target pack weight and calorie counts for teens

[AK Granola]

I’ve skimmed a bit on here, mostly looking at the trip reports with kids. I didn’t take my kids backpacking a lot, just car camping and hiking. I’ll be on a trip this summer with a friend and her three – 10, 13, 14 – and a few other adults. She has done short backpacks with them, but she carried all their gear. This trail is too long for that. What are reasonable weights for them to carry at their ages? All are pretty fit, healthy kids, although not athletes. They go on forced hikes with their mom often.

What are good calorie amounts for these ages? The two older are boys, and have huge appetites! Suggestions for keeping them fed?

Any other suggestions on packing for teens would be welcome. I do remember one backpack with my son when he was 14. I had brought a pound of brick cheddar cheese, which seemed ridiculous. Then with extended rain, hail, snow, cold, wind… on the last day I pulled out the cheese. My son and his two teenage friends had that thing devoured in about 5 minutes. It was scary.

It will be fun! Especially since they’re not my kids… but i do want to be a helpful friend.

[Roger Caffin]

What are reasonable weights for them to carry at their ages?
At that age their spines are still soft and forming. Do NOT overload them and give them spinal problems later in life. The accepted rule of thumb says no more than 25% of their body weight: a bit less if you can.

What are good calorie amounts for these ages? The two older are boys,
Oh, a bit more than for a healthy adult. Lots of carbs and plenty of ‘flavour’.
No, I am NOT joking about the amount! They are GROWING.

Cheers

[Steve Thompson]

I echo Roger’s advice.  Usually that meant the kids carried their personal stuff and water/snacks while hiking.  I carried the tent, stove/cook kit, and all the food.

[Matthew / BPL]

My kid hiked the whole JMT at 12.5 years old carrying 28#. He weighed around 120# but he had many hundreds of miles of hiking, lots of camping and a couple dozen nights of previous backpacking experience. He also played capoeira (read lots of core atengrh and intense cardio).

So with conditioning and motivation, kids can carry some weight but I wouldn’t start a kid with that much.

[Ben H.]

Attitude is everything with kids at that age, so a really important question is what are they motivated to carry? It sounds like a there is an aspect of a forced hike by mom to this trip. I’m not being judgmental (I think sometimes you have to push kids), but that might be demotivational for them. In those situations, making sure they have a good time is pretty important. The question is not what they can carry, but what are they willing to carry? It sounds like they’ve done trips where everything was carried for them, you might need to do a trip where that is not the case to be a better judge. A long slog with a bunch of kids who are not having a good time isn’t fun for anyone.

[Scott H]

I did some back packing with my son in BSA.  He is still in now, 16.  So for the most part and of course every kid is different, but you want to as much as possible keep weight down to give them the best possible experience.  Generally I went out of my way to cut the weight he was carrying, I carried more of the shelter, gear etc.  Now he is bigger than I am and up until now I have been the stronger hiker, but now we carry roughly equal weight or I sneak some extra weight into his pack when he is not paying attention.

[Matthew / BPL]

Oh yeah. That’s a sweet moment when they get stronger than you. I had about a year of that then the kid decided they didn’t want to backpack with me any more.

[Manfred]

It would be easier to give a more detailed answer with information about the duration of your trek, the daily mileage, the altitude you are backpacking at, the temperatures your are dealing with, whether there are opportunities for resupply, what the general weather conditions are, whether fishing will provide extra fun and extra calories, etc.

My general advice would be

1. Target weight: As light as they can possibly afford. Don’t give in to the temptation of using car camping gear you have laying around. My target for kids is a base weight of 10% of their body weight. Keep in mind that food, water and fuel is added to that and can easily double their backpack weight. I’d stay below 12 lbs base weight for these kids and try to get closer to 10. Tarp tents. quilts, and lightweight backpacks are your friend.
2. Calories: That depends on so many factors (# of days, daily mileage, etc.) that it is hard to answer. My 14 year old daughter took ~ 2,500 calories per day on our trek across Iceland. Make sure that the food is calorie dense. We aim for an average of  150 cal/oz in our daily food mix. Here is an example: Breakfast: Nestle Hot Chocolate (80 cal/0.7 oz), Granola (Autumn’s Gold mixed with Nido and Nature’s Garden trail mix (420 cal/2.7 oz) – Snacks: Salted Macadamia Nuts (230 cal/1 oz), Autumn’s Gold Granola Bar (210 cal/1.2 oz), Snickers (250 cal/1.9 oz), Kirkland Nutbar (210 cal/1.4 oz) – Lunch: Peak Refuel Chicken Alfredo Pasta (435 cal/2.5 oz), Gatorade (50 cal/0.5 oz) – Dinner: Peak Refuel Beef Pasta Marina (520 cal/3.2 oz), Hot Apple Cider (70 cal/0.6 oz). There are 2,475 calories in 15.7 oz. We share lunch and dinner – so the calories and weight quoted above for those are half of a 2-servings pack. We keep our bodies constantly fed during long treks and basically eat every two hours – roughly like this: breakfast at 6 am, snacks at 8 am, 10 am, 2 pm and 4 pm, lunch at 12 pm and dinner at 6 pm. If you are not careful in your food choices you can easily double the weight of your daily food from 1 lbs to 2 lbs. Depending on the length of your trek you would look at a lot of extra food weight. Of course it is important to make sure the kids like the food. Having to carry food that you don’t like is the worst.
3. While my daughter gets up when the first bird chirps, her teenage brothers loved to sleep in. A hard-won lesson for me is to let teenagers sleep as long as they want to. Find something else (like fishing) to do in the morning until they get up by themselves. Otherwise you pay the price for the rest of the day.
4. My kids learned fast that there is a connection between the daily mileage and the overall food weight you have to carry. They realized that increasing the daily mileage from 10 miles to 15 miles decreases the food carry by 1/3. Going lighter – with less overall food – allows for easier hiking and more daily miles with the the same daily calories.

[AK Granola]

Great suggestions, thanks everyone. I especially like the idea of letting the older ones sleep in; we will be doing about 10 mile days, so we’ll have plenty of time to get going in the morning.  Plus then I get to have coffee and breakfast! Too much hiking lately with folks who just get up and go – bleh. (I love them, they’re my friends, but still…coffee!)

The hike is Resurrection Pass, in Alaska, so the grade is not super steep, and there’s a lot to see for the kids – streams, lakes, waterfalls, mixed terrain, even canoes midway.

Weather is always iffy, but if it looks very rainy I’m thinking I might bring along a tarp to put up at camp for mealtimes. Maybe 8×10 for a group of 6? Not something I’d do for just myself, but for a group may be more enjoyable. We’ll need raingear regardless of the forecast. Plus hats/gloves/fleece. They already have all their gear, so we’ll have to see what it all weighs out to and see how we can split it up. Their mom is very strong, so she’ll probably carry a lot of it.

I could never get my own kids to go backpacking except once with my youngest, then 14. It was the most miserable weather I’ve ever experienced on a backpacking trip. At least he still likes to day hike!

[Manfred]

That sounds like a fantastic 4 day trek! My teenagers enjoyed it a lot when we went there. Sounds like you got the Juneau Lake or Romig cabin as those two have a canoe, while Swan Lake and Trout Lake have row boats. If the tarp doesn’t add too much weight to your pack, it might be a nice touch if you get a lot of rain. 8×10 is on the small side for 6 though.

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