If you go to hiking alone, no one cares if you are being slob. This has been proven by documents from history.
Clouds of flies, on you head. Bushy hairs of the face. Baggy pants carrying the dusty. Stinky armpits like of woolly mammoth-beast. All acceptable if you are hike alone, or only with some boyfriends.
But become part of some larger group and then you must needs meet again a higher standard.
At the bare end you will expected to knowing which side of trail it is proper to walk upon, how to navigate turns, how to make the pass safely, and what the various signs may mean to you.
In some areas, of high-traffic, you have need to take the hiking test before you are being allowed onto trail. And will have to carrying the license too.
Expect to demonstrate the proper use of lights, how to lace boots for various maneuvers with socks on, how to make the starting and stopping correct. Also, going the uphill, the downhill, and reverse of your way out from the danger-place.
Besides, practice of hand signals, so valuable in trail encounters. Many novice hikers get needless trouble by inept use of gestures whose meanings they have not properly accustomed. Don't let be you! Buy the guidebook and study with diligence. Only $14.95 for members, post discount.
But of course also, carry a stick. If you watch closely, you will see many hikers these days do this, possibly to deal with wandering rudeboys, which you never know! Carry two of the stick, with points on them. Use vigorously if shouts and finger signals prove ineffective.
Now, one thing is to maintain distance while hiking with others, to avoid the bumper bouncing. Once again, your sticks. (So handy!)
Safely hold pointed end while lightly probing your fore-buddy in small of back with handle. Closer is now impossible to get and all in group may maintain a brisk forward motion controlled in tandem, with appropriate cadence.
Secondly, this is good. Now you have it so march on boldly.
Blisters arise through improper use of footwear or from incorrect thinking. Deal with these privately or experience shame.
Hiking over the exquisite outside of the country of nature should be a joy and insufficient boots will only supply you with frustrations. Remember that the longer the distance you go, the heavier your oboe will become. Perhaps it is better to carry a smaller instrument, or to whistle only. Whistling or a quiet humming sound can be quite the enjoyable and much less of bulky than wind instruments. Plus, easier to learn.
Your companions will be appreciate firmly.
Ah, companions! Such wonderful times may be had with them!
Some, however, contemplating the various qualities of the terrain over which you will probably be mostly traversing, will say, Dude! Impossible! The roughness of trail in spots!
Do not take fright however. This is only an affable expression of the enthusiasm, and perhaps includes only slight fear. Fear is a natural emotion. Oats are a natural food. See? Partake of in careful moderation to remain regulated.
Once the good footwear is on all feet they will become calm. This too is natural. Town folk can learn too, even. They will adapt while learning the walk. Maybe this is you?
Welcome then! Have a new experience of the walking.
When you are done with the walking after, proper etiquette demands you returning home not only with complete body in safety, but also bringing waste. Remember this simple rule - Stuff it in, stuff it out.
But so often there is regret among hikers at finding traces of those who have gone before thoughtlessly. A pile of chewed bones or discarded implements is never a welcome sight, let alone soiled or abandoned things. Much worse of course is waste of the body. Please be aware to this.
Even a thing as wonderful and easily degrading as the toilet roll of paper can still take too long to happen, so why not reverse your rolling after use, carefully, and bring it back to home? For your pets? Could be. A new toy. Or possible richness for the garden to enhance some carrots you growing. Later eat!
Or if you lacking a container for the carry of it home, how about now that empty-water bottle? Hmmm? Or at the least bury your despicables safely in hiding to avoid the clutter.
Warning Section! If in the out of doors it is poor form to carry a boom box, and possibly too heavy as well. Think it, you.
Tip Section: If you are an unpleasant person of ugliness, the outdoors may be for you too, with fewer onlookers there to take fright. Just saying.
Remember foremost in your head that respect for other walkers is most critical. They are too hard to avoid as well. Too many of them, simply, and most frequent now they have the pointed sticks too. This is good reason to have the politeness. Try offering snacks or treats, but beware of approaching their young, as mothers become protective, aggressive even, or have diseases you may catch unawares.
Mating season is also dangerous, especially in presence of beer. Please stay on trails and do not investigate strange noises to either side of this trails. A small red flag, carried simply in the pocket, can be placed there to warning others away from such hazards.
Likewise, other animals, often with many hoofy feet or claws even. Dangerous maybe. These feet they use on unwary hikers to cause annoyance, or worse.
In cases you are preparing on the hike — and you are allowed to by some law — proceed with caution. Avoid wildlife, especially the large things with horns or which are looking evil at you, though betimes this is hard to ascertain, so listen closely for cursing. A sure giveaway. Retreat then, posthaste.
Bears are large animals with teeth on one end. They are to be feared. Mountain lions also. You might try catnip, but who can say? They are so big nowadays. Do your best to avoid annoying these creatures, and even the lesser wildlife. As a rule they have secret appetites which may involve disagreeable practices. Not for you, probably!
You may have a pet at home, as a hobby. This is good, but please do not assume wildlife to be obeying you like the Mr Pet you have to home.
Wild animals quickly are frustrated by exhibiting signs of mental distress from the hiker. One of them by this means may become attached to you. Say to the leg, via some teeth. Removal is costly and you might receiving some fines of money as well, that you must pay, so in general avoid upsetting animals and escape the teeth.
Perhaps you can stay on the bus, making a pleasant nap instead. This is one way.
The seats, very soft there, and air conditioning usually too, with sandwiches. Nothing unreasonable comes in without the ticket, and you have a reading lamp. This could be a fine plan, as animals do not have money to buy tickets, so remember that.
Happy hiking then, to you and all your compatriots together!
You walk. You have to. Otherwise you get nowhere. Skip the walking, and then go home, and everyone inconveniently asks how your hiking vacation was. All those people who said you were nuts to spend two weeks backpacking. Remember them?
Do you really want to look them in the eyes and admit that they were the smart ones?
No. So walk already.
And take your pack. Wear it, and like it. No whining. Work it out. Here's how.
First, select what to take, based on who you are, where you're going, the weather. Blah, blah. We've done that. Fill the pack. Covered that too. Now put the dang thing on and walk.
With most packs your back is going to get sweaty. Most packs will do this to you, except for a few external frame packs with mesh panels that keep the pack bag from contacting your back. And they aren't perfect either. A long way from it.
Kind of makes you nostalgic for the old days. When men were men, women were women, and, as Douglas Adams said, small furry things from Alpha Centauri were really small furry things from Alpha Centauri. But those days are gone, and so is Adams. No one knows any more what's going on down Alpha Centauri way.
So now we have to face reality. Your back will get sweaty. And there are no small furry things to help you.
It isn't really all that bad. Remember to wear a knit shirt made of synthetics, and rinse it a lot. Wash it every two or three days at a minimum and you should be OK.
Another thing — every time you stop, take the pack off.
This will let your back air out as well as giving your body a break. Synthetic shirts dry in a couple of minutes, and once they do you can't really tell that they've been sweaty at all, if you rinse and wash them often enough. A day or two into a trip, you will know that your shirt isn't laundry-room clean no matter what, but you can keep things under control with a little effort.
Whether you have an internal frame pack or a frameless one, it will ride up close to your back and you will be burning a lot of calories no matter how light your pack is. You will be burning calories because you are backpacking, not because of a particular pack design.
So you will burn calories and your shirt will be wet from sweat. Can't avoid it. Ventilation abates some of this, but as we just said the only way to deal with this situation is to stop and take the pack off, and wash a lot, both you and your clothing.
It might be a good reason, because of the foregoing, not to worry about having a pack with special pockets to carry water bottles in. You know, the packs that let you reach back to a water bottle, pull it out, and drink from it without stopping.
Stopping can be good.
Stopping is good.
Stopping allows you to stop.
So carrying a bottle with a built-in filter can be good too, though you still have to be sure about where you find water. Once you have the system worked out you can walk carrying little to no water at all. Then when you come to a water source you stop, take off your pack, take off your shoes, scoop up water, have a nice drink, look at your maps and your watch, take a whiz, do whatever, and meanwhile you dry out. Works fine, and every time you stop like this you also get a rest. Once done with your business, you continue walking.
Breaks are good. There's no reason to make your hike be like work.
Work is what you are trying to get away from, so don't push too hard.
While the pack is on your back it should feel comfortable. You ought to have this worked out by now. (Hint: read the previous chapters.) You've checked out packs, gotten one that's the right size and shape, learned how to fill it and adjust it and all, so the pack should feel good on your back. We've gone over shoulder straps, hip belts, load lifters, and load stabilizers. Remember?
Well, then if not, here's a quick refresher to fill some space.
– Pull on things, see what happens. –
Most packs are easier to get into and out of if the shoulder straps are loose. So, if this works for you, put the pack on with loose shoulder straps. No, not disconnected or anything. Think loosyness.
Loose enough to be pleasantly sloppy without being disconnected. Put on the pack and then tighten the shoulder straps. Each strap has an adjustment, usually at its bottom end. Pull there, and snug each strap, and check to be sure that both are the same length unless you need to compensate for an unbalanced load. If you get one strap longer than the other you'll get some weird effects. Maybe one shoulder will hurt, or you'll feel a weight shift, or the pack just won't sit right.
On the other hand if the pack is simply loaded unevenly you can deliberately and consciously use the shoulder straps to compensate. If you absolutely have to. But this shouldn't happen. Often.
Most packs have hip belts, big wide padded things. Ultralight packs sometimes have them, sometimes not. If your pack has a padded belt or anything at all wide enough to carry weight, you'll probably want to use it for that. Hip belts take weight off your shoulders. They do that by forming a cushy circle that can actually be made smaller in diameter than your hips by tightening, so once you do some pulling there, you get the hip belt tight enough for to do its job.
Again, follow the Goldilocks Principle: not too much of this, not too much of that, but somewhere in between. A too-loose hip belt won't do any good. One that is too tight will bruise you. One that is too high will squeeze your belly. One that is too low will cramp your hip joints and the muscles there. Keep the hip belt resting on top of your pelvic bones, and keep it just snug enough.
Practice until you know what this means.
Load lifters (on top of the shoulder straps) pull the top of the pack bag up against your shoulders, and improve balance. Load stabilizers (between the hip belt and the bottom of the pack bag) pull the pack's bottom in tight against your lower torso and keep it there.
So, once you finish pulling and tugging on everything you get a pretty good fit. You're all set. Start walking. But keep in mind that you'll be adjusting your pack all day.
– Never satisfied, you. –
You will keep adjusting your pack all day because you won't stay satisfied for long.
That's the good news. It means that you are alive, and that you are walking.
These are both positive signs.
Because you are alive and walking, you will get tired. That's a good reason to adjust your pack.
Maybe, during a long day, that hip belt starts to bug you. This is most likely to happen with a heavy pack. A heavy pack isn't the worst thing that can happen, especially if you are in the early days of a long trip without resupply. Even an ultralight pack will annoy you, if it's full-up past its weight rating with munchies and fuel.
So say the hip belt is giving you problems. What you can do is loosen it and let the pack sink so all the weight shifts to your shoulders. This will feel good. For a while. After that while your shoulders will hurt, but there you go. Another chance to adjust.
Every day is like this.
Sort of.
But really, if the hip belt feels fine for the first couple of hours and then seems to be giving you trouble, you are simply overdue for a break. Stop for a bit. Take off the pack. Have a snack, or wash up or something. Sit and look at the sky. This is good for the soul and for the body too.
OK, back to walking.
On smooth, even, level trails you don't need to do too much with your pack. Get the shoulder straps just snug enough, the hip belt embracing your midsection in a friendly but not aggressive way, the pack balanced left to right and fore and aft, and you're done.
It's an easy balance. The pack sits there, and you walk under it, and every now and then you stop for a break. No big deal. There isn't much else to do. Shift the weight back and forth between your hips and shoulders if you need to, and otherwise don't think.
If things get really annoying it means you haven't taken enough breaks. Take more breaks. How often do we need to say this?
If you want to do 20, or 25, or 30 miles a day (30 to 50 km), then do that, and accept suffering. If you want to do 10 miles a day, then do that. There is nothing wrong with doing what feels right for you.
Bigger mileage means more effort, more strain, less time to admire the landscape. It also gives a huge boost to your ego to prove that you can do it, but it can be a lot like driving on an interstate highway, staring at the horizon, always driving right at the speed limit, with white knuckles all day long. Slow is OK too.
Remember, you can always lie when you get home. Who's to know? Tell them you did all 25-mile days. We don't care, and neither do they, really. To them you're only a goofball no matter what.
OK, back to walking.
Rough trails or off-trail travel are more demanding. You need to think more, you need to be in better shape, and you have to pay more attention to your pack and what you're doing with it. First, make sure it's packed tight and compressed into a solid wad. Then get it balanced and snugged up against you. Third, tighten that embrace and make it even snugglier.
You'll want to pay attention to those load lifter straps at the top, and the load stabilizer straps at the bottom. If your pack has them, of course. If not, do your best with what you have. Generally, larger, more expensive, more conventional packs will have more adjustments. Light packs, no.
Always do your best, but in these circumstances (off trail) what's going to happen is that you'll be taking big irregular steps, small irregular steps, leaning right and left, swerving, bouncing up and down, and trying to balance yourself at odd angles without snapping off a leg or destroying an ankle. This means that you need the pack tight against your body so it stays with you.
No wobbling.
The pack needs to feel like one piece. It needs to be balanced, and then pulled tight against your body, and cinched down, like it's part of you.
Doing this might mean a little more fiddling with straps and belts when you stop and start again, but it's going to help you when you are walking, and could keep you from getting hurt. No sense falling over and getting bruised because your pack decides to move left when you move right. Off-trail travel is different from walking on a smooth path so you need to pay more attention to get it right.
– Moving in a 3D world. –
If you'll be going uphill for a good long while, you can loosen the pack so it leans away from your upper body. If your pack allows that.
This is where load lifters are handy. Loosen them and the pack will lean away from your upper body. Let it do that and the pack will give your back some breathing space, which is nice, because going uphill is hard work and will make you even more sweaty. What a coincidence.
Uphill walking is slower too, so there is less chance that you'll be wobbling. That means everything can stay looser. It's a good chance to pop the hip belt buckle and ease it out a half a notch. Or more.
Shoulder straps can sag some too. It won't hurt. Let the air circulate and get to you. You'll feel better for it. You will be leaning forward while headed up, and the pack will lean back a little and sit on your lower back, supported by the bones there. Sweet.
Take breaks, often.
Be good to yourself.
Downhill is harder, in a way. This always seems odd. Going uphill takes muscle effort, and makes you sweat, but it's easier on the body overall and doesn't require talent. Downhill travel can kill your knees and ankles right straight dead, and throw you off balance instantly if you make even a slight misstep, it but doesn't require much muscle effort, only staying vigilant and upright.
Going downhill you need to lean forward. It's a different deal though.
Leaning forward pushes your backside toward the upslope, and lowers your center of gravity, while keeping it centered over your feet. Forget this and your feet will slide out to the front while the rest of you does a tail-end-tango with Mother Earth. Which is not fun. She wears big boots and kicks butt hard.
So what about the pack while going downhill?
Needs to be tighter than for uphills, for one thing. Balance is a lot more important going downhill, so the pack needs to hang onto you tighter. If you move you want the pack to go with you and not to try running off somewhere else.
Shoulder straps: seriously snugged. Sternum strap too. The hip belt won't be carrying so much weight (the pack will be leaning into the back of your torso as you lean forward), so it can be left only snug instead of tight, but you should definitely keep it buckled. Load lifters and load stabilizers, if you have them, do a good job of keeping the pack sucked up tight against your back, and that is also good.
Going downhill, do what you can to help the pack hang onto your back like a monkey hugging a banana tree.
– Like a rolling stone. –
Going off trail is quite a bit like going downhill.
Move carefully, maintain balance, and keep your pack in sync like an experienced dance partner. Going off trail in open country doesn't require much more than this, though you should keep your caution tank topped up. A lot of times you'll be walking through grass or low shrubs and won't be able to see each and every thing on the ground. You'll be feeling your way with your feet as much as with your eyes, so balance and coordination with your pack are both important. Rocks tend to show up in the oddest places. So do abandoned and overgrown animal burrows. Unexpectedly drop your foot into one of those, fall over, and you have a real problem. Always be extra careful off trail.
Hiking off trail through tall brush is like this but more so. For this kind of hiking an external frame pack is miserable. You get hung up on everything. You can't help it, because parts of the pack's frame are jutting out there, sort of reluctantly going along for the ride, and doing nothing but waiting to grab anything that comes within reach.
Some of the larger internal frame packs are like this too, simply because they are big, and have so many extra straps going every whichway. But do your best with what you have.
The first rule is to keep it clean. Streamlined. Make your profile as small as possible. Keep things inside the pack. Nothing lashed to the outside, or if you have to hang something on the outside of the pack, keep it straight behind you if possible, in your slipstream. If you have a sleeping bag tied on, inside a stuff sack, don't carry it on top of the pack. Keep it behind your butt, where it will be hidden from brush. Especially if you have a huge butt.
Have a rolled up sleeping pad tied on? Hang it vertically rather than horizontally. Things like that.
Because.
Whatever sticks out above your head or to the sides will get grabbed by anything and everything around, and you will be held back or yanked off balance, continuously. Think smooth and sleek — streamlined. Then be smooth and sleek.
When going a long distance in brushy country, empty your side pockets, and stash their contents inside the pack bag. Then pucker up the pockets so they lie flat against the pack. An extra benefit of all this caution is that you don't have to worry about a pocket getting ripped open and secretly spilling valuables under an anonymous bush, or having something you thought was lashed on really well mysteriously disappear along the way, somewhere or other, in the middle of a long featureless stretch.
Go slowly.
Don't get hurt.
There is time.
– Wither weather? –
Weather can be hot or cold, wet or dry, or a combination.
Most people prefer dry weather, even if it's too hot or too cold, because there is one thing about rain — stay in it long enough and you and everything you have with you will get wet.
And then stay wet.
That's the other thing about rain. It stays with you. There is no way around it. It is a law of nature.
No pack ever made will keep its contents dry forever. It simply does not work that way. Packs have too many seams, for one thing, and seams are nothing but holes with thread laced through them. Even if a pack is meticulously made and carefully sealed, normal wear and use will eventually widen enough needle holes along the seams to let in more water than you want to think about. Plastic bags are modern miracles, and it pays to carry your gear inside bags inside your pack. How many bags, what size, and how many layers of them are things you need to work out from experience.
Some of the large trash bags for yard waste are big enough for most anything, but made of thin plastic.
Trash compactor bags are big and tough, but heavier, and sometimes too short.
A type of plastic bag called the contractor clean up bag is big and tall, and rugged, but much heavier, at four ounces (113 g) each. A bunch of these big heavy guys will add significant weight to your load. It might be enough to fret over. Or not. But keep it in mind. Find the right balance for your needs.
If the weather is dry it doesn't matter too much if it's dry and hot or dry and cold. The variations are mainly a matter of clothing and water supply.
Carrying lots of water gives you a big weight penalty, and you have to move everything else around to accommodate that water supply. If the weather is dry but cold then thoughts about water can be demoted a notch or two, but you need to keep extra clothing handy. Either way, having a flexible attitude and a pack with easy access to its insides and enough pockets helps a lot.
– Wet. –
Some people don't worry about getting the pack itself wet. As long as everything inside is well wrapped and protected, and therefore dry, they're happy.
This doesn't work well if you are using your pack as a pillow at night, or as stuffing under your knees, or sometimes if you just keep it inside a sealed tent with you, where it raises the already high humidity. A pack cover might work better, since it minimizes how much of your pack gets wet, and how wet it gets, and you can wad up the pack cover overnight and leave it in a corner. But don't forget to wrap everything inside the pack even if you do use a pack cover.
Generally, if your pack is protected by a pack cover it will be easier to keep things inside it dry and usable no matter what kind of extra protection you have for those things. A pack cover also makes the pack easier to dry out once the weather improves, since the pack itself won't be soaked, but it's up to you. You can buy a separate pack cover, make one, or use a trash bag that has slits cut in it for your shoulder straps. Many rain ponchos do double duty by protecting both packs and hikers, and some do triple duty by also converting into shelters.
– Etc. –
If the weather is humid but not drippy, what happens is not so much getting the pack wet as getting it dirty, especially in hotter weather.
Because you sweat more. Sweat is sticky. Sticky, dried sweat attracts and holds dirt. Sticky, dried sweat is dirt.
You might find it nice to rinse your whole pack every now and then, to remove salts and oils due to sweat, though it's awkward to find the right time for this, and you have to remove everything from the pack, and then let the pack dry. Packs are made of heavy fabric and are slow to dry, but rinsing out dirt and body oils might be worth it, since this also removes odors that attract critters looking for late night salty chewables.
Snow isn't a big problem, even though snow is water. As long as the weather stays cold, snow is more like clean dust than true precipitation. You can brush away snow and tolerate a tiny bit of melting. Your pack will dry quickly. Some snow may get inside but it will be no more than a nuisance. Snow, unless it is really wet, and you have a lot of it on you or in your pack, is dry compared to rain.
It's rain that is the big problem. Having a pack cover or doing your hiking under an umbrella will not only keep the pack dry, and add extra protection for its contents, but will make it easier for you to get access to the pack's insides without adding to your problems.
Huh?
You need to get into your pack throughout the day regardless of weather. Weather doesn't care about you.
Wet weather means that every time you open your pack you get some water inside. External pockets help by allowing you to get at things you need without opening the main part of the pack. For those times when you do have to open the pack, a separate pack cover provides some shelter from some of the rain. Lift the part of the pack cover you need to lift, and leave the rest of it undisturbed, in place, continuing to protect the pack.
If you carry an umbrella you can hold it overhead while bending down to dig inside your pack. This helps both you and the pack, unlike a pack cover that protects only the pack. If you wear a rain poncho covering everything — both you and your pack — then maybe you can slip off your pack while still under the poncho, pull your head in through the hole, turtle-like, and be inside a temporary tent while you open your pack. Depends on how flexible you are, how windy it is, and so on. Keep it in mind. It's a handy trick.
– Breaking time into long pieces. –
Sometimes you stop for a long while. This is usually once a day, in the evening. Time to unload your pack.
If you are all ready for bed and still don't have an empty pack then you have brought too much. One rule of thumb is to always have dry clothes to sleep in. Another is to never bring more clothes than you can wear at one time. A third rule, related to safety, is to always be comfortable, with the expectation that if you are comfortable then you are not in danger.
These three rules fight a little. They aren't perfectly consistent with each other, but they form a good guide.
If you unpack for the night, and you have everything you need out in the open, or on your body, and your pack is not empty, then something is out of kilter. Maybe by design, but if not, then it's time to reassess how much you are bringing, and how you are doing things, and how to improve your planning and packing next time.
This scenario assumes that you have already dealt with your food, fuel, cook set and stove, and all that other stuff that needs to be hung out of the reach of unannounced guests who might wander by.
A major focus for the end of the day is shelter. You might need to hunker down under your shelter while unpacking. Maybe not, if the weather is good, but shelter is still your focus.
If you carry a tarp you can set it up first, then unpack under it, and reverse the process the next morning. Traditional double wall tents don't give you this option, but some hammock setups do. It's handy in the rain.
Aside from dealing with shelter you'll be laying out your gear and segregating it.
Food, fuel, cooking equipment, and odorous items go together, and get hung up overnight.
The shelter gets erected.
Bedding is arranged within the shelter.
Spare clothes go on your body.
Miscellaneous items like water bottles, toilet paper, watch, flashlight, and so on get placed where they will be handy.
This is a time when an orderly pack pays off. Unpacking is as important as packing. If like things are together inside your pack, then you know where to look for them, and can pull them out as needed.
Unused food is normally in one lump. So are spare clothes, except for things like rain wear, wind breaker, and gloves that are sometimes needed during minor emergencies all day.
Bedding is a class by itself, normally in use all night and out of sight all day. Toiletry items like soap, sunscreen, bug repellent, and toothpaste might be carried out where they're handy during the day, but get promoted into the odorous food group for overnight storage. Even so, you keep them in designated places when you are not actively using them, so you can actively use them when you need to.
Once your pack is unloaded you can use it as part of your bedding or store it out of reach, with your food and stove. Otherwise porcupines, mice, or even deer can mess it up in their quest for salt. (Even cute little deers can get aggressive, when salt is involved.) But until you turn in, use your pack as a focal point for staying organized.
– Focus, then focus some more. –
If you have small items out, or are changing clothes, or doing anything at all, it's really helpful to keep everything in one place. A pack makes a good home base. It is an easy target to hit.
Even better if you have a white trash compactor bag you've been using as a pack liner. The white plastic makes a brilliant contrasting background for things you lay on it. Especially as evening light fades. Put down the white bag, put your pack on one corner to keep the bag from running away, and use the rest of the plastic bag as a place to temporarily lay things until you turn in.
Gloves are easy to lose. So is your sleeping hat. Socks, watch, flashlight, water bottle, overnight supply of toilet paper. Anything. Everything. Even if they're not actually in your pack, your pack can still exert a kind of gravitational pull that holds these odds and ends together.
Once morning comes, and it's time to reload your backpack, put your focus back on the pack. Put the pack down somewhere convenient but out of traffic. Even one person, you alone, can get in your way, so plan for this. It's unbelievably easy to lay something down, and then step on it, swear at yourself to be more careful, and then step on the same damn thing again. Stay organized.
Keep everything near the pack, preferably on something like a trash bag, or whatever works for you. It is terrifically easy to lose small items like a button flashlight, a little bottle of sunscreen, or pulled stakes, even when these are right in front of your face. Putting them on one of your trash bags (preferably white) means that you'll see those things before you leave camp behind and disappear down the trail.
This way you can start to load the pack and still have that handful of small but precious things anchored to one spot and not laid down randomly in places that you are sure you will remember but sometimes don't.
Planning ahead, establishing habits, and being mindless is easier than remembering to remember special things each and every day. Once it's too late, when you are hours away down the trail, in the next county, and you remember with a tingly chill of fear that you left your knife or flashlight or wallet sitting on a stone where you would be sure to see it but didn't, you have a problem, and not the kind of problem that's solved for amusement.
It's surprisingly hard to locate a campsite you left, just hours after you left it. All bushes and trees suddenly look the same, especially so if you practice stealth camping and pick out-of-the-way places to sleep, and are careful not to leave any trace of your presence.
Keep this in mind.
We've been over pack packing so you know the important things about that. The rest of the program is to stay organized.
– Organize. –
Learn the meaning of this word and then keep it in mind constantly.
Use your pack as the center of your camp world. Let it draw things to it. Break down your shelter. Lower your food, fuel, cookware and fragrant items from the treetops. Pile those near your pack. Pile your sleeping clothes there too. And your bedding.
Then begin filling the pack. When you are done you have nothing left on the ground but the pack itself, and since you kept everything in only that one spot, you don't have to go ranging around the entire camp site in ever widening circles, hunting for things you might have left behind, or maybe not, or wondering which, because you don't see anything you obviously left out somewhere.
But do that anyway.
Go sniffing around your entire camp site, hunting with an open mind for things that look out of place on the forest floor. For things you might have left behind.
Then do it again.
Every now and then you will be amazed by how stupid you were, without even trying. It happens. You fill find some precious little part of your gear that you set down and immediately forgot about.
Don't trust yourself.
But rest assured that if you always keep things together you will lose very little, very seldomly, because you will make it hard to lose things.
But again, never overestimate your intelligence.
Sometimes your supply of toilet paper will be smarter than you, and will hide where you can't find it. So hedge your bets.
– When time is only crumbs. –
Short breaks involve less heavy lifting than long breaks but they follow the same pattern. Stop. Put down your pack. Take out only what you need. Keep things together, with your pack as the center of attention. It's the largest, most easily identified thing you carry, and that makes it a great landmark.
Tripping over your pack is not a problem, it's a reminder. If you trip over it you know where it is. This is good. You want to know where your pack is.
When you stop for a drink or to peek at a map you won't be unloading much, but it's the idea that counts. Once you develop a habit you can think less.
In a way, that's the point.
Think less.
Don't think at all, if possible.
Plan ahead, develop habits, then stop thinking about the small things. Plan on using only the minimum amount of intelligence, holding plenty of brain cells in reserve and well rested for when they will actually make a difference.
Keep your things together, do the same things in the same way, in the same order, all the time. Store things in set locations, and use your mind only to double check, right before you push off again. Scour the ground with your eyes, try to remember if you did anything different this time, and if so, try to remember what the heck it was, and make triply sure you didn't play any dumb tricks on yourself.
A short break is a short break whether it's a stop for water, a peek at a map, time for a snack, a pause for a photo, or a quick check of the view. You should have a basic routine for everything you do so you can keep the housekeeping straight. Get the ordinary, boring things worked out so you can have fun.
Want to set down the pack and walk a few feet to a view? You know to set the pack down so its back (the side that goes against your own back) is open to the air, and preferably aimed at the sun, so it can dry. You know to loop the chin strap of your hat around one of your trekking poles so no stray gust of wind can suck it off into the void. You know to do this even if there is no wind, because the juiciest accidents happen exactly when they can't possibly happen.
Simple things, like that.
Always tie down your camera. It won't blow away but it can roll like crazy, and it is amazing how easy it is to kick, precisely when you don't want to, when it is actually completely impossible to do that, and then watch it roll down a 75 degree slope and vanish to a small point that immediately bounces off several large rocks just before it disappears forever among the trees far below you.
No, this one didn't happen to me. Yet.
Stop for lunch, when you have to unpack food and water, and maybe the stove and fuel and so on, and your process is a little more complicated, but it follows the same plan. Have a routine. Keep things together. Stay organized. Carry things in standard places. Check, double check, and triple check before moving on.
– Less isn't more, it's less. –
Everything above applies if you are traveling ultralight. But less so.
You won't have so many straps and adjustments on your pack. No ultralight pack has all the straps. They don't need them.
If you have an ultralight pack and you really need more padding in the hip belt, or if you pine for load lifters or load stabilizer straps, then you are bumping up against the edge of a different universe. You are trying to make an ultralight pack do what it shouldn't have to do. You need to either lighten up or move to a bigger, fancier pack. Both methods work.
Lots of manufacturers are advertising ultralight packs that weigh anywhere from two and a half to four pounds (1 to 2 kg). Or more. Those aren't ultralight packs. That's marketing, but one of these might serve you well, so don't worry about the marketing verbiage. A pack in this weight range will have some kind of frame (probably) and more adjustments (certainly).
A real ultralight pack will weigh no more than a pound (0.5 kg), give or take a few Universal Weight Units, and will have at most only a hint of something vaguely resembling a frame.
Bottom line: you'll have a bag, two shoulder straps, and maybe a light hip belt. Anything else may need to be supplied by you. The shoulder straps and hip belt will be adjustable for length but that's it. Simplicity.
Within a loaded weight range of 10 to 20 pounds (4.5 to 9 kg) this kind of pack will be comfortable. Going uphill or on level ground you won't need to worry much. On rough ground or downhill you'll need to snug things up a bit, but getting a pack balanced or keeping one from bouncing around are not so important when the pack weighs less.
Stopping for lunch or for a bath gets to be a slightly bigger deal because though your pack gets smaller as you move into the ultralight world, the things you put into it don't, so much. You might carry a stove the size of an aspirin tin but you don't carry small food to go with it. You might use a tarp instead of a four person tent, but your clothes and bedding stay big enough to fit you. Things like that.
So when you stop and pull something out of an ultralight pack, relatively more comes out. On the other hand you will carry less, so overall your trail life will be simpler. You'll have what you need but no espresso maker, no ice cream ball, no satellite phone. No kites. No guitars. The pack will be smaller, lighter, and easier to handle but other than that everything else is about the same.
As with any of the larger packs, you also want to keep an ultralight pack the focus of your world. Intelligence counts. It is your main advantage.
Because resources are becoming scarcer, along with fresh clean water and breathable air, we've decided to make the best of a bad situation.
Starting this week, in selected stores nationwide, we will be selling a new kind of backpacking snack food. We're calling it HikrNibbles®.
What's in it?
Well, good stuff. It's all good. But mostly fish lips.
Decades of research into pet food has taught us a thing or two about what we can sell, and this is no exception. Design a colorful box, come up with a marketing plan, add salt, grease, assorted artificial flavors, and you have a winner.
Right now we're test-marketing fish lips to hikers, but this could be huge. Think seven billion people, and counting.
Yeah-sure, you say to yourself, That's sounds pretty good, but I've never had fish lips and I'm not sure I want any, thank you for asking.
But you would be missing the point.
This isn't about what you want, it's about what we can sell you. And how much we can charge. Fish lips are an untapped resource, up to now used only in low-end pet foods, in school lunch programs, and as fertilizer.
We think we can do better, and you can help.
Just try a few cases and see.
We're betting that before long you'll discover you can't get through even one day without having a box of our new HikrNibbles® snack food product within reach. That's due to our extensive market research, and a few special ingredients, which are all perfectly legal in some countries. Afghanistan may be one.
Enjoy the the mild smoky flavor, the salty tang, the way our fishy nuggets just seem to slide down your gullet. You'll keep reaching for more. And due to our special ingredients, we think you'll do that whether you want to or not.
Worried about sustainability? Don't be.
HikrNibbles® aren't made from salmon, or tuna, or any of those other fish you've heard of. You know, the ones that are getting scarce.
Nope. We deal strictly in what the industry calls by-catch.
By-catch or by-golly, there is more of this stuff than we know what to do with, and now you can eat it for us.
Whether you know what's in it or not, we are confident that our brilliant marketing research minds, honed to a sharp edge by years of selling to discerning pet owners from every level of society, even including some elderly on fixed incomes, have found a product that will keep your feet a-trompin' down that trail.
Just remember to carry an ample supply of HikrNibbles® with you at all times to avoid any of those nasty so-called withdrawal symptoms, which are so easily avoidable. Just munch a bunch of nibbles.
Fido loves 'em too! $10 per 4-oz. pack. Practically no bitter aftertaste.
When I read the warning label on my Batman costume I got mad. I don't like getting mad. Getting mad makes me mad. When I get mad things get ugly, so I go to the gym. Sure, the gym is ugly too, but nobody cares if I punch stuff there.
So I go there. And I punch stuff. When I'm mad.
Generally then, to get my life sorted out I punch stuff. It works. Pretty well. For me it works. Filling my backpack though? That's harder. It's not just fist work. And I have to think a little besides.
Thinking bugs me.
Packing for a trip is the hard part of backpacking. Getting stuff into the pack. Getting organized. Thinking.
You know?
Putting things in the pack so they stay there. Getting things out again. Fixing things so they don't get annoying. I don't like being annoyed. It makes me mad.
Packing.
Packing. That is a art I had to master with severe patience, because I am one guy who does not like being annoyed, and this is one of my things. You know? Being annoyed and all. At packing. At any thing. I hate that. And not in a good way.
Maybe it is just me, but being annoyed really annoys me, and I get cranky. And then it all gets complicated. I do not like that. I like it simple.
Complicated stuff is annoying.
You may have a different opinion. If so, come around some day and we will work through it. We will settle up like friends do. Maybe have a couple of beers and do some punching. I am always open to new stuff. Especially if I can do some punching on the side.
New stuff? OK by me. A guy like me goes places. I get around.
I get exposed to new ideas, new scenery, new faces and stuff. I like that. Show me a map with a big red X on it and I will take a swing. Sure, why not? Any time. It is new. Might be fun. I will go there.
I work all over. My work takes me places. In my field the work is hard. It is hard, but that is what I do, so I do it. I got a hard, busy life.
So, then there is backpacking.
Backpacking is different. It ain't hard. It is relaxing, mostly.
When I go backpacking I relax. I get soothed. I rest up.
Backpacking is pretty easy to figure out. As much as I like a good workout and some healthy punching to clear the air, sometimes things still get to me, usually when there is too much thinking. So that is one reason I go backpacking.
Why.
Backpacking does not have a lot of thinking.
I like that.
Not much thinking, that one is for me.
The best part is, it is not hard either. Backpacking breaks down pretty simple once you do a little work up front.
Unfortunately it involves some thinking though. Did I use that word?
Thinking.
Thinking stinks.
There is not too much thinking though. Not in backpacking. And once you are done with it, that is all. That is it. No more thinking, ever. You just walk.
The basics, they are easy, see. Only three steps. You got forward, you got backward, and then sideways.
Take this for example. Make it Exhibit A. You got to walk like uphill, or downhill, or funny places off the trail? What do you think first? You think balance. Balance is the most important aspect here.
How.
Balance.
It is the thing, the main thing, and nothing but the thing. Like when you go up against Big Joey Palooka, what do you think? You think Lord, keep me out of the way, that is what you think.
And how do you do it?
Well, Big Joey can swing, but he cannot dance. He is like a tree falling. If he lands on you it is over. But he is only like a tree falling. He cannot dance a lick. He ain't got balance, no moves. Not him.
So you make up for that on your side. You dance.
This is your secret weapon. You got the balance, you got the moves, you do the dancing. Or get creamed. The key to dancing is balance. In the ring, in backpacking, no difference. It is dancing. And dancing is about balance. All the time.
Balance and stability.
Did I mention stability? It is about balance and stability.
Balance and stability might be tempted to punch each other's lights out for the championship if they were not so close. It is like they are joined at the hip. Really the same thing, really, like your two feet. One left. One right. Same thing, you just happen to have two of them but you need both.
They are your foundation. In the ring, out backpacking, your foundation everywhere, all over.
Generally, hill work is puffing up a slope or tromping back down, and it can throw you, especially if you ain't got no trail. It is all too easy to go off kilter unless you are in tight with stability and balance.
So how do you get it working?
I know how I do it.
Do this here.
By careful packing. Being careful works, and it ain't hard. So here is how.
Take your pack, say, and the stuff you want in it? Put it in there. Put the stuff in the pack, is all.
Work carefully. Train up. Use some planning.
Then, at the right moment, apply force in a smooth push with a easy follow through. Just like your special patented Sunday haymaker that never fails, only do it in slo-mo. S-L-O-W, Moe.
Get it working with a little practice and you are set. It ain't hard. It is like a rhythm. Like a smooth and easy rhythm at the speed bag in the gym, only slow. You can do that, right?
The heavy items you carry, they go in lower, for stability, especially if you are headed into the rough. The heavy things? Push them down. Get them well below your breadbasket. Down there they do not try any fancy stuff, see? You get them tight and they stay put and they do not even think of throwing any monkey punches or doing any headbutts on your kidneys.
You do not want nothing fancy. Just quiet and solid, that is what you want. That is how you avoid kissing the canvas in the ring, and that is how it works on the trail too.
Cuz you do not want no dumb pack treating you like a old tomato can. You want the pack to know who is the boss. That way, down a hill, you never get no rear end rumba. You are right, tight, and feel light. That is it. What you want.
Scenario Two is Exhibit B. Not so fascinating but more commonplace. More average like.
Say you are on a trail, like one you can walk blindfolded on. Level. Boring. You do not need no fancy footwork here at all just to avoid a standing eight count. You walk sitting up straight. Straight and easy, more like a real man. Less like a ape.
With heavy stuff to carry, shove it in same as before but park it one level higher, still close to your back though. And tight. Still tight. So as to maintain your demeanor and allow you to go the distance.
Lighter stuff, some of it goes under this, and some on top of it. A wraparound job. The heavier stuff stays put at the middle level. Keep it surrounded. Always, always close in to your back. Other than that, the rest is the same. I have now memorized this into easy steps so my head can remain at rest. That way I maintain a even strain. Such as the following.
1: Step one.
Shape up. Get your goods together. Once you get moving there is no corner man to mother you, so pull it together up front. You need food, and water, and clothing, and the rest. All of it. Do not flinch here. Get these things and lay them all out, nice and orderly. Otherwise you are just some dope leading with his chin.
2: Step two.
Do it. Put it in the pack. OK?
Scrunch in some light things you will not need while you are walking, like your dinner jacket.
That is a joke, hey. But it is true. Stuff you do not need all the time all day? In the bottom. So I follow this easy plan and pad out the bottom layer like it was a back corner in my closet. Think like that.
Next up, anything heavy, along your back as noted, and leftovers? They fill out the corners. These may be a extra pair of satin trunks or a spare pair of training gloves.
That too is a joke.
3: Now we arrive to step three.
I like this one. This is more like man's work.
The biggest, baddest, heaviest things of all? That you need extra room for? You tie them down good and tight, on the outside, where there is plenty of room. Get it wrong though and your gear will fall through the ropes. Make you look like a chump, a loser. So do not be dumb. Remember. You are a contender. Got that? So act like it.
No fighting to a draw neither. You want it good and tight, straight up, fair and square. Damn right. No feints on this one. Feinting is out. Swing. Swing hard. Nail it. Go for a knockout by following my method.
So get extra straps if you need, or better yet a pack that has them built in and get your tent and sleeping bag locked to the outside. One of these items on top, one on the bottom. Loops. Look for a pack with loops. Loops help. That is my hint to you.
With your heavies outside the pack, on top and on the bottom, that spreads the weight. Holds it off, away from your soft parts. Prevents unannounced rabbit punches, liver jabs, elbowing, low blows, and accidents, alike.
4: Solving it.
You might wonder how I learned this, beating my pack-loading problems to mush so's I no longer even notice them.
For a while it was tough.
This is true.
Early on I was often to be found liberally applying technical language in a useless and angry way until the paint peeled.
And I also flung many mis-aimed kicks and took wild swings towards my pack, to little beneficial effect. The pack was innocent. The whole process was mostly me fanning the air.
I was in the dark. Wild crazy stuff. It was looking like a trip to Loserville.
The sewing therapy needed for recovery to my pack was excessive. It ate up my time and my wallet to boot. I was almost down for the count. Me!
But I am now much wiser and you can too. You do not have to be a genius like Norman Einstein to figure this one out. I am not and I did it.
I am in the groove these days. I got it down. No more flailing, just Sweet Science all the way.
Now it is like the afore-mentioned expert single smooth Sunday Afternoon Special Delivery Service and I get a knockout each and every time. My pack is packed, and packed right, packed tight, and feels light. No more living on the ropes for me.
So I am passing my techniques on to you for good backpacking. Free of charge. So's every backpacking trip of yours can be a barnburner.
So now let's get desperately serious. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and on the trail each and every morning is desperate. Stuffing your pack is about the most serious thing you're going to do on any normal day next to scratching, shooting snot rockets, and speculating about what would happen if you never went home again. Stuff your pack wrong and it will hurt you, all day. Leave something out, like a few tent stakes, your water treatment, your stove, or the car keys, and you will be hurting. Promise.
So you have to get it right.
This is a good excuse to have a checklist, a clipboard, extra pens, and carbon paper. Maybe an assistant, too. Possibly two assistants, so they can both watch you, and check each other. This is important. Every day, every time you open your pack, you have problems. The first problem is finding what you need and getting it out. The second problem is putting it back. Back were it fits, back where you can find it again. Back where it won't fall out.
But most of all, back.
Leaving a fuel bottle under a bush is bad form.
Setting off with your only pair of gloves dangling from a pocket is begging for punishment.
Having to pull everything out of your pack to get at a matchbook sucks big time. Always.
Sure, sometimes you can't avoid it, but try, OK? At least try to avoid it. The less you have to handle all these things the smaller your chances of screwing up. The less housekeeping you do the more time you have to hike. Never tempt the gods. They will whup you like a chump. The gods love to do that. The gods love to do that more than anything else at all.
But best of all, the less you do the less you have to think.
Ahhh...There's a thought!
If you want to think the best place is at home where you can put your feet up and fall asleep in a comfy chair with your mouth open, where no one will see you except the cat, who just might join you.
You don't go backpacking to think. You go backpacking to goof off. There's nothing better than walking along with an empty head, totally blanked out and vacant, allowing healthy fresh air to blow freely through your now empty cranium, completely blissed.
Aim for that.
– Take me, I'm yours. –
There are two ways of looking at packing.
One is deciding what to leave.
The other is deciding what to take.
Which method you use is up to you. The good news is that sinning is its own punishment. Take too much or too little and it's your problem, all the way. Don't plan on begging if you run out of food. Everyone else needs what they have more than they need you.
Have pets? Watch them. They are instructive. It's fun if you have two or three. Lay out some treats, but not enough to go around. Watch them fight. Yes, your nice, considerate loving pets, even if they were litter mates, are now snarling, scratching, biting balls of homicidal fury.
Now extend that to a backpacking group full of people you've never even seen before. If you forget your food then don't expect anyone to share the love. Instead, plan to lose an amount of weight equal to the amount of food you left at home.
Deciding what to leave is hard. You have stuff. Everybody has stuff. Stuff all over. Stuff to wear. Stuff to eat. Stuff to stuff inside other stuff. Stuff that goes outside stuff. Stuff and stuff and stuff.
You got stuff.
Everybody got stuff.
Get it?
You like your stuff. It's part of you. It works. It gets into your head, so you think about it.
How about taking those socks with the little smiley faces? They could be fun. Maybe you wear things like that, or maybe the socks were a gag gift once, and you've never worn them because they're really dumb, and now you stand there thinking, Hmmm, we're going to be out in the woods, having fun, on vacation. So I could pull these on and see what happens. Goof around a little. Sure, why not?
And it starts.
Take a spare cup. An extra shirt. Only small things. One of these and one of those, just in case. Might be useful. Nice to have. Maybe. In case. You never know. Better safe than sorry. An inflatable pillow couldn't hurt, could it? Binoculars would be fun...
So there you are then, your pack is so heavy you can hardly pick it up even though you aren't carrying water yet, or food. And all you have in your pack is the bare essentials. Plus a few extra things. Just a few, but they're all really light, so what's the deal?
You've just been creamed.
Blindsided.
Flattened by an express train that you yourself assembled from parts. It weighs 18,000 tons but it's all light stuff, so it can't actually be heavy. Right?
That's one way to do it - Starting with everything and deciding what to leave. The other way is deciding what to take. For this, plan on taking nothing. Zero. Zero is step one.
Next, for step two, pick one thing that you absolutely must have to stay alive. It helps to break things into categories and pick from each category. Clothing. Shelter. Food. Bedding. Like that. So pick one thing.
Then branch out.
Say you've picked one piece of clothing, but what can you do with only a pair of underpants? Got to have a bit more, so what's one more piece of clothing that's absolutely essential?
Try that. Pick it out. Hold it in your other hand.
You need footwear, and pants and a shirt. One shirt to wear on the trail, and another one when things get cold, or when you wash the first one. So now you have under pants and footwear, outer pants and two shirts.
Likewise for a second pair of socks, but since you're trying to pick only what you must have, you debate it with yourself, and choose to include only what you absolutely need. For your well-being, for your comfort, for your safety. Regardless of what anyone else thinks.
Then you think about wind and rain protection, depending on the climate and local weather. Gloves. Boy, that's about it. There isn't much else you need there, so move on to the next category.
Shelter?
How big, how heavy-duty? Double wall tent for four? For two? Single wall tent? Slim wisp of a tarp? It depends. On you, on where you're going, on how long you'll be out, on what the weather will be, on how much else you'll be carrying. On whether you'll be alone or not. Start with nothing on your list, then pick the minimum you need to get by. Find out how smart you are.
The same with bedding, food, fuel, odds and ends like first aid equipment, your pack itself. Chances are, for most people, if you try to pack this way you'll end up with less.
If using Plan A, deciding what to leave out, you might be stuck sagging under a lot more weight than you need, but if something unexpected happens, you'll have a spare, or just the right odd thing to fix the rare odd failure. Like if you have super glue along, and a wheel falls off one of your little plastic model cars, you're set. If you want to be.
Following Plan B, deciding what to take, you might find that you left out something you really do need, or that you don't have that spare thing you could use, or that you can't really cope too well if, for example, you have a July snowstorm instead of humid, drippy heat and thick clouds of mosquitoes, all of whom really want to get into your nose.
So either route can take you to a place that sucks. But it's up to you. Something will always suck. No matter what, you can count on that.
– The best of times. The worst of times. – Backpacking season.
Face it, you're hosed no matter what. Backpacking is like that. You're never comfortable for, let's say, more than a half hour at a time. Usually not over three minutes and seventeen seconds, tops.
The experience can make up for that, after time, when you forget all the painful crap. Or maybe your whole trip turns to crap, which happens, and you get a world of discomfort and have a lousy time too. It happens. But that's your problem. We're talking about backpacks here, not getting touchy-feely. No sniveling.
So. You have now decided either what to leave or what to take. Done.
Let the pain begin.
You have to distribute the load. We got into some of this in the last chapter. It sounded so easy. Like you could sort of just, hey, take your stuff and put it into the pack in the right way and go. But it isn't as easy as that. It is important to get the ideas right, and keep them in mind, and know how to use them, but there is more.
It's like the old saying. I had everything perfectly planned, and then life got in the way. Or something like that. You've been there. A mouse in your food bag. Or a rattlesnake in your pants. Something. You still have to manage because once you're in over your head, you're in, and it really doesn't matter how deep, because having a snake in your pants is not theoretical. You gotta do something, not think about it.
So distributing the load in a pack is not only a matter of putting things into the pack in the right order, and getting them into the right places. It is a lot more like what those people do with the plates. They used to show up on TV a lot in the old days. The folks who have a bunch of sticks, and they spin plates on them. The whole stage ends up full of spinning plates on sticks, and the performer keeps running around, spinning them up again as they get slow and wobbly. These people usually have a few more plates on sticks in their hands too. It gets busy.
Loads are like that. Real loads are.
Every day you start fresh, and if you have it right your pack is OK. Then you stop and tank up on water. Or you stop for lunch. Or you stop and wash some clothes or have a bath. No matter what, every day you are fiddling with your pack all day long, and fiddling with what's in it. You're adding weight or removing weight or moving things around. So no matter how well you plan things, and no matter how terrifically you loaded your pack in the morning, it gets rearranged all day long.
The basic ideas are...
Soft things against your back
Light things toward the bottom of the pack
Heavy things higher up
A balanced load
And necessities where you can reach them
Be as stupid as you have to be, but no more.
– Groping in the dark. –
But that isn't the whole story. A pack is not a suitcase.
Dumb as a box of rocks describes a suitcase. That's all it is. A box. With a handle. You put things in, crank it shut, lock it, and hope to see it again at your destination.
Packs, no.
Packs are alive, active, intelligent participants in every step of every trip. Packs are companions. They are servants and they are mentors. A pack can actually teach you a lot. About yourself, about life, and about making compromises.
When you load your pack in the morning you not only need to get the right things in the right places based on composition (soft and puffy vs. hard and lumpy) and weight (light vs. heavy), but you have to organize based on how you plan to live.
It's good to plan on living. Don't underestimate the value of that.
Some things stay in the pack all day, like your shelter and bedding. Some things have to come out at least once or twice, like food, stove, pots, cup, and so on. Some things need to be handy, and might stay in the pack all day, or might not. They might come out once, or several times, like a cat who can't wait to get out the door, and then when you let it out, it can't wait to get back in again. Rain wear is like this, if it's a showery day, but mostly sunny, but showery again. And then sunny.
So within the basic guidelines you need to group things by importance and accessibility and weight.
Water is a real problem. Loading up on water really shoots tidy plans to bits. Water is not only heavy, but if you take a lot of it on board, it's bulky too. Now do that just to survive, and you have two more problems - extra bulk and extra weight. And one more - suffering with it because you stay alive.
Water is probably the nightmare item.
Ahhh, life.
If you are traveling through hot dry country, you'll need to carry a lot of water, and you'll need to get at it constantly. Then, whenever you have a chance, you need to stop and take on some more water. This means that you dig around in your pack a lot, adding and removing weight, and changing where the lumps are. And the balance. And urinating. If you drink enough.
But normal trail life is like that anyway, just not so intensely.
Most of the time food (and what goes with it) is probably the main issue, and tastier than water.
Most people eat at least once during the middle of the day. Some also have the evening meal on the trail, and possibly they even wash up along the trail, before even thinking about looking for a camp site. This requires a stop, then removing the pack, pulling some things out (like food, your stove, cook set, drinking cup, fuel), cooking a meal, cleaning up, and repacking before continuing.
Your main food supply will be the heaviest single item most of the time, for most trips. It can stay in the pack. What you need during each day can be separate.
Keep the day's food at the top of the pack, or in a front pocket, or distributed between side pockets. A small alcohol stove is a blessing because even the heaviest and grossest of these, commercially made, weighs only three ounces (85 g, but if you make your own it could be one sixth this weight). And these stoves are small. Which means you can put this kind of stove almost anywhere. If you have a two pound (910 g) stove the size of a small cantaloupe, it is not so convenient. Cooking pots work the same way.
The main idea here, though, is that you don't have to keep all of something in one place.
Food has a good side and a bad side. Your main food supply is big, heavy, and bulky, but you can pack it so that today's little bit of food can be put somewhere else, all by itself, for easy access. See?
Alcohol fuel is good that way too. Doesn't need to be pressurized inside a steel can, isn't explosive, isn't corrosive, won't take your skin off, is basically not toxic (but keep it out of your mouth, nose, eyes, ears, and so on), and it simply evaporates if spilled. Alcohol can be distributed in various containers around your pack as needed.
Water is harder.
A lot of people like to carry big, expensive, bulky and awkward water filters. If you have one then you have a chance to build pack packing skills. Figure out where in the heck you can carry the filter so it's handy and safe, and so you don't contaminate the clean end through contact with the dirty end. (Most people aren't bright enough to even realize that this is a problem, much less avoid it.)
Using chemical water treatment drastically cuts weight and bulk, but you still have to carry treated water, just as if you filtered it with a heavy filter.
Using a bottle with a built-in, just-in-time filter means that you're always stuck carrying the weight of a filter, but you can get by part of the time without carrying any water. Instead, you scoop up what you need when you need it, and filter it as you drink. But then again, you have to carry the bottle even if it's empty. And the filter.
Other things you might want handy during the day are an extra shirt, if you get chilly, some bug protection (either chemicals or netting), a wind jacket, or wind jacket and wind pants, or full-on rain protection.
Then you also have maps to worry about, and maybe a compass, sunscreen, a hat, gloves, nail clipper, lip balm, flashlight and a few other odds and ends.
– Herd management. –
It pays to keep similar things together.
OK, remember that we're not talking about the things that you put into your pack in the morning and then leave there. We're talking about things you assign to temporary homes during each and every day.
Your day's food may be a small enough lump so it can stay by itself in one small bag. If you have a small stove and cooking pot, then these stay together. Many canister stoves fit inside cooking pots. Keep the pot gripper there, and the wind screen, and you're set.
A water filter will be a single item, though you need to pay attention to which end is which, and since the filter is partly wet, you'll want it separate from everything else as well.
Spare clothing is good in a small stuff sack or in a plastic bag. Something like an extra-warm second shirt, spare socks, wind shell or rain jacket, and gloves can all stay together.
Maps are good in their own small herd.
Depending on where you are and with what maps, you might have half a dozen of those. A ziplock bag might work, stuffed into a side pocket or some other place that you find handy.
Really small or high value items like sunglasses, sunscreen, bug repellent, lip balm, compass, or knife can stay in what some people call a ditty bag, or what the old mountain men called a possibles bag. What's in a possibles bag is what you might possibly need. Inside the top of your pack can be a good place to put this so it won't fall out or get knocked loose, or you might have a pocket that closes securely.
If that works for you.
Some packs have special arrangements for small water bottles, rigged so you can reach the bottle as you walk. Sometimes you can carry a water bottle up front, in a hitch on a shoulder strap, but mostly it will be in a side pocket. If you need more than one full water bottle at a time, try assigning them to the honorary wing man herd, one bottle on each side of your pack, or one on each shoulder strap, to maintain an even strain.
– Odd things without end. –
Most things you carry will be easy to figure out, but then again every trip will be different, and every day of each trip will be different. This kind of defeats the attempt of trying to approach divine unconsciousness, the drooling bliss of an empty mind, but generally when you deal with ordinary things like food, stove and fuel, clothing, water, and maps, you are able to handle it. Try it, it's not that hard. It gets to be nearly automatic.
Some things you carry are more difficult than the ordinary things though, things like chemical substances.
Things that have odors, for instance.
Exercise care in keeping and carrying odoriferous items. They belong off by themselves, shunned by everything else you carry.
So where would that be then, dear Author guy? Where would an ordinary mortal with one small pack put things "off by themselves"?
Think virtually. Think virtual distance. Think about having protection close to hand. This phrase definitely has more than one meaning, so we'll try to imagine an appropriate meaning at this point.
For you, Gentle Backpacker, in this context, protection means plastic bags. Sorry if that's a letdown, but in reality the plastic bag is precious and kind, and protective too. And you are a backpacker, remember, and so you should be used to scratchy, crinkly things that sometimes irritate the skin. It's not that bad once you get used to it, so back off a bit.
All plastic bags are good though some are gooder than others, which is where the crinkles come in.
Ziplock bags are convenient, can be sealed and re-sealed until you get tired of doing it, and come in all sizes. The freezer-storage ziplock bag is good, especially the brand name bags. They are of thicker plastic and block odors better than something like the sandwich-weight bags. Especially so for the brand name bags. That's part of the answer.
What sounds like a total lie is that polyethylene, the plastic that goes into these bags, is permeable. That means odors go through it. Sometimes like smoke through a strainer. Some odors go faster than others, of course.
Try it.
It's true, so very true.
Put a bag of double spice chai tea in a ziplock bag and try to smell it. Or use straight, uncut cinnamon or any other strong spice. Orange peel works. You will smell the spicy goodness. Now imagine that you are a large, hungry, powerful critter snuffling around in the bushes and your sense of smell is 500 times as good as any human's.
Just imagine.
So. There.
Another experiment, in case your sense of smell is on the dull side.
Fill a ziplock bag with potato chips. The politically-incorrect kind. Not anything dry roasted or baked to an airy, flavorless pouff of brittle, soulless crunchiness. Not New Age™. You want the old retro, heart-stopping kind, the knuckle-dragger's favorite, made from grease, salt, and just enough potato to hold the two together. Fill a ziplock bag with these chips, crushed fine, until the bag is nearly full.
Now set the bag aside for a day or two and check back. Pick it up and rub your hands all over it, then look at your hands. Look at the spot where the bag has been sitting. If you used a sandwich-weight bag the palms of your hands will be covered with grease. Right. You don't believe this at all, do you? Go try. Look at the grease spot that forms where you leave the bag. You won't have trouble finding it.
Seriously.
Guess who found this out the hard way? Yep. Guy who wrote this.
Now imagine that you are a fuzzy little twitchy snuffle monster out in the woods, crazy with hunger, and you smell yummy, greasy chips in a bag. Even better, imagine that you find the bag by bumping into it some midnight and you can check it out by simply licking.
It doesn't matter that you have no idea what this stuff is. In fact, that's even better, because your tiny brain likes new treats just as much as any other brain. New! Treats! Go for it! Bite it! Bite!
Bingo. It's Snack Time.
Now imagine that you weigh seven hundred pounds (ever so many kilograms), you have these nice long claws, and a bunch of teeth to bite things with, big and strong as iron spikes, and some scrawny backpacker starts waving his arms in the air and making unpleasant noises at you. So what are you going to do, big fella? Go home hungry? Really? No. Didn't think so.
Gentle Backpacker, you do have some options. For excessively odorous things, consider double bagging, using two freezer weight ziplock bags.
Or try getting some of those super extra expensive super extra thick bags made for backpackers. They are so thick that, even with a big gob of peanut butter inside, they are even ignored by hungry mice. That sounds good. If it really is true, and some say that it isn't, and doesn't work, not all that well.
Or, try those bags that are made for baking roasts and turkeys. Different plastic, much more odor resistant, and you can double or triple bag as needed. These don't have a ziplock closure, but a knot or some twist ties or stout rubber bands can seal them.
The idea here is to group odorous things (often in groups of one item), and keep those odors away from everything else. You don't want odors escaping, or grease covering the inside of your pack. If you have toothpaste, sunscreen, or bug repellent, or soap, in addition to your food, make sure to keep the odors blocked so they can't get to everything else in your pack, like your shelter, bedding, clothing, or the pack itself.
– Here come da dribble monster. –
Anything that spills is a problem.
Water is bad but fuel is much worse, even if it's tame old alcohol. Let's not go into the issues of white gas or kerosene. You can imagine.
Remember those odorous things? Think about having the inside of your pack covered with bug repellent or sunscreen. Dr Bronner's soap is a miracle substance (shampoo, hand soap, bathing soap, toothpaste, mouthwash, and dish soap all in one bottle) but it smells good enough to eat (because it's made with food grade ingredients, and is spicy-smelling) and will be a goopy mess if spilled. Gotta guard against that.
Whatever you have in liquid form needs special handling.
For fuel there are special containers. Know how to use them.
For smaller, mostly oily or sticky or odorous items, use a bottle, keep it upright as much as possible, and store it inside as many bags as you think you need. Remember too that air pressure varies as you change altitude. Close up a bottle of sunscreen, stick it into your pack and ascend 3000 feet (900 m). Guess what? Poom. That muffled sound like a gentle explosion? That's the bottle popping open. Goop goes all over.
Goop, goop, goop. All over.
Or if the bottle has a screw top, the goopy stuff spooges out along the threads in the cap. Spooge or poom, same effect. Goop everywhere. Plastic bags and care will save your butt, though some things are always messy no matter how careful you are. Remember to keep liquids under control. You will be so glad you did.
– Howdy. – They call us Slim, Lumpy, Hefty, and Deadly.
Slim If you have any kind of tent, large or small, single wall or double wall, you likely have poles or wands or whatever they call those things this month. Some packs have special pockets for these. Some don't. But you'll be sorry if you lose or break even one of these things, so pay special attention.
Practice. Work up to long, intensive trips by taking shorter ones first. Learn how to handle your odd items. If you switch to a tarp or a hammock you might not need to fuss at all, or you might need to fuss more.
The un-slim but lumpy things? Will remain lumpy.
Cameras, binoculars, and extra footwear are probably the main lumpy items. The easiest solution is to do without. If you hike in shoes these may also work, with loosened laces, around camp, just fine, in place of special camp shoes. Or you can make light sandals from spare insoles and thin shock cord, at about two ounces (60 g) a pair.
Cameras are always awkward, brittle, sensitive to water, and expensive, as are binoculars.
Small specimens from the lumpy group can hang from from a neck strap all day. You might not even notice the weight, but for the larger items you need a plan. There is an infinite variety of binoculars, monoculars, cameras, video cameras, audio recorders, cell phones, GPS receivers and whatnot. Go figure. You are the expert in what you own, but keep in mind that carrying some of these inside your pack defeats the point of taking them, and carrying them outside your pack means that they're in your face all the time, and in the weather. Think it through.
The heavy. Best inside the pack. Whatever it is. Let the pack and the pack's suspension system handle it.
The dangerous - Yikes!
Aside from a small knife and a bottle of fuel there shouldn't be much. A single-edged razor blade, carefully wrapped, serves a lot of people in place of a knife. A can of pepper spray, if you need that sort of thing, usually has an available holster, and you want it outside somewhere, within reach.
If you carry a gun you run a huge risk of shooting yourself. Or someone you love, or at least like. At an inopportune time. And guns are heavy. And illegal in a lot of places. Think three times about this one. Then repeat the thinking part. Is backpacking truly your sport?
– One more time. –
You should have this memorized by now, but we'll run through it just for fun.
Do this...
Big, bulky, light stuff in the bottom of the pack.
Heavier things higher.
Keep it balanced.
Make sure you can get at what you need without ripping it all out.
No odors, please.
Don't lose things.
Work out your own system so you can stay comfortable and safe.
And don't take too much.
And don't shoot unless you really mean it.
That's about it then. Have fun if at all possible.
Musquaw is an American Indian name for the common black bear. It is sometimes translated as Cranky Old Fuzzy Thing, but there is no way of knowing at this late date what the word musquaw originally meant.
It could just as well have been Lunch Stealer, Surprisingly Unpleasant Death Hiding In The Bushes, Giant Toothy Muncher, or something else. No research says whether anyone has ever gone over to a bear and asked what musquaw means, but considering how many crazy people are in circulation, maybe someone has.
The black bear, once extremely common throughout large parts of North America, is now extremely common throughout large parts of North America, due to several centuries of apparently inept hunting and trapping.
Or maybe bears are smarter than humans.
Originally sought for their fur, meat, and fat, bears eventually caught on, and now they themselves often seek out backpackers whom they rob of their Pop-Tarts, granola bars, and fashionable waterproof-breathable clothing. The resulting disguises enable bears to blend in and snag free lunch at company picnics, New Age woodsy weddings, drum circles, and annual gatherings of the various backpacker clans.
So if you go backpacking or camping you just might encounter a bear, and if the bear is hungry it might steal your food, but if it isn’t hungry it may steal your shorts instead.
Ways to avoid bear confrontations
First, before you go anywhere, make a phone call and inquire about bear activities.
This sounds logical, wouldn’t you think?
But hang on a moment. You should be aware that very few bears will bother answering a phone, no matter how long you let it ring. This has been proven through extensive use of government grants.
How about land lines? Nope. It’s true that some bears do still have land lines, but they won’t even admit it.
Cell phones, obviously? No, totally not, so forget it. Cell phones are way too small for bears to use, and where exactly do you get a charger out there? Also, no pockets. See the problem? Try calling anyway, if only to reassure your mother.
Hey, great idea — why not call your mother? She’ll tell you what to do. Couldn’t hurt. Obviously, if your mother is anything like normal she will tell you to stay home, which might not be that bad a choice for someone who thinks that they can call bears on the telephone.
At home you can watch TV and drink beer. And find pizza and burgers on every street corner. So maybe backpacking is not such a great thing for you anyway.
Think about it.
So let’s continue with what to do if you encounter a bear.
If you encounter a bear, don’t panic.
Panic upsets bears. If you look down and see a bear chewing on your foot or on your hand or whatever, just go to your quiet place and wait. Try humming a happy tune. See if the bear wanders off after a while. This might work. Humming is sometimes underrated as a critter repellent.
Avoid going into shock if possible. A cup of herb tea may help, and is good for your digestion too.
Blood loss is bad though, so be careful. Try not to lose blood. Watch carefully where it pools on the ground. You might need it again later so keep track of it.
Also, forget about your hand. Obviously the bear needs it more than you do. So quit whining and grow another one.
Finally, never carry food in your pants. This sort of thing annoys bears no end.
Why? Because bears can smell food no matter where you hide it. And they don’t like dumb people playing tricks. And bears don’t have hands. (Except sometimes — see previous section about gnawing behavior.)
Sure, claws. We know that. Bears have claws. But claws get hung up if a bear tries to pick your pocket, and then you turn around to see what’s going on, and there’s a bear. How does that sound good?
Being caught causes a bear to lose face, and you don’t want that — very, very bad.
Remember those claws? Even the mellowest bear may become distracted and thoughtless and overexcited due to your frantic screaming and use those claws to remove your face instead, instead of whatever it was in your pocket that first seemed interesting.
If the bear can even remember back that far. Which it probably can’t. Because it’s a bear. So watch what you do then.
Looks like…ummm
The black bear or musquaw is seldom more than six feet (2 m) in length, and its fur may appear smooth and glossy. This is true if you view one from a distance.
Up close, no, not so much. The length doesn’t change, of course, but you have to recalibrate your thinking about the smooth and glossy part.
Bears — not real good with the personal grooming, maybe.
Bear fur is greasy and bears make questionable lifestyle decisions. A hoity-toity place for a bear to sleep, for example, is under a log. You pick up all kinds of cruft that way, even if you are not covered in greasy fur.
So naturally you find all kinds of bugs and boogers and dead nits in bear fur all the time.
OK. Back to length.
While it is true that size matters, six feet isn’t much among bears. It is also true that length alone is not the whole story. Slim is not scary, and nothing ever called slim was scary. In any way. This goes for people, animals, even body parts. We are just not impressed by this idea.
Girth! That makes a difference. Heft! Meatiness!
So remember that even a short bear is fatter than you are, and the part that isn’t fat? Pure muscle.
The rest is mostly appetite, and anything left over is irritable. Avoid laughing at bears. They pick up on this immediately.
Remember too, no bear has ever been to school. They are therefore ignorant of etiquette and short on manners. Bears mostly grunt, fart, chew, rummage, shit, and sleep. A bear might do all these with its fore-quarters stuck in your tent, and this is not a bunch of fun. For you. Especially if you are in there too.
For the bear, it is fun. Lots of fun. It’s like Christmas morning for a bear.
If you don’t happen to have a tent, no problem. Bears love finding backpacks out in the open too. At least as much as you do. And they get endless pleasure slobbering and chewing on backpacks and everything they can dig out of them.
Bears, besides being messy eaters, are not house-broken or potty-trained, and do not know how to use plumbing facilities or shampoo. So we have yet one more name for the black bear — Old Stinky Butt.
Watch yourself
Keep all this in mind so you know what not to say in the presence of a bear.
Bears are sensitive about what others say about them and any given bear, almost at random, may decide to eat you out of spite. As though it needed a reason.
It is best for you to keep pretending that the bear you see is as smooth and fluffy as it appears in all those retouched photos in magazines. You know, as though the bear has just come blow-dried from a fancy salon where it was massaged, shampooed, rinsed, and conditioned with a selection of woodland-scented sprays and lotions.
If you do confront a bear about its hygiene while in the outdoors, please do remain calm while it eats you, which is very, very likely. Remaining calm will help to make things less stressful for the next backpacker who comes along, and may soothe the bear as well as allowing it to more efficiently absorb needed calories and vitamins related to the eating-you part.
While the normal food of the black bear is not backpackers but comes mostly from plant sources, a bear will gladly eat anything at all that cannot get away, including you, as noted.
Anything kept in a pen, for example, is also fair game.
Farmers know this as bears are especially fond of young pigs (regarded as delicacies for some kinky reason). If mad with pig lust, black bears have been known to carry off entire live full-grown hogs in a deadly embrace, presumably to munch down in more pleasant surroundings than the typical pig sty.
But you never really know what actually happens when the two of them get to a secluded place. And you probably don’t want to know, so keep your distance, and never oink in bear country.
Remember this as you lie awake in your tent at night. Do not oink, not even once, not even gently, even though it is the only thing that makes you feel cozy and safe and helps you to fall asleep. Furry ears may be alert, and you could live to regret it, if only for a few more seconds.
Other foods
Generally though, the black bear prefers acorns, berries, fruits of all kinds, grasses, shoots, and buds, with honey prized above all else. A bear will gladly climb a tree to reach honey, ignoring any and all bee stings. If the bee nest proves too deep to reach, the bear may even gnaw through wood to get at the sweet stuff, though hikers carrying honey-nut granola bars are much easier to run down and to gnaw through.
Why do black bears eat?
Because they like to.
To keep their fur bushy.
To maintain a decent fighting weight.
So they can sleep all winter.
The rest of the story
Despite occasional bouts of murderous frenzy, black bears are mostly quiet and retiring little fellows, skipping gaily through forest and glen, dancing happily amid clouds of butterflies in blossom-filled dewy meadows, and only rarely biting through tree trunks.
The black bear generally remains aloof from mankind, scrupulously avoiding human habitations, peevishly minding its own business.
If you wonder what that bear-business might be, well it is mainly conducted during the winter, the off-season, when tourists are home watching bowling on TV, when backpackers have all been thoroughly scrubbed and shaved, and are once again working happily for minimum wage, stocking shelves in big-box stores, and when activity in the woods has slowed to an icy calm, all quiet and buried deep in the purest fluffy snow.
This is when the bear comes into its own. First it mates. Then it sleeps.
Hidden away safely in a cave or hollow tree the black bear gestates, finally giving birth to a litter of two to four cubs. While not busy tending to these, the bear catches up on its reading, its correspondence with family members, its taxes, or its knitting.
By spring the bear has written every one of its relatives and friends about everything that happened the year before, and each of its little ones is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to be shot and stewed with onions and served on a bed of greens come hunting season.
This is true of female bears. The sows.
Female bears are called sows only by male bears. (Could you guess?) The big male guys den in groups, smoke cigars, and gamble all winter. Or worse — watch football on TV and lie to each other about the sows they’ve hung out with.
But poker is really their big thing. Even bigger than running off with pigs.
Anything belligerent and manly, or bearly, you might say. Bears generally play poker in groups of four or more. This means they have to seek out much larger dens than female bears.
But because they are stuck all winter looking at the same ugly mugs, the same sets of furry nostrils and beady eyes, cabin fever is a problem and they often get annoyed with each other, so they fight, but that’s the way it goes.
Come spring, these are the bears that cut loose, break into cars, drive into town, and get into all kinds of trouble with the law.
Many of them though, surprisingly, eventually become police officers. Some turn to bar tending, and a few, generally later in life when they’ve matured and calmed down a bit, get jobs as park rangers. Go figure.
