[pct-l] Hiking gear on planes

[saskiadaru at xs4all.nl (Saskia Daru)]

Hi,

About hiking gear on planes. I just discussed this with some fellow
outdoors-lovers in the Netherlands. We are thinking of checking only some
'non-essential' stuff that you really cannot take with you as carry-on, such
as hiking poles and knives. As we are going ultralight, we think we could
probably get away with taking all our other stuff as hand luggage.

The reason is because there are some things that if they would get lost,
they would prevent us from doing the hike. And as the time frame is limited
and the flight is intercontinental (i.e. Plenty of opportunities for bags to
get lost) we do not want to risk it. I can imagine buying new (used) hiking
poles and knives, but imagine losing the G4 pack, the Tarptent and other
material that is really not easy to replace! Or your sleeping bag, that
would be an extremely costly affair.

We have bad experience with lost bags. And our friends even told us of one
of their climbing buddies who went to Yosemite to do rock climbing who had
to go back (to the Netherlands!) because all his gear was lost somewhere in
the airport systems.

Saskia