Exactly. Were we climbers, cavers, or weekend warriors with a gas stoves, we would much rather have modern ultralight synthetic materials, but we're not. Chris looked into hemp. I'm not sure what his conclusion was, but it beats poly (for our purposes) w/o question. This does make a pack heavy; more skills, less gear is the answer. "Cowboy" gear is hard to beat. A guy on here commented on "tin cloth", which deserves a look as well.

Lone Aspen Just Google Image, "Hemp vs. Cotton" or Hemp uses to see. Hemp has a story similar to Absinthe. Absinthe was starting to challenge Wine manufacturing in the US around the turn of the last century. So the wine companies began a smear campaign stating Thujone wormwood was actually poisonous to the body. So forth, one of the prime ingredients in absinthe was deemed illegal and put out of business all the absinthe growing. Just today are we starting to reintroduce true absinthe. If you look at YT and search, "Hemp For Victory", you'll discover that it was promoted for farmers to grow during WW2. Hemp proved to be a threat to cotton, wood, and so many other materials that it was essentially outlawed because it is a sister plant to marijuana. (Although you can smoke a trash bag full of it, and not get any THC for a high). Once again, bogus evidence. Just today are we starting to pick it back up, and see people using it. Albeit, growing it is still illegal in the USA. If marijuana is legalized though on any bigger scale, it will truly be the wonder that comes out of it. When we can develop machines to spin it into fabrics particularly. And speaking of cowboy gear, Levis Strauss originally made tents for the miners during the gold rush. Seeing as nobody wanted the shelter, he used the tents, made of hemp, for trousers. It's really one of those artifacts that people have hidden from history, like slaughtering a king and giving them a bad reputation in history. Like King Richard The Lionheart, hated England, was French, so essentially put all the people to work until he, himself, was in debt. It was him serving in the Crusades that the writers, Catholics, wrote such a lusciously beautiful portrait of him!

Every Sunday they put new shoes out, I bout my sister iron ranger boots like new for $12.99

We are aware of tin cloth, but have never used it. Would really like to try it.

I've seen vids on Duluth Trading Co. who have some pants made of fire hose material. Would probably be good for summer and gaurenteed for life.I'm gonna get some of those too.

That is indeed a tough material & would probably be a great choice. The pricepoint is great as well. The reason we went with traditional canvas, oilskin, and G-1000 is that it can be waxed due to the tightness of the weave, though the wax or oil does bleed onto your layers.