Lightweight is definitely the way to go. At least for me. There are mountains of books and newsgroups and mailing lists and other resources dedicated to the subject. I highly recommend at least reading through Ray Jardine's thought-provoking book "Beyond Backpacking", even if you do nothing else. See if it's the right thing for you.
The gist of the lightweight creed is this: the less you carry the faster and easier you can go. This has countless positive results. The lighter you are and the faster you can go, the more flexible you can be in such things as deciding how long to stay out, how far to go, where to camp, and so on. On a long thru-hike, you are sort of limited in the places you can stop to get supplies; the lighter you are, the faster you go, the less time there is between stops, which means the less you have to carry -- in other words it's a sort of positive feedback loop. Also, the lighter you are the less stress on your body, and the faster you can get out of trouble -- ie. lighter means safer. And, lighter means more stream-lined, which means getting in and out of camp and such stuff faster. Lighter means carrying less crap, letting you leave more of society behind when you seek out your "wilderness experience". Lighter means much less work going up those hills (and down those same hills, because as every serious hiker knows, going down is often worse than going up), which means you are more free to enjoy your time. The faster you hike between stops, the longer you can enjoy your stops. And the list goes on and on and on. There are so many benefits to lightweight backpacking that you'd never even think of until you go out and do it.
Lightweight, strictly speaking, just means going through your pack and leaving a few things home. It doesn't mean you've got to cut handles off of toothbrushes and trim margins off of maps. It is definitely possible to walk the 2700 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail, say, with 8 pound of gear and total pack weight averaging less than 12 pounds (this is approximately what Jardine and others claim). But if you settle out at 20 pounds, you will feel all the same benefits -- it's just a matter of degree. The critical thing is this, and I can't stress this enough: every ounce counts. The psychological key is that there is nothing so small you can ignore it. All those little things add up to ounces and then to pounds before you know what's hit you. Another little bon mot Jardine likes to use is "if you don't have it, you don't need it". Meaning, if you've left something supposedly indispensible behind, you'll be forced to figure out how to live without it, which means in the end it obviously wasn't as indispensible as you thought.
There are several general methods of reducing your pack's weight. The obvious method is, of course, throwing crap out. But equally obvious is reducing the weight of the things you've got. And similarly, changing the kind of gear you use can also reduce weight -- for example taking a tarp or bivy sack instead of four season tent. Here's another example of the positive feedback loops you find all over the place in lightweight backpacking -- the less gear you take, the smaller your pack needs to be. At first you can just use a smaller pack, but as the pounds come off, you might consider changing to a pack without a frame (check out the GoLite packs, for example). In the extreme, you can go from a bulky pack of more than 5 pounds to my 4.5 oz pack -- that's almost 5 pounds just in the pack itself! The lighter your pack, the less rugged your footwear needs to be. Leave those 3 pound lug-soled boots behind, and start wearing tennis shoes (or those fancy ultra-lightweight trail runners or approach shoes).
And this brings me to another important feature of lightweight backpacking. Every pound on your back equals 3 pounds on your body, and every pound on your feet equals 6 pounds on your body. I might have the ratios slightly wrong, but they are quite alarming. I understand that this is an equivalence based on energy expenditure to move the same distance with weight on your back or feet versus worn around your body. (I'm sure Colin Fletcher goes into this subject at great length in his interesting book "The Complete Walker". Colin is hardly what most people would call an ultra-lightweight backpacker, but his discussions of gear and weight and energy expenditures is fascinating.) In particular, this means that you want to reduce the weight of your footwear at all costs. You may think a few ounces doesn't mean anything, but it can be equivalent to carrying an extra water-bottle.
For some reason lightweight backpacking has almost become synonymous with making your own gear, probably thanks to Ray Jardine and his cult of fanatical followers. (It's called the "Ray Way" -- I kid you not! Talk about an ego.) But don't let any of this hype and bullshit deter you from learning about it -- it really is a blast, and it can potentially even shave off a few extra ounces. In particular I have never found a backpack or a sleeping bag that rivals the ones I can easily make for myself -- in weight, price, comfort, you name it.
Here are some related pages on my website:
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Making your own gear. Example list of gear and weight from a three-week hike in Vermont. |
And here are some other on-line resources:
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Ray Jardine: the "ray-way" -- beware the egotm. GoLite: lightweight gear, sort of in the Jardine style. Tarptent.com: tarp-tents, as an alternative to tents. The Lightweight Backpacker: discussion, advice, store, resources, etc. Some Dude at Caltech: he's a techer so it's gotta be good, right? :) Thru-Hiker.com: all sorts of interesting articles, not just lightweight stuff. |