Music and Backpacking

[Joe Geib]

Looks like Jay has me trumped in terms of weight and rechargability (AAA battery). However, I chose mine to be able to give me great sound on vacations and whatnot. They're also powerful enough to run as speakers for your computer. If interested, you can probably find them a little cheaper on Amazon.

When shopping around, I also found these.

[Paul Tree]

I prefer if others use headphones.

[Ken Helwig]

Jay, PM sent

Paul, when playing music in the outdoors (if any I chose to do so, which is not too often), the volume is sooo low that nobody else can hear. I know that we head to the backcountry for solitude and to enjoy nature, but sometimes it is nice to have that small luxury while doing things you love. With the advent of mp3 players bringing along a collection of your own tunes to listen to sometimes can be quite nice. I never camp near anyone that can see or hear me, unless it is unavoidable, and if that is the case, I tend to be as accomodating to others, or even more so then some. And yes, this comes from experience in having seen some of the most stupid idiots in the Sierra's where they have no clue that others might be around. I have also had to endure othes with bongo drums, acoustic guitars and other acoustic instruments in places like Ventana, Point Reyes where I have recieved impromtu concerts by many a half wit. Just my 2 cents.

Please understand this post is not attacking you but I am just stating why and when I might pull out some music for myself. Generally I don't travel with an mp3 player or a radio, I just it would be an interesting thread.

[John Whynot]

Brings back memories of approaching Galehead hut in the White Mtns to the sound of the Spinners coming from the hut crew's portable tape player (No mp3 players in 1980). It was more amusing than intrusive.

[Ken Helwig]

Mine is just as amusing.

After a long day hiking my friends and I come upon our destination late in the afternoon at Buck Lake in Emmigrant Wilderness, California. We can hear bluegrass and country blaring away in the canyon. We thought outloud how strange is this. Well down the trail we come across these two drunken yahoos with a few cases of beer, a huge car camping tent for 5-10, a Coleman stove for car camping, a big boom box blasting Waylon Jennings. By that time, and two intersting characters, sitting in lounge chairs drinking there beer and having a good ole time. We stop to chat (just for a minute) and it turns out that a packer brought them in for a week of fishing. They were about to get a another beer drop in a day or so as we were told. They were having the times of their lives. Though they were quite noisy

[Steven Evans]

I wouldn't want to hear someone elses music, but where I hike, you'd be hard pressed to hear someone else from their campsite based on the distance between them, so I wouldn't notice if someone else was playing music. However, I'm not a music and camping guy. For me, they don't mix, but that's just me. Maybe because my days are filled with computers, technology, and manufacturing…so I like to bring it 'cave-man style' when I go out hiking. Yep, just like a cave-man…with my cuben shelter, titanium hardware, and state of the art stove – cavemen had those things right?

[Doug Johnson]

I carry an iPod Shuffle for trips up to 3 days- at 1.0 oz with headphones and an integrated clip, it's supersano- and the battery lasts about 12 hours. This is the 2 gb model- that's a lot of music!

The Creative Muvo n200 weighs just 1.5 oz with headphones and a lithium AAA battery- great for longer trips! Mine is 1GB.

Is there anything lighter out there?

[Jay Wilkerson]

Hey Steven, I like the Caveman method and respect it but I think the Cavemen got so board that eventually they invented the drum. Animals skins and large gourds= Tribal Beats!!

Doug, Check out GoFastandLight.com They have some very good lightweight music gear.

[te – wa]

Doug, I almost bought the ipod shuffle simply because it is so danged light!
4G model weighs .55 oz with lithium battery. holds 500 songs and can be had for as low as $25 on some sites.

[Mina Loomis]

edited

[Mina Loomis]

My younger son, then 14, now 17, and his ukulele, on the trail at Lost Maples State Natural Area, Texas. For group trips we have a no-electronics-on-the-trail rule, but we can still have music. When kids were little, we could sing, but teenagers won't do that.

[Steven Evans]

"I think the Cavemen got so board that eventually they invented the drum. Animals skins and large gourds= Tribal Beats!!"

LOL!
Sigh, you are probably right…I'm no caveman. :)

[Matthew Robinson]

learn to play the harmonica, lightweight, packable, hard to break. no tuning.

i got a sansa 1gb i have no clue how much it weighs but its weight to potential energy ratio is tops

[Roman Ryder]

I've started bringing my shuffle. I normally just use it at night, but it was nice when I had to cover the same couple miles again on a FT lollipop a couple weeks back. I dug my harmonica out the other day. I'm going to start bringing it along and see if I can't get any better. lol

[Daniel Fosse]

I am an incurable music junky.

I use a Sandisk of some kind. It has 1GB internal and an SD slot which takes up to 2GB cards. So with one card I have 3GB. And SD cards weigh .05 OZ on my scale. The player uses 1xAAA and weighs 1.3 OZ. It also has a good FM radio. I like this setup because it uses AAA batteries which I can replace in the field. It has a monochrome small LCD and is very power efficient.

Sometimes I hike in these speakers made with NXT drivers. They are flat panel speakers about the size of a double CD case. They unfold and put out a lot of decent sound. They are extremely power efficient but are very heavy at 8.8 OZ.

Otherwise I use a pair of Sure EC2 in-ear headphones which sound great (weight ?).

Campfire+Whisky+Music makes me a very happy boy.

[Justin Chaussee]

It depends for me. Sometimes I will bring my ipod, other times I won't. I don't even really have a system for when/when not to bring it. But when I do bring it, I like listening to pretty mellow stuff like james taylor, dave matthews, john mayor, etc… I'm a guitarist, so naturally I tend to like rock, but I tend to favor the mellow stuff in the wild.

[Jeff Antig]

SUL music system =

iPod shuffle (clips on shirt neck) + modified earphones (cut, re-soldered, heat shrink tubing)

< 1 oz.! (I think it's around 0.7 oz, my scale is not digital so I can't even tell)

[Diane “Piper” Soini]

I like to bring a pennywhistle. I don't want mass consumer music when I'm out there, so instead I make my own.

I'm always worried I will bother someone, though. The pennywhistle carries very far.

Making your own music is really fun when you are out there, especially if you're all by yourself and have a tune stuck in your head.

[Denis Hazlewood]

I too like to carry a pennywhistle. Mine is a Feadog in the key of D, the same as my bamboo flute walking stick. If I meet someone who can play, we make a duet.

Pennywhistle and Bamboo Flute walking stick.

[Diane “Piper” Soini]

Wow, look at that! Do you play the flute whole or does it come out of the stick somehow?

My pennywhistle is an Acorn in the key of D, too. I've considered carrying an Eb because it's more ultralight, but I, too, hope to meet someone someday and play a little Irish music together.

[Denis Hazlewood]

The Flute/Walking Stick is one piece. Custom made by Romy Benton, of Portland, OR. I hike in northern CA. If you're in that area perhaps we'll cross paths one day.

[Paul Smith]

I built a set of bird song mp3's tagged with photos and info that I loaded on to a Zen X-Fi (2.4oz). The X-Fi has a built in speaker so no headphones needed.

Saves me the weight of id books or the hassle of printing pages.

[Brett Tucker]

The bird song catalog is something I'm working on as well. It seems an ideal backcountry use for the technology.

For musical entertainment, it's hard to get much lighter than the human vocal chords, and they're not even so much as "skin out" weight.

As a wannabe jazz guitarist, I would fill up the idle iPod space with some Pat Metheny solos and try singing the notes in unison. He's a very lyrical guitarist with an unusual sense of meter, so this is both challenging and quite entertaining to do well.

[Denis Hazlewood]

Then there's Jim Hall or Joe Pass.

[Scott S]

Why carry that oh-so-heavy MP3 player to play bird songs when you can carry them in your brain for zero weight? Before long trips, I study up on bird songs so I don't have to carry any field guides, audio players, or even binoculars. I'm doing the PCT this year, and I have a playlist of 160something species that I listen to a few times a week at work (it's not as bad as it sounds since I know about half of the songs already). By the time the hike rolls around, I'll hopefully know all the songs well enough to not need any field guides or bins.

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