Some trekkers are "gear heads," constantly absorbed with their gear, always thinking if they had the "right" gear they'd be doing better. Gear is a necessity, but don't think it is critical. Trekkers with the finest gear drop out after a few days, and others with lousy gear make it all the way.

The following list is just to give you the idea of what one canoe trekker carried, and in no way reflects the "ideal list." The gear you carry (or leave behind) is your own personal decision. But perhaps another trekker's gear list might help remind you of things, so here goes.

_1. Tent (Marmot "Screech" - a superb 1-2-man tent with a spacious porch)

_2. Sleeping bag (A 3-season bag through June 10, a summer bag after that... expect 40 degrees nights in Montana during May)

_3. Therm-a-rest self inflating sleeping pad. (Hey, I'm in my 50's)

_4. Therm-a-rester device to turn the pad into a chair-with-a-back (How one misses back support on a trek... I thought of using this in the canoe all day, but never got around to it.)

_5. Hygiene kit

-Toothbrush

-Roll-on deodorant (the lightest per protection)

-Disposable razor (the single blade works best in cold water)

-Hand cream (if you get dry cracking hands in the outdoors)

-Pills (at least some Advil for "sun headaches."

-Soap (a motel bar is enough)

-Toilet paper (for its obvious use plus pot cleaning)

-Hand sanitizer (for after the obvious use of TP)

-Plastic shovel (also related to TP)

-After shave (well, you wouldn't have to I guess)

_1. Stove. (I switched from my traditional backpacking loyalty from MSR to the French Butane Camping-gaz stove -- a bit heavier but 100% cleaner and quieter)

_2. Pot. Early on, I dumped my hard-to-clean aluminum pot and picked up a one-quart Teflon lined saucepan, which, when the pretty wooden handle was removed was light enough, and surely much easier to clean. I used a folded piece of tin foil for a lid. I ate out of the pot, of course, being alone.

_3. Water jug. You can drink the river if filtered or treated. The sewage can be filtered or treated. But I wasn't too excited about drinking the herbicide-pesticide cocktail for two months and was sure chlorine wouldn't fix it, and unsure if filtering would. So I carried a 5 gal. Hard-sided water jug which was replaced by a collapsible 2 1/2 gallon jug later.

_4. Food. More than any one item you carry, your food pack will be determined by your taste... literally. My example:

_1. Writing kit. Pens, paper, stamped envelopes, postcards, postcard stamps, e-mail device, palmtop computer.

2. Maps. I used the regular DeLorme state road atlas maps, tearing out the pages and re-numbering them in the proper sequence before leaving. These are expensive (nearly $100 if you get the whole river) but, for my preferences they were quite suitable. I prefer a map which has "a day's travel" on one or two sheets (I had 49 maps and took 47 days to complete my trek), I hate to fool around with maps all day, especially when it is raining. The Delorme maps had GPS data on them and were fine. But if you want to know right where you are at all times, you may want the more detailed maps the DeLorme mapping software produces, or geological maps. I use a map to see what major thing I should look for next... a bridge, a town, a giant bend, and care little about knowing exactly where I am in between. And, if I get lost, I take a GPS reading and plot it on the map.

_3. Books. See the book list in this guide for suggestions, I took Lewis & Clark's Journals to read, and a Bible. (A wind bound day or two will have you reading Lipton directions and tea bag tags if you don't take books along.) Perhaps I went overboard, but I carried as much as 20 pounds of books at a time, rotating some in and out by mail.

_1. Pants & shirt (Columbia nylon-poly - can be washed out and put back on wet and will dry in 20 minutes.)

_2. Tee shirt. (Patagonia Capalene. easy to wash, dries in 10 minutes, does not retain odor. But expensive.)

_3. Undershorts. Standard K-Mart brand running shorts.

_4. Fleece. (May/Montana)

_5. Gore-tex pants and jacket. (Not necessarily for the rain, but for the breakers crashing over/into your lap in the lakes.)

_6. Hat. (with beak as sunshade)

_7. Boots and Beach socks. (I needed boots for portaging and intended to wear beach socks in the canoe. As it turned out I wore the boots all the time -- including walking in the water -- and used the beach socks as "camp slippers." However, I eventually traded both the boots and beach socks for one pair of sandals which was quite superior.

_8. Socks. (2 pr. smart-wool, one too many -- only needed for long walks into town.)

_9. Gloves. It seems silly to talk of gloves in 80 degree temperatures, but with 40 degree water crashing over you when the lakes are rolling, and when it clouds over, you'll be plenty grateful you brought them. I took a pair of "fleece" gloves with a set of Oregon Research Gore-Tex over-mittens. (though the mittens leaked after an hour of splashing from the waves and I wound up wearing the soaked fleece gloves for warmth after that).

(It is frustrating to need something through the day but it is stowed away in the bottom of one of your Seal-line bags. The solution: a "day pack." I carried a soft pack (Seal-line) for jackets, etc. and an Old Town waterproof "ammunition box" with the following:

1. Cameras (Disposable...often one wide angle double size)

2. Sunglasses (darkened more than Wal-Mart Vision Center thinks is reasonable -- the sun shines down and up off the water. And, if you wear glasses, you'll need the regular ones too if you darken the sunglasses like you should (if you intend to enter a store while on the trek, that is.)

_3. Wallet and credit card.

_4. GPS (I thought a GPS was a luxury-toy until I navigated the giant lakes packed with side arms wider than the main channel. Not that I kept it running all the time, but it makes a good check every hour or so. And, when you've canoed four miles down an arm to find it dead ending, you can check and plot where you actually are!)

_5. Current map

_6. Water bottles (Gatorade or PowerAide bottles -- I drank two quarts through the day, and two at night. In later season you may need more.

_7. "P Bottle" (Hey, sometimes the shore is 4 miles away.)

_1. Thread/Needle

_2. Felt marker (I found the best way to hitch was mark a cardboard with "to town" on one side and "to river" on the other.

_3. Radio (if weather is important to you -- and it never will be more important than on this trek)

_4. Clothes pins (6)

_5. Insect repellent. (I never used mine, but it seemed like a good thing to take, given a reading of the Lewis and Clark journals.

_6. Laundry pen. (I write a running record of each campsite on the inside of my tent, supplying a constant past memory of all trips to recall when I've had too much coffee before bedtime)

_7. First aid kit. (at least Band-Aids and adhesive tape.)

_8. Duct tape. (wrapped around one water bottle -- to repair anything, including your boat.)

_9. Leatherman knife. (mine was a gift.)

_1. Canoe. Ideally for this trek you'd have two boats. A narrow swift canoe for the river and a stable flat-bottomed skiff for the large lakes. Unable to take two, I chose a Grumman S-canoe, a hybrid of a square stern canoe and a skiff. It is an extremely stable craft, but weighs in at a bit over 100 pounds -- which is pretty hefty for a solo portage.

_2. Paddles. (even if you take a kicker, at least one)

_3. Canoe Cover. (Perhaps the best way to ensure yourself from swamping in the lakes. When your freeboard is 6" and the rollers are three feet, they will crash over the sides and swamp you in five minutes. I left the cover snapped down everywhere except right around me, effectively giving a Kayak appearance and security against the waves.)

_4. Flag. (a bicycle flag, primarily to give a festive look, but some usefulness in keeping an eye on the canoe down over the bank while camping. Most canoeists are always worrying that the river will somehow reach up at night and snatch away their canoe. To glance out the front door of the tent and see the orange flag flapping reassuringly was always a relief.)

_5. Bilge pump. (Aquateria, kayak pump. I needed a bilge pump even with the boat cover on the rough waters of the big lakes. Enough water still broke over the canvas top and crashed in through the small open space around me to produce several inches in the floor of my canoe in ten minutes, during high seas, and that was before my boat started leaking.)

_6. Sponge. (The pump can never get it all.)

_7. Line. (100' nylon line. I tied half to the stern, the other half to the bow and secured both at night. Sometimes the dams will raise the water level 2-3 feet at nights and a canoe merely pulled out on the shore is liable to wind up downstream the next morning if not firmly secured. Solid tie ups are often 50' from the shoreline.

_8. Car topper blocks. (I had to use them to get my canoe out to Montana; they were light, so I kept them in case I ever needed them if I rented another car.)

_9. Life vest. (I promised my wife to wear it every time I was on the water and kept my promise. I got so used to wearing it that I sometimes left it on when I went into town to re-supply... then noticed people glancing at me in a funny sort of way while in the Walmart line.)

_10. Portage pal. (If your canoe is portage-able on your shoulders, you won't need this. As a solo paddler, with a 100 pound canoe I did. It is a simple wheeled device manufactured by Hart Designs to turn the canoe into a wheeled vehicle. When the portage may be a mile or more it is a great asset. I strapped the wheels under the bow, then raised the square stern to my tummy, and pushed the canoe wheelbarrow-like, carrying the weight of the stern on straps I rigged from the canoe up to a Kelty frame pack which carried the weight on my shoulders and transferred it to the large muscles of my legs. It was still awkward, but I found it better then hauling the canoe after me like a trailer.)

_11. Backpack frame. (For portaging the canoe primarily, but occasionally when leaving the canoe by the river, and hiking off to a distant campsite or hotel, I strapped several of my Seal-line bags on it to "make camp" in one trip.

_1. Motor. If you have a partner you don't need a motor. But if you are unable to persuade anyone to accompany you on your trek a little kicker for your canoe may make the difference between finishing the trek, and stalling part way through in frustration. The trek can be made solo by paddle, but you will need to allow three months to do it, perhaps longer. And if you do go solo and motor-less, you will be sorely tempted after such minor progress down some of the lakes to jump out and skip the lakes (more than 1/3 of the total miles).

I used a brand new Johnson five HP kicker, which (when run at quarter speed) gave me the "stern paddler" I needed to make it through the lakes. On the rivers I either paddled without the motor, or ran the motor at "partner speed" to keep moving. Though the river can run five to seven MPH in places, don't count on more then two MPH average current. To figure the current contribution to your speed simply float with your GPS running and read out the speed.

_2. Fuel cans (3) I started with four and set one free after coming through the wild and scenic/Ft. Peck section. Everywhere else I really only needed two, but kept the third as a cushion. My 5 HP Johnson gave me about 125 miles on the lakes per six-gallon tank, about 150 river miles. (However a strong lake head wind can cut the miles down to 100 per tank. In the lower river there are marinas on the lakes and river which makes fueling up far easier than toting the cans a few miles through town to a gas station. (However, people are more likely to pick you up with a gas can, perhaps thinking you've run out of gas somewhere, which is true in a way.)

_3. Two-cycle oil. While the marinas carry it (at a few dollars per pint!) the gas stations in little towns often do not. Don't forget to add it -- in all of the hubbub of a town trip it is easy to drop the can back in the canoe oil-less. The best trick is to always add the oil before stowing the cans back in the canoe, even in the rain. It may save you burning up your engine.

_4. Extra sheer pins. More than you'd expect -- I used a dozen or so on the first third of the journey, and a few more for the lower river's snags.

_5. Replacement parts. (Prop, Prop nut, fuel filter, gear lube, water pump.)

_6. Tool kit (Pliers, screw driver, mini-size WD-40)

_7. Poly tube. I took ten feet of 1/2" poly tubing to siphon gas from cars under the premise that cars are easier to find than gas stations. Of course, one asks first.