I'll be leaving in two weeks to do some trekking in Nepal, the Annapurna Sanctuary in particular. At the moment I'm in the Santiago airport on my way home from trekking in Patagonia. What I learned is that keeping things light is absolutely essential - three cameras and five lenses is too much. What was I thinking??? And that the Black Rapid camera strap is great for hiking but not great for trekking.

Any thoughts or suggestions either in general for carrying equipment while trekking or specific to Nepal would be great. I was thinking about something that I could wear on my chest but must admit that I'm a bit concerned that I need to get something that won't be used before being used a lot. The daypack that I'll be using is the SweatPea and I was pleased with that but I really want the ability to easily access a camera on a moment's notice and it's not as convenient as I would like. (I was thinking of carrying a Canon 1D series body and the 24-70 lens with the 70-200 or 100-400 in relatively convenient access in a side pocket.)

Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated, either on equipment choice or general recommendations.

Rich

Rich, I use the Think Tank Skin component system when I'm out in the field during my travels. Depending on how large your day pack is (i.e., does it hang below the belt?), I wonder if that would be an option. I've worn my belt, pouches and even a shoulder harness along with a backpack before, but it really comes down to the size of your pack and whether you need hip support, since a belt full of pouches would interfere with that.

Max

I've been on a few hikes, and recently did Everest Base Camp. I found using an f-stop loka with a waist pack (in my case kinesis c380) to be the best solution so far.

http://www.wildroad.com.au/blog/gear/hiking-with-a-dslr-%E2%80%93-the-solution/

Are you going to be carrying all your equipment, or employing porters and carrying day essentials and camera gear? Lens choice sounds fine, most mountain peaks will be far away, and 24mm will be wide enough.

Tom,

Thanks for your thoughts. Checked your web site - nicely done (tough break not to have good light on the Torres but really interesting twist the difference in weather) - and the idea of vision and the waist pack makes a lot of sense. Will likely go that route.

My son and I are going and we'll be using porters and just carrying essentials like camera gear. And worst case scenario, my son carries the camera gear!

Rich

I have been 3 times in the Annapurna in the last years.

In the following entries from my blog I explained some things about photography equipment and tricks in these trekkings. They are in Spanish, but you can translate easily with the Google translate app in the right of the blog.

- About the equipment in our first trek: http://blog.alamany.com/2008/08/annapurna-trek-qu-funcion-y-qu-no.html

- How to recharge batteries in a trek: http://blog.alamany.com/2008/08/annapurna-trek-recarga-de-bateras.html

- How to store digital images in a trek: http://blog.alamany.com/2008/08/annapurna-trek-almacenaje-de-imgenes.html

- More about equipment in our second trek: http://blog.alamany.com/2010/10/el-santuario.html

- Mustang, our third trek: http://blog.alamany.com/2011/08/el-reino-perdido-de-mustang.html

And, if you like to see, a gallery about our first trek around Annapurna: http://www.alamany.com/web_annapurna/

Hope you will find some of the information useful. It's a marvelous country.

Thanks Oriol. Very useful information. Plan on having sufficient batteries and compact flash to go the trek without power if necessary. Love the images.

Rich

We ready to climb a lot of steps for the Annapurna Sanctuary: there are bilions of them in that beautiful trek! Machhapuchare basecamp and Annapurna Basecamp are very cold, but the views are breathtaking. Enjoy!