Over the past few years I’ve been slowly reaccumulating gear and gradually introducing my wife to the fun that is canoe camping.

We’ve had a good time with it, but one constant thorn in my side is that I can’t seem to find a good way to keep shared group equipment, that is cooking gear, water filters, bear ropes, chairs, tarps etc., orderly when we pack it up. Much of our equipment is MSR brand so our current system is a spare Duluth pack filled to the gills with ten different MSR mini stuff sacks just loose in the pack rattling around next to pots and pans. Seems like a minor issue but I’m convinced there must be a better way.

Back in the Scouting days, I recall we had a “kettle kit” Duluth pack which had plenty of pockets with room for almost all of our group equipment and it packed up really nicely. What do you all do to keep your shared equipment orderly for canoe trips? It’s really frustrating to be fishing around all the loose equipment that falls to the bottom of the Duluth pack hunting for a spatula or the bag with sponge and dish soap.

"loose equipment that falls to the bottom of the Duluth pack "

Truth be told, I'll wager that this is a familiar scene played out at the majority of camps. Not always a perfect way to avoid it. We'll use ditty bags for a lot of our smaller common items, but a lot of things are packed singly just because they pack more compactly for carrying that way. Seems like our system involves pulling a number of items out of the pack soon after beginning to set up and setting them aside nearby but outside of the pack, even if not immediately needed. Everything goes back in sometime after dinner and the whole thing plays out again in the morning.

I'm probably the most OCD in our group, so most of the guys will leave it to me to re-assemble the 3-D puzzle when it's time to button up the gear bag for travel. Eventually, a system develops where you can predict where that desired item is hiding. Or where it fell to... :-)

While I travel solo and use different packs there is some general commonality.
I sources a few separate bags to contain,
1. My sleeping system, S-bag mattress, pillow, and sleeping clothes.
2. My daily clothing and personal hygiene gear.
3. Shelter and rigging.
4. Food and of cook gear.

The 4 bags will fill my pack with enough room for a 5th bag if needed, and sized to lay across the width of the pack and stack to the top.


Anyway that's my organization in packing.

butthead

Stuff sacks or large zip lock bags to organize everything. Keep eating and cooking utensils organized in a utensil roll. Bag all pots & pans together with stove, soap and sponge. Plates, bowls etc can be bagged with pots & pans. Etc. The key is organization.

Ausable: "Stuff sacks or large zip lock bags to organize everything. Keep eating and cooking utensils organized in a utensil roll. Bag all pots & pans together with stove, soap and sponge. Plates, bowls etc can be bagged with pots & pans. Etc. The key is organization."

And color code it to make it easier. Example. All the cooking gear, fuel, stoves and spices go in the big red dry bag. The first aid kit is in the blue. All lines go in the yellow one. Water filter in it's own bag. And so forth. Pretty easy to grab the red one when you need it. Of course, if you're the only one who cares, you're going to have to verify every piece of gear gets put in the right bag.

.y wife has zero tolerance or ability to do this. Everything is just thrown in...whatever-style. I'm always "making everything so complicated"...but the level of organization I bring is like invisible grease that keeps everything moving efficiently.

I will only speak to our group trips rather than my minimalistic solos.

We have a Maine pack basket that my husband carries along with the canoe. The bottom of the basket is a perfect fit for our pots, stove, fuel, saw, hatchet, a zip bag with other kitchen gear, and first aid kit. He is a freezy bug so on top of those cooking items he stores a dry bag with the extra layers he might want during the day.

He added a strap to the outside of the pack basket to which he clips miscellaneous items like the water purifier, ferro rod, water bottle, sunglass case, etc. These items flip over the lip of the basket when portaging so they aren't dangling/swinging, but are easily accessible when we are in the canoe.

The main pack(s) has/have our personal gear all stowed in labeled dry bags, and the colored coded food bags are distributed evenly between the packs to keep the weight from getting too high in any one pack. I carry a small daypack with the other canoe and it contains lunch for the day, our cups, sunscreen, bug spray, etc.

Gear waiting to be placed in packs

Gear all packed up. This gear was from a 2 week, 2 person trip. For the first week, we had the pack basket, a 115L Sealline pack, a 50L Earthpac, and the small daypack. Once we ate some food, we didn't need the 50L pack anymore.

In our gear pack, I have a large dry bag that holds all of the kitchen gear and miscellaneous gear such as repair kits, a large dry bag for the tent (mostly to prevent a wet tent from getting everything else wet), a stuff sack for the tarp, Ursacks with the food, and the only stray things are spare fuel canisters (current ones are in with the stoves in their stuff sacks which are in the kitchen bag), the saw, and a hatchet. It keeps things organized and pretty easy to find. A few small loose things are ok for sticking in odd spaces. You could use large stuff sacks instead of dry bags.

Our clothing and sleeping bag pack has a dry bag for each of our clothes, a dry bag with our double sleeping bag in it, stuff sacks for each sleeping pad, and then just shoes with each pair in a small stuff sack. The nice thing with this system is all of the stuff sacks and dry bags can be packed in the tent during a rainstorm. They can then be quickly out into the pack and everything stays dry. The tent is wet but goes in the gear bag.

butthead: "While I travel solo and use different packs there is some general commonality.
I sources a few separate bags to contain,
1. My sleeping system, S-bag mattress, pillow, and sleeping clothes.
2. My daily clothing and personal hygiene gear.
3. Shelter and rigging.
4. Food and of cook gear.


The 4 bags will fill my pack with enough room for a 5th bag if needed, and sized to lay across the width of the pack and stack to the top.



Anyway that's my organization in packing.


butthead"

Butthead, where did you find these stackable color coded bags? Do you recall the brand? Thanks!

They are discontinued Granit Gear pack stackers. Vary in size from 18 liters to 12 liters. They can be replaced with GG Zipsacks or other similarly sized sacks. I tried a combo of vertical stuff bags but like the horizontal for comfort and pack ride. this is a backpacking layout I use. When canoe tripping I put food and cook gear in a small daypack, making room for more clothes and camp items.

butthead

Ausable: "Stuff sacks or large zip lock bags to organize everything. Keep eating and cooking utensils organized in a utensil roll. Bag all pots & pans together with stove, soap and sponge. Plates, bowls etc can be bagged with pots & pans. Etc. The key is organization."

^This^ is pretty much it.

I use stuff sacks for gear, mesh sacks for dishes and water filters (anything that gets wet), and ziplocks for anything that needs to be sanitary (toothbrush) or as an extra moisture barrier layer.

This system works pretty well for me and I usually end up with 2 stuff sacks and 2 mesh sacks. One stuff for clothes, another for gear, a mesh for dishes, and then another for the gravity filter. The ziplocks tend to go into the gear bag and that stays pretty small. I think the system works pretty well for me. I especially like having the dishes in a sack so I can hang everything from the clothesline and keep them away from mice and chipmunks.

Great tips everyone! Thanks. A kitchen utensil roll and individual stuff sacks are great ideas. Now if I could just figure out an easier way to wash dishes our next trip might be almost stress free! It’s all well and good when you save the biggest pot for heating dish water, but use that big pot for chili or frying fish and the whole system is out of whack!

For washing dishes we use a Granite Gear sink. Sea to Summit makes one too. Just adds a few ounces to the pack and gives you an easier time washing things back in the woods, away from the water. We also have a Granite Gear fabric bucket that can be used for fetching water for the sink and putting the fire out at night.

Also, our dishes and utensils go in a mesh stuff sack for drying. Keeps them organized and prevents them from blowing away.

In my main pack (CCS Pioneer), I pack things in the order of when I will need them. Extra cloths in a stuff sack in the bottom, quilts, hammock, hammock tarp, group tarp if I bring one, camp shoes. When I get to camp, put on shoes, ..., work down through the pack until camp is setup. Cloths stay in the pack. Top pack compartment has rain gear, maps, compass, zip lock with personal hygiene.

Each person has personal pack with their cloths and sleep system.

All kitchen gear and food goes into 5 gal buckets with gamma lids. Paddles and fishing rods get strapped into canoes so hands can carry buckets. One bucket for stove, fuel, cook kit, utensils, water filter in a small mesh bag, a mesh bag for BDBs and other things. Food goes in one or more buckets.

When solo, kitchen gear and food go in one bucket, food in a stuff sack. When I get to the portage, I set the bucket on a rock with the handle sticking up, install my yoke, put on my pack, shoulder the canoe, grab the bucket and go.

For groups, we have one bucket per canoe. Buckets double as table or chairs in camp. I have three buckets all with white gamma lids. I think I will number them to avoid sometimes having to open all three to find what you need. Bucket can also be used for top reservoir for gravity filter.

In the food buckets I try to use zip locks to organize. I pack snacks in single serving snack bags so it's easy to allocate for the day. Each person gets single serving bag of trail mix, single serving bag of jerky, cliff bar, ... for the day. All oatmeal packets in a one gallon bag, ... Still the worst thing is digging though the buckets to find what you need. Buckets get hung in a tree at night.