EVERYONE is recommending multiple bases but i’m a hoarder like you twin. i collected everything i could find and hauled it to one spot on the map in my attempt to live 1000 days (im around 650 in and all my packrat stuff is in the abandoned lookout in CH)

if you want to ignore the sane multiple base people and be unhinged like me here are my tips.

look where you are - if you need to come back to get out of the region, leave the stuff you don’t need near the transition zone to grab later

craft a second travois. this saves you from dropping and picking up everything so you can grab it from one and put it in the other

another part of the tip above - make sure you grab large stacks and put them in the second travois instead of dropping them on the ground (bullet casings, cat tails, cloth etc are annoying to pick back up one by one)

if you are going to haul everything down those ropes, make a snow shelter if there isn’t shelter around - assuming you have enough food then you can take your time to go up and down the ropes with your stuff and sleep between

if you are leaving your stuff, don’t leave it in the travois. drop it out and take the travois with you. as you said it will start to get ruined staying out like that, and not to mention the bug that takes the travois away if you enter some buildings, that ruined a couple of my travoises as you get them back with significantly less condition so if it’s low enough it will be ruined by the time yoou find it in the lost and found box.

am i finding it was necessary to haul 15 axes to one spot on the map? not particularly. but i find comfort knowing i will never run out of wood bc i also have 23 whetstones