Take a Hike in Southern California

Norma and I live in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia in Fill­more — gate­way to the Sespe Wilder­ness and Cal­i­for­nia Con­dor Sanc­tu­ary. The boys both live in Ven­tura. So, for this summer, it was a nat­ural that we wanted to see what was in the canyon and hills around our house, and to prac­tice our backpacking.

What we decided to do is put together a list of things we should wear and con­tents for our back­packs. Such as:

• water, a hydro-pack (camel back)
• hik­ing boots
• cargo pants for extra storage
• wide brim hat
• gloves
• fruit and snacks (not too salty)
• hik­ing stick
• pock­et knife
• cam­era & extra battery
• com­pass
• cell phone
• map

To my great sur­prise, both Tyler and Gar­rett had all of these things, except the hik­ing poles which I sup­plied. While I did know that they were into Air Soft and like to play war games on the week­ends, I didn’t know that they were so well equipped.

Now…let’s see how we did with our back­pack list com­pared to the The Sierra Club’s rec­om­mended back­pack contents.

• Nav­i­ga­tion (map and compass)
• Fire (matches or lighters)
• Sig­nal­ing Device (whis­tle or mirror)
• Sun Pro­tec­tion (sun­glasses and sunblock)
• Insu­la­tion (extra clothing)
• Nutri­tion (extra food)
• Hydra­tion (extra water and/or the means to make more)
• Illu­mi­na­tion (flashlight/headlamp)
• First Aid Kit
• Emer­gency Shel­ter (trash bag, bivy sack, tent)
• Bonus: Repair Kit includ­ing tools

Well…looks like we didn’t do too badly. I can see that we missed a few though. I don’t think we will need these missed items on this first hike, but we will include them in our packs on future, longer hikes.

Any­one out there have any other sug­ges­tions about what to include or leave out?

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