I understand that you're carrying backpacks, but I'm still somewhat shocked. That's a pretty big piece of Canvas to be carrying, Peter. I'd probably get annoyed by something like that, and haul it in to where I know I'll be staying, and leave it there for the duration of my trip. I prefer to carry everything I bring with me all of the time, rather than leaving gear at a base camp that someone could come across, though I currently don't have a stylistically accurate backpack, so I suppose that cuts down significantly on my carrying capacity. If I must leave something behind, I find a suitably tall tree and stow it up high and out of sight, but with a ground cloth/tent combo thing like that, I don't know how that would be possible. But hey, it seems to work great for you, so more power to ya!
As far as gear is concerned...I usually have half a dozen to a dozen arrows with me, and my quiver can handle upwards of three dozen if its packed, so there's still ample space for gear in the quiver as well. That's where my spare clothing/colder weather garments go. Everything else goes in a bedroll I carry alongside the quiver on my back, which consists of nothing more than a blanket that's big enough to lay on the ground under me, and fold over me once.
Before I invested in the wool blanket I now use for this, I wanted to test the idea, so a friend of mine and I went half-dressed (the "Bards of Suburbia" we call ourselves on outings like this, in Jeans, shirts, and athletic shoes *chuckles*) into the hills to test some new gear. To get an idea of how it fits together and works out for transportation purposes, here's a photo of that particular outing. In the photo, I have my old solid fiberglass woodgrain 48" recurve that I used to carry because it was the shortest bow I had at the time, and the blanket is a plaid fleece blanket I had on hand at the time, but the concept is there.
The roll is held together with rope that I hand-twisted from twine, and then ran through the center and made a shoulder strap out of it that parallels my quiver's strap. Eventually, I'd like to replace that with a leather shoulder strap with a pair of loops with buckles to hold the roll together, but until then, the rope works well enough. I know most of you aren't huge fans of bedrolls due to the need to unroll the entire thing to get something out, but in this setup, I put the important items that I need more readily accessible at the top of my quiver so that they're within my hand's reach without having to look behind me or even take the roll or quiver off. The roll sits there right alongside the quiver, and I barely notice that its there most of the time, so it works out well.
In terms of the overall set of gear that I take along with me, the list is fairly short...
-Cloak w/ Lined Hood
-Bracers, one of which functions as my armguard
-Quiver, which contains spare pants, spare shirt, 1/2-dozen to 1 dozen arrows, and my water supply.
-60# 48" Shortbow
-Short Sword (on occasion)
-Kukri (always). Easily the most versatile tool I carry.
-Small tin pot (need to invest in a copper some day...I love Andy's Corn Boiler on meranger...)
-Flint and Steel, though I prefer an antique fire piston I have. But that wouldn't fit ME, so flint and steel it is.
-Blanket Roll, which contains my limited food supply (mostly jerkey, cornmeal, and other quintessential "just add water" type meal deals. There are a lot of cattails growing in the streams throughout the hills here, so I have developed a taste for the starchy potato-like Cattail Roots. And you just simply CANNOT go wrong with Acorn flour pancakes...
-Irish Pennywhistle/Low Whistle or, on rare occasions when I'm bringing a small party along and we set up a pseudo-permanent base camp, my Uilleann Bagpipes. I consider making music a necessary part of my existence, not only from my career standpoint, but as a ranger as well. And nothing soothes an anxious group of Knights and other travelers like an aire on a low D irish whistle...
I'm currently lacking in the period belt and boots department, though boots are definitely next on my list of things to make.
