Considering the old time outdoor guys got along with just one pair of clothes/wool coat and hat.
Wool blanket/canvas tarp and a pot/fry pan and firearm/fishing rod/ good knife/axe, almost everything we take is a "necessity"

But I take or have taken just about everything mentioned. Until weight becomes a major factor due to age/physical issues, I like a little comfort after a long day. What ever gives me that I'm willing to lug along.

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Kerry, you beat me to it, tho I'd insist on "bourbon" instead of that whiskey crap.

Not a necessity? Picture this: Traveling all day in late September in cold rain and blustery wind, from, let's say, Glacier way down to Louisa.

You pull up to a campsite, shivering. You know you have to build a fire, get dinner going, pitch some tents, set up a tarp, and a clothesline, then cut some more wood.

What's the first thing you do?

Why I dig in a pack, take out an old, olive-green, hard plastic Army canteen filled with a great Kentucky invention (small-batch or single-barrel bourbon) and pass around a little burning warmth, saying "Boys, congrats ... now let's get to work."

-- kypaddler

On Glacier there's that rock campsite with all those ledges and shelves. I have a pic of four such "flasks" in one of those ledges, a la a "liquor cabinet." Not that we drink all that much, but it was kinda neat to see, left to right, Old Weller, Blanton's, Four Roses and Knob Creek.

Having said all that, we usually each take a book, there's always a camera or two floating around, and we take a cast iron skillet! (because the cook of the crew insists it's the thing for best-tasting fish, and having eaten his fish since the mid-1990s, I can't fault him for it and usually even carry it.)

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Heh, that stuff is too heavy compared to the greener option.    [/quote]

When in doubt, take both.