Years ago, just before departing on a nearly month-long climbing expedition to 22,841-foot Aconcagua in Argentina, five of us spent an entire day sorting through a veritable mountain of food and gear.

After much sweating and cursing, we managed to cram this heap of crampons, ice axes, parkas, tents, bivvy sacks, dried fruit, nuts and other consumables that had been spread out over an area the size of a tennis court into an organized collection of barrels and packs.

It was small comfort that a team of hee-hawing mulas would lug the unwieldy barrels the first few days to base camp at about 13,000 feet while those on two legs carried relatively light loads. At that point, the beasts of burden departed, and we humans would have to backpack everything higher in stages through deep snow.

Our guide, Jim Williams, repeatedly admonished us to limit our pack contents to the bare necessities because every individual item, however seemingly inconsequential, added collective weight.

“It’s the death of a thousand cuts,” he advised.

Did I listen? Of course not.

Only one jar of peanut butter? No way. Better make it two. Just two pairs of mittens? Nope. I tossed in a third pair, just in case. Balaclava — one lightweight and one heavyweight made sense. Boy, a few extra chocolate bars would certainly hit the spot at the end of a long day …

On and on it went until I could barely lift the monstrous pack, and the expedition wound up becoming a long, arduous slog.

Years later, on a hike through Maine’s Hundred-Mile Wilderness for which I took an opposite, less-is-more approach to packing, I nearly starved after gobbling most of my provisions by the third day of what turned out to be a week-long trip.

Packing for an excursion in which there are no opportunities to resupply can be a tricky balance, as I now consider while preparing for an upcoming, weeklong canoe voyage. (I hope to write about this adventure soon.)

There are advantages and disadvantages to traveling over water. On the plus side, you can comfortably carry a lot more stuff in a canoe or kayak than you can on your back. On the negative side, virtually everything has to be stowed in waterproof containers, making loading and unloading a cumbersome task.

Two years ago, when three friends and I spent five days kayaking 125 miles around remote Lac Manicouagan in central Quebec, we had to pull dry bag after dry bag from hatches every time we pulled ashore because loaded boats were too heavy to lift over the rocks. Then we had to stuff everything back aboard before re-launching. This oft-repeated routine was my least favorite aspect of the trip.

If you’ve ever gone camping, either overnight in a park or a month in the wilderness, you know one of the most important rules is to keep your gear organized.

Know which dry bag or stuff sack contains the stove, the sleeping bag, clothes and food, and exactly where each is stowed. Put things back in their hatches or backpack pouches in exactly the same order, every time. I abide by this dictum more faithfully on the trail or the water than I do at home — if you can’t find a shoe in the closet, no big deal, there’s always another pair. Not so in the woods.

All right, time to get back to packing. Let’s see … one jar of peanut butter, or two?