About
The cast iron skillet story. And everything that came after it.
The first time I went backpacking, a church trip leader took one look at my aluminum cookware and handed me a cast iron skillet in its place.
I was maybe 110 pounds soaking wet.
I swore I'd never let anyone pick my gear again.
My friend and I both grew up on farms in Mississippi. His family ran a dairy operation — about 500 acres owned and leased, enough land that we could always find a stretch of it we hadn't slept in yet. We didn't have a lot of options for where to go and what to do, so we made our own. We'd load our gear into the farm truck, drive a dirt road down along the fence line until we hit a gate, and disappear into the property until we ran out of daylight or reasons to stay.
We slept in hammocks when it was warm enough. Found three trees in a triangle, tied them together at the top, and talked until we fell asleep. We cooked over campfires with whatever we'd managed to scrape together — paid for with Pizza Hut wages and farm work, because that's how you bought gear back then.
One night, all we had was the campfire, no lanterns, and late. Something woke us up. We looked around and all we could see were glowing orbs floating in the darkness. We screamed. Vaulted into the truck bed without touching the bumper.
Turned out it was a herd of Holstein cows that had seen the light and come to investigate. What we saw were the eyeballs reflecting the firelight.
We were maybe slightly chemically enhanced at the time, which did not help.
Another night, we camped by a cow pond in an open pasture. We'd been given a couple of pieces of chicken to cook for dinner. We carried firewood in the truck. Set up camp, built our fire, started cooking — and then the sky fell out. Rain so hard the only part of the fire that stayed lit was the square inch directly underneath the frying pan. We had to tilt the pan to pour the water out, tilt it back before the flame died, repeat. We got the chicken about three-quarters done, decided we were tired of being soaking wet, and ate it anyway.
Then we got in the tent and found out the ground wasn't level. Water ran downhill, pooled against one side of the tent, found its way inside, and slowly drenched our sleeping bags.
By sunrise we were packed and ready to leave.
That's the education this site is built on.
Not expert training. Not gear sponsorships. Not a lifetime of perfect trips with the right equipment and someone who knew what they were doing. Just two farm kids who figured things out the hard way, on whatever they could afford, on land they were lucky enough to have access to.
I can't get back on the trail anymore. Too many miles on the frame — back problems, orthopedic issues, the kind of thing that accumulates after a Navy career and a few decades of not being 19 years old. But the relationship with the outdoors never left. And everything I know about gear — what matters, what doesn't, what the industry sells you versus what you actually need — comes from that foundation.
So that's what this is. Stories from the trail. Honest opinions on gear. What I'd carry today instead of what I carried then.
No cast iron skillets. I promise.
— Jeff, somewhere in Mississippi
"I swore I'd never let anyone pick my gear again."