The Ten Essentials list was created by a climbing organization (The Mountaineers) to help make sure people would have the basic tools necessary to respond to unforeseen events while out hiking, camping, hunting, etc. The list includes items that you should always have with you when you go to enjoy the outdoors. In our last poll, we provided a list of 11 categories and asked which one is not on the list, and the correct answer was: Communication.

If you're reading this blog, chances are you're like us: you love taking your family out camping and cherish the memories you create each time you head out. You probably even have any number of photos, capturing the ever expanding outdoor adventures of your family. Your kids first hike, the first fish they caught, first deer bagged, first peak bagged, etc. But have you ever thought about the sense of terror that would rip out your gut if you logged onto your computer to look through your family pictures, but instead only found an empty file structure? Just a shell sitting there, allowing you to click through them, staring unbelievably at empty folders. Yep, you guessed it. That happened to me tonight. Fortunately, my terror was minimized as I had just recently finished backing up all of our family photos on SmugMug.com.