2005 Backpacking Light Trip Planning Spreadsheet Contest Entries

Douglas,

Thanks for the link. I just checked the BPL home page and saw a link there also.

I almost never go to the home page and just wait for an email from BPL telling me of the new articles and then use the links in the email. Haven’t received an email yet, so I didn’t realize that the winner was announced. I guess it makes sense that the home page would have links before the emails are sent out.

Thanks again and congrats to the winners.

Congratulations to Meir, Jim and Ben. Excellent entries from everyone; I’m sure we all picked up ideas from each others’ sheets to play around with for our entries in next year’s contest…right?

nm

This is for talented Mr. Gottleib (preferred) or any person that understands well his spreadsheet:
Is there a way to enter food for a dog in a way that won’t contribute to my FOOD weight under the consumable category in the PACK LIST? I don’t mind it factored into the grand total for CONSUMABLES: food, water, fuel. I just what to keep the “two types of foods” seperate so I can see my food weight total vs the dog’s.
Right now I’ve got the dog food listed under PANTRY and then added to the MENU.

I guess I treat my dog, Boomer, like a human backpacking partner. All I needed to do was to list the dog food and Zuke’s snacks under the GEAR CLOSET then listed them under CONSUMABLES in the GEAR LIST.
Hey, Mr Gottleib, muchas gracias for a great way to list my gear. Sure beats the word doc I started a year ago and then manually calcaluting pack weights.
–Carl

How do I print the spreadsheets so that I can write in my own gear? I like the ones that are on here but when I save them it has all their gear listed.

I recently downloaded this spreadsheet, but everytime I change one of the selections the calculations of grams, lbs, and kilograms comes up as an error. ” #NAME?” Does anyone have any information on this?

Anyone out there have a new version of any of these that works with mac that you would like to share? I'm still keeping my lists on handwritten paper. Please help!

Go back and look for David Lewis' submission. I recall seeing a "MAC OS X" folder in the zip archive file along with the one I used.

I just downloaded this spreadsheet and when I try to switch the Ounces/Grams option to Grams
the cells in the Gear Closet don't properly convert..
The Ounces values just move into the cells that should be Grams and that throws off the entire calculation.

Can someone help me fix this please :)
I'm using Office 2007

Colin,

Similar issues with earlier versions of Excel. This should work.

First of all make sure you have the 'Analysis Toolpack' Add-in installed. Thes instructions work on 2000 and 2003, and probably on 2007.

Click the Tools Menu, Click Add-ins… and then Check 'Analysis Toolpack.'

If the Add-in is not installed, then Excel will ask you to insert the CD, and install it. Once installed, make sure the Analysis Toolpack is checked in the Add-in menu.

If it is still not working, go to the Options page and change the Primary weight units cell to the other choice. From here it should work and switch back and forth.

I had expected to see some program in VBA (Visual Basic for Applications), when was playing with this. But the author didn't. He has put together some very complex formulas to do some of this stuff. Very impressive advanced use of formulas!

Excel 2007, Tools menu – what tools menu?
They screwed the entire layout in 2007!

Cheers

Roger,

Turns out you click on the circular logo, top left, then select "Excel Options" at the bottom right of the window that appears. Should be pretty clear from there.

James

Thankyou for the replies guys
I found the excel options menu and added the Analysis Tookpack; however, the conversion still isn't working for me for some reason :(

Colin,

Go to the Option page in the workbook and change to the weight option from whatever it is set at. I found that after I added the toolpack, it would not work until I changed the weight option. After that, it kept working when I made subsequent changes to the weight option.

I am using Excel 2000. I buils a lot of Excel-VBA applications for my company using 2000, which is our corporate load. Many of these applications are faily sophisticated. We are migrating to Office 2007, and I have no reported compatililty issues with 2007 from our users.

So I gather previously added weights wont convert properly when the option is changed… but all new additions will?
Or was the spreadsheet designed to go back and forth between the two options converting them each time it's changed?

Colin,

I only looked at it for a couple minutes, just to help out. It appears the the purpose of the option is to let you calculate base, consumables, FSO, etc at the bottom of the sheet. I would imagine there is no need to re-input data.

What do people like to use these days? I'm still on paper. 7 years of technology has offered up other choices. Geargrams and what not. Me, I still like having it all on my own computer. Not so sure about posting it.

I've made my own Excel document that has gone through more iterations than my gear closet has. Google Doc's has an online spreadsheet which has many of the same features.

I see no need or reason to have it online. Just remembered that I have Gram Weenie on Renee's computer. Man I need to upgrade this classic Emac.

You guys aren't going to talk tech all night again are you?

Mmmmmmmmmmm. Maybe.

Well you can build and maintain your own fire this time.

Ugh. OK, no talk about computers or anything related to them.

Geez, the last time that I ran a Fortran program it was on an IBM System 360 mainframe.

There is probably a new model by now.

–B.G.–

I learned Fortran back in the 1980's; had to punch my own cards! Who in the world uses that now?