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Lightweight Backpacking Course Advice
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Home › Forums › General Forums › General Lightweight Backpacking Discussion › Lightweight Backpacking Course Advice
- This topic has 13 replies, 10 voices, and was last updated 4 years, 11 months ago by Diane “Piper” Soini.
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Apr 7, 2019 at 5:11 pm #3587532
Hey guys!
I’m new here and was curious about the Backpaciking Course offered on the site. I’ve been backapking for a few years and was wondering if it was worth the $147.
Looking forward for your thoughts!
Apr 7, 2019 at 5:49 pm #3587539I do not know anything about the course but I think you’ll find there are many good people on these forums that will be happy to answer any questions you have about gear, technique, etc. And if not a direct answer, plenty that will point you to where certain things have already been covered extensively. Welcome aboard; I’d start by asking things here….
Apr 7, 2019 at 8:46 pm #3587571Well if I was a beginner, my biggest question would be where to start. The internet is filled with advice, some good and some bad, and some conflicting, its very confusing. Also, we don’t know what we don’t know. I looked at several online courses for friends, but they where very one dimensional (only navigation, only survival) never a complete “Guide to Backpacking Adventures”, like a one place stop. Is there such a thing?
Apr 7, 2019 at 9:37 pm #3587576The Internet is definitely full of both good and bad advice. I haven’t seen any errors or things I’d disagree with (and only a few things I differ in my own approach) from Dixie on the YouTube channel Homemade Wanderlust. She does posts every week during her thru hikes (Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, Continental Divide Trail) but also has introductory and instructional videos on many different topics. Darwin on the Trail is another youtuber with a lot of good info.
Videos like that are a huge difference in the last ten years – before, you had to trail&error it on your own, have someone take you under their wing, go on beginner trips aimed at teaching skills (I led some of those in the 1980s), take a class (I’ve taught some of those), or read the very few decent books that have been published (e.g. Colin Fletcher’s Backpacking One Step at the Time and Ray Jardine’s PCT Hiker’s Handbook which was revised into Beyond Backpacking which as revised into Trail Life). And as accurate and helpful as those books are, reading about setting up a tarp shelter or reading up lighting a stove isn’t as instructive as watching someone do it in a video.
Apr 8, 2019 at 5:20 pm #3587693. HERE is a general list I link for newbies on lightening your load with lots info including doing it cheaply, For some reason in my newbie help link the Oregon Field Guide Ultralight Hiking video link is down so if you want to watch it(it is worth watching) HERE is another link for you so you can( it starts 8 min 30 sec. into the episode). Welcome to BPL There are a lot of links to very good sites in my newbie link one of which is Andrew Skurka’s, he is well regarded and has a lot of great information on his site, also Alan Dixon ect, and of course BPL has a vast amount of info, go to the upper left corner of this page and you will see a magnifying glass symbol, click on it and you can do a search of anything you might have a question about or just start a new thread if you can’t find an answer and I am sure you will get a lot of input, also there are numerous great articles over the almost 20 years BPL has been around.
Apr 8, 2019 at 5:25 pm #3587697Thank you for the detailed reply! Very helpful.
Apr 8, 2019 at 5:35 pm #3587700I haven’t taken any of BPL’s courses, but I am sure they are excellent. The reasons to do it would be for the camaraderie and ideas that can come up and get bounced around in a group setting and just to meet some like-minded folks. The social aspects of classes like this can be well worth it. It also might depend on your particular learning style.
As others have said, there is a ton of great info on the web, and it’s not too hard to find sites with good tips that resonate as genuine (including here). Differences of opinion and in how concepts get executed are part of the fun; no one has the “right” way, just different approaches. You get to find what works for YOU. And it is certainly a process. Taking a class or reading an article are starting points from which you begin to develop your own way of doing things.
I am signed up for a multi-day fly fishing class this summer. I know a little about fly fishing and am sure that I don’t have to travel 500 miles to learn more. But I want the personal interaction with the instructor and other students in a setting that encourages learning the sport with few other distractions. What great options we have these days!
Apr 8, 2019 at 5:37 pm #3587701Oh, well, I just saw that the OP was referring to the online boot camp course, not a physical experience. Seems pretty thorough, and a lot of info in one place.
Apr 8, 2019 at 5:38 pm #3587702I haven’t seen any errors or things I’d disagree with (and only a few things I differ in my own approach) from Dixie on the YouTube channel Homemade Wanderlust.
I agree. She just came out with a whole series of videos covering a lot of different topics. I think she fairly showed some things that are her preferences, but gave time to other methods preferred by different hikers.
Apr 8, 2019 at 5:46 pm #3587703Also read Andrew Skurka’s “Core 13” articles on his blog.
Apr 8, 2019 at 6:06 pm #3587706Brad the article on the core 13 is directly linked in my newbie post
Apr 9, 2019 at 4:24 pm #3587903To the OP – So you get the online course and access to the BPL book with your unlimited membership. I did find those resources helpful when I was starting down this UL quest. If you’re new to UL and serious about it I’d say it’s worth it. I don’t need to reference back to them anymore but I am keeping my unlimited membership because I want to support the content that BPL provides. Product review, podcasts, etc. What I really found useful in my research was searching forum archives. Any question you could possibly come up with has been discussed, at length, multiple times in the forums. I went down a rabbit hole for 3 weeks just on stoves at one point. There is plenty of info on you tube and reddit but there is also a lot of noise. I think you’re going to find more distilled knowledge on BPL than you’ll find elsewhere.
Apr 17, 2019 at 3:44 am #3589194As a Volunteer Wilderness Ranger, Wilderness EMT and thru-hiker of the PCT and CDT, I’ve been teaching a “Basics of Backpacking” six-week course the last five years. The two things I do my best to get the students to at least get to be semi-literate with is map reading/finding north without a compass and putting together a hike plan. It truly amazes me how many courses don’t teach this and even more than this, the number of hikers on the trail (PCT & CDT too) that rely only on a mapping app with an arrow pointing the way. If you can find a course that teaches these things, take it.
Apr 19, 2019 at 1:41 am #3589495Terry Sparks, having lived in Santa Barbara my whole life, I think I have no idea which way is north, south, east or west, unless the sun is rising or setting, and even then I’m sometimes baffled it sets in the north and rises in the south. You know what I mean.
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