Gear weight vs safety and preparedness

When I was doing adventure racing, the Race Coordinators required that we carry (among other things) something to absorb heavy bleeding. Most racers took a sanitary napkin for that use (acceptable for the Coordinators).

Sure, it would look kinda embarrassing for you dudes to be carrying one of those, but it's UL, almost sterile, and multipurpose! (Tip of the day…)

I was impressed by what I experienced on a trip in a remote country thirty years ago. One guy in my trek was injured by rockfall of a glacial moraine. Fingers on his left hand were crunched. As he sat there screaming, two strangers were nearby, so they came over to help. One was an emergency room physician, so he was used to injuries like that. They gave the wound some minutes to stabilize while the physician pulled out of his pack an entire field surgical kit of instruments. Then, he amputated one half of one finger and tried to repair some of the rest. The wound was all packaged up, the hand was placed in a sling, the patient was given some painkillers, and the two strangers parted ways with the patient. It is amazing what can happen out there on the trail!

Although the patient remained as a hiker, he quit dealing in Vegas after that.

–B.G.–

Sorry that you feel you need to leave . I didn't really follow this thread too closely.

I don't have tbi or ptsd but understand how tough it is to adjust to civilian life after the military. Those were some of the best and most genuine friends of my life. I have a lot of non military friends but it's different on a number of levels.. I still keep in touch with many of them and cherish the few opportunities we have to get together from time to time.

Thanks for your service and if you do leave, best wishes to you and your future endeavors.

+1 Ian. This was very unfortunate.

"This also leads me to believe you all have a serious misogyny problem, which I find very disturbing and disheartening."

It is offensive to some of us when he blames everybody.

–B.G.–

It is possible to make up scenarios which will prove almost any gear kit underequipped.

Using ones brain and experience, we are supposed to avoid those scenarios. Being fast and light helps this in many cases.

Most here are still alive….i think. That points to someones perception of risk being incorrect.

Make no doubt, poor decision making or reckless behavior can have serious consequences regardless of kit.

Unfortunately, there isnt much you can really do with fak. If you are seriously injured, especially alone, days from help, you stand a good chance of dieing. This is a risk you must accept.

I would rather die in the backcountry, than of sitting behind a desk. What defines your life, is quality of it, not length.

"I have had numerous PM's/emails from people offering their support and telling me they have experienced/witness similar incidents of bullying, narrow-mindedness and mob mentality here at BPL, and a lot of them have been women."

Heath, I don't believe you. An uninvolved person who reads what's left of this conversation is simply going to be mystified by your strange overreaction to something that simply isn't there.

The internet's a strange place. It's sometimes really hard to judge the tone of a conversation when you can't see people face to face. I just reread all the comments. The comments are balanced responses to you what you posted. The flavor of most of them is "I agree with you to in some respects, but have you considered this?". I see two responses that are more robust and critical in tone, but they are perfectly civil, and they make valid and well argued points. There's not a hint of bullying or ganging up on you here.

We're honestly just left scratching our heads, mystified by your reaction.

I'd suggest that, rather than quit the forum, you just take a break. The internet also has a memory like a goldfish, and this will all be forgotten in a couple of weeks. This is really a pretty civilized board, you'll struggle to find a better place on the internet to have a decent conversation with knowledgable and fun people, and you'll be welcomed when you come back.

As a footnote – you may have a heroic past as vet. But using it to try to give people a guilt trip about (non-existent) bullying? That's really lame, and you're devaluing the nobility of your past by bringing it up in such a trivial context. Thank you for your service, but please knock if off with that stuff. This is not the time or place.

"I have had numerous PM's/emails from people offering their support and telling me they have experienced/witness similar incidents of bullying, narrow-mindedness and mob mentality here at BPL, and a lot of them have been women. This makes me think that you frequent BPL commenters and the staff have some soul searching to do in how you respond to others and how these forums are moderated. This also leads me to believe you all have a serious misogyny problem, which I find very disturbing and disheartening.

The only comment I wish to address is Jake's asking what I have done. Jake I gave 10 years of my life 98-09 to this nation, most of which was spent deployed overseas that left me with PTSD and suffering from the effects of a traumatic brain injury (one that leaves most people permanently disabled). Half of my time since then has been spent jobless/homeless and just trying to provide for my family and maintain my sanity. I gave my body/mind/spirit so that you could enjoy all the personal freedoms you and every other American have. Have I contributed anything great to the backpacking community? No I absolutely have not but I think my contribution to this nation was far nobler than Andrew Skurka hiking around Alaska by his lonesome.

I have asked that my account on this site be deleted by the administrators as I will never post anything here again."

saved before deletion

Heath, I was asking what you had done regards to hiking you guilt tripping fool.

What is your experience backpacking. People with less experience pack and feel they need to pack more. That is all. If you haven't put in the miles and seen that you can do a lot with much less then you can't tell people who have that they are doing it wrong.

Andrew has done far more for UL backpacking than you have.

I don't believe your first paragraph either. The women who post here regularly are very well respected and contribute quite a lot to the discussion and are even sought out for their professional advice.

I have many good friends and family in the military that I think about every day. My uncle died in Vietnam (you can find him on the wall Panel/Row:16W, 116), both of my grandfathers served in WWII. I appreciate plenty and your service has nothing to do with backpacking.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out

I have sent Heath a pm. While I did not speak of misogyny , I did express regret for the mob mentality that I have seen often enough here on BPL. It exists here as it does anywhere there are people, I guess.
I have no problem with people taking someone on, even lots of people. I do have a problem with watching people "have fun" at expense of one person; letting it be known to all, by posting , that it's enjoyable to see someone flail and poke at him, mostly him, one more time. I see nothing entertaining in it. And before I get the angry posts that no such thing happens here…yes it does. I did not follow this thread close enough, and said as much, but I have seen it many times over the years. I am all about getting the popcorn out if it's a number of people hashing it out and it really is funny, but a bunch taking one on and others chiming in to encourage and poke one more time- no. Not my thing.
I am no better than anyone when it comes to calling someone out even in unkind ways but when everyone else jumps in for the fun of it- I am out.

Kat I still can't figure out what bothered him enough to delete all of his posts in the first place. Everyone was discussion the topic and he decided it wasn't what he wanted to hear and huffed out. Which happened before the end of page 2.

Deleting posts throughout a thread will piss a lot of people off on any forum. People spent time to discuss the topic and now have no context. (especially since this site has no Quote function) Also, Leaving then coming back and saying that you are leaving again….and again is just stepping into a buzzsaw. And people had moved on, we kept the topic going by discussing different scenarios and comparing FAKs.

:shrug:

"I do have a problem with watching people "have fun" at expense of one person"

I re-read page 1 and page 2.
I don't see bullying. I see polite and thoughtful answers through the end of page 2. Then I see deleted posts, and then I see consternation.

"I did not follow this thread close enough,"

I agree.
I also agree that piling on isn't the best way to make a point.

But in this case it didn't occur until well after helpful and considerate responses that didn't jibe with his supposition.

Jake and Greg,
Clearly I don't know enough about what happened on this thread and what I read was not particularly bad either, but it brought up all the times I have seen the behavior that I described above.

Edited to add Greg since we posted about the same time.

"But in this case it didn't occur until well after helpful and considerate responses that didn't jibe with his supposition."

Not to mention unwarranted personal attacks against Ken and others

"Not to mention unwarranted personal attacks against Ken and others"

True, but that is what people do when cornered by a crowd.

Maybe I jumped in too quickly here but it makes me sad to see anyone feel chewed up and spit out.

I quit another local backpack forum because our ideas did not mesh. They were very traditional and did not want to hear my more modern UL views so I left. Sometimes a forum is not a good match. Heath seemed to come into the thread already amped to argue or just wanted everyone to pat him on the back and say yep you're right. The whole thread was set up to fail from the start.

"Jake: Let me address the overarching issue with the forums on this website. There is a small group of people that comment in almost every single thread, who consistently tell everyone they know everything and everyone else is wrong or doing it wrong by browbeating them. You all look like pedantic @ssholes when you do this."

This is the point he wanted to make before starting… but had to find a way to get there. Nothing anyone said in the first 2 pages was like this but he had to make it seem that way. Then deleting his posts pisses people off so he can feel like the victim again.

What anyone gets from this medium is mostly up to them. I think we all need to maintain a healthy perspective, regardless. From what I've seen, BPL has more(and better) info than any of the other backpacking sites. So what if you don't like everybody here, or they don't share your opinions; it's an internet forum, who cares?
Besides, if everyone had the same experiences and viewpoints, there wouldn't be anything to discuss, or much reason for there to be a forum to begin with.
Really, if you don't want to hear contrasting views, you're defeating the purpose of posting here. It's far better to have people argue with you than have everything you say met with unanimous concordance. You don't learn anything or get new ideas like that.

Heath, … One may need to wade through some BS to get to meaningful experiences and maybe some insight BLUF while trying not to contribute to the former (not that I'd know), but I'd give the site another chance. It's the Internet and watched someone who posted a gear list get slammed on another website. You have your FAK but others have different experiences. Notice most UL – style trips are done in fairly benign conditions but may push mileage – plus can make it through some weather …see shelter discussions. There are a few articles that push the envelope in wintery conditions – see Alaska winter racing duo … think Mehl was the last name, single unarmed females in grizz country – see Kristin Gates in Alaska. There was a SUL link to irunfar where the author eschews fleece since she can move real fast (donning camp insulation when stopped), but then some fast (tho not running) PCT thru hikers became hypothermic last summer (and are packing R1 fleece this yr btw). Also sifting through posts both old and new, there is that rare jewel however minor. Often it's a challenge. It's recreational backpacking with maybe a tinge of adventure, … not a military mission. The only time I've brought up tactical gear is when a former poster wanted to take on pot farmers while hiking on public land, … and maybe a surplus question. That's about the only time that type of talk has any relavance here.

Ed: add Bluf – bottom line up front

I'm totally with Kate on this about mob mentality on this thread. I don't have time to go through everything that was posted, nor would I want to, but I remember Heath being called a jackass, a liar, thin skinned, paranoid freak and an assortment of other very personal things. My impression was of wolves circling a prey that they'd bloodied. This was about weight in a pack–hardly a topic worth this kind of response. I wonder if people here approach total strangers on the trail and launch into personal assaults about their backpacking style, then bring in eight of their buddies to gang up when that person takes offense and tries to defend himself.

Oh I'll totally agree that this forum can, ahem, head south fast depending on the conversation. But in all honesty – and since I only have replies to look at and I can't see what Heath was saying – I really didn't see that here.

I did read the whole thread (actually I was pretty interested in the original post – now deleted) and there just isn't the evidence of the piling on and the name calling – by BPL standards it was actually quite a good discussion about a rather sensitive topic.

It is a shame it had to turn out this way tho; the whole UL philosophy is about not packing your fears, so a discussion about where that line is is a good one to have.

And by the way, other than a few bad chaffy encounters I really don't see this site as terribly misogynistic.

Kettle, meet Pot.

Jeff
If you don't have the time or patience to read the thread then you should keep your thoughts to yourself. If you don't know what was said before then you shouldn't comment on how they came about. You are piling on just the same as you are criticizing.

People were VERY helpful and informative the first 2 pages until he up and decided to delete it all, tell us we all sucked and said he was leaving.

He started a thread expecting a different outcome, had a fit and left.

To use your analogy.. he came out and criticized peoples lists for being inadequate. People told him that in many cases it is just fine. He stormed off in a huff down the trail. People left went "wtf was that…Oh well" and kept chatting about their First aid kits amongst themselves.. then he comes running back down the trail telling us all that we sucked and he was leaving…again.

"launch into personal assaults about their backpacking style"

Oh.. you mean like the original post that he's since deleted? oh you weren't here for that..

Honestly, I was rather bothered by his intense response to my post. But I figured, OK, it's the internet and you never know what's going on with people. In fact, i wondered for a moment if he was dismissing me so vehemently because I was female. In retrospect, I don't think it was a factor. But that's the only time I've felt that here, so his misogyny accusation struck me as rather ironic.

When others also had the WTF? response that was rather validating.

Anyhow, good luck to him with the issues he's working through. And I hope if he has more backpacking questions he comes back to ask them.

Hey folks,

He posted that he has brain damage and PTSD. I really don't need to know any more than that to understand his behavior. I can't see where anyone did anything out of the ordinary in discussing the subject he brought up, but he can't help it.

Jake: I read the thread–even before the deletes. I didn't have time to re-read the thread in order to dredge up the language I read (jackass, paranoid jerk, etc.) directed at Heath in order to post it verbatim. so now I'm tarred with the same brush–"kettle meet pot". Whatever, I couldn't care less. Why people find Heath's deleting of posts to be an enormous offense worthy of absolute censure, I have no idea. He deleted his posts–this itself is a communication. Most people would see this as an indication to back off. Most people would have read Heath's non deleted posts as another indication to back off. But hey, responders see no problem here, so maybe I'm wrong. I still ask whether people here would be so aggressive with a stranger who said something they disagreed with in a face to face situation.

Edit: now that I have time at work during lunch to reread the thread, I'll agree that the first several pages are civil and helpful. It seems to me that things go south later on.

Folks,

Let's just put this thread to bed and start afresh.

Best of luck Heath and keep on getting out to the great
outdoors.

But we could learn from it too.
I don't think any one person here said anything over the top or bullied Heath. Sometimes it is the sheer number of people piling on, each with a possibly legitimate response. Then those that post their enjoyment of it all. That is what I hope we can look at: to consider the totality of the posts and their impact on one person. How many people need to tell one guy the same thing, paraphrasing one another for the most part…