When have you gone too light?

When it rains and I am sleeping under my packraft….

When it frosts and there's three of us, two foam pads, and no sleeping bag…..

When I think it'll take three days and it takes five…..

When the bear charges us and all we have are walking sticks made of carbon fiber….

When there's four of us and we're trying to get off a steep sided glacier with one single pair of crampons between us…..

BTW a backpack was worn in each of these instances.

Jim,

What do you call it … I don't know, how about ….

Having fun?

Roman and all those who walk at the cutting edge,

Tell us of the times you gained experience of the wilderness when you carried lot’s more equipment than you do now. I read of the Artic 1000 mile trip and see people who had the experience and the knowledge of what equipment would and not work in that environment to undertake that journey.

Is there not a danger in promoting the SUL way of walking (which is fine with me) that some people will go for it with out developing the experience and knowledge to cope with the demands the wilderness will place on them and their kit choice.

They may find not having a sleeping bag in the cold fatal, or the bear may ignore the trekking pole to make them his next meal. The point is SUL backpacking (as that is what it is) needs to go in tandem with experience and good survival skills to make it a safe. Saying safe is a lose term in any wilderness environment I know, but promoting responsibility and encouraging an approach of gaining the skills and experience to make it work might just save some one from getting hurt.

> is there not a danger in promoting the SUL way of walking (which is fine with me) that some people will go for it with out developing the experience and knowledge to cope with the demands the wilderness will place on them and their kit choice.

Yes. But curiously, there is exactly the same danger in promoting the heavyweight backpacking style to people who "will go for it with out developing the experience and knowledge to cope with the demands the wilderness will place on them and their kit choice".

Cheers

I can carry a 2 lb 45 degree synth. bag just the same as I can carry a 12 oz quilt. How is one safer than the other?

I can take a alcohol stove at less than an ounce or a white gas stove for a lb or more ….. assuming you're backpacking above freezing, how is one safer than the other?

I can carry a Micropuff pullover at 14 oz and a 3 oz windshirt or 3 100 weight fleeces at over 2 lbs …. can you tell me that one is absolutely safer than the other?

I can carry my 5 lb tent with it's aluminum poles or I can carry a 16 ounce 8×10 sil tarp that, along with my poncho, can make a bomber shelter. I know … I've slept through some pretty intense storms under a tarp … even old canvas tarps to boot!

How many people have been found by SAR teams who have perished from hypothermia with a full pack right next to them?

Pack weight is NOT an indicator of safety.

Let me repeat that.

Pack Weight is NOT an indicator of safety.

I don't care if you haul 5 lbs or 50 lbs …. if you're not hauling the right stuff you're just as likely to become a statistic one way as the other.

Knowledge is the only thing that makes the real difference.

Than is what this site is all about … presenting people with information that they can try out and learn from.

Frankly …. if someone tells me that they have a 5 lb baseweight and has only been backpacking for a month …. I'm gonna be nervous. That type of baseweight has to be EARNED.

.

Mark,

“Frankly …. if someone tells me that they have a 5 lb baseweight and has only been backpacking for a month …. I'm gonna be nervous. That type of baseweight has to be EARNED” Says it all.

When I said that “that some people will go for it with out developing the experience and knowledge to cope with the demands the wilderness will place on them and their kit choice” I was trying to raise a point that some people starting out backpacking could potentially make the leap straight in at what ill call the deep end of backpacking. I.e. SUL and around that area where it is wise to develop over time the skills and experience to make it work.

I have no issues with that type of approach to backpacking, but like any outdoor activity the promotion of safety and having a responsible attitude will help.

Martin,

Mostly we pack our insecurities. John Muir wandered the Sierra with little more than a big wool overcoat and a bag or bread crumbs and had some wild adventures.

A friend of mine just sent me a packrafting story of a 1952 descent of Copper Canyon's Urique River in Mexico. His companions included three Tarahumara Indians and his wife. For two weeks the Indians carried little more than their clothes, a blanket, and food.

During the Klondike Gold Rush, the Canadian Government required every gold seeker to bring in 2000 pounds of gear and food — that's a ton! — hiking the Chilkoot. This did little to prepare them for the real rigors of what lay ahead and the remains of the many failures litter that Chilkoot Trail today.

I have sporadically organized a race, the Alaska Mountain WIlderness Classic. It was America's first adventure race. The rules were brutally simple: start here, finish there, cary everything you need, no caches, no roads, no pack animals. There was no mandatory gear list. There were no skills tests. Anybody could enter, if you paid your fee, signed the releases, and wrote a brief essay to describe what you anticipated would be the risks and how to deal with managing the risk. Nobody was aver turned away.

You could essentially do whatever you wanted within the confines of the rules. The races are long — over 150 miles — with bears and rivers and glaciers and foul weather. There are no safety checkpoints, no volunteers on the route. Indeed, there is usually no "route". Surprisingly nobody has died!

Now, over the 25+ years of the event, the people who finish are not necessarily the most experienced, or the most athletic, although there are plenty of experienced athletes there.

Many who do not finish are the ones who pack too much insecurity and drop out because they are afraid, their feet are hurt from too heavy of a pack, or because they move too slow with too heavy of a pack.

To summarize the point. The most important thing you carry is between your shoulders, and it's not just the thinking part there, but the persistence part, the memory part, the emotional response part, too.

You don't have to be as smart as Roger Caffin, as strong as Andrew Skurka, as brave as Ryan Jordan, as experienced as Ray Jardine. In fact you barely need some combination of confidence, strength, fitness, and know-how to go into the wilderness with minimal gear (food, insulation, shelter). Anybody can do it, but not everybody WANTS to do it, and the wanting is likely the most important.

Just being a human being animal will surprisingly take care of much of the rest, if your mind is willing to let it. Why? Because humans are surprisingly and innately adept at abstracted wilderness travel. We just have to do a little bit to see if we LIKE it, and then we can do it, and not die.

Now, comfort — that wee bit of cultural conditioning — is a separate issue.

Mostly we pack our insecurities.

That's the best summary of the issue yet!

A friend of mine just sent me a packrafting story of a 1952 descent of Copper Canyon's Urique River in Mexico. His companions included three Tarahumara Indians and his wife. For two weeks the Indians carried little more than their clothes, a blanket, and food.

The start of Eric Hanson's Orchid Fever contains a similar story concerning foot travel in Borneo's interior, as does much of his earlier book Stranger in The Forest.

And then there's Eustace Conway foraging his way through a SOBO AT thru hike.

It's pretty much summed up in "The more you know, the less you need".

Myself? I still know way too little and need way too much;-)

When i'm backpacking in my native Scotland, i often think of my ancestors in the same terrain. They wore a kilt that was made of 8 yards of woollen cloth. Warm when wet. The legs were bare so no problem wading rivers. On their feet, they wore leather brogue type shoes. The uppers had lots of holes so the water drained out quickly. Come bedtime, the kilt was taken off and used as a 'bivvy-bag'. They just lay down in the heather to sleep. No tent or tarp. Whole army's marched this way. Why do we need so much 200 years later? Have we become that soft?

Roman said: we pack our insecurities

So true for all of us. Our fears become our heaviest burden. We must venture into the realm of the unknown, challenge the dragon, and then return to live heroically and lighter.

Roman said: …the persistence part, the memory part, the emotional response part, too.

Every journey is step after step after step each becoming keener than the last, pain and anger diminishing, joy and contentment overwhelming, the awe. Listen to your soul, be brave and go for it.

((Thought to self when approaching yet another humungous backpack strapped to someone moving at a snails pace)), WOW, that's even a bigger pack than the last one I saw.

Lets talk to the guy/ girl to how there doing sense it looks like they are about to keel over and die from all that weight..

Me: So, how's it going?

You: Oh great!

Me: Where are you heading to?

You: I'm doing the loop.

Me: So when did you start?

You: 2 days ago.

Me: When are you going to be done?

You: It will be a week hike. This is my big hike that I've been trying to get off to do for the past year.
So what are you doing this far up hear with that Thing, (referring to my pack)?

Me: Oh, I’m doing the loop?

You: (In disbelief) What????? When did you start?

Me: This morning..

You: (Now in even more disbelief) So when will you be done?

Me: I'll be done tomorrow…

As I'm walk away, I can hear an elongated sighhh and very soon after that he is already out of sight, when; OMG that is even a bigger backpack…

Right on Aaron,
That sounds exactly like my experience on the Rae Lakes Loop a few years back.

Roman,

If I recall I asked you “Tell us of the times you gained experience of the wilderness when you carried lots more equipment than you do now” Your reply I found thoughtful, enlightening and challenging. I had a walk by a lake tonight thinking over it as I really was impressed by it. In some ways it did not answer the question but I’ll not complain.

We could recite tales of old pioneers and mountain men’s travels through the wilderness, and marvel at their exploits all night, yet telling these tales we neglect to mention how many of those old pioneers and adventures perished in the wilds, succumbing to the elements and dangers. Many a Scottish clansman I think did not make it home in a winter storm.

You say we “mostly we pack our insecurities” I agree, I think. As you say “We just have to do a little bit to see if we LIKE it, and then we can do it, and not die.

But back to safety. I’m glad no one has died on your adventure race. Sadly people do die in the wilds. Rock fall, drowning, falling, all can prove fatal along with hundreds of other hazards. A friend of mine on Monday saw a fatal accident while hiking. Sad and this was only a couple miles from a village. You can die not far from civilisation just as easy as many miles into the wilderness.

My point is still “that some people will go for it with out developing the experience and knowledge to cope with the demands the wilderness will place on them and their kit choice” Going light or going heavy in the hills, mountains or high tundra is still potentially dangerous and people should posses the skills and experience to undertake their journey along with the skills to use the equipment effectively they take. Going SUL is no different. Just to emphasise my point about people going SUL or lightweight with out much experience let me quote from Lightweight Backpacking and Camping “Consequently it is not intended for beginning backpackers or those that otherwise do not already know how to stay dry and warm in inclement weather, possess wilderness survival skills, and know how to recognize and avoid dangerous situations” Wise advice I feel as going SUL and the like is described and taught in the book.

My favourite quote on the wilds is from Sir John Lubbock and its “Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.” I like to learn and come home safe to plan to go learn some more.

Safe hiking

Martin,

Pretty much every time I get into a new sport, I dont know what I really need and end up with too much. As I get progressively more experienced — experienced with what I don't need — I leave more and more home.

So, I'll go back to my first big canopy trek, backpacking if you will (although we wore no real backpacks) through the top of a Eucalyptus forest in Victoria, AU called Wallaby Creek. It's a closed watershed for Melbourne, but we had a permit to do some science and to do this week-long trip from tree to tree, carrying all our food, our water, and even our human waste.

This was something nobody had tried before, and likely very few had even envisioned: tree top to tree top, always over 200 feet or so off the ground, sleeping in hammocks, sliding our gear over on tyroleans rigged using magic missiles fired from cross bows and mini-grapnels snagging lanyards. It was cool! The idea is to climb one tree and then go onwards from there, with no help from the ground, no preplaced ropes, or anything.

But we took way too much stuff. We moved so slow we had to drop most of our gear and half our team to complete the trek.

I learned a lot about the top of a mountain ash forest, but I learned more when we lightened up. Before we lightened up we spent most of the time messing with gear, hauling gear, handling gear. I did learn there are some neat ant-mimic spiders, as I waited around. We told stories. But I learned less about the wilderness than I did when we travelled light and free.

Back in my teens when I had big heavy leather boots and a heavy pack filled with stuff I carried but didn't use: I looked at my feet and not at the landscape. I looked forward to the breaks more than the travel between them. I learned that my feet ached, that creek crossings were awkward and hills long and tiring.

I learned that if I carry too much stuff I sometimes forget to pack it up and leave it accidently behind, but if it was not important enough to remember, maybe it was not important enough to carry.

Most heavy trips I learn that I can hurt my back and my feet and there's stuff I carried but didn't use.

However there's one class of heavy trip I did repeatedly for a decade: family trips. One example, with my six year old son and a North Face VE 24, back in 1993. We walked 60 miles across Umnak, an Aleutian Island, just the two of us. I carried a big pack because he carried nothing. Sometimes I carried him, too, when he said "Dad, my feet hurt." but he always hopped down when I said, "Son, my back hurts."

I learned a lot on that trip! The best thing I learned was that he and I liked doing long wilderness trips together and that I liked being there with him, and liked looking after him. I found going heavy was Ok cause he needed more frequent rests too. I found stopping a lot and sharing the landscape and seascape views were good. I liked having all the stuff for him: big tent, two rain jackets for him, lots of fuel and a stove, a gun for protection against wild bulls, a camera to capture the trip, a book for us to read, plenty of snacks to keep him happy, a glass ball from a Bering Sea beach as a memento.

I have done plenty of heavy trips: with science, with climbing, with skiing, with kids, with students, with boats, with moose meat. Mostly those trips are slow and work-like, or filled with base-camp time to allow enjoyment of whatever it is we're carrying.

Not to be snarky, but the major experience gained comes down to discovering what I don't need to bring next time, followed by a self-discovery that I can carry a big pack, and finally whatever the reason I'm going heavy-weight (climbing gear, family gear, science stuff), the specific application of that burden will provide experience, and that's why I am there with it.

Martin,

A fascinating read if you can find them because they are out of print: Hiking the Appalachian Trail Vol 1 and 2, by James R. Hare. First edition 1975.

Fortunately I found them and enjoy reading about the early hikers of the AT. It was quite more of a wilderness journey or pilgrimage back years ago when the first generation of AT hikers did it.

It was an unknown for all of them. They managed to figure out how to cope and push themselves through to the end. Young and old, men and women.

Stories such as theirs and others like the Muir texts on Project Gutenberg inspire me to embark on adventures – within my tolerance and reasonableness. I will never be a world class adventurer, but I am going out tomorrow with a 6 pound base weight for a four day "adventure". I'm ready to go now, but my son will not be here until later tonight so we'll leave in the early morning.

You can not become an experienced light backpacker without going out and backpacking with lighter gear. Chicken and egg. My previous traditional "experience" has not helped me much other than learning that I don't want to carry too much stuff.

Anyway – it's fun to read and discuss these things tonight.

Will report back next Wednesday…

>> to do this week-long trip from tree to tree

Did not see your post. That will be story I share with my son tomorrow. He will turn 30 this month so he carries his own stuff : )

See ya

Hey Casey,

The Rea lakes Loop is also exactly what I was refering to.

Actually my first multi day trip was the Rae Lakes Loop. Remember starting out in mid morning in August. 90 degrees and with a Gregory Denalli pack sized large. 7000 ci and filled all the way up. One of the greatest, and painfull trips that I have taken. Now that trip would probably have my skin out at 20 pounds. I love watching others with huge packs and I love the interesting looks that I get. Heck, I will talk and try to make the light go off in their heads. If you are safe, comfortable, and self sufficient, then more power to you. I find the lighter I get the better my experience is in the wilderness.

Now let's keep in mind, Aaron does this loop as a day hike from what I have heard

Yeah, Yeah,
I have done it twice as a day hike and twice over a nice (slow) 2 day "backpack" weekend trip.

I would have the think that the largerest pack I've seen out there is about 85 litters.
I am just wondering if I can fit my self in it or not.

Pick Gear To Meet Trip Goals.
When I set a goal that best challenges my mind and body and then match gear to achieve the goal I feel most alive. Those trip memories are the strongest and most valuable to me over the decades.
I really can’t remember a time I went too light or too fast; because I always made it back in one piece.
I can remember many times I went too heavy and/or too slow. That combination was always WAY more trouble than the reverse. -The canoe trip that went too slow and got me fired from a teenage job. -The new girlfriend hiking trip with too much wrong heavy gear that turned her off to BPing for life. -The big wall climb with too much gear that went way too slow and almost ended in an unnecessary overdue rescue.
I think it would be very rare to hear from an Experienced SUL/UL backpacker/fastpacker/climber about a time they truly felt they went too light. It’s their nature to do it that way and mere survival is proof enough they were not too light.
If the premise question was more like “When have you been uncomfortable or felt regret for not carrying something more/heavier” then responses might be different.
As the question stands: When have you gone too light?” most responses tend to recount a minor epic that is more about inexperience than any gear choice. It’s folks experiencing these minor epics, learning from them, and then later recounting them as wonderful (even fun) life changing adventure highlights that further support my observation it is not about the gear!
Carry less- Enjoy your epics. It will give you great comfort in old age.

Roman,
You walk and packraft the Brooks and Alaska Ranges and you’re the Race Director for the Alaskan Mountain Wilderness Classic. Me on the other hand have just have had the odd leisurely walk across Scotland and enjoy any hill in the UK. I dream of Alaska and Yellowstone.

The thing I like about BPL is novices like me get to ask old pros like you and you have kindly given me much to consider. I laid out my kit for a week in Scotland that’s coming up. It’s less than last year and I expect needs to be lighter still. It may be I’m packing insecurities still? Either way I’m learning.

That’s the point your so right on “experience gained comes down to discovering what I don't need to bring next time” I said I have not gone to light, that’s because I have slowly gone from heavy to lighter and a bit lighter still and have never found I was with out a bit of kit I needed on a trip.. George said (ill look up those books) “You can not become an experienced light backpacker without going out and backpacking with lighter gear” That’s the bit where my insecurities challenge me. Be fun to find out and learn, I wonder if in due time ill end up going to light?

But on experience, it teaches us much. It taught you to take a gun to protect that which you valued above all, it taught you to take what equipment was need to keep him happy and safe. You illustrated in my view that it’s about selecting kit what is appropriate to the journey that you are going to undertake. Experience then teaches us what to leave behind next time. That again leads back to my point “that some people will go for it with out developing the experience and knowledge to cope with the demands the wilderness will place on them and their kit choice” I hope the learning is not to harsh on them. But on learning I thank you for the discussion and I’ve learnt a lot and have much to consider.

Till another time

Glad to help Martin.

Be secure in the fact that God and natural selection have built us out of very good stuff. We are resilient and tough, in spite of oursleves. You'll be surprised at what you can do without.

Have fun, be careful, and look!

Roman

When your hungry and not happy!!!!!

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