Which cannonballs should I be looking at?

"I bet all the people who post old gear lists as proof that there was an UL movement before him were carrying heavy gear in the 80s and most of the nineties like every one else."

This is an utterly bad bet for you.

The July 1982 article in Backpacker Magazine disproves it. That article got a few of us moving.

–B.G.–

In the 1980s the only pack I was carrying was what had my GI Joe toys and Transformers. :)

In the 1990s, I was more about chrome rims on my Mustang with faint smell of Darkkar Noir permeating the interior. (We all have our dark secrets. I was born back East and, for a brief period, fit a certain ethnic stereotype. Those dark days still haunt me ;))

Being serious, Mr Jardine did popularize the ideas for sure. He also started writing just as the Internet as we know it today started coming of age.

I don't think his popularizing the ideas would have been as, well, popular, if it was not for the listserves and forums that also became popular at the same time.

Interesting review of the 2002 edition of his book that sums up many of these points:
http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/00060.html#.USL-Hr9WyuI

My take? Jardine was influential for sure. But he was part of a movement that was already under way IMO.

"to reach an audience which quite simply didn't exist in any numbers prior to the internet."

The real reason for it's success and increase in popularity.

In the early- and mid-1980's a few of us, working in a BPing store did the usual progression – having used heavy stuff on Scout trips, we got better stuff, then got too much stuff, than saw how much we could cut back, cut back maybe too far, finally finding our own comfort level. I remember a few climbers bringing half their calories as Squeeze Parkay margarine (calorie dense and cheap) and then never doing that again.

By 1984, without reading anything by anyone, I was doing 9 day trips with a tarp, no tent, no sleeping bag, no stove, no pots. I slept in my clothes on the lightest thermarest. I was still using a Kelty pack with a frame and yoke system (not 7 pounds, maybe 4.5 pounds) and of course didn't have a Nano Puff or Hoodini, but had a system of very functional, layered clothing. I'd converted to Nike Lava Domes as soon as they came out and have stayed with low-cut hikers ever since.

But, again, what I grant Jardine is that he got the word out. Some of his books present the innovations as something only he developed and that's not true. He may well have developed them independently, but he wasn't the only one.

My post came off as overly and unfairly critical. I m trying to say that it's hind site 20/20 to find those rare and wise articles touting lightweight gear as a priority. The mainstream attitude was if you pack was crushingly heavily all the better to make a man out of you.
It's fascinating to see how relatively light gear from the 60's and seventies was and how light one could go by carrying just what you need. That didn't stop anyone from packing extra cotton jeans or strapping a cast iron to their external frame. But I think it says more about how out of control the outdoor industry became in the 80's with its bomber/expedition/ the more gimmicks the better marketing. UL can be seen as a response to that excess.
The climbing community seemed to be different they took weight seriously and paired their gear down to the bare essentials. In fact Jardine was a climber and you could say that influenced his thinking and he applied it to hiking in a time when gear was grossly overbuilt and people where over packed. So while his books spread the word along with the Internet it's was probably climbers that influenced hikers and brought back some common sense.
Jardine made the case but his books were still lacking,too focused on his own peculiar gear designs and style. It was magazines like BPL that explored UL in more depth and with more diversity in approach that allowed people to find their own way to lighten their load and allow the concept to grow and become mainstream based on the input and experience of many smart people over many different environments. It's at a point that we have standards and know generally were the point of diminishing returns is for most people. Today I would recommend Surka's book over Jardines.

Ray continues to use his silnylon pack and tarp and rack up miles and exploits that only I could dream about. Yeah, there have been times when he has come off as a bit myopic towards his own viewpoints. He definitely comes across as a type A personality.

But, as an old pastor once told me, "eat the watermelon, but spit out the seeds." Ray's PCT Handbook opened my eyes to lightweight backpacking. Up to that time, I was focused on Boy Scout style "Be Prepared" gear. While others may have been already going lighter, that was not anywhere within my realm of experience.

So, my thanks to Ray. It was because of his books that I got a sewing machine and made much of my own gear for several years (packs, quilts, ponchos, hats, gloves, etc.) But now, the cottage industry has picked up where my skills and my desire have left off.

About 1950 the Sierra Club published a book titled "Going Light With Backpack or Burro". It was a compendium of then state-of-the-art lightweight backpacking techniques. For many years this book was my Bible for "going light". Sure, in those days there were a lot of people who hauled heavy packs: base campers, fishermen and hunters. But, there were also a lot of hikers that went as light as they could with the gear available then. I hiked the JMT in 1954 as a teenager with a pack that weighed about 15 pounds, most of it WW-II surplus gear. My gear was not unusual for those who were trail hiking in those days. It was about the time that the baby boomers started heading out into the mountains that the heavy style of backpacking showed up, even among distance hikers. A lot of the weight increase simply reflected the strength of the consumer culture developing then. So, IMO, lightweight backpacking has been around for a long time but it has been submerged by the consumer-focused backpacking culture until recently.

I hadn't read that commentary before (in fact, I've read very little of Ray Jardine), but I love the metaphor and the message even if I have to "spit a few seeds" (borrowing from above).

It's a good reminder to consider gear and what we carry, right? As one who carries what others certainly consider "cannonballs", I can yet look at my gear box of old, eliminated stuff that also fits the concept and that's without considering the stuff I've sold or given away over the years.

I went to the 50th reunion of the UC Berkeley Hiking Club (I wasn't in it that long, only 1979 to 1995). It was interesting to talk to members from 1949-1955. Lots of army surplus gear, but they also sewed their own. Including convertible pants with zip-off lower legs decades before anyone thought to patent that (its now off-patent). Then in the 60's, when all the Sierra Designs, Consumer's Co-op, and sew-your-own designs became available, they were all doing that.

Also, I'd long known of "The Complete Walker" by Colin Fletcher but only got around to reading an early version a few years ago. It has aged well – I was impressed by the lightweight techniques he was promoting decades ago. He also had a meticulous approach to weighing gear, fuel, BTUs, calories, etc.

Does anybody think that his invention of the spring loaded camming device could have been a reason for his relative fame in lightweight backpacking? I think he was pretty well known before he ever started to write about lightweight backpacking. I seem to remember that he set some historical first ascents in Yosemite and invented the modern camming device a few years before he began backpacking.

From wikipedia:

Ray Jardine. . . in May 1979, was the first to free climb the West Face of El Capitan in Yosemite Valley. Jardine is noted for inventing and developing the spring-loaded camming devices called Friends that revolutionized rock climbing in the late 1970s. . . . including the first ascent of The Phoenix (5.13a) in 1977.

So, yeah, a kind of a later-day Chouinard on a smaller scale. Jardine didn't put up as many first ascents or invent as much new gear (but there weren't as many first ascents or new gear to invent by the late 1970's). Also no Yuppie has heard of Ray-way gear. No yuppie HASN'T heard of Patagonia although Chouinard himself was amazed to be making vastly more money just from thermal underwear than he ever did selling pitons.

"On flat ground, put them in your pack or you feel stupid. "

I don't. I like swinging them, parallel to the ground, in cadence with my step.

Me too, Doug.

Trekking poles:

– Have caught me from falling many times.

– Provide my arms something to push against on the uphills.

– Help me keep up a rhythm.

– Hold up my shelter.

Don't leave home without 'em.

I hurt my knee taking an awkward fall in the bottom of the Grand Canyon and was really glad that I had my trekking poles to help me hike out. Otherwise I might have had to make some serious bribes to ride a donkey to the top.

>"and was really glad that I had my trekking poles to help me hike out."

I'm glad you had them, too, but . . . .

If you'd asked the next dozen people who walked by, "I hurt my knee, do you have any poles I could borrow and mail back to you?", somebody have helped out and felt good about doing so. Maybe someone like Doug who otherwise would have just been using them to point out the sights and cook s'mores.

I've loaned a bunch of stuff out on the trail and every time it gets mailed back or is there at my car, hotel room – whatever. The thing is, usually I'm having to notice that they are heat exhausted, mildly hypothermic, or their foot is bleeding.

I'm a guy, too, and I find it hard to ask for help. But (1) mishaps go better when I do and (2) I'm less nervous about trimming my gear down when I realize on many trail corridors there's no end of gear, water, calories and telecommunications devices going by every 10 minutes.

We can help each other out BEFORE anyone stops breathing.

I fell in the desert once, into a bowl-like depression within large boulders. I fell back first onto my pack, and somehow my poles got caught underneath me. My wrists were still in the straps so my arms were pinned beneath me. Imagine sitting in an innertube in a pool with your arms stuck below you.

I could have eventually wiggled out, but my wife came along and pulled me out. That's the only time where they were a real hindrance.

It's way too easy to either deride Ray or overly praise Ray's contribution to the practice of ultralight backpacking. Too often our praise or ridicule is born from our own personal prejudices.

It's true that many people used many of the techniques described by Ray years before he put pen to paper. Other articles were written and even one book was written nearly a century ago. Still all of this had little if any impact on the way people thought about or used their gear.

Those who ascribe Ray as someone who sought to create a revolution in backpacking gear would be equally disappointed. The reason his message was well received and spread was simply because it was simple and highly targeted to a specific backpacking niche.

He wasn't concerned about the general backpacking public at large. That didn't come until years later. His initial work was simply targeted at providing a set of guidelines that would allow the typical Pacific Crest Trail thru-hiker a better chance of success.

Because his methods were successful, they were adopted by an ever widening community.

I don't view Ray as a Prophet, though he did come along with the right message for the right group of people at the right time. Unfortunately his ideas and techniques are self limiting. It's up to the next generation of lightweight enthusiast to expand the gear and ideas into the wider audience of recreational backpackers.

Ron

the man rowed across the Atlantic Ocean with his wife, and they are still on speaking terms.
then he canoe'd across the arctic on the Back River. same wife.
hmmm …
perhaps some of our more intolerant whiners in the Chaff section might employ such manners while they are lecturing the ignorant amongst us on "how it really is".

along the way he built way cool stuff and questioned most of everything.

i have in fact, the 7 pound pack of legend ( which is about what it takes to haul 65 pounds of food ), and i think Ray is a #1/A+ kind of a guy.

cheers,
v.

"Does anybody think that his invention of the spring loaded camming device could have been a reason for his relative fame in lightweight backpacking? I think he was pretty well known before he ever started to write about lightweight backpacking. I seem to remember that he set some historical first ascents in Yosemite and invented the modern camming device a few years before he began backpacking."

yes, he also chipped the "Jardine traverse" on El Cap and pissed a lot of people off.

trekking poles are definitely personal preference.. if they help they help. if not then don't bother. I go with poles and no straps. the terrain in NH makes them useful.. even flat trail has rocks, roots etc where extra points of contact makes walking faster. my knees feel better with than without so the choice is easy.

trekking pole saved Skurka from getting eaten by a bear ;)

When Ray Jardine began preaching the lightweight gospel there were few disciples and little commercially available lightweight gear and virtually no UL gear.

BUT… time and technology have passed Ray's original vision.

>Thanks to his and other's message many more of us saw the light and ditched our 7 1/2 lb Dana Terraplanes for much lighter packs.

>Even my REI "Sololight" tent was FOUR pounds! Now my TT Moment is 28 oz. with 2 stakes.

>My heavy old PUR water filter is replaced with a Steripen Adventurer and Katadyn chlorine dioxide tablets.

>Cookware like the many Caldera Cones and UL canister stoves, ti pots and mugs, aliuminum pots, Lexan utensils, etc. make our kitchens lighter.

>My old Danner leather boots have been replaced with Merrill Moab Ventilator shoes. Others use even lighter trail shoes.

And so it goes, with better technology and design giving us ever lighter and better options.

Plus websites like BPL have sprung up in The Great Internet Revolution, fertilizing the innovation with "cross pollinization" of ideas.

And finally, with a nod to Ray J., we have become highly aware that we don't need to carry everything that we MIGHT possibly need – only what we WILL need.

Time and technology have caught up and passed Ray Jardine's initial recommendations.
We can thank him for being a pioneer of lightweight backpacking but he was caetainly not a prophet. That was John Muir if it was anyone.