When is it just a fetish?

I tink that their are tipping points in regards to backpack weights. For 20 lbs and less is one of them. Being able to use a dayback would be another. (i am not there yet). When you hit a tipping point the experience changes.

My goal is to recreate the day hike experience on a weekend backpack. That means 10lbs total pack weight which means getting pretty close to sul. I think that not needing a backpacking pack will change the experience, now i also like comfy sleeping pads, rain geer, and sleeping bags so fighting for every other ounce maybe not gram is important if i a going to get the experience i want.

So for me i am chasing an experience and to get there every ounce counts.

"Wow that's amazing…I hope I can hike even half this well at 71."

I am going to take partial credit for this. 50% of my posts raise Tom's heartbeat for 20 minutes. No exercise needed.

:)

a few things ive noticed personally

– saving weight DOES matter, however if there is a tradeoff in utility or function it may not be worth it … classic example for me is the small climbing carabiners, i cant clip them easily with gloves on and find it harder to clove hitch em

– also saving weight is not the best thing sometimes if there is a value tradeoff … for example that UL pack that weights a few oz less may not be the best buy if it doesnt last as long as a more durable one … been there done that … or spending $$$$ for small weight savings

– saving weight is great when you have really overweight gear where you dont "need" the extra functionality or durability … my light puffy, windshell and rainshell combined weight less than my old dead bird "bomber" rain jacket (and cost less to boot, darn YPs) … but if yr just replacing something thats marginally heavier, perhaps the money could be better spent somewhere else

– the easiest/cheapest way to save weight for many people is to get more fit … and its free …

– the second easiest/cheapest way is to have the skills to NOT bring stuff you dont need and arent critical … the less you bring the lighter you ware

– unless you are a top notch sponsored climber or one of those extreme cross alaska trekkers … i have noticed that those who do the most dont usually have the lightest, shiniest, fanciest gear … they buy a piece of gear that works well and use it till it dies, or they find another one on sale … they spend their money on trips and perfecting their skills …

as the OP says … the goal is to go higher/longer/faster/funner … if a lighter weight allows you to do that … thats all good

but if yr just buying piece after piece of marginally lighter new gear …. and not using them to their full potential … then it aint backpacking light … its gearswapping light IMO

i had to exert a lot of will power today to NOT buy a dead bird squamish windshell for 40%+ off … which would have been marginally better and lighter than my current windshell … i cant justify it right now, and it would have cost me a few days of gas that i could better spend on trips

i had to exert a lot of will power today to NOT buy a dead bird squamish windshell for 40%+ off … which would have been marginally better and lighter than my current windshell … i cant justify it right now, and it would have cost me a few days of gas that i could better spend on trips

That's an excellent way to put things in to perspective and more of us could stand to consider that.

"Wow that's amazing…I hope I can hike even half this well at 71."

The good news is that if you just keep on doing what you're doing, you'll do as well, if not better. The bad news is that the opportunity to find out will arrive a whole lot sooner than you think. Time do fly when you're having fun. ;-)

"I've never heard of anyone doing that!"

If the idea interests you enough to follow up, there is an excellent, more thorough article on the subject over on RJ's Arctic1000 website. Look in the food section. He did a lot of planning along these lines for a much more demanding trip than any I take, and his write up makes for very interesting reading. The longer your hikes, the more interesting/useful his article wll be, because he was going to be out long after he had exhausted his reserve of body fat. This is a problem I have not had to address. At that point, the amount of carried food required/day starts to rise very quickly. His group was doing up to 40+ miles/day off trail toward the end of the trip.

"Like any activity, you can run it into the ground and demonstrate the law of diminishing returns."

Ah, but at what point? Therein lies the rub. Every individual has their personal calculus for determining that point. I think the best approach is to read through the various posts, extract what you think might be useful in determining your own point of diminishing returns, and let it go at that. Nothing to be gained by going further, IMO.

"I am going to take partial credit for this. 50% of my posts raise Tom's heartbeat for 20 minutes. No exercise needed."

I owe you, Nick. I never would have made it back into the Kern without you this year. Folks, I'm here to tell you: If you want to hit the hills lean and mean, do a few Chaff intervals with Nick over the winter. A set of 8 is easily the equivalent of 12 X 400 @ 70 seconds, and the only things that may be sore afterward are your fingertips. ;=)

The more ounces I shave off my girlfriend's non-backpacking clothing, the lighter my pack gets. =P

"This summer I ran out of food on the last day for the first time ever. While I know you can go for days without food, it made for some sluggish hiking on my part on the tail end of a semi-speed hike of the JMT this summer."

Hi Robert,

This is probably because you had run out of carbs and were burning body fat and muscle tissue. Did you also have a "metallic" taste in your mouth? I was in a similar situation many years ago on a 16 day trip with no resupply. I was also very sluggish and had that metallic taste in my mouth. I was down to 125# from a normal 136# or so when I got home and it took me a month or so to recover.

"I am interested in some ideas for keeping the calories up, but the weight down. I went with about 2 lbs per day this summer, and could have used more. We were doing about 24 – 27 miles per day which tends to burn some calories, but I could use some ideas on the food front on what you bring to get your food weight that low."

In addition to what I posted above to Peter about specific foods, I have found Ensure to be a great addition to my carried food. I mix it with Nido to make a high calorie shake, ~133 calories/oz with lots of protein and carbs. It's great in the late afternoon. That said, if you are doing 24-27 miles/day you're going to have to carry more than I do. If I were you, I'd try to calculate your caloric expenditure for that kind of day using one of the online activity specific calorie counting algorithms to start with. You should be able to get in the ball park that way. Then figure out how much body fat you have to spare or care to gain and factor that into your food supply, spread over how many days you intend to hike. The difference is how many calories you will have to provide from carried food. How fast you hike factors into it as well. I hike at ~2.5 miles/hour and burn about a 30% carb and 65% fat mix with protein at about 5%(this is a constant in exercise physiology text books). If you hike faster, the carb percentage will go up accordingly, and the fat percentage down. I find the biggest challenges are getting enough carbs in the mixture and palatability. For more info on calculating your carb-fat ratio, I'd suggest PMing Richard Nisley. He knows a lot about the subject, and was a lot of help to me when I was just getting started. If I can confuse you further, let me know and we'll try and dialogue it out.

Last thoughts:

I suspect you will have a hard time reducing your carried food weight too much on a trip of that length unless you are willing to make use of body fat to some extent.

If you go cold food, you can devote the weight savings to food.

"I am a huge fan of Perpetuem, and only do one freezerbag cook meal a day for dinner, FWIW."

+1 to the Perpetuem. It's all I eat between breakfast and dinner.

Although it might be possible for me to run very low on normal food, it would be almost impossible for me to ever run completely out of Gatorade powder.

It the old days, I used to carry the powder in 1-quart packets. Now I purchase the large cans of the stuff and carry it in plastic bags of 4 ounces, 2 ounces, or a half-ounce. As long as my normal food is working and the trails are normal, I don't use it. But then when some big uphill is 20 minutes ahead, that is my fuel of choice.

At very high altitude, normal food gets difficult to cook, and appetites sometimes fail. But I can keep going with Gatorade.

–B.G.–

For me, this idea is two-fold:

1. I have pretty much all the gear necessary to have a safe and enjoyable time while backpacking.
2. I've consolidated my gear and avoided "specialization" as much as I can.

I think the second point has become much more what I focus on. I could have a tent and tarp for all weather conditions, 4 or 5 packs with/without frames, and 10 different stove options, but at some point it is paralysis by analysis. It becomes more about having a closet full of stuff I have to sort through before every trip and less about the experience of packing everything in my pack and heading out on a whim (especially when I'm packing climbing gear). An example: I recently sold my winter and summer tents and have pared down to a golite sl2. It may weigh a little more than my previous summer shelter, but it's modular, can fit my girlfriend and I, can be used in all 4 seasons, and is pretty durable.

The only thing that makes this difficult sometimes is that I backpack and climb in vastly different areas: I live in Colorado, but last summer I spent all my time in California, Oregon, and Washington. Finding gear that works in all of these conditions is a challenge in and of itself.

For me, simplicity isn't always the newest and lightest widget. It's what is durable, functional, and allows me to retain enough money to take trips as often as I can. And honestly, that makes me happy.

Wouldn't it be an accepted fetish to carry the heaviest possible pack.

Masochism:
1: a sexual perversion characterized by pleasure in being subjected to pain or humiliation especially by a love object — compare sadism
2: pleasure in being abused or dominated : a taste for suffering

The word fetish derives from the French fétiche, which comes from the Portuguese feitiço (“spell”), which in turn derives from the Latin facticius (“artificial”) and facere (“to make”). A fetish is an object believed to have supernatural powers, or in particular, a man-made object that has power over others.
Doesn't sound like UL equipment to me.[yes, I used Wikipedia]
By the way, Super Ultra-Light Cyclists are generally referred to as Weight Weenies, I wonder what we would be called?

I went through a phase before my 2nd half of the PCT where I stripped down the weight of everything in my pack to the lightest I could make it. I really enjoyed the creativity involved in this process. I felt like I had found a really good outlet for my own inventiveness and craftiness. It was really fun. Sure, a few grams here and there probably made little real difference, but it was incredibly gratifying for the creative outlet it provided me.

As for food, I've found some coconut products that might help. One is called coconut butter or manna, another is creamed coconut and another is coconut oil. Coconut oil has the most calories becuase it's 100% fat. The others are 100% coconut so have slightly less fat. All are calorie dense foods. The coconut butter is tasty eaten with a spoon. I haven't tasted the creamed coconut but the package says to melt it in a little hot water and make curry or smoothies with it. Coconut oil is solid at room temperature and liquid around 80 degrees and has a coconut flavor which could be pleasant or not if you added it to food to boose calories.

I haven't had much success with olive oil, being that it's not tasty added to oatmeal or eaten by itself. On my next trip (which was supposed to be this weekend but cancelled because of rain) I'm planning to try these coconut items and see how it goes.

" I'm planning to try these coconut items and see how it goes."

Would you post your results, Piper? I, for one, would be interested in what you found out. This was my first year using coconut oil, so I'm still very much interested in new info.

Piper, I haven't used butter for things like oatmeal for getting close on decades now. Switched to olive oil after living in Spain. The trick with olive oil is to use real olive oil, extra virgin, cold pressed. Country of origin is worth noting, but some places. like Italy, actually use Spanish olives and bottle it in Italy then call it Italian. It's very easy to taste it when it's good, it has a creamy buttery flavor, and little or no sharp aftertaste. Almost all generic olive oil, and I would say virtually all olive oil found in normal supermarkets is bad quality and hugely overpriced, or rancid, or too old, or some combination of those. I would never buy olive oil from any normal supermarket, with the following excpetion: Trader Joe's has a decent olive oil, santinis I think is their brand, but they often have other varieties, that are reasonably good.

Good olive oil is tasty, and would be considered a treat to drink straight. So I have to suspect you are just buying regular gunk from regular stores. Some Italian, Greek, or Spanish delis/specialty stores might also have good olive oil. Well, not 'might', they do, but it might be pricey. In Spain they rate the oil by acidity so you can see what you're actually buying, but they know olive oil there, unlike in the USA.

All I bring, and have brought, backpacking, since I learned this, was/is nalgene bottles of olive oil, it's dense, energy rich, tastes great on all foods, and is also the healthiest oil you can eat. Hard to beat it. I have to assume most people just try a few bad olive oils and then conclude that olive oil is bad. Sort of like concluding that wine is bad after trying a few cheap/bad bottles.

Obviously, pure oils that are also healthy are by far and away the best way to pack calories, sugars I wouldn't even consider as something to bring except to toss in oatmeal to slightly sweeten it.

But my real goal is pemican.

I get pretty good olive oil. It just seems like it goes with savory food, not sweet stuff like oatmeal. And it's not tasty by itself. I can't just drink it. I can eat pats of butter no problem if it's cold! That's what I mean by not tasty.

As for the coconut butter/manna. It's something that probably shouldn't be kept in the house. I could probably eat a half cup of that before managing to muster the ability to stop. It tastes really good and has a consistency like See's butterscotch squares.

As an experiment, I melted over a double-boiler, about 50-50 or so, the coconut butter with virgin coconut oil. Then I added a few squares of 87% dark chocolate for flavor. I poured this into paper-lined muffin tins that each had some macadamias, brazil nuts and pecans and cooled it in the freezer. Sort of a super low-sugar "candy". It tastes pretty good.

Then I tried the same melted mixture without chocolate and poured it over bee pollen for a "honey" flavor. Not as easy to eat as the chocolate version. The amount of fat in them makes it hard to eat a lot. Good little calorie bombs, though, that is for sure!

I'm going to bring these on my next trip. My trip this weekend got cancelled due to rain.

Guess it's a matter of taste, to me good olive oil is the best fat there is, well, maybe aside from pork fat, heh…

But the overall idea is one I like, not using sugars for energy, that does really weird things to your body, interesting studies about that issue. Plus sugars don't have nearly the energy density.

But my next goal for real weight reduction is to make pemmican, found a good source for cheap grass fed beef, that should drop a few pounds off a week trip weight I think. Many thousands of years of Native American practice can't be wrong, they were doing this stuff long before we existed, and they were doing it much better than the Euros, which is why the early trappers would trade for pemmican. To me this is the real way to get serious non-trivial weight reduction, ie, not grams, but ounces that really do turn into pounds, and pack sizes that really do get much smaller, leaner, and close to the earth.

Real cured hams too, like Jamon Serrano, spanish, would make a fantastic trailmix, not cheap, but not too expensive. Again, centuries of development to work out the details vs some horrible corporate junk food, a no brainer to me.

I've heard pemmican can be an acquired taste. US Wellness meats sells it but for some reason they say it has to be refrigerated. I wonder why that is.

I've been trying to switch my body into using fat for energy instead of sugar. I just couldn't get over the hiker hunger from the PCT. And I couldn't lose any weight anymore. It's helped a lot to change my diet. I've even gone 23 hours without eating a couple of times, without hunger and even day hiking during that time. I'm not sure if this will save that much weight on food, though, since fat doesn't dehydrate very well and I'm not sure how much I want to rely on fasting during a backpack trip yet.

It took me 6 weeks to acclimate to a ketogenic diet, and let me tell you, it's been hard, especially when I went through a period of severe electrolyte problems. I feel great now, though.

"But the overall idea is one I like, not using sugars for energy, that does really weird things to your body, interesting studies about that issue. Plus sugars don't have nearly the energy density."

Fat is definitely the most efficient calorie source, weight wise, but keep in mind that some carbohydrate is required to metabolize fat. If there is not enough carbohydrate present to support fat metabolism, the body will supply it by breaking down muscle tissue(protein) or dietary protein and converting it to glucose in the liver. Better to get it from dietary sources, although it doesn't have to be in the form of sugar. In either case, the carbohydrate that the body actually metabolizes is glucose. All dietary carbohydrate is reduced to glucose during digestion before entering the bloodstream.

Definitely wasn't planning on going only fat/meat, but it is worth noting that this diet worked fine for the people who lived off it for centuries, if not millenia, for example the Inuit. In fact, carbs really didn't do them any good at all, diabetes, all kinds of nasties that weren't present when they were living off of meat/fat. Interesting stuff there. Probably some adaptation biologically of course.

Apparently also some Norwegians went to Alaska recently to test the no carb diet, and ate as the natives ate, fat and meat, and the results were excellent. Again, not planning on doing that myself, oatmeal and dried wholewheat bread do me fine as well, but I know what I was missing last trip, and it was fats. Plus my trail mix was too dry, started getting to me after a while. The key is that they are eating real, natural meat and fat, not hormone pumped, grain bloated, artificial stuff. That can't be ignored, although it usually is.

Pemmican is fairly easy to make, but it's important to use real meat, not industrially grown stuff, especially for the rendered fat, where you can really see the difference between grass fed and commercial, corn fed beef. That's high on my list of next projects. The taste issue doesn't really concern me, I assume when it's well made it will basically be like eating a meat candle, give or take, since it's literally tallow and ground up powdered low fat meat, 50/50 split by weight I believe for the real thing, give or take.

It definitely should not require refrigeration if it's properly prepared, that's the entire point after all. Same by the way for cured hams like Jamon Serrano, those if real are made to be used without refrigeration. Not as long lasting as pemmican, which apparently can last years if you make it right.

But for the weight, pure fat plus protein is pretty hard to beat.

To me this is the ultimate in light fast gear, and helps unplug one more part of the experience, as in MYOF (make your own food).