Ultralight Backpacking Ethically (UBE)

David – The thought of single-handedly bringing about demise makes me feel excitedly evil…
As far as what to smoke….give up smoking anything. To be truly Super-Cool-Amazing-Rad Ultralight Man, you have to (1) Memorize the growing seasons and locations of all the happy wild mushrooms, (2) Pack a single recycled waxed paper bag (cut in half to save weight) for transporting said happy mushrooms to your bivy site, (3) Make tea, (3.5) Drink tea, (4) Run around your titanium alcohol stove naked, wearing only your tarp as a cape and one recycled synthetic mid-weight sock on your head, (5) Be one with nature.

"And it is darn lightweight by any traditional standards."

How much does your kit weigh, Anna, if I might ask, and how long do you typically stay out. I'm not pursuing any agenda here; It's just that base weight tends to assume increasing importance the longer the duration of a trip, IME, especially as one gets older.
Interesting thread, BTW. Good on you for starting it. :)

"(4) Run around your titanium alcohol stove naked, wearing only your tarp as a cape and one recycled synthetic mid-weight sock on your head, (5) Be one with nature."

Time the tea ceremony for late afternoon, skip the tarp and sock, climb the nearest tree at sunset, and truly be one with nature.
;-)

""If they can just get rid of the theocracy…."

And replace it with….??

Education.""

A laudable idea in theory, Anna, but then you get down to the nitty gritty of who does the educating and who determines the content and things start to go downhill. This is a very diverse world, culturally; we have spent enormous sums trying to do just that, usually after breaking a lot of other peoples' furniture and having them kill/maim a lot of our young people in the process. In the end it hasn't done much good. Let them work their own destiny out. They're just as smart as we are and eventually they'll evolve. They might even come up with a better idea than we have. Things aren't looking so good around here lately, in case you haven't noticed. Let's take care of business here at home first, eh?

My base weight fluctuates between 10 and 15 lbs depending on the weather. The heaviest thing in my pack is water, since I dehydrate my own meals at home. A short backpacking trip is 4 days. I try to stay out at least 10 in the summer. I love multi-week trips, but those have unfortunately been few and far between. :)

Um…going to another country/culture that we don't understand (but have still managed to mess up horribly with our greedy demand on their natural resources) with guns and telling them how to change does is not included in any even partially rational definition of "education." And I definitely did not imply in my one-word answer to your question what I meant by "education." I definitely meant none of that stuff you said.

"And I definitely did not imply in my one-word answer to your question what I meant by "education." I definitely meant none of that stuff you said."

Of course, but Tom's point is still quite valid. Just who is going to do the educating? And what will we 'teach' them? If it's us (U.S.), we'll end up trying to teach them to be good consumers – the same thing we teach our own. I agree with Tom that it's a laudable goal, but he's right, in practice it's fraught with difficulties and such. We don't even do a very good job of educating our own.

The single most sustainable backpacking kit is probably the one that you already have.
I suppose it's pretty easy: regardless of what type of gear you own, just don't go out and buy any more until it's all COMPLETELY beyond function and repair.

(UH OH, I think this reeks of the slow death of capitalism…at least our hyper-version of it.)

But ending your gear consumption certainly doesn't jive with being a gear-head. Or MYOG freak. Or someone (like myself) interested in the possibility of slowing replacing their gear with organic material.

That's why I'm probably more interested in creating an organic/non-synthetic kit simply to get my kicks rather than some sense of saving the planet with my gear.
If I want to save anything, it seems pretty simple: stop consuming everything I can.

I see no reason my Jam2 won't last at least another 10 years…but how long can I resist the lure of "progress" in the UL industry, shiny new materials, and the promise of a newer, "better" pack?

.

I hope I don't ever have to use this acronym, but if I do, how is it pronounced?

Is it oo-bee, you-bee-ee, you-bee, or just youb?

You said it Dave.

I'm pretty suspicious of the urge to buy our way to some sort of sustainability through better products…meanwhile the factories, freighters, tractors, and trains still roll at full steam. Capitalist/consumer culture has already done a pretty good job of co-opting environmentalism in this country.

Making things out of stuff that never really goes away is pretty crazy when you think about it though….

Check out these photos…
http://www.chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php?id=11

I don't think sticking with what I have is enough,
in that Im thinking about the fact that there are always more backpackers born every day and more people get into backpacking all the time. These people go to the shops and there isn't one pack or tent ect made from anything but plastic and synthetics.
Someone has to show that it can be done and it doesn't mean lugging heavy old uncomfortable camouflage army/hunting gear around.
Thats what Im interested in -making a practical working kit with natural materials where ever it makes sense to so.
Then maybe someday there will be UL cottage companies selling the latest greatest in natural fabric gear. Thats how the UL movement started, people showed what was possible and good ideas spread. I don't have much hope that things will change in that direction though not until they have to.

….to paraphrase our favorite Ghandi. Corny shiet, I can see the eye's rolling. anyway…

I've long believed that change doesn't happen until it's a desperate condition; until the alternatives are unacceptable. That's how I first experienced it. But I also have seen that there does exist a process of education, generations of evolutionary thinking put into practice. It's where many of us are today already, e.g. littering. Cheers to PBS and PSA's.

I'm going to ring a bell as an example: I'm preparing, next fall, to be a mentor for an 8th Grade Waldorf student, and my offering is UL Sustainable Backpacking. MYOG. There's your next generation, Brian (yeah, it's a private school). I'm also mulling a pro-bono class for craft/art folks who subscribe to Make Magazine, makezine.com, on the same topic at machineproject.org here in LA.

How bout this: I have a friend with a hemp clothing company. And I know a company working with water-proofing technology. Lets see if those can't be married in a backpack, tarp tent, etc!

I personally remember when UL wasn't even a fantasy, and I was pained by traditional backpacking. Now I'm here at the edge of UL, looking past it to the next stage.

EDIT: Yo, craig, thanks for the crhis jordan photos. have you seen "manufacturing landscapes"? the videography of Edward Burtynsky, in the same vein of sad, evolved/unnatural beauty.

Well spoken Brian and Michael.
Count me in.

So when's our first trip with organic threads?

-I'll look into Burtynsky, thank Michael.

To all reading this, I'd highly recommend that anyone who's interested in "human impact" issues check out all of Chris Jordan's photography, not just the one's I linked to above.

E. Burtynsky does amazing work. I don't know if it's an actual genre/subject label, but "human impact photography" is near the top for artistic impact, at least for me. Has anyone seen the Pacific Gyre garbage float, by the way? I have seen something similar in the Atlantic but nothing with that kind of square mileage.

Maybe some of you guys who have already done extensive MYOG projects could start your own [green] company, making lightweight gear from organic and recycled materials. Bet that could take off like duct-tape wallets.

Tom and/or Douglas – The future will be determined by either repeating the mistakes of the past or by learning from them and doing better next time. And do you honestly get the impression that I would be in favor of Americans, as a group, "educating" anybody?

If you want to find the lightest 'natural' gear available, simply go back in time. Check out the kit-lists of the early Alpinists and Himalayan explorers. These folk were usually aristocrats, and could afford the best in everything.
I don't think any new natural fabrics or materials have evolved since then.

I met Chris when we both did Photoespaña in 2004, the guy is heavily committed and has made some pretty extensive personal sacrifices to do the work he does. He also uses a very non UL camera that weighs more than many would take for a 3 month hike!
I'm not convinced by his recent work, but he has integrity, and lives his convictions, he 'walks the walk.'

Good advice, Mike. But maybe a new species of Amazonian silnylon bush (Awsomis lightis) is just on the brink of evolutionary divergence. It could happen…

You could be right, Anna. Maybe there is an undiscovered 'sil-nylon' bush in the Amazonian rainforest.

Of course, when it is found, huge sreas of the forest will be destroyed to cultivate it more profitably. ;)

The one thing that many of the explorers of old had the luxury of was fire.

For us contemporary trekkers, this isn't possible anymore (in all locations).

A somewhat limiting factor.

Way to kill my dream of the silnylon bush…just for that, if I ever find one, I am not telling you. ;)

Does anyone else think it's kind of mind-blowing that building a fire is now considered a luxury?

Something I would love to do…develop an ethic based around a "New Taboo." Here's my idea…cultural taboos, whatever their origin or content, are present in every society to some extent, right? One aspect of them is that they are relatively self-policing, i.e., a taboo (as opposed to a law) does not have to be enforced by any one group that doles out the punishment, because it is something of which a culture disapproves, as opposed to a single individual [leader or despot], religious group, or what-have-you. So…in order to form the concept of New Taboo…. (Yes, this is somewhat a fantasy, but work with me.)… Brief Definition of: It is [culturally] abhorrent to undertake any practice that harms the environment.
Seriously…if that idea could just catch on with the public (Ha!), then people could catalyze some amazing change.

" Brief Definition of: It is [culturally] abhorrent to undertake any practice that harms the environment.
Seriously…if that idea could just catch on with the public (Ha!), then people could catalyze some amazing change."

It already exists.
Most folk apply it to THEIR environment though. Defining the environment is the challenge. Financial, natural, economic, etc, etc.? Your own personal circumstances dictate your outlook on the world.
NIMBYism is alive and well.

Sorry for being such a cynic today, Anna. :)

Let me share a few thoughts I sometimes entertain.

Why have humans evolved in the way we have? Is it natural or unnatural?

It seems to me nature has a way of balancing things out. It seems every system from the whole of the universe down to quantum mechanics, or the earth itself down to microbiology is a perfectly built and working chaotic system. Complete Yin and Yang holding a tight balance.

So it seems to me, if we are natural beings, we fit into the puzzle neatly, but maybe as a virus.

So where does this leave the natural destructive tendencies of humans?

I'd hate to see it get too out of hand. We already have too many that think animals should have more rights than humans.