey 20L dry sack (used for washing)
- 2x 5L dry sack
- 1x 8L dry sack
- Bossman bar soap (not recommended)
- toothbrush + small toothpaste
- travel deodorant
- hand sanitizer (never used)
- Toilet paper roll (never used)
- 10x Advil (bought more)
- Neosporin
- Compeed
- 10x Bandairds (bought more)
- Quick dry T-Shirt
- REI zipper off pants
- REI wool socks
- Duluth Copper boxer/briefs
- Merrill Moab 3
- buff
- hat
- Sunglasses
- Medical Bag (5L) - for all things necessary for tending to blisters, of which i had some ugly ones. I kept this at the top of my pack so that it would be easy to access
- Albergue Bag (5L) - for all things, aside from clothes, that one needs. headlamp, sleep sack, chargers, etc; placed above the clothes back
- Clothes Bag (8L) - clean clothes for changing in to after the evening shower, at the bottom of the pack
- 20L -> used to wash clothes and to secure "smelly" clothes when I wasn't able to readily wash
The Bossman bar soap was charcoal based and it made a mess. I kept it in a ziplock back and that resulted in the soap never drying and by day 5 it was mushy and would cake off when you touched it. Luckily, around the time I got sick of it, we were staying in places that had body wash/shampoo in packets or on the shower wall. I chose ziplock back to save weight, but maybe there is a better way to travel with this type of soap so that it would properly dry and not become mush.
In Spain I bought a lighter, to assist with blister care, as well as a pocket knife. However, the knife never made it through Leon train station as it was 7" long when fully open, and the limit is 5". Had it been in my son's pocket, instead of pack, we may have been able to keep it. Granted, only 1 time would we have needed it. We only had 2 periods of rain where the poncho was required. It was mid-60's and with the poncho on, it might as well had been 160. It was a heat box and not enjoyable. If I were traveling in winter, it would probably be perfect, but not when you are walking in 60's and 70's, it trapped so much heat it was unbearable. However, I wasn't interested in my pack and gear getting wet.
In hostals/hotels/pensions, we did our laundry, most times, in the bathroom. Even though the clothes were quick dry, they rarely dried; I would even use the hairdryer in an effort to dry them. In the Albergue, they dried great outside on the clothes line. By the end, I happily paid the 5 to 10 euros for the establishment to wash our clothes.
As I mentioned, the pack without water, weighed in at 6.2kg, on the airport scale, and it was not a problem. I had REI help me in sizing my pack, so things sat perfectly on my hips. I will say, the design of the "water sleeve" was terrible. It was virtually impossible to get the water back in the sleeve without unstrapping, even retrieving was difficult if I had my load lifters set for uphill. When walking with my son, we could help each other, but when alone i had to unstrap the pack in order to get the water back in. My pack had a place for a water bladder, but that would have been too tedious to pull things out and add back when filling up at a water fountain.
I bought items from REI (USA) and Amazon. Overall, I spent close to $1,800 for all of my gear (2 people) since I had to buy everything in order for us to go. I also made an attempt to not go cheap with what I bought, as I wanted my gear to be used again and again. We have already decided we want to go back again, and again, and again.
You will notice that I did not mention poles. We opted to allow for the Camino to provide and sure enough it did. We each found supportive sticks along the way, and while they weren't fancy or the "proper" size, they did us right and gave us the support we needed on the more difficult slopes of the Camino Frances.
Bob
