Use It Or Lose Stuff.
Intro to using a backpack.
– Don't be intimidated. You've probably looked dumber. –
If you've never used a backpack before it can be a little intimidating. Have you ever read a sentence like that before now?
Were you intimidated by that sentence?
Were you starting out in a new hobby or trying to pick up a new skill for use on the job, or maybe intending to assemble a swing set for the kids to use in the back yard?
Did you breeze along merrily, expecting everything to fall into place just exactly when and where you needed it all to fall into place? And then did you run into a sentence like that and look down and find that you were up to your navel in doubts, and they were rising quickly? And nibbling at you in an unappealing, and possibly intimidating, way?
Or worse.
Rising quickly and snapping at you with tiny, irrational, and surprisingly sharp teeth? And did you find yourself wondering how often those teeth got brushed?
If you've never used a backpack before it can be a little like that.
If you've never used a backpack before you should be pooping in your pants with fear. You should be dizzy and disoriented. You should be breaking out in warts and generating miniature whirlwinds and tiny lightning storms all around you. Your nose should run and your feet should smell, and if someone tipped you upside down your nose would smell and your feet would run, but in the opposite direction.
It takes decades of expert instruction and years of excruciatingly painful rote memorization to just learn how to put on a backpack and wear it around the house. And then, only after you pass your certification exams, do you get a learner's permit and only then, after all that, are you allowed to even try actually putting on a backpack.
Indoors. With the shades drawn. Under armed guard.
You are, Gentle Reader, probably not going to make it. We have to be honest with you. You probably aren't good enough for backpacking.
You have to look at the odds and come to terms with your actual capabilities. You need a truthful assessment of yourself, including accurate measurements of your height, weight and nose hair color, and a precisely-drawn outline of your entire body traced on just the right kind of paper with the specified kind of pencil and submitted in triplicate to the High Council, and all that is only to be allowed to submit an application.
This is serious business and you should be prepared to find out that you are a loser. It's about time you did, and the chances are pretty good that you are one. Big time. A loser. You.
"You really suck" should be a phrase that you are familiar with hearing by now, because you probably do, and if you have not heard that pronouncement by now it is because no one has cared enough about whether you live or die or suck or not to want to bother telling you.
Backpacking is so terribly difficult that even looking at a backpack the wrong way can leave you blind in one or both eyes, or crippled, or demented, or all of the above. Innocently slip one arm in under a pack's shoulder strap the wrong way and consider yourself among the luckiest people in the world if you lose only the arm. If you lose the arm AND your whole shoulder you'll only be average. And it gets far worse than that. So much worse that the author is not allowed to even discuss it with you.
But enough of the details. Let's have some fun.
– Fun. Have it or fake it. –
On the trail your backpack soon becomes your best friend, one who goes with you everywhere. You may sleep in a tent but that will be only your bedroom. Your pack will be your real house. Your pack will be a comfort because it will always be there for you and you will know that it holds everything that you need to survive. You may come to think of your pack as a large teddy bear - comfortable and comforting. Safe. Secure. You may even want to suck on it from time to time. Go ahead. We'll look the other way for a few moments.
When you stop walking to take a break your pack will be a backrest. It's a cupboard you can pull snacks from. It's a water tap. It's a closet full of clothes. Set it beside you as a windbreak, as a sunshade, or conversely as a solar reflector if the day is chilly. Put your feet on your pack to rest, or stuff it under your legs at night as insulation.
Your pack is a place to hang your shirt after you rinse it. Use your pack as a desk while you sit and peruse a map. It works as a giant beanbag to stabilize a camera. Its a landmark if you leave camp and want to find your way back.
But mostly your pack is a container.
When you're on the trail your pack holds your whole life and everything related to it. Your pack holds and guards your food and water supplies, all your spare clothing, your first-aid kit, medicine and tools. Your toothbrush, your bedding, your kitchen, your maps. Your nose hair clipper, if you remembered to bring one.
If you bring a camera or a small book, your pack will keep them safe for you to pull out whenever and wherever you need them. In case of rain or wind, or a sudden chill, your pack has all the things you need to get by, just where you stuffed them. And when you stop at the end of the day your pack releases for you and you alone the gift of a snug and cozy shelter to help you through the dark hours.
And a warm bed. It carries your warm bed too, quietly, without complaining. Don't forget that part.
The way you treat your pack is important. You need to keep it clean and in good repair. You need to check all its buckles and straps, all its zippers, tensioners and ties, its flaps, pockets, and hidey holes.
A clean pack in good repair is a happy pack. A happy pack is a dependable pack. A dependable pack will keep you alive and healthy. And maybe let you suck on it, from time to time, if you have to, though this is nothing to brag about.
A dependable and happy pack is one that is properly stuffed and loaded. Different packs used in different ways on different terrain for trips of different lengths need to be loaded differently, but generally you'll want the heavier items closer to your back. You'll want padding between your back and any hard and lumpy things in your pack.
Put lighter items on top and around the sides. Or on the bottom and around the sides, depending. Depending on how you need to balance that day. You'll need to properly balance your pack and place things you often need where you can get at them easily.
The lightest packs often lack hip belts, but a hip belt can be a valuable accessory on even the lightest pack. You'll need to learn when and how to use one, and how to adjust it. How to adjust shoulder straps, which are also essential for safe and easy use of a pack. How to deal with compression straps, tie-downs, the various clips and fasteners and squeezers.
– Like a marriage, but possibly with more squeezing. –
Loading and carrying a pack is an art that you will need to master to make your backpacking trips safe and pleasurable.
On the trail your backpack soon becomes your best friend, one who goes with you everywhere. Sometimes your pack even comes to feel like a spouse. The two of you grow close. You are with each other every second of every day. Eventually, as do all couples who have grown close, the two of you begin to resemble one another, just vaguely at first, but more distinctly as time goes by.
In time your body becomes more oblong, and smoother, with a more durable finish, possibly of ripstop. Your legs seem to become less important as your neck shortens and your head resorbs into your torso.
Meanwhile your pack seems to be getting taller, with more distinct protuberances, and gets around better on its own. You become more comfortable having long intimate conversations with your pack, and it with you. You want to snuggle in a soft and comfy nook to watch the sun set with your pack near you. You begin considering whether to try a joint checking account, and then one day you think about revising your will.
On some days you almost feel as though your pack can read your mind. It begins finishing your sentences for you. Each morning your clothes are laid out just so. Life gains new meaning. You no longer feel so alone. You seem to be complete for the first time ever. "This could be it" you think to yourself, "this could be what I've been waiting for so long, so very, very long."
The days roll on. The miles add up. Day after day, week after week. You become closer and closer. Then one day you notice that one of you seems to be fraying. Then you notice the stains, the smell of old dried sweat.
"How can this be?" you ask yourself. "How can this be?" But you know how. Every relationship, every single one, unravels over time. A little patching may fix it, for a while. But then again maybe not. Some relationships seem to go on forever but many others end sadly, in tatters, no matter what remedy is tried.
You start to judge your pack more critically. You look at it askance, out of the corner of your eye, surreptitiously. You begin to think about your relationship. You mull. You hold your tongue of course but some thoughts do run through your head. "Is this really the pack for me? After all this time have I finally outgrown this relationship? Do I need to move on? How about something new?"
Of course you never doubt yourself, only your pack. That's always the way it is, isn't it? As time goes by you begin to think more and more seriously about making a change. Your pack seems to look more worn every time you see it. You wonder just how you are going to make change happen gracefully.
– Wearing out along with your pack. –
Then one day you take a good look at yourself in a mirror. You finally realize where life has brought you. You are no longer so bright, so perky, so squeaky clean. You no longer have that fresh-off-the-shelf look either. Your mileage is showing. You have frayed. You too.
You too.
Have frayed.
You wonder whether you could keep up with a new pack. After all, technology changes, and you are not so young any more. The mirror, it tells on you.
Could you still do the miles? You would have to start over, learning the rules of a whole new game. Could you do that?
The straps would all be in different places, the colors would be strange, the loading drill would have to be performed differently. And you would have to learn it, you old dog.
Maybe you'd have to change your style of shelter as well, get a new sleeping bag, learn how to care for and waterproof new kinds of fabric. And learn anew how to keep everything organized. Would everything fit in your closet back home?
You think about these things as you walk, your pack on your back. You could make a change, make a clean break, dive, resurface, and meet the new you. Or you could keep on keeping on, making it work, remaining faithful, staying in it for the long haul.
You mull over these ideas as you walk, but you may have forgotten one thing. You may have forgotten that your pack may be thinking some thoughts about you. Your pack may be trying to make a decision or two on its own. Your pack may be wondering if you'll be able to handle everything that comes along.
You know how it goes even if you don't want to admit it. It's the family members, the close friends, the loved ones who do it. The ones with close emotional ties, not the strangers.
Maybe after all these years your pack has had enough.
Enough breakfasts on stony ground. Enough mornings spent walking silently in the rain. Being ignored. Being under-appreciated too often. Hell - under-appreciated all the time. Over and over, endlessly. That pack has spent too many noon hours watching you gulp food and get up to push on. It has spent enough nights as your pillow, as extra insulation, as only an accessory.
Never a kind word either. Not from you. Not for years.
Not one kind word for years.
There may come a day then when your pack has just had it, up to here. And beyond.
A day when your pack decides that it has nothing left to lose, that its best days are long past and it's your fault, completely your fault, and it will never be young or admired again.
And on a day like this it may reach around your neck from behind and strangle you without warning.
But maybe not.