Catchy happy dance! That’s because of this new yellow device clamped to me – filled with paint brushes and watercolor paper. My new gear from Six Moon Designs arrived and I’m beginning to try some of it out. (top photo of the Elwha River last week with winter water.)

For 2020 I’m being sponsored by Six Moon Designs in Oregon, a family company that makes award-winning ultralight camping equipment. Here’s the pack they sent me recently and this is the first try-out. What better place than where the Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail crosses Port Townsend on it’s way between Glacier National Park in Montana and Olympic NP to the west of us. It’s 1200 miles of some of the best scenery in America and it goes right through town. 

I’d have to say, this appears to be the best pack I’ve ever had on my back. How many I’ve had total, I cannot say, but this one is the most comfortable and much of the time it didn’t even feel like it was back there at all. I loaded it up with all the dry gear I’ll be carrying this summer, which means everything except fluids and food, and it came in at about 15 lbs. That’s FIFTEEN pounds for the pack, sleeping bag, cook kit, sleeping pad, TENT and all the rest of the stuff it takes to travel comfortably in the backcountry for a few days.

A decade ago, my fully-loaded pack was about 40 lbs.  I’m in my 70’s now, and the only way I can stay ‘out there’ is by traveling light. Thankfully, the camping industry has stayed with us older people and ultralight equipment is making my life easier each year. I wish I had this stuff decades ago.

This pack is their Fusion 65,  a big pack for me but it’s still just a tad over 3 lbs, or about half of my former ones. It has a variety of shoulder harnesses and attachments to make it fit perfectly – and it does! It also has some thoughtful features, a roll top on the main bag to make it compress and be waterproof no matter how much you cram into it. It has 7 other pockets, enough to divide up your goodies, and four on the front I can get to while walking. Cue the snacks.

So, why is all this about art? For me, a painter or nature, it’s about getting out and staying out in wilderness as late into my life as possible. Day hikes are great, but nothing hits it for me than sleeping in a mountain meadow with the marmots and deer. It’s clearly a spiritual-thing, going to these untrammeled places. We may build churches to go inside where we close our eyes and try to find spiritual meaning, but isn’t it better to find the same thing with eyes open? For me, as it was with Muir and Thoreau, it’s sitting in a mountain meadow. I take my paints or at least a sketch pad, of course, because by running my hand around a page it heightens the experience about 10 fold. I see, really see what’s there – a real meditative pleasure I never get tired of. These days, I don’t believe anyone is too ‘old’ to do this, it’s simply a matter of getting passionate about it – and the rest will happen. 71 years ago, I got that passion right away and it simply hasn’t left. Questions about how a 73 year-old guy does this, just ask.

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Thanks for reading this week.

Larry Eifert

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Nancy’s web portfolio of stunning photography and paintings

And here to go to Virginia Eifert’s website.