California specific backcountry pack list

Get the best gear you can afford. The more comfortable you are the longer you’ll stay out. You can always sell it later if your needs change or you decide backpack hunting isn’t for you. Good gear retains its value.
All my gear is essential but good boots, load hauling backpack, moisture wicking clothes and sleeping bag are primary.
I use a 26” Kifaru frame pack, Lowa boots w/gortex membrane, Firstlite merino wool and a Kifaru 20 degree Slick bag.
You are welcome to PM me for specifics.
 
100% for best gear I can afford, I’d like to buy right once and have this stuff for a while.
I’ve got enough ideas from either direct suggestions or what I’ve read on here that I need to go spend some time at Rei and sportsman’s and try to fill in some of my missing items.
 
I'd second what everyone was saying about ditching cotton. If you can get some merino that would be awesome. First Lite has a really lite long sleeve quarter zip aerowool that is great for the hot weather here. Most of my trips in Azone for deer, I wear Prana stretch zion pants or First Lite Corrugate guide pants, Darn Tough socks, merino boxers, and the First lite aerowool long sleeve. In the pack, is one short sleeve regular thickness merino shirt to add as a second layer, a puffy jacket, a pair of wool socks to stalk in (if bow hunting), and a merino beanie. When it gets colder, I will add a thicker merino long sleeve and long underwear to the pack. Lots of options for merino layers, most of my underlayer merino isn't camo and usually not a hunting brand. I am sure there are other lightweight merino like first lites aerowool, but I am not sure. All I know is that was huge when I got that, it was so nice to be able to wear a long sleeve all day when it was 100+ and it didn't stink like the synthetic stuff. I don't take extra underwear or socks. Usually for rain gear, I just take this cheap lightweight poncho, unless I know it is going to be storming for a big part of the trip.

I would definitely look into treating your clothes with Permethrin from Sawyer Products for the ticks and get a small thing of Picaridin bug spray as well

I would also suggest getting a set of gloves. I just use a set of gloves from the hardware store and wear them pretty much all the time while hunting. Great for pushing through poison oak or crawling through brush and oak leaves and hiking with trekking poles. Leading up to bow season, all my bow shooting is done while wearing those same gloves so that I am used to shooting with them. I do so much busting through brush and scrambling up steep rocky stuff where it is just good peace of mind not having to worry about your hands getting beat up. Sounds sissy, but it works, and I am a tile contractor so my hands aren't exactly soft, it's just one less thing for me to worry about and concentrate on hunting.

As for your gear, start with what you have and do a couple 1 or 2 night backpacking/hunting trips and start figuring out what you can live with that you have now, and what you need to change right away. If you are hunting Azone during the summer, you can probably ditch the fly on your tent for most trips to save some weight. Maybe get a poncho liner (woobie) from a surplus store to take for the summer trips instead of the sleeping bag. I was using a poncho liner the past 2 years and adding a costco down throw with it for the colder trips instead of my down sleeping bag to save some weight and it worked great. I ran that until I could get a nice down quilt which I just got and am stoked about. I ran some pretty shitty tents for awhile as well until I saved up some and caught a good sale at REI for a decent lightweight tent. Basically run what you have and slowly start changing stuff out, but definitely don't think you need all the greatest to start going.
 
In California I have been able to get away with bringing much much less gear. For archery season on a 4 night hunt my total pack weight including bow, food, and water was 28lbs. The chances of getting wet or extreme weather is usually slim, at least in the places I hunt.

For clothes I just wear my Kuiu tiburon pants, merino long sleeve, and pack a puffy along with one change of socks and underwear.

For tent you can get away with the ultra light, 1ish pound treking pole setups. Sleeping bag 32degree bag is fine, and light pad.

For water you can pack a lot less if you scout and know where the creek crossing are. One liter of water is 2.2lbs! Carry less and refill more often.

For stove I dabble in cooking over fires, alcohol stove, and small burner.

In general you just don’t need as much heavy duty gear in CA, at least in the earlier seasons and especially central/southern CA. Less is more
 
Fortunately for my year round sanity I’m not in SoCal.

I like reading shorter gear lists, makes me feel like I’m not as far from the mark as I thought at first.
 
Thinking back to when I first started hunting in my teens, our backpacking gear was pretty comical. $20 yard sale external frame packs, Cabela’s cotton pants, nasty old sleeping bags, $5 Walmart foam sleeping pads, $200 binos, and no rangefinder. Didn’t seem to matter as we all killed our biggest california bucks using very minimalist gear back then.
 
You really just need the basics. We used to boil water with a coffee can over the fire. I would highly recommend just going with what gear you can scrape together and/or borrow, then slowly build and pare down your gear as you learn what kinds of things are important.
 
Honestly I had pretty much already decided I was going to do what you just said Will.
I know I can get by with what I’ve got right now but, a little comfort goes a long ways.

I really appreciate being able to see what’s really working for people in similar conditions. My life doesn’t allow me nearly as much time as it used to and it helps having a little confidence in new gear based on others reviews/recommendations.
 
Lots of great stuff said. I second getting as far away from anything cotton as possible. One thing that is a huge help for me in A Zone is I make my own wipes with diluted Dr. Bronners (hippy soap) to wipe my skin down at the end of each day. The only reason for this is it helps me stay poison oak free as I get it extremely bad. I learned this by talking to local Cal Fire firemen who employ this method when they are in the field for long stretches, specifically dealing with poison oak. For me its been an absolute game-changer and at a very minimal weight penalty.
 
I’m a little hesitant to even type this but, I’ve actually built up a fairly decent immunity to it over the years. When I was a kid it was a different story, I’d swear I could catch it in a strong wind. Usually landed in the ER about twice a summer. I feel for you and agree that any weight carried to prevent that living hell is well worth the effort.
 
Less set up time than a shade tarp I like it. And yes it hard to shade up in the brush. I was hiking with one of my hunting partners - couple seasons ago, humping up out of a pretty steep canyon. I come over a little knob to se him on his knees head buried to his shoulders in a bush, I though he fell and hadn’t quite uprighted himself yet or he was getting heat stroke and was ill. But he was just shading up for the rest of the hike out.
 
brushape said:
90% of people you’re going to run into hunting in ca will have at best a badlands internal frame pack, Walmart sleeping bags and some random shit that’s it. It’s usually hot and dry here you don’t need to get crazy with your pack


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If you'll be at elevation I'd definitely want to more prepared than this suggests. Just last summer I was in the south fork of the Yuba, nice 80ish degrees, right down the river gorge comes a bunch of black clouds shooting out lightning and a downpour. We all had to scramble into the trees to keep safe, had about 90 seconds to make it off the water/beach. Most everyone I was with had crappier gear and they paid for it with the wind tearing up tents or not keeping out the rain.
 
jfs82 said:
If you'll be at elevation I'd definitely want to more prepared than this suggests. Just last summer I was in the south fork of the Yuba, nice 80ish degrees, right down the river gorge comes a bunch of black clouds shooting out lightning and a downpour. We all had to scramble into the trees to keep safe, had about 90 seconds to make it off the water/beach. Most everyone I was with had crappier gear and they paid for it with the wind tearing up tents or not keeping out the rain.
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Some of my best backpacking memories are from a trip that took us through snow and the aftermath of snow, slush, mud, wet all the good stuff. I was the kid that couldn’t be kept out of puddles and of course as a growing kid my mom couldn’t afford to keep me in good gear, I destroyed or put grew everywhere in short order. So I wore wet jeans and thermals and rotated to a dryer wet pair of jeans and sweats and tried to dry my boots by the fire at night.

I don’t have the kind of enthusiasm I did as a kid I won’t have my head in the game trying to hunt like that.
 
I've done a quite a bit of backpacking/hunting in California and here are a few of my observations on gear.
1. The attack pants are nice early summer/early fall, but a bit warm to hike in mid summer. I'll carry a pair of Attacks for mornings and evenings, then hike in running shorts if I'm on trails or in the Sierra's (less brush than the NW coastal ranges).

2. I use a SnowPeak titanium cup as a pot/cup and a MSR pocket rocket for a great lightweight stove system. The Sierra's weather has seemed conducive to this setup. If I'm in for a week of rain, I'll bring a more robust system. As old school as this sounds, when It's super cold and wet all trip, bringing a kettle to put on a fire is the way to go. Backpacking stoves can't produce the BTUs needed to produce enough hot water quickly for a multi person trip.

3. The Big Agnes UL2 tent has been awesome.

4. Bring some sort of electrolyte replacement mix. I'm not one to cramp during or after a long day in the mountains, but a hot day in Trinities roasted me two summers ago.

5. I've hiked in lightweight boots/approach shoes (Selawa Alps) and more durable boots (Crispi Nevada's) and I'll take the extra support any day. The rocky trails with pack weight kill my feet if I don't have solid platform/boot to protect my arches.
 
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