[pct-l] Hiking gear on planes

[ronyon at comcast.net (Ron Smith)]

I think lost or misplace luggage while flying is becoming rare. This may
be due to increased security resulting in better tracking of luggage
with passengers. Since 2001 I've made dozens of plane trips both
national and international without a luggage mishap. Here are a couple
of things I do to minimize risk: 1) In addition to tagging luggage well
with my name, address, etc., I also include destination information,
including a telephone # where I can be reached, if this is possible.
This makes it simple for the airline to contact me if my bag ends up in
their lost luggage bin. 2) When checking my bag, I make sure that the
attendant puts the correct destination tag on my bag. I actually caught
them in one case where they accidentally switched tags with another
passenger. 3) If I have a backpack, I always put it inside a duffle
before checking. This protects the bag and minimizes the risk of things
spilling out.
Of course, now that I've bragged about my great record, I won't be
surprised when I'm standing in the San Diego airport in two weeks sans
backpack!
Ron
> 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