Why Am I Here?
Backpack types by purpose.
– Hello. Are you a dork too? –
Packs are what you make of them. Or packs do what you want. Or packs deal with what you put in them.
With us, we are what we eat. Packs can't eat on their own so they need us to shove stuff into them and then go banging off across the landscape somewhere, driven by our internal demons. The packs go along because they like being told what to do and where and when and how, and anytime a pack has a full belly it's really pretty happy and doesn't complain. Most packs are good that way. Packs are nice. Packs are not whiners. Your pack will stand by you even if you are a dick.
That's the main difference between humans and packs. Humans are spooky. We have those demons, and they are always inside of us, milling around. If you don't believe that then pay attention the next time you wake up in the middle of the night, flailing your arms and legs around and screaming. OK, you may not be screaming out loud but there is such a thing as a quiet scream. If your eyes pop open and you are covered with sweat, your breath is coming in short sharp gasps and you are at least a little unsure where you are and what's going to happen next, then consider yourself to be screaming.
And you have a good reason to be screaming. Because there is something inside you that is trying to get out. Like a hand inside a glove it fills your arms and legs and trunk, and then wiggles up to consume all the space in your head as well. Until you are so stuffed full that you might explode at any second, and if you were only stitched together you probably would, but no. You are made of whole, smooth meat and have no seams.
Meat is tough. Meat is elastic. Meat will stretch and then snap back again. Meat does not pop its seams because it doesn't have any, but it can explode if stretched too far. This might happen to you. You there in bed. First you have a fine shower and brush your teeth. Then you crawl into your nice clean jammies and slide between those fresh crisp cool white sheets, ready for a night of calm blissful unconsciousness, and the unconsciousness does come to you, and beckons. And you drift away on it.
But during the night, when your eyes are closed and your brain is switched off, other things awaken and begin to creep around, looking for a way home. Because these things don't belong here with you. You are only a temporary host. Or, more precisely, your body is. And at night when all is very, very dark and very, very still, and no one can see you and you are unconscious, these things try to find a way out. Your body is the holding cell that they want to break out of, and they keep trying.
A lot can happen before you finally awaken. You can even be hurt. Or if someone else is there with you, someone you love, even, you might hurt them. Or your body might, because it's not you but that demon in there, groping sightlessly for the exit, trying to find an unlocked door, desperate to claw its way over the wall and go raging off into the night. That is what makes your arms and legs jerk and whip and bang around.
But you don't come apart, because you are seamless. You stretch and swell and writhe in the dark, and the exertion makes you sweat and pant. It gets worse and worse but the demon never manages to break free, and lucky for you, because it is actually a lot bigger than you are and would have to obliterate you in order to achieve its own freedom.
So it struggles and fights with you, within you. The contest may go on for a few minutes, or it may continue for hours. You may disturb the whole family, and the neighbors too, with your unholy shrieking. There is no limit to what might happen. It is blindfolded prize fighting. One-legged kick boxing. Hands-tied-behind-the-back crocodile wrestling. Suffocating underwater in a box of snakes.
And then. Suddenly. Your eyes open.
You are staring into the dark. But not just staring. Your eyes are zipping around in your head. You see nothing but fear everywhere. And you can't even see that because of the dark. You are not you. Life is alien. You are alien. The place is strange. Nothing makes sense. You have no bearings. You don't know where you are or why you might be there. Your compass has been ripped off the deck and thrown overboard and now you know that something evil and wet from the deep cold black unfathomable sea is there with you. Inside you. You have become a strange heaving beast in your own bed.
And then.
Your mind begins to come back to you. A bit. It begins to come awake. Slowly. A bit of it. Dimly, tentatively, by degrees.
And the beast thing, whatever it is, is still there, inside you, and still impossibly larger and more powerful than you but it pauses. It becomes not quite so sure of itself. And as your own mind comes more awake the thing begins to shrink back toward the inner darkness. A millimeter. Another. And another. And then more. Like a tide that turns, and no one knows why it does or exactly when, it turns, and shrinks then, and slowly, unwillingly shrinks more, and again more, ever farther from the light of your own mind's consciousness. And deeper down inside you it goes until you begin finally to feel in control again, and to wonder what happened.
A nightmare, you think, as you begin to calm down, a nightmare. You have to think that way because you couldn't live with the other version, the real story, the truth. You have to be in charge to be alive. The only alternative is to be found some morning, a soft bag of limp overstretched skin with nothing left inside. And you don't want that. And you don't want to find someone like that either.
So you recover, and eventually, eventually, after a long time, fall asleep again, and pleasantly dream your way on through to the morning.
Packs aren't like that.
Packs have no demons or secret lives and do not dream. Packs are bags to wrap things in. Packs are bags that like to be stuffed to full and beyond and strapped on a person's back to go out tramping for hours or days or weeks. And they go happily, with no cares at all. A full pack is a fulfilled pack, and that is the thing that is nicest about a pack.
Cram it full, swing it aboard, and tramp off into the sparkling morning dew. There is nothing better for the soul than to feel a happy pack on your back and to go whistling through the sunshine, and no better way to use a pack than for what it was intended, creaking full of your things, its seams squeaking with the strain.
And there is a kind of pack for every purpose.
– Will that be standard, classic backpacking, sir? –
When people think of backpacks they think of something like the Kelty Tioga or one of its newer but less iconic internally-framed counterparts. Try this on for size: Kelty Tioga External Frame Backpack, 5000 cubic inches, weight: 5lb 13oz. That's for size small. Material: 210D nylon double ripstop, 500D nylon Kodra, 420D nylon oxford.
Pretty much indestructible. Pretty much unchanged for half a century.
This pack is a big fabric box hung on a frame of aluminum tubing. It has three zippered side pockets and another big one on the front. Industrial strength shoulder straps and a croaking huge hip belt assure you that they will ease the pain. The pack is big enough to carry everything needed by a family of four for a full week in the back country. It is bulletproof. It is heavy enough all by itself to keep your feet firmly on the ground, possibly even a bit below the surface.
You can still today see lots of people on the trails with something like this pack. Sometimes the pack is larger than the body beneath it. And you often see a towel hanging from a corner of the pack's frame. The towel is for wiping away sweat, which is what you tend get a lot of while carrying one of these packs. This kind of pack is to backpacking what a 1952 Buick is to driving. Chrome, and lots of it. Bumpers gnarly enough to knock buildings off their foundations, requiring a cast iron V8 roaring at full throttle just to get out of the garage, second only in size to a steamship.
No pack with an internal frame is as recognizable as this baby is. With its outside skeleton of aircraft-grade aluminum rocking along you are like an armored battle bot ready to demolish anything dumb enough to pick a fight. Simple hiking trails have no chance. None.
That is, if you are strong enough to pick up one of these, and wear it stuffed full of things. But if you are that tough then maybe you don't even need a pack. Maybe you are big and strong enough to grab anything you fancy and make it yours. Take meat from bears. Crush trees for toothpicks. Crunch rocks for amusement. No problem.
– Wet me, pants-wise. –
For decades this sort of giant, indestructible pack has been the signature of backpacking. It is a thing so big and impressive that mortals wet their pants trying to imagine staggering around underneath one for a week. Now that's classic.
More modern, more trendy internal frame packs can be even bigger, heavier, and more expensive. (Hey the Tioga when last seen in stores was less than $200.) And lots of those internal frame packs are bigger, heavier, and more expensive while looking smaller and less intimidating. But internal frame packs are harder to identify. No tail fins, for one thing. In fact they all pretty much look alike. Take a gander in the general direction of one and you see fabric.
Uh.
Sort of a long humpy shape with shoulder straps and a hip belt. In various colors. Like every other brand.
Eh.
No character. No rivets, no welds, no clevis pins. Not like the Tioga at all.
But the purpose is the same for both kinds of pack.
That is, to be a house with shoulder straps. To support an Expedition, with a capital E. (Heck, why not all caps and some gratuitous exclamation points: EXPEDITION!!!!) The pack has to be big enough to hold a cotton tent that will sleep at least two (preferably four), a kapok-filled sleeping bag, and one or more cases of canned pork and beans. Plus a coffee pot, frying pan, dutch oven, four pound white gas stove and a quart or two of fuel. Not to mention clothes for every occasion.
Hiking clothes, sleeping clothes, hot weather clothes, cool weather clothes, windy weather clothes, wool clothes, cotton clothes. Oilcloth rain slicker. Gloves, mittens, hats, bandannas, spare socks, wool underwear. Maybe an extra pair of oiled leather hobnail boots.
Backpacking with one of these packs is the equivalent of climbing Mt. Everest in siege mode.
– Mode du siège. –
Siege mode climbing sounds like what it is.
To do it you assemble massive piles of equipment and supplies and expendable servants at the foot of a mountain and slowly haul everything up the mountain, piece by aching piece, supplying each higher camp from the lower ones, and continuing that process until you finally reach the top or run out of bodies.
This is like driving from Los Angeles to New York with a supply caravan. First you need at least one fuel tanker and one semi full of provisions. Take those as far as they will go, refueling from the tanker along the way. When the fuel in the tanker runs out you abandon it. Same with the provision truck. But by then you are close to New York, so you roll the pickup truck out of the semi, top it up from the dregs left in the tanker, throw in a few sandwiches and a change of clothes, and head for the finish line, leaving a trail of abandoned vehicles and packing crates all across the country.
Brute force and an unlimited budget make siege mode possible. It is expensive and time consuming. And complex. It hurts. But if anything goes wrong you can plunk yourself down and wait a few weeks while you think things over. Because you have lots of stuff. You can afford to be slow. Come to think of it that's the only option. The transmission of this expedition has only one gear — Low.
This is what all of backpacking used to be. Wretched excess and little motion.
Before someone actually invented backpacking, people were more sensible. They didn't realize that they were supposed to be in pain, or that a sport should cost. Before it was called backpacking, people took a small bag and shoved food and maybe a few matches and a knife into it, and just went.
Backpacking as a sport, now that was invented at a time when people did what they were told. Thought what they were told to think. Experts were popular. Filmstrips in schools explained everything in 15-minutes lessons. People were handed shiny new gadgets like the Kelty frame pack, got some instructions on how to use the gadgets from the partly trained flight crew, and went at it. They remained stuck for life, always trying to make it work, and never succeeding, but never questioning either.
Because backpacking got started this way, and is still advertised this way, the public has always accepted it without thought. Backpacking was simply something that hurt. Period. People swallowed that. Our collective memory has only this one image in it. That image has stayed, propped up by the backpacking industry which is always glad to provide big expensive things to strap to your back, and many smaller equally expensive things to put inside the big expensive one. And promises of cures, all of which come at extra expense, each in its own box, which in turn adds more weight.
So now this is the standard model. Say backpacking and the average citizen thinks of a pair of spindly legs staggering around under an enormous weight.
So this is us.
– Backpacking among the light beams. –
Light backpacks were originally not for backpacking but for day hikes. Somewhere along the line evolution and intelligent design cut a deal to create a new kind of backpacking experience. Someone started using smaller packs for more than short hikes. They tried short overnight trips, then longer ones. It worked. They didn't die, or get smitten by a big hand coming down from the sky. This type of experience caught on. A new kind of backpacking was born, a sort of small, quiet revolution toward the end of the 20th century, though light packs had been unremarkable and common in the 19th century and earlier.
This shows how smart we are.
The reinvention of light packing started with climbers and then filtered down to us mundane ground pounders. A lot of things are like that. First the elite with their extreme demands, then the rest of us. In motor sports the best and the fastest and the lightest and most exotic racers show up at world events, then at regional events, and then one day the local Chevy dealership has the technology for sale in sedans. They still make Chevies, right?
The same happens with muscle-powered sports. First world-class athletes do something crazy and extreme, then college athletes pick it up, then highschoolers, then wobbling Joe down the street with his jiggling gut joins in. Everyone wants to be cool and have the best.
The purpose of a light pack is to be lighter, smaller, and let you be more nimble at backpacking. This started with the alpine style of mountain climbing, which is the opposite of siege mode.
When you do alpine climbing you try to be self-sufficient. You want to go lighter and faster, go cheaper, and in more comfort. You carry all that you need and no more. You educate yourself and train your body, hone your skills so you can use your wits and cooperate with the landscape to accomplish goals rather than trying to beat the world into submission.
Rather than spending years planning an expedition, then months carrying it out (after finding an infinitely rich corporate sponsor) you stay light and move fast. You spend a few days on a quick assault. Or maybe just one day. Alpine climbing is like a guerrilla action, and unlike trench warfare. 1
Lightweight backpacking too.
Lightweight backpacking takes a little more thought and training than so-called classical backpacking, but not much more. Light backpacking can be safer, because you carry less and use it more intelligently. Packs are easier to come by, and have fewer demands put on them. Packs can be smaller, lighter, and simpler so more packs can fit the bill. If you don't plan to carry a 20 pound (9 kg) tent then you don't need a pack the size and weight of Aunt Tillie's steamer trunk. When carrying a small tent or a tarp you can use a lighter, smaller pack that costs less. Since there are more small and light packs around, you have a bigger choice, and more chance of finding one that suits you.
A light pack may be half the size of a classic pack, and half the weight. Or less. A small, light pack costs less. It's also easier for you to make yourself, or to modify if needed, if that's your style.
A light backpacking trip may last only one night, or two or three nights. But when you are experienced enough you can easily use a light pack for trips of a week or two, or more.
Where classic packs may put you in the 50 to 70 pound (23 to 32 kg) range for a week of hiking, the light pack may keep you down to the 20 to 30 pound (9 to 14 kg) range. A pack will always have shoulder straps, but a light one might not have a hip belt. Some have waist belts that only stabilize the pack but don't support the load. Likewise, light packs might also do without a frame of any kind. If one does have a frame it will be internal.
– Beams of ultralight. –
Lightweight backpacking isn't a specialty. Ultralight backpacking is. Likewise for super ultralight backpacking.
Lightweight backpacking is really a matter of using common sense and is the trend of the future, even though most backpackers haven't caught on yet. There really isn't much sense in carrying a pack that weighs four or five pounds (2 or 3 kg) more than it needs to, or in filling it with extra-heavy equipment or stuff you simply don't need.
Ultralight backpacking is generally defined as traveling with a base pack weight of less than 10 pounds (4.5 kg). Super ultralight backpacking drops that base pack weight to less than five pounds (2.3 kg). Reminder: Base pack weight is the weight of the pack and everything you bring back home again (it excludes food, water, fuel, or anything else used up during the trip). And some people even go lighter.
So what is really different about the ultralight end of things?
Not much in an ultimate sense.
The lighter you go the easier it is to walk and therefore the less likely you are to get hurt, get blisters, end up with aches and pains, or to sweat. You have to pay a lot more attention to climate and weather, know the ground you're traveling over, be aware of how and where to camp, and have a clue about what lives out there and how it might relate to your appearance inside its home. You can't afford to carry all your food in cans, or to lose a bunch of it here and there out of sloppiness.
Every gram counts.
When you get into this very light end of the sport you're looking at the lightest packs available. Take two recent models for instance. One from Gossamer Gear, the Gossamer Gear Murmur at 7.5 ounces (213 g) and a volume of 1325 cubic inches (22 L). Or the Mountain Laurel Designs Prophet, at 5.9 ounces (160 g) and a volume of 2750 cubic inches (45 L). Both packs have a recommended weight capacity of 20 pounds (9 kg), but you'd probably start hurting if you carried that much weight for long. Models morph quickly, so when you read this the exact details will surely have changed, but you get the idea.
An ultralight backpack is made of extremely light and advanced materials, and is much smaller than a traditional pack. It is narrow, may exclude even the hint of a hip belt, and has few adjustments. The idea is that you will be carrying little weight and so will not need much padding or adjustability. Also, the materials that go into the bags of these packs are sometimes unrepairable by ordinary souls. This isn't unusual. Specialized fabrics often require special equipment to assemble, and training in how to do it. If you want to go as light as possible you will have a pack that is made from spinnaker fabric or something even more exotic, like Cuben (now known as "Dyneema Composite Fabric"). And you may not be able to make perfect on-trail repairs. Then again you'll be more careful, so maybe it doesn't matter all that much.
– The purpose behind the purpose. –
The purpose of a classic backpack is to hold as much stuff as possible and allow you to carry as much weight as possible. If you carry a big heavy pack you are trying to take along as much of home as you can. This is either because you don't know any better or because you don't care. If you don't care about the bulk and weight it's because you like the familiarity of having things as much like they are at home as possible, including pain and frustration. You are likely to suffer physically but even more likely to feel that you are doing the right thing, because this is how things are supposed to be. This is what the ads all show you.
The purpose of a lightweight backpack is to provide a comfortable, convenient container for carrying necessities during a backpacking trip. If you tune yourself in to using a light pack you will have an experience that is more in line with who you are. The pack is more likely to fit your body, and the things you carry will be what you know works for you. This is a place that takes some time and thought to get to, but is worthwhile for most people. Carrying a lightweight pack lets you focus more on hiking and being part of the landscape because it gets in the way a lot less. You have what you need and only that.
The purpose of ultralight and super ultralight backpacks is to provide the option of seeing how far you can push things. It helps if you are young, strong, and healthy. If you are, then you can use any pack option whatsoever, but you might want to get an ultralight tingle from going out onto the edge. The more extreme you get the more you need to rely on your intelligence and experience, and less on your stuff. This isn't a bad thing, but you must be prepared.
Ultralighting is an experience that is more focused because it relies on the right conditions (weather, the lay of the land, distance, physical conditioning) a lot more than moseying around with a giant bag full of food does.
When done well it's incomparable, and keeps demons at bay.
– Footsie Notes –
1: Alpine style: http://bit.ly/1zpEJ4U