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October 10, 2014 / Comments (1)

Gear Storage for Small Spaces

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Allison is the founder of trailtosummit.com which she began as a way to track and share her first round of the NH 4000 Footers. Now on round 5 (the first round for her dog Ruckus) she has been honored to have taken part of many people’s firsts. She is an experienced trail maintainer, speaker, and passionate member of the outdoor community. In New England, Allison enjoys trekking along the highest peaks, bushwhacking to less traveled areas, and has a fondness for sunrise and sunset trips. Outside of New England Allison has also thru hiked the John Muir Trail and explored mountains in the German and Austrian Alps, Israel, and the Azores. Her goal is to share her passion for hiking and backpacking with others, especially with women, to inspire them to experience the freedom of the trail!
While backpacking you carry everything you need in one pack. Your backpacking gear may not be so organized at home, especially if you don’t have a lot of space.
I keep most of my hiking and backpacking gear in my condo’s storage attic. Each unit owner has their own locked area (they remind me of dog kennels) to store their stuff. It’s also where we keep coolers, holiday decorations, off season clothes, etc. so keeping it organized is essential.

I hang a few items such as my packs on nails. It’s a really cheap and easy way to keep your packs off the ground and easy to reach. I have two day packs on the left and two larger capacity packs on the right. In between I have crampons and microspikes hanging. The blue handle on the left is an ice axe.

Most of my gear is stored on a plastic shelving unit. I wouldn’t want that inside my condo, but in the storage attic it does its job. I get to use a lot of vertical space with this.

The back wall has more items hung. I have a gear tie to keep my sleds (the best way to get down a mountain in winter!), my fiance’s snowshoes are hung with a bungee cord, and my mountaineering snowshoes are hanging on a nail. On the right I have a couple more packs… I know. The larger one is the pack I typically use in winter.


First Shelf:

The top shelf contains the following items:

 

GoPro accessories, Gorilla camera mounts, headlamps, a battery pack, a solar charger, and spare batteries.

Some dehydrated food– I have been dehydrating a lot of my own food and that is kept in my kitchen.

 

I keep some extra snacks and things like energy gels upstairs in storage and some in a dedicated kitchen drawer. It’s much easier to grab snacks from my kitchen in the morning so this bin serves as extra storage so trail food isn’t taking over my kitchen. I need to resupply after my JMT hike, but I have things like bars, almond butter squeeze packets, fruit leathers, smoothie packs, GU gels, electrolyte powders. I don’t anything with chocolate (except for the chocolate hazelnut butters) here so they don’t melt.

 My first aid bin has typical first aid items like extra band-aids, gauze, and leukotape. I also have other items such as a knee brace, sunscreen and bugspray, extra toothbrushes, paracord, and hand warmers.

 

The “cold weather gear” box contains just some of the smaller items I’ll need for winter hiking such as goggles, gaiters, and my Nalgene zippered koozie.

The last bin on the top shelf has hats and gloves. I keep hats and gloves for all seasons in here.

Second Shelf:

The second shelf has two much larger bins

The first bin (pictured above) has all my cookware. This includes canisters, pots, esbit tablets and stove, alcohol stove kit, msr stove, and various bottles.

The other bin (pictured below) is full of stuff sacks and bandanas.  

Third Shelf:

 This is where I keep my ground cloths, a good chunk of my hiking books (once again, no hiking take over inside the condo), bear canister, and a bin of extra socks, a small rain jacket, and a puffy.

 Fourth Shelf:

The bottom shelf is where my sleeping pads and shelters are kept. I have a 2 person backpacking tent, hammock, tarp, and solo tent stored here. I also have an extra sleeping bag for friends to use if needed (not being stored that well…)
I do keep my Western Mountaineering bag out of its stuff sack and in the storage bag it came with to keep it at its best!
 
I keep my hiking clothes in a dedicated drawer in my bedroom. I just keep spare socks  and other accessories in storage. I also keep my hydration bladders and water bottles in a drawer in my kitchen.

The condo I live in is very quiet and I’ve had no issues storing my equipment like this. If you are worried about neighbors you could convert a smaller closet into a gear space. 
Need more inspiration? You got it!
One way to organise yourself when camping: A shoe organizer turned camsite organizer. Other handy camping gear at: http://www.everintransit.com/camping-checklist/

Use a shoe rack to hang small items

LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS~ I use it all the time and all my camping gear is organized and stored year round!
A modular storage system may be handy. Under bed storage options could be useful as well.

Need more climbing gear and digging this set up for storage.
If you have the wall space, a pegboard would be very useful.

gear closet organization Maybe one day you’ll have a room like this 🙂

Do you have any tips for storing your gear? Leave a comment!


Last modified: September 2, 2017

One Response to :
Gear Storage for Small Spaces

  1. Trekker Dog says:
    October 13, 2014 at 2:31 am

    haha….that last closet looks unreal. Where is the dirt?

    I do love your organization though. We have a small unorganized hiking closet. Well, I organize it once a year, but then it gets unorganized when trying to find things. Maybe I’ll try your labeled bin idea.

    We actually keep our “use every weekend” gear on our dining room table. Makes it fast to get organized.

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