The gear room is where we store, organize, and pack gear for expeditions. We have closets, shelves, and bins for the inventory. An expedition requires so much gear and clothing for so many people. It all needs to be kept organized and dry. Right now we have boxes of gear on the shelves that our sponsors are delivering: sleeping bags, tents, stoves, knives, clothing, mukluks, headlamps, skis, bindings… The roof has skylights that make it bright inside, so we don’t need electric or gas lights.

This gear room is off the ground, so it is very dry. Gear will last a long time stored here. Will keeps all his old expedition outerwear to use as prototypes for designing new clothes for expeditions. This gear room is almost like a museum of past expeditions.

Some people think you need to be outfitted with a bunch of expensive clothing to do an expedition. Past Steger expeditions have always used cheap Army surplus. Will has an old pair of pants in here that he bought for $3 and wore on a five-thousand mile journey.

Will's first gear cache was in his parents’ basement in the Minneapolis suburbs. Then he built a gear cache up here at the homestead. It was like a little log cabin up on tall stilts. This design is common in Alaska and keeps out the bears, squirrels and mice. This cache worked well for small, personal gear. The cache eventually tipped over in a bad storm ten years ago.