S24O Preparations

This coming Monday I’ll be packing up the car and heading about twenty minutes north to Bradbury Mountain State Park for my first S24O camping trip. I’ll admit, I’m pretty excited, and if I find that I enjoy this overnight, I hope to do many more. And once spring rolls around, I hope to have a new touring bike outfitted with panniers to get me to these campouts. Even though the sub 24 hour trips are supposed to be “grab some gear and go” adventures, I find that I’ll still need to do a bit of preparation to make this successful.

One of my tasks over the next few days is to decide what gear I need to bring with me. “Lightweight” and “minimalist” are words I’ll be keeping in the front of my mind as I go through my gear. As you saw in the video yesterday, I have a good amount of big and bulky stuff in my collection, so it will be important to pare down what I bring. My goal is to pack simple, enough that I can fit most of my stuff into one small daypack. I’ll be leaving sometime Monday morning and driving up to the park where I’ll set up camp and get some hiking in. Unforutnately, biking to the park is out of the question because of 2 broken spokes and a bike without gear racks. So I’ll drive for this one, which is fine by me.

First, I need to remember to pack toiletries. On Tuesday morning, I have to get up and be at work for 11AM, meaning I have to get there early enough to shower, shave, and change into my work clothes. I picked Bradbury because it’s fairly close to Freeport, Maine, where I work.

Second, some of my gear is old and hasn’t been used for months. Checking the tent for tears or mold, making sure my headlamp has batteries, cleaning my pocket knives and cook kit, and other various tasks are all on the checklist.

Next, I’ll need to decide what electronics I’m going to carry along. I’d like to document the trip for PTV, but I’m not into carrying iPods and cell phones with me on any camping trip. I go to the woods to avoid those things. So, I’ll bring my Nikon point & shoot camera to take some pictures, and maybe shoot a few video clips along the way. Other than that, the only other battery operated toy will be my old Petzl headlamp.

Finally, I’ll need to pack everything up. That will happen on Sunday morning, because I work late that night, and won’t be able to pack anything once I do arrive home. I’ll make sure I get directions from Google maps, and do a final check before heading to work.

That’s the plan for now. I’ll keep you updated as the day nears, especially on what gear I do end up taking. Woo!

Chris Cavallari

About Chris Cavallari

Chris is a longtime digital content producer based in Maine. Since 1999, he has been an early adopter and active participant in blogging, podcasting, and social media, and has been guiding small and mid-sized businesses in leveraging video, social media, and digital publishing to the fullest. With an avid love of travel and the outdoors, Chris started PartTimeVagabond.com in 2009 to give him a platform to showcase his outdoors and travel adventures, and to help educate others in doing the same.