Lost and Found query

[Moondog55]

Lately I have notided a lot of posts about losing or finding important bits and pieces
While I often misplace stuff about the house in 45 years of walking and climbing I have never "lost" anything.
I have had some things ripped from my hands and'or body by wild weather but that is a separate issue.
Don't people take care to secure gear these days? Tent poles falling off/dropping? pockets falling off?
Don't walkers use double ties and safety cords these days or is the extra 40 grams of a second clip or length of cord simply too much weight to carry.
Those carabiners and clips permanently attached to my packs are not there for show nor are those daggy long bits of string on my stuff sacks for my tent and pole bags

[Lophophaps]

Good points. I've found a fair amount of gear on tracks and at campsites. One problem is that too often fabrics are green, thus blending in with the envionment. My beautiful tent has rubbish pole and peg bags. Both are green, and to avoid them getting lost I've added a metre or so of very lightweight white venetian blind cord to each. My PLB lives in a small stuff sack that I made, with a baby krab clipping both to a loop I stitched in the lid pocket of the pack. The PLB needs to be handy but not so handy that it falls out when I'm getting food, water or a hat from the pocket.

We were going south over Crosscut Saw, on the Spec steps. One person had tent poles on the outside, and they were snagged by a tree, left dangling. The walker did not notice. Had he been last he would have been without poles for the next three nights. I've seen gear hanging from trees, missed when departing.

When going on trips of more than 12 days I have some items on the outside. All are lashed on very securely, and I've yet to lose anything. I'm now thinking of a custom-made pocket, possibly mesh, that can take another 5-8 litres and be secured to multiple points.

You menioned this thread in another one, items found in the Western Arthurs. Maybe add a link there to the thread you are reading now.

[Moondog55]

You menioned this thread in another one, items found in the Western Arthurs. Maybe add a link there to the thread you are reading now.

Good idea
Done

[north-north-west]

Clips - except locking carabiners - can undo themselves in some conditions (especially scrub-bashing). Plastic clips can break. Things get left behind at camp or lunch sites. Sunglasses get propped on foreheads and knocked or blown off. Things get stuffed in pockets and snag on vegetation and fall out.

[Son of a Beach]

I'm with you Moondog. It's exceedingly rare for me to lose anything (either while bushwalking or otherwise). But I have slightly OCD tendencies and in this context that means that I have unwritten rules in my head about where and how I place things to make sure that everything is always in its place, either in the pack, or in the campsite, and that it is secure from falling from the pack, or being blown away by the wind.

I have eventually learned that not everybody's mind works the same way as mine. It annoys me that there is no way I will ever be able to train somebody in my extended family who loses their keys or wallet at least once a month. It drives me around the bend, because it is a trivially simple problem to solve, but in their mind, the simple effort involved in managing this is too difficult for some reason. Eg, NEVER, EVER, for ANY reason, put your keys ANYWHERE other than the small number of places where they actually belong - in my case, my pocket, the dresser next to my bed, the glove box (not my car key, obviously, which is attached by carabiner to the inside of my pack), or the car/motorbike ignition switch.

People are different and some of these differences are instinctive and cannot be trained or learned (at least not easily).

I reckon it's a shame that not everybody on the planet is exactly the same as me. The world would be such a marvelous place.

(I seem to have got off-topic a bit here... sorry).

Having said all that, I have lost ONE item bushwalking. I left a Black Diamond 'Ion' head torch hanging from a nail next to a bed in Ironstone Hut a log time ago. I normally double-check the entire camp site AFTER packing up is complete, but for some reason it didn't see it that time around, despite that it was in the "correct" place for it.

[Lophophaps]

I too put items in a small number of places, and don't lose or misplace much. I lost my mind once. A world where "everybody on the planet is exactly the same as me" would not last long. My limited understanding of biology is that a male and female are needed for procreation.

[north-north-west]

My limited understanding of biology is that a male and female are needed for procreation.

Not always. There are parthenogenic species.
I sometimes think it's a pity humans aren't one of them. Although the current system does have an up side.

[ChrisJHC]

I also put things in the same place each time and check the important things "every so often". Not sure what I'd do if I found something missing and the last time I checked it was several km ago!

I also make sure that I check the ground everywhere I've been before heading off the next day.


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[andrewa]

I have only ever left a goretex jkt on a hut door once, but these days I travel with as little as possible, and everything has its place "inside" the pack. The only things that go outside are packrafting paddles when rafting, spare fly rod on fishing trips, or skis/snowshoes/shovel/ice axe in winter. Everything else lives inside, and I have a routune for parking everything each day - eg sleeping mat and inflatable pillow live together in one stuff sack; various cooking /eating implements always live inside billy etc.

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[Mark F]

I used to be a walking disaster for losing stuff but changing to andrewa's system has severely limited my losses. The rules are:
1. Everything has its place in the pack.
2. Pack in order. I do this by systems. Sleeping, cooking, clothing, etc
3. Stop packing if all items for the particular system have not been found and stowed.
4. Once packed double check your surrounds.

When restarting after a stop. I do a bit of head shoulder knees and toes. Hat poles, water bottle etc.

One of my finest efforts was my sun hat one day on the HRP. I lost it three times and had it returned twice, once by the bloke who repainted the GR route markers. That hat had a mind of it's own.

[AWTtrekker]

I have just bought a series of coloured UL drysacks for this reason. I tend to lose things in my bag(although not usually lost in the bush, just temporarily misplaced. I am planning a system of specific bags being for certain items or group of items to create a bit more order in my bag.

[tas-man]

Like Son of a Beach I am a bit OCD when it comes to packing gear (everything has its place!) and also when setting up my tent and campsites, so that I know exactly where everything is, and can even put my hand on things in the dark if necessary. However I have two stories of items nearly "lost" and then "found" when bushwalking. In 2008 when walking the South Coast Track, my wife insisted that I carry a Satellite phone or PLB so at that time a Sat phone was the cheaper option so I went with that. (This was the trip where I got that fabulous photo of the sun setting on our camp on top of the New Harbour Range - download/file.php?id=1512&mode=view) viewtopic.php?f=9&t=686 The day after camping on the New Harbour Range we descended the range to Cox Bight and when we stopped mid afternoon nearing the end of Cox's Beach I had a niggle of a thought to check where the Sat phone was - it was not in the top pocket where I had decided to keep it, so did a search through my pack down to sleeping bag at the bottom and no sign of the sat phone! After some depressing discussion of options, Nigel the fittest of our party, said that after we set up camp at the end of the beach, he would take a head torch and jog back to the top of the New Harbour Range to have a look around our campsite and see if he could find it. There was no talking as we got to the campsite at Bellbuoy Creek and unpacked. I got my tent up and gear inside, with the sleeping bag coming out of my pack last. As I pulled it out there was a momentary glint of something shiny in the bottom of the pack - the screen of the sat phone! I yelled to the others that I had found it, and the relief was euphoric. I then remembered that when loosely packing everything away the night before, I had placed the phone on top of the stuff still in my pack, and in rummaging around for breakfast, it had settled to the bottom of the pack. So the phone had spent the day at the bottom of my pack and suffering the pounding of being dropped and sat on with only a bend in the case clip that I was able to straighten. There was a $2500 fee agreed to in the hire contract if the phone was lost or damaged, so I was VERY careful about keeping tabs on its location for the rest of the trip.

The second instance was in January this year while walking the Three Capes Track. I have lost my wallet a few times in recent years (seniors moments), so last year invested in some bluetooth tracking "tiles" that talk to my iPhone and warn me if I am leaving things behind. One tile is in my wallet and the other on my car keys. As our party of four had driven from Launceston to Port Arthur in my car, I decided that the car keys would stay in a zip pocket of my trousers during the walk so that there was no possibility of becoming separated from them. When packing up on Day 2 I did the usual final check of the cabin and pockets to discover that the car keys were not in my trouser pocket! The zip was open and no keys! Immediate feelings of panic, as the only spare keys were back in Launceston. I then remembered my tracking device and turned on my phone, and the tracking App showed that the last recorded location was back at the first night's accommodation. I got the host ranger to check with the Surveyors Hut ranger to see if any keys had been found. No luck there, so I started considering walking back along the track to see if I could spot them, and phoned a neighbour in Launceston to work out how to get a spare set of keys on the Redline bus to Port Arthur. After making a few phone calls, I noticed that the Bluetooth was still turned off, so turned it on and within seconds I got a warning that my keys were about to go out of range. I went back to the room we slept in and used the tracking App to get the tile on the keys to sound its alarm, and found it in the top bunk where I had slept, down between the mattress and the wall. It must have fallen out of the unzipped pocket when I had stuffed my clothes to the side of the bunk, so all ended happily.

[Singe]

I've found a few things trackside, including a nice looking UL tent that I handed to the parks staff at freycinet visitor centre. Never lost anything though; I guess packing things inside my rucksack has an upside... [WINKING FACE]

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[puredingo]

I better stay out of this, I've lost just about everything there is to lose while being in the bush. Mostly the ten minute drink/snack breaks is what does me in.

[andrewa]

I've progressively tried to minimilize my stuff, so everything has a place, and I don't lose things. I have such a rigid system of packing, that I can't finish packing without whatever being where it needs to be. So nothing lost by me.

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