The Craziest Gear You Have Seen

[TerraMer]

With all this talk about the latest and greatest gear I was thinking about some of the stuff locals use in the mountains overseas like India, Nepal, PNG.

I have trekked with a large family on an 8 day pilgrimage in Nepal who wore the most basic gear and it worked fine for them. The youngest son prized his new rubber wellies which he wore all the way to the sacred lake over a +6,000m pass, across landslides, through rivers and torrential rain. His mum and grandmum had thongs (flipflops) and dunlops, walked the whole way in skirts, carrying umbrellas and using towels on their heads to keep warm. Most of the family used garbage bags for rain jackets. For altitude sickness we chewed on peppercorns and cloves. For dehydration we drank salty yak butter tea.

In the Indian Kashmir mountains in summer I saw quite a few farmers and guides/porters wearing thongs (flipflops) up to about 4,500m.

In PNG, up in the highlands, up beyond Tari, they didn't wear much at all.

What have you seen that amazed you and made you wonder whether all the money we spend on good gear is really worth it?

[Franco]

I am reading a book about the Inuit around the Arctic Circle.
There this comment from one of the native hunters : "I hope to never experience again a day as hot as that'
The temperature of that day was 50 f, (10c)
The point here is that we use gear to make up for our lack of exposure to the weather....
If you walk the streets of Melbourne at night you may come across a homeless person or two.
Never seen one with a tent/mat/sleeping bag....
Franco
BTW, this is the external frame pack used by our kitchen porters in Nepal :

[jacko1956]

Personally I would prefer a hipbelt Franco, but a frontrower(? - sorry, not my game) in rugby may have a good neck for that rig!