Matthew and Cassie's Big Climbing Trip.: The junk glacier moveth.

The house is starting to feel pretty empty. We're down to two pieces of real furniture which consists of our bed, and our couch. The bed will be gone Wednesday evening and the couch should be gone by then as well. We did our first test pack yesterday and realized that we must eliminate a few things.
Filling up the largest box top Yakima makes was pretty easy. We were able to fit three 12 gallon bins, and our solar oven. Packed alongside of those boxes were long skinny items such as the tent and sleeping bags. Unfortunately two items that will be sacrificed are our large backpacks. We intended to bring 4 large backpacks, 2 for hauling climbing gear around and 2 for backpack trips. That's not going to happen since we just don't have the space.

the remains of our apartment

Shoes were the next thing to go. After packing all the shoes we realized we had about three 12 gallon bins full of climbing shoes, approach shoes, hiking shoes, running shoes, sandals, and our Sorrel winter boots. That's kind of a ridiculous amount of shoes. I suppose if we have a weakness it's for all the different styles and shapes of shoes. Having the right pair of shoes is critical, but where there isn't space there's only so much you can do about it. We opted for a single pair of running shoes instead of trail running and road running shoes, ditched the Sorrels, and eliminated a pair of approach shoes (yeah I had two pairs). We knew this was going to happen we just hadn't done the test pack yet. With the test pack completed that sliver of hope vanished and took the extra shoes with it. (we still have probably close to 20 pairs of just rock climbing shoes). Our hope is to just wear them out and throw them away when we're done with them.

Some things did make the cut however and we're happy to report that the pressure cooker, and the solar oven will make it. Most of the tools I wanted are going to be able to come as are a bunch of extra kitchen items like two large cutting boards and an assortment of other cooking items. We fully expect that we've over packed and that we'll be getting rid of some items along the way.

It's really tough to just get rid of things that are in perfect working shape. We have a bunch of nice blankets that we use at home, and there isn't anything wrong with them but we don't have the space. So, when the conversations happen for each item it usually goes like this "well here's this really nice item","yeah it's super nice but where will it fit","we probably don't have the space for it", "should we store it", "do we really need to store blankets?","no I guess that isn't necessary, it's not like we can't buy blankets when we get back","okay then it goes in the donate pile". Shortly thereafter a trip to Goodwill is undertaken with multiple garbage bags of stuff. The truly remarkable thing is that many of the items we're getting rid of are things we rarely (if ever) even use. In a lot of ways this has helped me see how many things can be owned but unused and may help me regulate my impulse to buy things we "really need" when we get back from the trip.

Here's a picture of the spare bedroom with just items we are taking. Some things have already been put in the van. Will it all fit? Only the van knows...