Story Break: The Lazy Backpacker And The Mice

Story Break

The Lazy Backpacker And The Mice.

A story from once upon a time.

By The Old Storyteller

Once upon a time there was a very lazy backpacker. This may seem hard to believe but some things are true, and this is a very true story, so it was true. There was a very lazy backpacker, once upon a time.

This lazy backpacker was also stupid.

How could you tell?

Well, because of things.

He was obviously stupid because he carried a huge backpack full of food. This does not sound so bad but listen and you will hear why. The lazy backpacker did not want to work very hard at backpacking, so he should have carried a small, light pack. But he was not so bright, so he carried a huge big backpack, and it was full of food, which made it ever so heavy.

He was clever though, in a part of his mind that was not good for anything else. The story goes like this:

The clever part of him thought “Hah! I know! I will bring all kinds of good things to eat, and then I can lounge away the days snacking on treats while I think about the end of the trail, and while I am doing this I won’t even have to be carrying the pack, so the weight does not matter. And then, when I am almost out of food I will find a ride to the end of the trail and pretend I passed all of my friends at night, when they were wasting time by sleeping, and I will shame them too. This sounds like a fine plan to me!”

And so it was. A fine plan. A stupid plan. A fine and stupid plan.

The stupid part of the backpacker thought he could get away with this, and so did the lazy part of him, because the lazy part of him was also stupid, but once his pack was all full of food and good things to eat, he could barely lift it, and his friends only laughed at him. His friends began hiking, and so did the lazy backpacker, but slowly, very slowly, and he did not go far. He could not keep up with his friends, and hardly tried to, so before long he fell far behind.

This was fine with the lazy backpacker. Because it was all part of his plan.

Almost as soon as his friends were out of sight he found a soft place to rest and put down his pack and had a nap. This was exactly what he wanted. A nice nap in the sun. So he took that nap, right there and then.

When the sun had almost gone down into the earth for the night the lazy backpacker woke up just in time to have supper and set up his tent, and then he went to bed to sleep some more and dream of food and of how clever he was.

You may be thinking “Aha! Now something interesting will happen while this lazy fool is sleeping and we will find out what this story is about.”

No, you are wrong.

Nothing at all happened.

Aside from lots of snoring, which is boring.

All night, except for the snoring, everything was quiet, and when the proper time arrived the sun once again came forth from the earth and made the world bright and warm. This woke up the lazy backpacker, who ate a large breakfast, pulled his pack onto his back, and staggered off, tromping down the trail, but slowly, tipping from side to side. He was very happy, though his heavy pack hurt him, because he was also very stupid, but this is often how things are.

The lazy backpacker walked all day, slowly, and slept all night, vigorously, and continued like this day after day, walking and walking except for his frequent naps, and his frequent stops for snacks, and for his rich meals of fine foods, all of which he carried in his pack.

This sounds impressive but it was not, unless you like the sounds of belching and farting, and snoring in the night, which some backpackers do.

The stupid backpacker did not really go very far at all though, because he was always stopping for a snack or a meal or a nap, or all of them one after another, so he fell farther and farther behind his friends. And he did not care at all, because of his plan, because he was lazy, and because he was stupid.

His friends did not care at all either, because he mooched off them when he could, and smelled bad, and was a dick, so they were glad to be rid of him. Whenever any one of them would think of the lazy backpacker at all, that person would tell a story, about him, and all the others would laugh and hold their sides and feel lucky to be rid of him. And glad too. Very glad.

But their packs were not so light either. They carried all kinds of things that they did not really need, and suffered for it. So they were really not much smarter than the lazy backpacker, and he had a secret plan to make them all look bad, so maybe he was really the smart one, in his own way.

Who can say?

So one evening the lazy backpacker came to a very nice place and he thought he would camp there and have good things to eat and then go to bed and snore happily. Accordingly, he set down his pack the way he always did, and cleared a spot for his tent the way he always did, and then he sat down for supper.

And then he ate and ate.

He ate more that night than ever before, and became very sleepy, even though he had already had several naps that day. But because his pack was so heavy it was hard work to carry it and he was very tired. And all the rich food he ate made him extra special sleepy, so he went into his tent and fell fast asleep at once, and then he snored.

He snored and snored and snored in the dark. Far into the night. And then he snored even more.

The lazy backpacker did not know this, but the place he had set up his camp was near the home of a mouse family, almost on top of them. There were two sisters and two brothers in this family — Norton, Sudyle, Estelle, and Westly, and they were fine, enterprising, happy, and very bright mice, as mice go, and during the night they discovered the lazy backpacker.

This was not hard to do because the lazy backpacker snored like a thunderstorm until the very earth he lay upon rumbled in annoyance, and this woke the mice, and then they could not get back to sleep, so they went over to the tent of the stupid backpacker to complain, but they could not rouse him.

He was too big and too thick and too heavy and too fast asleep for that.

Compared to them he was like a mountain, and the tiny mice were afraid that if they did wake him he might roll over on them, or go rampaging about, swinging his great meaty arms and stamping his giant heavy feet and hurt one of them, or hurt all of them. So they stood there uncertainly and watched while the stupid lazy backpacker snored and snored and made the ground beneath their feet shake and rumble.

The mice did not know much about humans but it was clear they had to be cautious, especially with this one.

So they decided to think.

And instead of going back to bed angry and lying there and swearing the rest of the night, the mice decided to have some fun, as mice sometimes do, and get revenge, as mice also do, at times.

First, from nearby trees they gathered a good supply of sticky sap. It was a dry year that year and all the sap weeping from trees was very sticky, and they gathered lots of it. Lots and lots of it.

Then they plucked many fine strands of dry grass and made great bundles of it and took the great bundles to the lazy backpacker’s tent along with the sap.

Once there they covered the lazy backpacker’s entire body with sticky sap, and then, on top of the sticky sap, they applied layer after wispy layer of dry grass. When they were all done the lazy backpacker looked like a horrible, hairy, shaggy monster. He looked even worse than he had looked before, which was very bad.

The mice were extra special careful to put several coats of sap and several extra layers of grass on the lazy backpacker’s face and head, so that he looked like a truly terrifying beast, and would not be able to see well through all the grass. That would serve him right.

It would. It would indeed, thought the mice.

By the time the mice had finished, the sun was nearly ready to start a new day, and the gigantic, lazy backpacker began to stir restlessly. He seemed uncomfortable. His snoring became irregular. He rolled over and over and mumbled mumbly things out of his giant frightening stinky mouth.

The mice decided that they had done everything they could, almost.

Before they left the lazy backpacker though, they found a string, and tied it to his pack, and all working in together, their little mouse muscles straining to the limit, they slowly dragged his pack far, far off into the bushes where they secreted it in a special place that only mice knew about.

A secret hidy place, especially well hidden, and unknown to anyone else. A place that not even the other animals knew about, so secret it was.

As the sun once again rose into the sky the night once again magically dissolved into another fine summer day.

The world warmed, and the warmth woke the lazy backpacker.

Because he was covered in bushy layers of grass, especially his face and eyes, the backpacker could not feel or see anything, and took fright. He began to bellow with anger and fear. And with surprise too. He rose to his feet and for a moment he stood unsteadily. Then he began yawing and tipping and heaving and reeling about, here and there, back and forth, thither and yon, stamping and stumbling and waving his arms blindly, making great noises of all kinds, and flapping his arms with abandon in his immense confusion.

The mice, watching from the safety of their secret hidey hole, laughed and fell down giggling and rolled over and over with glee until the lazy backpacker managed to stumble off and was gone from sight. And then they continued squeaking with laughter and rolling on the ground until they could laugh no more, but only gasp and snort tiny mouse snorts through their little mouse noses.

For a long, long time they could hear the lazy backpacker bellowing in the forest, but finally, as he became more and more distant, all grew quiet once again, and the mice recovered slowly, though they still smiled happy mouse smiles.

When the mice did finally recover they decided that this was too much fun, it was too good to end, and so they went through the lazy backpacker’s pack, picking out the choicest items of food, and latching on to little bits of things they thought they could use, though not too much, and they put these things into the tiny knapsacks that their mother had made them for their birthdays, and then they set off after the lazy backpacker, to see what they could see, to go where they could go, leaving the rest of the food and other things behind for their parents and neighbors.

And did they see things?

Oh, yes, see things they did.

The lazy backpacker had gone on and on, hooting and roaring, swearing and slobbering, and was such a frightening and disturbing sight that he had managed to chase all the other humans off the trail and straight back to town where they hid behind locked doors for months and months and months and refused to come out again, for fear of their lives.

The mice, meanwhile — well they discovered that they liked hiking, and finding many abandoned packs along the trail, had no trouble whatsoever in picking up enough to eat, though they needed very little, and carried even less in their teeny-tiny packs, and in due course, in time, after a while, they finished hiking the full length of that trail to the very end and so became the first ultralight thru-hikers, but because they were mice no one ever heard about them, either the boy mice or the girl mice, or any of them, though they did it all together and had so much fun.

And then, of course, they lived happily ever after, which is a right and proper ending for a story about mice like these.

Crush Me In Your Tender Embrace

Crush Me In Your Tender Embrace

Choosing a pack by weight capacity.

– Intro: Poop heavily on your dreams. –

Here it is straight up: weight is always bad. Always. There is never any time or situation when weight is a good thing.

Say this and someone will immediately start complaining "But sometimes you have to carry a lot". True, but that does not make it good. That does not make them smart. Anyone can say stuff. Even buttheads.

Weight is never fun, or useful, or interesting, or safe. Weight is always bad.

Wise up.

The other arguments you're likely to hear are something like "Packs are heavy," or "That's the way it is," or "You just have to suck it up and deal with it". False, false, and maybe. If you absolutely have to carry a lot of weight then you absolutely have to suck it up and deal with it, if you can. If circumstances dictate a big pack with lots of heavy things inside though, that still does not mean that you yourself can actually handle it, even if you want to.

And if you don't want to, simply go somewhere else and do something different.

– Or do it smarter. –

There is no upside to being dumb.

Keep in mind that at best you are temporarily able bodied. And if you haven't noticed yet, you will learn that no injury ever heals, it only heals over, if that. Push yourself too hard, get hurt, and though it may be a while before it comes back to you, it will come back to you, and you will feel it later. Maybe years later, but feel it you will. No injury ever heals. There is no 100% recovery.

Considering the alternative, getting older is not all that bad, but as you get older you notice that your knees creak and complain, your ankles hurt, or your toes hurt, or your back does. No matter who you are you will not be stronger or more energetic when you are older than you are right now. When you get older you need to take more breaks, you need to sleep longer, and you require more time to recharge.

Weight always works against you, and works harder against you the less robust you are. Sure, maybe you are 60 years old and can still cover 20 miles a day for a week at a time, two weeks at a time, the whole summer. But you have to struggle to stay in that kind of shape. You aren't in the same class as an 18-year-old who can do that, party all night, wake up with a bad cold, a headache, an upset stomach, AND the dry heaves, and still shrug it off and put in another 20-mile day.

Carrying more weight makes everything harder.

Much harder.

And it only gets worse. After a certain age you need to work out daily only to keep mobile. Slack off even a day or two and you lose ground. Besides all that you still get weaker and have less endurance. Every day. No matter what.

And you keep getting older. Until you die from it.

– Super ultralight. –

There is a group of backpackers who carry packs that are not just light, or ultralight (beyond light), but super ultralight. Since super means above, this should really be called sub ultralight (even lighter than ultralight).

Some use the term uber light, which is a trans-lingual half-German mashup way of trying to say super dooper ultralight, but they left out the umlaut, and used the two languages and all, and continued going in the wrong direction (up instead of down).

Über licht is closer to actually meaning "over light", which is kind accurate, if you interpret that as "overly light", "crazy light", or "stupid light". So anyway, if you have to play around with terms, use not "über" but "unter" and say "unter licht". Even less, even lower, even littler, even lighter than ultralight.

OK, whatever. Screw all the mumbo-jumbo anyway. Let's just use plain old simple reliable unpretentious numbers.

Assume a base pack weight of six pounds or less (3 kg). If you are in this group you are already well aware of it. You brag, and have three blogs and a web site all about yourself. You are vastly experienced, have spent months if not years thinking about your backpacking gear choices, and have seen hundreds or even thousands of miles of trail pass beneath your knobby knees.

Albert Einstein's rule was to make things as simple as possible but no simpler. A super ultralight pack is as small as possible, and then smaller. It is as simple as possible and then some. It is as light as possible, and lighter than possible. There have been packs on the market with empty weights well under eight ounces (250 g). You, being impossible, carry a total weight of 10 to 20 pounds (4 to 9 kg) for trips up to a week long. Your pack is frameless, relying on a folded sleeping pad for shape, if you have a pad. But if you do, you've taken a standard pad, lain on it, had someone trace your outline (from shoulders to hips only, because that's all you use), and then you went ahead and cut on the dotted line, and threw away the rest.

It is possible to get by as a super-ultralighter if you know the route and terrain, know that the weather will be fair, have the experience you need, and have all the right gear to match your pack. And are capable of surviving miscalculations. Chances are that if you want a pack weighing less than a pound you will end up making it yourself. You will take the clothes you hike in, a pair of gloves, and a warm hat to sleep in. You will take a down vest, a wind shell, and a spare pair of socks. Add to this a light down sleeping bag or quilt, a small tarp, a small alcohol stove, and a cup, and that's about it.

You will know how to care for and repair every thing you carry.

And in case you forgot in the last five seconds, here it is again: You will know how to survive if you screw up.

– Ultralight. –

This used to be the scary lunatic fringe. Now it's more like a "Oh, sure I do that, don't you?" kind of thing. Base pack weights for ultralight backpacking fall into the range of six to 12 pounds (3 to 6 kg). If you are in the market for a pack to carry weights like this you already know what your choices are. You may not want to go super ultralight or maybe you can't. Maybe you need heavier bedding or a more protective shelter, or the climate in your part of the world can't be negotiated with optimism and a throw of the dice.

You will carry a total of 11 to 30 pounds (5 to 14 kg), for trips of three to seven days (base pack weight plus consumables, like, oh, food, in case you eat).

Most of the super ultralight rules apply, but in this weight range you have more wiggle room for bad weather and miscalculation. Packs in this range are easier to buy, but you will still be dealing with limited offerings from only half a dozen manufacturers, if that. You can still make your own pack, and you might want to, to get the features you know you prefer, and to leave out the rest. The pack is likely to depend on either a standard or customized folded sleeping pad for a frame, though a couple of packs have optional (and removable) stiffeners. Weights of packs like this hang in the 12 to 24 ounce (300 to 750 g) range.

– Fiat lux. –

Light is not a four letter word. It is slightly heavier than that, but not all bad.

A pack that is only light-ish is the type of pack that the big manufacturers with factories full of large machines and immense marketing departments call super ultralight. Expect to find an internal frame or framesheet to provide support. The pack will weigh two or three pounds (1 to 1.5 kg) empty, and you will tend to end up with a base pack weight of 12 to 20 pounds (6 to 9 kg). This will be the sweet spot for most backpackers. Total pack weight will be in the 17 to 35 pound (8 to 16 kg) range for three-day to seven-day trips. At the bottom end of this range you will feel delightfully free. At the top end you will hurt, but not as much as you used to.

If you go for a pack like this, it's very possible that you are a person who will carry a large single-wall or small double-wall tent, have "waterproof-breathable" rain gear, wear boots, use a canister stove, and have a real cooking pot in which you plan to simmer something. You will eat with a titanium spork, possibly engraved with your name, and you may allow it to sport one rhinestone.

This pack category is still fairly sparse but there are offerings from companies that have been in the business for decades, and they know what they are doing. Prices are reasonable, and you will find a dealer or two nearby where you can actually go in to try on the pack before you buy it. These packs will look and feel pretty "standard" (i.e., like backpacks "are supposed to feel"). No one will stare at you while you wear it, or ask you a lot of dumb questions. (About the pack anyway, though you will still get members of the parking lot patrol asking if you carry a gun, ¹ or what you will do if you see a snake.) ²

You will blend in except that you will be carrying less stuff and it will weigh a bit less than what most other people have.

When you meet other backpackers on the trail they will assume that you are out overnight, or on a day hike, not on a week-long trip. When you see them you will assume that they are doing penance, and must have sinned terrible sins.

You may already be in this category. It isn't a bad place to start, since you may never need a larger or heavier pack, or a smaller or lighter one either, and it isn't necessarily a bad place to stay. Materials are durable, workmanship is good, packs come with guarantees, and features are pretty standard. Depending on where you are evolving from and how you develop you may decide a pack like this has either too many useless features, or too few useful ones (based on your own needs), but it will be in the main stream of what is currently available. Mediocrity is not bad.

Being mediocre means being ordinary and staying in the middle of the herd. Often this is good enough. And comfy. If you're in the middle of a herd you can be confident that you will not be the first eaten, which is a superbly cozy thought, and mediocrity is all about cozy, sleepy thoughts, the sorts of thoughts that you could well be turning over in your mind exactly half an instant before a huge something with mighty talons sails past the outside edge of the herd and stoops onto your helpless little self, right there in what you thought was the safe middle.

But usually that doesn't happen.

– Medium. –

This is the bread and butter category for pack makers and for retailers. From an ultralight perspective this is a heavyweight pack. It will weigh four to six pounds (2 to 3 kg) empty, and you will end up with a base pack weight of 20 to 30 pounds (9 to 14 kg). This is average for most backpackers. Total pack weights are in the 25 to 50 pound (11 to 23 kg) range. For some reason, people who get into backpacking expect to carry loads like this. Still. In the 21st century. Woof.

You might see a pack like this advertised as ultralight. If you are buying something made by the top half dozen outdoor companies, it's likely they will use the term. To them it is ultralight, because they have to work to get the weight down so low. Ultralight as a marketing term is also sexy, so it's fun to use, even though a four to six pound pack is mostly useless dead weight. If you don't know how this feels then the next time you are out shopping for food go to the baking goods aisle. Pick up a five pound bag of sugar and walk around with it. Carry it cradled in your arm next to your chest. Keep it there for ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. Twenty. Get used to it. You'll get a feel for how much five pounds really is, and how endlessly fulfilling it is to carry around.

Packs in this range are like the lighter ones but bigger, with heavier frames. Manufacturers of these packs are not fussing over a few ounces in the frame. Each of these packs definitely has a frame, possibly a polyethylene sheet, or a sheet of another kind, or it might be carbon fiber or aluminum, but it will be there, and sturdy, and as large as it is possible to make it.

You might even see a poster of the frame tacked up on a wall. It will have lots of arrows pointing out its features. Manufacturers like to show off technical details. They think it's cool, because it shows how smart they are. Every pack comes factory pressure-treated with secret Ingredient X-12 for your safety and convenience.

A manufacturer's pack frame poster may be scary. It may well be indeed, reminding you of a Sirius Cybernetics Terminator Borg Sub-Assembly 16-B. (You don't want to get too close to that one, babe.) You will also see advertising copy asserting that the packs built around these frames can handle large weights with ease. If that is reassuring, then go with it. Most of these packs will be presented as good enough for multi-day trips, even week-long trips, with the implication of just barely good enough. If you dare to go so light.

Don't let them scare you, except with their weights.

– Heavy. –

Come to Mama.

Want to spend $600 on a pack? If so, then this is your weight range. Your range For Extended Trips, as they put it. Like, plan to hike the Appalachian Trail? Or the Continental Divide Trail? Or the Pacific Crest Trail? "We recommend you think carefully before committing to a trip like this, but if you decide to do it, make sure that you have the best equipment." Including a pack weighing at least eight pounds, empty.

They recommend. Not me. That's a lot of weight for a hole to put things in.

Well, some of these packs are lighter than the very heaviest ones, but not by much. Say that six to eight pounds (3 to 4 kg) is mainstream, giving a base pack weight around 15 to 40 pounds (7 to 18 kg), and once you get loaded up for a week or so, expect a total pack weight of 50 to 70 pounds (23 to 32 kg) or more.

No need to talk about typical clothing and equipment you might carry — take everything. You won't want to bother thinking about that grandmother who started her backpacking life in 1955 at the age of 67, and hiked, solo, the Appalachian Trail, with a home-made duffel bag on her shoulder containing a blanket, a plastic shower curtain for shelter, a cup, a first aid kit, a raincoat, a change of clothes, and no stove or cookware. You need more of course, because you are smart and have money, and because Emma Gatewood is not your hero. ³

Enjoy then, if you can.

– Footsie Notes –

1: Answer: "No, because if I did I'd have to shoot you, and it's too much bother, given the pathetically small amount of fun it would be."

2: Answer: "We'd get drunk and go hiss behind a tree together."

3: Emma Gatewood: https://bit.ly/3mtYXqM

Story Break: Look Tough. Wear Man Pants

Story Break

Look Tough. Wear Man Pants.

Gear Bylls' finishing school.

By Newt Gnewsworthy

C rapChoppers Ltd., a British outdoor clothing company, wants you to look like a man.

A man who can do stuff. Like eat bugs. And drink his own urine. For fun.

A man who can have his own TV show, wallow in the mud, sleep in luxury hotels. And still look bitchen.

Because chicks dig it.

But even more important, because guys do.

Especially guys.

Macho parking lot cruisers, guys with apartments full of guns, lifetime gym memberships, and TV remotes super-glued to the Idiot Channel.

And who's going to lead the way? Who's going to show you how?

Well, the leader of the pack, dude.

The guy with the frequent sleeper discount at the Pines Resort Hotel in California, the guy who can assemble a bamboo raft kit in front of an entire video production company magically filming him all alone in the world's worst, remotestest hellholes.

Like Hawaii.

Are you up to it? Can you handle a room with broadband internet and blueberry pancakes for breakfast, in a place advertised as a cozy getaway for families?

Yes?

No?

Tell you a secret here. It's lots easier when you've got your own Gear Bylls' Adventure Suit® from CrapChoppers Ltd.

Gals go crazy for craggy guys wearing stuff from CrapChoppers. A mouth full of grubs won't do it. Not even biting the head off a snake.

No.

Instead, you need some Gear Bylls' AdventurePants®. (Like the Gear Bylls' Survivor Full Stretch Trousers®, but with enhanced elastic gut control for the mature macho guy.)

The right fit. The right sizes. The right colors. For every guy.

Try some on and prepare to go missing in action.

And you get the Gear Bylls® imprint on it all. Even the underpants, now with Teflon.

Gear Bylls' Teflon Undos®. EZ-off/EZ-on. Stains rinse right out, in any creek or high-end hotel room.

And the special super slippery Qwiky-Dick UndoGear® fabric helps you make a near-instantaneous escape if a marauding husband comes home early.

Chilly?

Never even been outside before? Don't want to be?

Is OK. CrapChoppers covers your back as well as your butt.

Just buy a Gear Bylls' Freedom Jacket® in your choice of camo, super-camo, ultra-camo, or any of the above with realistic blood stains printed right on. No need to bleed, indeed. "If you got the cash, we provide the flash", is what they say.

Be the macho man's macho man. Be smothered in babes. Get free drinks. Wear underpants. Fake it.

Just like Gear Bylls. (Coming soon to a Wal-Mart near you.)

Let's Supersize Everyone

Let's Supersize Everyone

One size to rule them all.

– How Big Is Yours? –

Check out a catalog of outdoor gear, or visit a store that sells backpacking equipment. Be sure to read some of the ad copy in a magazine or catalog first. It gets scary, and fast. Recreational Equipment Incorporated (REI) says you need 2400 to 4200 cubic inches of pack volume for a two to four day trip (that's 40 to 70 L). Kelty says 3000 to 6000 cubic inches (50 to 100 L) for two days, and 3500 to 6500 cubic inches (60 to 110 L) for four days. Those are some big packs, for what is basically a weekend. ^{1, 2}

Random volumes are hard to visualize, so let's get specific. Let's go with REI's maximum pack volume for two days. That's 70 liters. Now let's wave our little magic wand and convert that 70L pack to root beer. Done, and you now have before you 35 two-liter bottles of root beer. Get the picture? OK, finally, as the last step, drink the root beer in two days.

Heck. Just try fitting it into your car. Don't try picking it up though, without a fork lift. At over two pounds per liter (or one kilogram) that much root beer is too heavy to think about.

What else?

Got a long weekend instead of just two days? Then jump to Kelty's 110 liters, or 55 big ones chug-full of root beer. And that's if you like root beer. What if it gags you?

What then?

These are big packs, my friend.

This is desperate living.

But are you adventurous and husky? Stick with Kelty then. Spend time with them. Get to know the Kelty world. For a week, Kelty says you need 4000 to 7000 cubic inches (65 to 115 L). Or more. That's right up there with the Samsonite Cruisair Spinner 29 inch Upright Suitcase. The one that has wheels to help you deal with its 6837 cubic inch capacity (112 L or 56 giant root beers). ³

The suitcase weighs 15 pounds empty (7 kg), but that is barely more than one of those huge backpacks.

In the suitcase's favor, its hard-sided, temperature and impact resistant ABS shell (with a textured finish) is rugged. And it looks better than most packs. Also, it has a retractable pull handle, and cross straps and tie tape to help you organize and secure the contents to prevent shifting that can cause wrinkled shirts, and divider panels to create separate internal compartments. Plus, there is a three-point locking system. It sounds complex, but this suitcase is simpler than many packs, and at $279.99 it's cheaper too.

One thing is really clear — go with products from giant companies in the Rec Biz, do industrial grade backpacking, and you get enormous packs. And consequent body damage.

– Yours is bigger than mine? Hah! –

Size is relative.

When you're small everything looks big. When you grow up everything looks normal. Until you go back and visit your first grade classroom, or even your old home town. Then everything looks small. That one-time vast world has somehow become tiny and cute, and quaint.

Later, when you get old, everything looks too big and complicated to bother with, and it's all as annoying as hell to boot. All you want by then is chips and beer and something half interesting on TV to nap to.

Back to the story.

Size is relative another way.

Medium is larger than small, large is bigger than medium, and expedition size has its own zip code and city council. When you see Expedition Size stamped on something, you know you're in for An Experience™.

It is too easy to read manufacturer recommendations and believe that packs fall into neat categories, especially one called Expedition Size. But there are other too-tidy categories as well, like packs for day hiking, packs for overnight trips, packs for weekend trips, packs for multi-day and short-week trips, packs for full-week trips, and packs for multi-week trips.

It all seems so orderly and reasonable, as if a pack always truly has to be bigger when the trip gets longer, and it seems that trips really do fall into distinct categories that someone approved once upon a time. So ask yourself why.

Why?

When you go on a longer trip do you get bigger? Do your clothes get bigger? Does your sleeping bag get bigger? Your shelter? Your water bottles? Sunglasses? Fingernail clippers? What gets so much bigger?

Ummmm, nothing?

Right!

Nothing gets bigger with longer trips other than the size of your pack. So why is that then? This is the main question. No one has ever explained it. Move your chair in close to get the straight poop.

Sorry. Bad choice of words. Forget you heard that here.

But.

But weight — there's more!

– Base packing. –

There are rules for packs, and backpacking, and these rules are based on weight, and they make sense.

Let's start and see where this goes.

First there is the weight of the empty pack and your naked body (please send photos if your body has won awards).

Now begin loading the pack, but only with durable goods — those things that you will bring back home again. When this is done, you have the weight of your loaded pack stuffed with everything you need for your trip MINUS some stuff that you haven't added yet. That minus-stuff is food, water, fuel, toothpaste, bug repellent, hand lotion, nose hair removing gel, and so on.

The number you get by weighing your pack when leaving out all the minus-stuff is the Base Pack Weight. It is important.

Next, put on your clothes. Don't forget this part. Nothing fancy needed, just cover up, unless you are VERY good looking even when mud-spattered, bug-bitten, tired, hungry, thirsty, short on sleep, and you never, ever smell bad. (In which case, please send some more photos, just to prove that the first batch wasn't a fluke due to careful studio lighting.)

– Approaching totality. –

Now we come to our next milestone, Total Pack Weight, which is base pack weight plus consumables (the food, water, fuel, hand lotion, nose hair removing gel, and so on that we left out earlier).

Are you OK with this so far? Following it all? Because if you aren't, you'll never be able to sound smarter than you look, unless you really have been voted world class by many, many eyeballs. (More photos, please.)

Next, add in the weight of the clothing you are now wearing plus sunglasses, hat, the camera around your neck, pocket lint, everything else, and that is your FSO weight (From Skin Out Weight). FSO weight is the total total weight. Totally total weight.

This is useful. Rather than thinking volume, think weight.

Weight then. Hmmmm.

What gets heavier on a longer trip? Tick-tick-tick-tick. Ping!

Food and fuel, because you carry more. Of them.

Water, no.

Water comes and goes. You load up, and as you drink it the weight shifts from your back to your stomach to various other internal locales, and then eventually you drain all that water out again and it's only a memory. You never tank up with a week's worth of water and slowly use it. You carry what you need, and only that, and only for a while. Anyway, the volume is almost insignificant compared to everything else.

Fuel? Doesn't really vary that much, unless you take way too much. A two-week supply of fuel isn't much more than a one-week supply, which isn't much more than a three-day supply. Some. Yes. A little. Sure, but not much. No volume change to speak of.

We're getting closer. We've eliminated things that we don't need to think about, and the answer is in what's left.

– The champeen, heavyweight division…Food! –

As a rule of thumb, start your food weight calculations assuming that you will need two pounds of the stuff every day. If you're smallish, or pack high octane food, or have a slower metabolism, then maybe you'll need less than two pounds a day (not quite 1 kg — about 900g, to be more precise), but two pounds is a good baseline. A simple round number. A starting point.

Both food weight and food volume increase arithmetically. Take twice as much and it will be twice as heavy and twice as bulky. (Note here for everyone who's a smartypants: This isn't mathematically true, exactly, since doubling your food bulk increases its volume, and volume increases in proportion to the cube of that lump's diameter, which is strictly true if all you eat is grapefruit, or basketballs, but how many mathematicians go backpacking anyway? Seriously? And we're talking about the relative size of the lump in your pack, and its practical effects, not about its exact volume, so fly away, fly away, fly away, you.)

OK. Most pack size recommendations follow that general doubling idea too, which sounds reasonable until you look at the end result and realize that the numbers must have come from someone who fell off a cliff and crashed head first into a tub of dumb-bunnies, because the result is perverse.

– Back to Goldilocks, the tiny girl genius, –

And her principal principle.

So right now it seems like we're way off track from discussing pack size but really we're not. Everything is related anyway, so it all counts toward your final grade. Pay attention. This is so very cool.

You can't simply say that if a 30 liter pack is big enough for two days, then a 150 liter pack is just right for 10 days, or a 450 liter pack is right for 30 days, or an 1800 liter pack is what you need to hike for four months on the Appalachian Trail.

Why Mommy?

Because, li'l Jimmy. Because pack size depends on who you are, what you want to do, and what you are capable of doing. Pack size should depend on base pack weight and the volume that happens to go with that weight. And both of these have to be relevant to exactly and only you, you cute-as-a-bug little buggy-bug you.

No simple formula works. No simple formula applies to everyone. No simple formula can figure it out for you. Experience counts, but you can help experience along by using your head. (Please now to remove all fingers from all nostrils, so to having them handy for advanced arithmetic, please.)

First decide what you need to carry on your typical trips, get a pack big enough for that, and you're about set. When you have your food packaged up, shove it in. When you need to carry more food, shove harder. When you need to carry even more food, get someone to help you shove, or consider a small, light stuff sack or two, temporarily strapped outside your pack.

That way you get a pack that's not too big and not too small. It will be just right, sort of, and sort of is what you can deal with. Sort of is perfect. Sort of.

To start with, the pack must fit you, and if it does fit you, the pack will fit your needs, most of the time. It will never work out to be perfect, ever, but close enough is close enough.

If you need to carry more you fudge.

This is known as the Fudge Corollary, a slight addendum to the Goldilocks Theorem, and it is tasty too.

If you end up carrying less than a full load (which is seldom, because you're smart, you thought this through, and you bought the pack that's right for most occasions), you fudge the other way. You know how some people always say that there are two sides to every question? Right. Fools.

Fools. Dopes. Idiots. Saps, chumps, patsys, suckers, mugs, jesters, buffoons, clowns, simpletons. Screaming idiots who are even bad at that. Think bottom-level, sludge-quality screaming idiots. It almost never happens that there are only two sides to anything related to personal taste, politics, religion, philosophy, or backpacking.

However.

This is one time when we can simplify things down to two categories: too much, and too little.

• Too much: On the one hand you need to stuff in more things than you can sanely carry by pushing harder or packing smarter until your pack is so tight that you can play marching music on it, if you have a couple of drumsticks handy.
• Too little: And on the other hand, when you carry next to nothing, the pack feels like a big paper bag with one lonely orange rolling around down at the bottom, in which case you need to compress things tighter and strap them down harder until the pack is all right and solid.

Then you smile and start walking. And adjust as you go. Just go.

– The one true answer. (Truly!) –

Now. The conclusion. But first a question to build suspense.

How many packs do you need and how big should they be, really?

How many packs could a backpacker pack if a backpacker could pack packs?

You're right, that was two questions, and at least one was more irrelevant and stupider than most things here. (But we're wandering, so back to the discussion...)

The seller's version...

Follow standard rules (brought to you by the fine people who want to sell you packs and go home with your money) and you ought to have maybe five packs.

• One pack to hold a wind breaker, water bottle and sandwich, for short day hikes.
• One pack for longer day hikes, and big enough for rain wear, spare socks, the five or 10 or 16 essentials or whatever number they're up to now, a big meal, two or three water bottles, et cetera.
• One pack for two-day weekend backpacking trips. Bigger than a day pack but smaller than a steamer trunk.
• One pack usable for trips of four days, but capable of handling a tight eight day trip (or thereabouts).
• One pack for trips of one to two weeks.
• A pack for death marches, in case you plan to be out more than two weeks (and die on the trail, I guess).

My version (so very reasonable too)...

But, follow a reasonable line of thought and you might end up with two packs. (See? Sounds reasonable already, right?)

• One pack for day hikes, either short or long.
• One pack big enough to carry your gear plus a week's worth of food, if you push hard while loading it.

Following Plan B here (love that phrase), you have only one real backpack, which will be OK for over-nighters, if under-loaded and very slightly baggy for some conditions. Gain experience, drop non-essentials, pack more carefully, and you can get everything you need and two weeks of food stuffed into it or strapped onto the outside. If you are not terminally stupid. And you're not, really. Are you? No.

Really. You're not. I've looked at the photos you sent and would never say anything bad about you. Ever. And neither would my sister. Or her 1200 leering Facebook fiends. (I mean friends.)

Hardly anyone carries food and fuel enough for two weeks. Normally you resupply after a week, at most. Instead of carrying six changes of clothes, take less and freshen up as needed. And leave the lawn chair behind, on the patio, for the cat to nap on.

Use your leftover money for a different kind of pack if you like, as a supplement, as a third option, a backup, whatever. Did you start with a top loader? Add a panel loader and see how it works. Got a smallish frameless pack for most of your schlepping? Try a larger external frame pack for late fall, winter and early spring trips (handier for hauling snowshoes, an ice ax, and a four-season bombproof tent).

Your decision. Mellow out. Don't buy too much up front. Buy more later if needed.

– Now for the real One True Answer! –

The bigger your pack the less intelligent you are.

The smaller your pack, the more intelligent you need to be, and the more experienced you should be before committing to it.

Something like 2500 to 3500 cubic inches (40 to 60 L) is a reasonable middle ground to explore. A pack in this range is going to be pretty good for pretty nearly everyone pretty much most of the time. If you err, try erring on the small side. It's always easier to carry more, somehow, than to forever be stuck with half-filled, rattling void vaguely attached to your backside.

And a bigger pack is always heavier. All the time.

Do the above unless the weather is seriously bad where and when you go backpacking and if you always need to carry serious gear to deal with it. If so, you know about all that. You are already dialed in.

For general three-season backpacking, dealing with some rain and some chilly days and nights, but no blizzards, avalanches, or sub-zero temperatures, a pack on the small side of what the traditionalists recommend is probably right. With a bit of experience you can backpack for a week, in summer, with a starting total pack weight around 20 pounds (9 kg), including food, and end your trip carrying about half that weight, using a pack that will not scare horses or children or cripple you.

Any advertising words like the following about a deluxe (huge and expensive) pack are flat out crazy: For 'maximalist' explorers who put a higher priority on comfort and convenience than they do on weight.

Think about how well explorer goes with comfort and convenience. About as well as adventurous goes with deathbed.

Think about comfort and convenience coexisting with the crushing weight of a huge bag crammed full of useless, expensive, complicated things.

Think wretched excess. Think about your body. Remember, always — you are made of meat, and bruise easily. So go gently.

– Footsie Notes –

1: REI sizing: http://bit.ly/1qrcbX0

2: Kelty sizing: http://bit.ly/1Ac6096

3: Samsonite Cruisair Spinner 29: http://bit.ly/1qra3hN

On Pack Convenience

Story Break

On Pack Convenience.

Thimk

By Citron Ella

What do you want in a pack? Think about it.

I'll tell you what I want, everything else being equal. I want convenience.

Sure, I want a pack that's the right size. I'm not too big, and I'm a woman. That matters to me, and it should matter to my pack too. I'm not some big guy, and I don't want to be. I don't want to pretend that I am, or be forced to act like I am.

I'm who I am and that's fine with me. The rest of the world will have to work with me here. Otherwise I'm not interested.

So I'm not too big and that's that.

I am strong enough for who I am and what I do but I'm never going to be scary strong. I won't be growing hair on my chest or letting it come out my armpits. I'm not going to get into flexing contests about who is stronger than what or has more muscles. Leave that to the boys. I'm who I am and I get by just fine.

My pack is the right size. Like most women I have a shorter torso than men of my height, with wider hips, narrower shoulders, and longer legs. I can't carry huge weights, which is one reason lightweight backpacking appeals to me.

Luckily, these days, there are plenty of choices. Nothing is perfect, and no individual is either, so the point to me seems to be getting as close as possible and not worrying about the rest.

My pack isn't too big, or too small or too light or too heavy. It's just right.

If I had a bigger pack I could carry more except that I can't carry huge weights and don't want to try, so that works. I'm good all around.

But I like convenience.

I don't go backpacking to suffer, and I don't go backpacking to get frustrated. I can do that at home.

On the trail I like to have what I need, and when I need it, and I like getting at it without messing around.

Light or even ultralight backpacking helps a bunch.

First - I go lighter.

I don't have to carry that much weight. That helps me a lot.

I can walk many miles in a day, especially later in the season after I've gotten in shape. Walking isn't the problem that carrying weight is. But the less weight the better.

So going light means less weight to carry and more ground covered in a day.

Second - I pack fewer.

Going light means that I have fewer things. Going light is partly about taking lighter things, but the easiest way to go lighter is not to take something in the first place.

Say, for example, that I want to eat.

Probably.

Fine then, so what do I do about eating?

Say I can get an old ratty, noisy, big, heavy mess kit. Like something left over from an ancient war. A lot of what you see in backpacking started out as military equipment, and then the Boy Scouts picked it up and did their thing with it, and then the camping companies did, but with their brands on things, and later on they called it backpacking equipment, and after a while they called it ultralight.

You know what though? It was all the same stuff, made in the same way in the same factory out of basically the same raw materials.

Maybe at first it was steel, then stainless steel, and then came an aluminum version, and later on again, after the price came down to only a hundred dollars a pound or so they made exactly the same thing out of titanium but it was all the same, and if you wanted the cheapest version you stuck with steel.

So there you are.

Let's look at part of it. Not a table setting for sixteen, just some utensils for one. Just as an example.

What do you have? you have a knife and a fork and a spoon. Since you are going camping or backpacking you skip the salad fork and the soup spoon and the butter knife and stick with only the three — knife, fork, spoon. How smart is that? Is it smart at all? Does it help if they're all titanium instead of steel?

You have to think about these things.

No.

The answer is no.

I found that out by trying things. It gets easier after a while. I try things and then I decide how I feel about them, and see if I'm better off one way or another. With utensils, I started with an official camping set that clipped together.

There was a table knife and a big spoon and a fork.

The bare minimum.

They were all steel, and I knew I was supposed to use them as a set because they had that funny clip thing where one piece has a knob on it and you put it through a hole in the other pieces and squeeze all three together and hook the knob and let go and they all stay together.

OK, fine.

After a while you get used to it. It's not like being at home. This is more like car mechanics or something. You know you want to go backpacking and experience nature and then you find out about all these strange special tools.

You have flatware that's more like a set of socket wrenches and screwdrivers, and that's what you need to have if you want to eat.

But it isn't.

They say so but it isn't.

You see these things and it's all weird, and then you learn that you have to have it and you use it all, and later on if you think about it you decide that it's all a joke.

I said that going light means having fewer things. That's where I'm going here. It doesn't matter how light my fork is and how light my spoon is and how light my knife is. I'm lighter with only one of those than all three, so now I use a single plastic spoon. No metal at all, and only the one thing.

I don't have a tub of butter to dig into or a big slab of steak on a platter so why should I have a knife and a fork? And if I have a spoon why not have a tough but lightweight plastic one?

So I only have a spoon. The plastic is light but so is having only one thing. I don't have to count past one, either. That makes it easier.

I like easy.

So first, go light, and second, don't take so much.

Third - I multiplex.

Now we take another step. This seems like a bigger step but it isn't. Not really. If you can, just take things that do more than one job.

It's not hard.

I have a spoon. I use my spoon to eat. It does the job of a spoon and a knife and a fork.

You can do that with a spoon but you can't with a knife or a fork, so a spoon is good. You can cut mashed potatoes or couscous or rice and beans with a spoon, even soft meat if you happen to have some. You can't eat soup with a knife. OK. Or a fork. OK again.

You can go out a little farther and talk about sleeping. You want to sleep comfortably. So do I. Everyone does. There are some tricks though.

Let's say you have a sleeping bag. That's good. And let's say you don't want to get cold at night. Getting cold is bad.

So you have a choice, and the choice is get a light sleeping bag and be cold or get a warm one and be heavy. But you have another choice, and that is to get a light sleeping bag and use it with the warm clothes you're already carrying.

You know, you always want extra warm clothes, in case.

Mornings are always cooler, and sometimes you get chilly around camp in the evening, so instead of having a bunch of warm clothes and a heavy sleeping bag that's too warm for you to wear your clothes in, get a lighter sleeping bag and wear your warm clothes to bed.

That works.

See? The best of two worlds.

You're going to take both kinds of things, so maybe take a little more of the warm clothing and a little less sleeping bag.

That way you'll be sure to stay warm in bed, and if things get chilly when you're not in bed, then you still have plenty of clothes to wear.

You get the idea.

Washing up vs. hosing down.

For another thing, say you want to stay clean but you don't want to go stand in a creek and get all cold, let alone be naked out there for anybody to see. So you take a plastic bucket along, and a sponge, and maybe a plastic jug to fill up with water, and you use these to take sponge baths. And a full-size bar of soap, and a washcloth, and a towel.

That's fine, but you can simplify.

Like this — leave those things at home.

Take a square of synthetic fleece cloth. Maybe you can cut up an old worn out shirt, or at worst buy half a yard of fleece at a fabric shop and cut out a piece. You already have some way to carry water so you don't need an extra jug, and in place of the bucket you have a cooking pot.

This is gross. No, it isn't.

It seems gross but it isn't, not really.

Here's why.

What do you do with a cooking pot then? You cook in it.

It's fine if you rinse it out after your bath, and then heat water in it. Or boil water to cook with. That both cleans and sterilizes the cooking pot, and your little square of fleece is just as good as any sponge or a washcloth, and it rolls up or folds up and even dries out completely if you give it a chance, and a sponge won't.

So there. You've eliminated a bunch of things that you don't need to take along, and you're clean and happy.

Smaller, lighter, simpler, more compact, easier.

And besides, you don't even need to use the cooking pot either, just a water bottle and a piece of fleece. The fleece works as a towel too, and you can take a little bottle of liquid soap.

Use that same piece of fleece to wipe off your face during the day, like if you get sweaty, or come to a creek and just want to freshen up with a little water, OK?

Now we're getting close.

The idea is to go light, and leave behind everything you don't need, and make everything else do at least two jobs. Once you get to that point you can really start thinking about your pack.

Now we're getting down to the wire. We're getting close to what convenience means.

Once you have only what you need then it's a bunch easier to keep track of it. You stop worrying, and you stop hunting for things buried in your pack.

This makes your life on the trail so much easier, as far as it goes, and it goes a long, long way.

And the next step is...

The pack.

Yes, the very next step is the pack.

This is more individual. A pack is a lot like a purse, and a purse really depends on you. Who you are, what you're up to, how you want to live. Go for it. There are hundreds of them out there (packs, that is), and you'll find one that works.

Personally, I like mine as simple as possible without being any simpler.

Too simple for me is having a pack with no pockets, one that's all sewn up tight and smooth, and too fussy for me is a pack that has pockets and zippers all over, everywhere — on the sides, the top, the front, the bottom, the shoulder straps, the hip belt, pockets on top of pockets, so many I can't even remember how many I have, let alone what's in which one.

I don't need a cell phone pocket, or a pocket for any kind of pod. Not an iPod, a jPod, or a kPod. No pods. At all. I'm a hiker, not a pod person.

I like some pockets but not pockets all over. That's part of keeping it simple. Too much convenience makes things inconvenient.

Maybe a couple of side pockets, and maybe a top pocket with one zipper will do, to hold a windbreaker.

Sometimes a small pouch on a shoulder strap or hip belt is fine, for sunscreen, a notebook, a map.

However the details work out things should be handy. Handy in that things you need during the day and that you want to have handy are handy without you having to tear open the whole pack, but that's really about it.

Pockets and flaps and straps and buttons and zippers and drawstrings don't make things handy just because they're there, they make things handy because they're there in the right places in the right numbers, and because you have only what you need, and because it works. For you.

The most important things for me during the day are food and water.

Next come a watch and a map.

After that, everything is optional. Sunscreen, insect repellent, lip balm, aspirin or prescription medication, gloves, windbreaker, wading shoes, and things like that. Camera. And my little square of fleece. And toilet paper. Sometimes that isn't optional, and it's good to know exactly where it is. And be able to get at it.

Most of the small items fit into a little pouch, or a ziplock bag that can go into a larger pocket that holds the food, the water, and the clothing that I need during the day.

How it all works out exactly is not important.

I try to keep each thing in the same place all the time so I don't have to hunt. I said try. I get close, and it helps, though I never quite make it, but I try. I am just close enough to perfection to be amazing without being intimidating. Or arrogant. (Too arrogant.)

Most packs these days have outside pockets, and they hold my food and water.

A top pocket is great for emergency clothing, like a windbreaker, or a hat and gloves. You can keep your little things there too, especially if you have a separate small bag for them.

I look at the map a lot, and my watch, so I want them out where they're handy.

For food, I stop once or twice during the day, so I don't mind unloading the food and maybe my tiny stove and so on.

Some like to snack all day, and they pack a little differently. It's all personal, but for me just a couple of larger external pockets works, with a place to put my smaller things and keep them both safe and handy.

That's convenient for me.

What do you think?

Load Me Up

Load Me Up

Getting Choosy, Load-Wise.

– Feed the beast. –

Sometimes you choose. Sometimes you are chosen. Maybe being chosen is better. As with all things, experience helps, though experience can be expensive, and leave you scarred. But if you find yourself chosen, then you can simply go with it, and it may work out better. Less ego, more humility, more openness.

Sometimes.

Winston Churchill once said, "Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing...after they have exhausted all other possibilities." A lot of life is like that. You do the thinking and the planning up front, then make a choice. And then you find out how very wrong you are, and exactly why. And maybe you repeat the whole cycle again and again until finally. You have it.

Maybe the main thing to know about how a pack gets loaded is to keep it as simple as possible. Unless you really know what you are getting into. In which case you already know, so buzz off again.

Life is uncertain enough without setting traps for yourself. Traps is what you get with complexity. The more ways there are for a thing to trip you up, the more often it will make you fall on your face.

Stay simple and sleep well. Do not tempt evil by pulling its tail. This is the main thing to keep in mind about packs. And everything else, especially large, predatory cats. And demons.

Demons. Don't get me started.

Luckily most pack makers have made it easy, the loading thing.

Most packs load from the top. This isn't always the best way but it is easy to make a simple and strong pack using this formula. Put things in at the top and they automatically want to stay inside, because of gravity. Gravity notices what you have done and sees that it is good. Gravity then blesses your work by doing most of it for you. Because it likes you, does gravity, for you are being ordinary and predictable, and not being a smartass, and so you don't need to worry, unless gravity is in a playful mood that day and decides to pull your pants down while you're not looking.

Loading any other way than from the top is more complicated, and the universe has been known to frown on anything but The One True Way.

Also known as The Lazy Bastard's Way.

Yes.

The universe really was designed by a couch potato. The universal all-seeing, all-knowing, transcendent Great Potatohead.

Just like you but more so. And having super powers.

There is only one major choice aside from top loading, and that is panel loading (with a front loading pack).

Packs like this (front loading panel loaders) have a big flap on the front that zips open and shut. You can lay the pack down flat on its shoulder straps, open it, and mess around. But you are also dependent on zippers (or even less reliable fasteners). A panel can let go when a seam gives out or a zipper rips. You can have either a huge failure or a little one. Maybe only a few of your smallest and most precious things fall out. Like your camera. Or your lucky dice. Maybe more. You get to find out, miles down the trail, and hours too late.

A ripped seam on a top loader is bad enough on the trail, but it is likely to be a different experience.

First, it will be an actual ripped seam. It won't be a wimpy zipper silently but suddenly splitting open. You will know about a ripped seam. You will either make it rip when you fall or when you screw up some other way, or it will start coming undone little by little, and will keep coming undone little by little before things get desperate. But a seam won't suddenly cut loose unless you force the issue. Zippers not so much.

Second, you can patch a seam. Easily. A needle, some dental floss, and a few stitches will get you home. Even a needle is optional, if you can poke holes with something else and push the floss through the holes.

Try that with a zipper? No, not so much there either.

– Loading. –

A panel loader is easier to load because you don't have to wrestle the pack with one hand while trying to feed it with the other. The ground supports the pack because the pack is lying down flat. During the day, on the trail, a panel loader makes it easier to get at things. No need to unload the whole pack to get out something near the bottom. Unzip, pull out what you want, then rezip. Done. Tidy and quick.

Most panel loaders are hybrids though. They have a top compartment that opens up like a top loader, and a bottom compartment that opens to the front (the side away from your body when you wear the pack). A few packs allow full access to one big compartment by two routes — from either the top or the front. No matter though, panel loaders are never as sturdy as top loaders. They can't be, because each opening in the side of a pack is much less secure than a well-sewn bag with tight seams and a simple hole at the top.

– Option three: something else. –

Moonbow Gear's Gearskin, mentioned before, illustrates one alternate route.

The whole pack is a single flap of fabric that unfolds like a soft taco shell. Lay your things on the half with the shoulder straps, which is conveniently supported by the solid ground, fold the other half up over it, and squeeze it together with compression straps running up each side. It's simple and sturdy, and compression holds things in. Most of the time. Depending on what you are carrying, and how you load it. This is not the solution to every problem but it is one of the simplest and most rigid frameless packs available.

Or you can design and make your own pack.

But no matter what, you have a bag and need a way to get your stuff into that bag, and there is not an infinite number of possibilities, so choose the loading option that seems best and select from the packs that offer it, or pick a nice pack and let it dictate how you need to load it.

– And so, you have just learned… –

Pretty much nothing, be we had to get past it.

Story Break: Choosing The Perfect Backpack

Story Break

Choosing The Perfect Backpack.

Ten steps to the completeness of perfection in you pack.

By Sammy Spama, Your Friendly-Expert.

Number 1: Decide to achieve perfection.

This is worthy goal.
You must do this one.

Here are some steps for you that I wrote down once.

We all know perfection is not possible, true? So why then?

Because others say so. But look close and see. Make to yourself this important query: What do they know that you do not? Nothing, probably! Or very little, mostly.

So then you can do this thing, maybe! So do this thing if you can!

Ready? Yes? OK, Go!

Only an one with a sloppiness of disposition is tempted to accept what is not perfection. Are you a looser, and sloppy? No, you hope not!

No matter what they say to you, whatever thing you want, you may have it for the taking, by golly. Or you can buy it, so do not let others prevent you you from attainment of perfection. Think on the positive.

Wear a smile! Have a happiness always in you soul, not a sadness. Show people they may trust you. They will welcomes you and assist you, always that way.

You win then, so this works.

Perfection is the goal, so do not let reality stand panting like a dog. No panting. Simply walk around that stuff. You can maybe.

Number 2: Identify your goal.

This is so easy it will be kept short. Are you ready now?

Now the thing you want is a backpack, OK? And a perfect one. A perfect backpack, so what? So you must know what this thing is, the backpack, first, right?

What is backpack then?

Learn to identify this backpack thing and how it also may be recognized as a perfect one, even from a distance. This is crucial step, often missed by others, with consequences, so do not skip this step, not even once!

To train your mind, find pictures of the backpack. Find picture of it at rest. At play. Carrying things. Whatever. And then look to them carefully, these pictures, memorizing all the while some details. Pretty soon you will get it, this idea of what is a backpack and which one has the perfection of itself.

So now, number 3 already! We come along to it so quick!

Number 3: Save up the money.

Money is useful to buy the perfect backpack unless you can steal one, which is cheaper. Usually to buy though, and for that, nothing like money! And less jail time too! Or none, probably!

You no doubt hate the jail food like me too? So then. Get lots money and eat better.

Always is money helpful to buying things. Food or beer as well. Backpackers like beer, so get used to it.

Do not scrimp this step or you will be sad. Not to be sad. More on this later, my friend.

Number 4: Make list.

A tidy, well-shaped list of words makes you to look smart, and is good for the training in memory, because you write it down and then see if you remember what, late on. So make lists often, you have the time no doubt, especially if on previous advice are you now in the jail.

Think more, quietly. Work on memory. Get early release. Not you wanting to miss backpacking season! And still you have not even a pack yet, so read on.

Know how to measure for the backpack of your size.

Backpacks become measured in the number of liters they can carry weight in, so decide this first. Which is the desired quantity of weight in liters to carry? Can be a tough one unless you become ready for it.

Keep in mind that your back will be the transporter for these liters, so measure the width of your back and then measure the length of your back from top to bottom. If you measure too much then you may carry a great weight, so careful here. Use caution sometimes.

Now these two measurements you have made, add them, and multiply by a small number to convert to the liter system. This is how much beer for preventing dehydration is adequate, and also how large your pack should be, so you do these two things together. This numbers are always the same one.

So nice!

If you need a friend to help you measure, but have no friend yet, then guess. Be generous because you deserve it, but too liberal guessing means you will not be able to carry your beer with dignity, because of weight.

On your list, make it underlined, that one, to remember. Dignity.

Number 5: Perform more research.

If you can read, a book on backpacking will help. This will make you smart. Use your list as the book mark. So, double use there, this is good practice for later with backpacking things.

If you cannot read that is OK, common among backpackers. Which many of cannot read because they are hikers not librarians so do not let this bother you but read if you can to keep up appearances. The book to read is a backpacking book. Wear a necktie while reading to appear even more smarter. Can't hurt, but not too tight, or else it may molest your brain cell.

Backpacking books are not among the sissy books so no shame in them even though often so many words are inside even these books. Get a book with pictures to help pass the time. Books with no picture are frequently become serious or boring and make you feel in pain. So pictures, always, if possible.

Also, you can ask someone, even strangers. This is what they people are for.

Try up and down the street or at a party. This is also a help to find the date. Or on the bus too. Try there some times.

Athletic types impress, so act proud and strong and then sit next to potential females on the bus. In a pinch with no females you may pick anyone. Some of them also even may have surprisingly smooth skin too. Try and see how it goes.

Number 6: Think about the other parts.

Air flow! Think this.

Air flow is an issue. Importantly, to keep your back aerated. Remember, an aerated back is a back with plentiful air flow, so they are really one and the same.

Many backpackers do not know this, which puts you on a higher level, from which it is easier to hike since you can see everything, all around, so do this.

Air flow! On the list! Yes!

Cushioning also is good. Plan cushioning generously.

Backpack cushioning is inside, so not one can tell if you having some because they cannot see it, only guess, so no need to say it out loud, while still you enjoy the cushioning in your private moments.

Projecting manliness of attitude while carrying the appropriate weight in liters for your size and description makes you do well, so have your list show this one too.

You can do this, positive thoughts always!

Now, connection accessories. Often overlooked. Do not overlook them lest you be labeled slow of thought or worse.

Instead, think of them. Connection accessories — what they are, where they might be advantageous, and what colors would be most pleasant with your manly hiking shorts.

Everything is connected is a thought, so remember it, and think then about connection accessories.

Now, pockets, to think. What they can do for you. Something? Think. Maybe so!

These pockets may be good for the retaining of tools, maps, food, clothings and other, with zippers, which highlight the attainment of professional sport level in gear, and are sure to indicate your completeness of thought.

Cleverness always.

Number 7: Find place of purchase.

So easy to contemplate, but which of many? We have the answer here. Continue the reading as follows.

So.

First is necessary a tip-top retailer, such as the Wal-Mart or the Target-Mart. Best of best, these, to be certain.

Should be several in your area. If not, then move youself to a more advanced locale where civilization is better established and then resume the searching. Look for many stationary vehicles, always a sign of nearby shopping.

Number 8: Shop.

Once inside your retail establishment of highest reputation, look.

It is backpacks you want, remember? I know, so long ago we started this write, but it was to get the perfect backpack, so doing that now finally.

They will be easy to find, the backpacks, as you now know what they are.

A trick here, from the professional shopper — find the woman of most good looks in this store and then follow it. Woman of good looks are often highly intelligent, and know how shopping the deals. To your advantage, sir.

You may also make a friend of her, or better, this women.

If she should make loud or unpleasant sounds with her mouth and look at you in the eye with fright, then try another store, quickly, you have made error, or chosen a defective female, all the same. Are plenty more store in other town, with female woman there too, and they don't know you yet. It is OK then.

Some womens not always at your level, so perseverance. Caution too. Remember the jail? To avoid! Review carefully your past, how it was and so on. Think on it. Wear disguise if need be.

Number 9: Found the backpacks?
Good. This is next step.
We almost done with.

Look through. Locate the one you decide on at home. Get that one, that backpack, unless you see a better one or cheaper price.

You never know. Certainly.

Always smart thinking is important.

If your new friend the pretty female women wants one also, then buy. Female have the attraction to funny colors betimes so get an amusing one and she will be your special friend no doubt. This is proven by facts.

If you not finding the pack you have decided, and your new friend-woman does not seem longer to-be happy, try conversation. Womens, they are said to like it, the talking.

Say to her how much of the money you saved up for this. (See step #3. Now you know the full importance of money, see?) Offer to her as appropriate.

If she says no, try another store and find more agreeable friend-women. Why waste $15?

Number 10: Attainment of perfection, final stage.

Which is your goal to this. Remember?

The best retailers give ample time to you experimenting on completed pack full of things before you buy it.

If they have a tent then set up it — portable toilet too maybe — you can try spend a night or two maybe in store. Just ask, to see what camping is, and stay then.

Remember such an idea as this: You are after the perfect backpack and want experience of authentic, so walk like a true wild man of woods, around, making the practice, with pack on you. Bounce it too.

When time to pay, leave some few useful thing you have chosen inside pack and see. What happens in life, you always need things anyway. Backpacking is such a sport as this, and has high cost. With these rich store people charging like so, they maybe let you take home a free prize or two then, OK?

Now, upon arriving to home, explore new backpack with care. It can be fun!

If your new female-women companion is now in you home with you, then whynot practice camping together until you are both tired. Hey? You are indeed lucky man, my friend, if having a new female like this is possible, and she is willing to be camping with you.

A good camping with dear friend or female always makes for the pleasantly tiredness.

This is the sign of the completeness of perfection, so do it vigorously, the camping. Always better with friends too. The end.

Foundation

Foundation

Judging a pack by its frame.

– If your head is up your butt, –
at least your ears are warm.

Now it starts getting harder. You know what backpacks are, why you need one, how to use one, what their history is, what the industry is like, the types of packs, how backpacks work, and what they're made of.

So how about getting one and using it?

Eh?

Decision time. Start with the basics.

First think about what you want to use the pack for. Deciding what you want is always hard when you start a new activity. Like, go into a store to buy a computer. You know you want one. Maybe you even need one, but you're not sure exactly which one or exactly what you'll need it for other than browsing and email. And stuff. Something. Some kinds of stuff you don't even know about yet. Probably lots of stuff.

Definitely stuff.

But you don't know everything about computers yet. In fact, right now, you know almost nothing. And you're losing ground, because it's getting harder. Phones are now pocket computers. And there are tablets. And phablets. And new operating systems and interfaces, popping up almost daily, are all itching to stick their fingers into your eyes. As soon as you open those eyes to take a peek.

You want help. You want to feel your way into it. You expect to learn enough at the store to pick up on what you need to look for, and at the end you'll get the perfect system, or thing, or whatever it is, or you'll get close, even though it may take a couple of trips, and some pondering.

You are now thinking from the bottom up. You see details. Your world is full of twigs and leaves. You can't even see the trees yet. You know nothing about trees. You don't even know that there are tree things. You are ignorant of the concept of tree-ness, much less how many gigahertz a tree might run at.

– And in the other corner... –

The salesperson is thinking from the top down. The salesperson sees wide expanses of color, vague regions of shape, and only a few wispy tree tops but no trunks or branches, let alone twigs or leaves. To the salesperson you are nothing but a creeping speck on the sales floor, something like a tiny bullseye.

You want to broaden your perspective and the salesperson wants to narrow it. Preferably before break time, and after separating you from large quantities of your money.

This happens all the time. Whenever a snake eyes a mouse. Whenever a bureaucrat drones at you over a counter. And so on. No need to drag this out — there is going to be blood. You can only hope that it isn't yours. But hope is useless as a weapon. Ask that mouse.

From the salesperson's point of view it will be easy to figure out what you need as soon as you say what you need — no thinking required that way. Just pile stuff into your arms and ring up the sale and it's over.

More than anything else, the salesperson wants to drop you into a pre-defined box. Once you are nicely wedged into that box, the sales genes kick in and emit a low, rumbling purr. Because it's dinner time. Now you get sold and then upsold, properly, without being able to resist. You can't even wave your arms around because you are jammed in tight. And completely hosed, as if you were in that snake's throat.

Getting upsold means that you are offered extras. Things bolted on, things glued on, sprinklings of glitter and gruffy dust, stuff to prevent other stuff from happening, warranties with high profit margins and zero usefulness. Things. Things you don't need but the salesperson does, to provide a right-sized paycheck. Things you will, if you are a good customer, come to believe in fanatically. Because you have been told and sold.

– Your eyes look so, so innocent. –

So now, right now, and right here, where you aren't being charged, let us talk. Talk, my friend. Let us reason together while we look at the big picture in comfort. Let us confer. About what you are going to be using your pack for.

First, this is about backpacking so we're agreed that you will be staying overnight, outdoors, somewhere. The same ideas apply to buying day packs, but day packs are less demanding, so you will end up knowing more than you need to buy a day pack. If you go out for one or two nights, or more, you will need space in your pack for a shelter, for bedding, and for a cook set, as well as the normal extra clothes, rain wear, food, water, and the little extras that make up the 10 essentials. Which may include a teddy bear, with or without a squeeze-operated squeaker (which is optional).

Yours is an interesting problem, and not only because of your toy fetish.

First off, if you have no clue, then by definition this is your first time around. If this isn't your first time around, then you already have experience and prejudices. Us first-timers will talk quietly and we don't need you to hang around acting like a know-it-all jerk, so buzz off.

That was our first cut. Bye, y'all.

– Start off shapeless and baggy. –

OK then. Here's the baseline.

You already hike, and maybe you've spent a night or two out under the stars. You want to do more of that, but maybe not too much — something like a night or two at a time, three times a summer. You need a pack. Push comes to shove you can get by with a duffel bag. Get one with a strap, hang that over one shoulder, don't carry too much, and you'll do fine.

Anyone doesn't like it, tell them to piss off. This is your life to live. You don't have to live it all at once either. Start, do a little now and then, change as needed. Repeat if you feel like it.

Duffel bags these days tend to be heavy, square, and overly fussy with details — yes, even duffel bags. So consider the sneaky route. Just buy a large stuff sack and sew on one strap. That's really about all you need to get started. So you do that. (We'll pretend we waited while you went and did that, OK? Cool.)

– Take up welding. –

Now, later on, you want to expand, go farther, stay out longer. If so, then you need to make more choices.

Most people want to hike on trails. Most trails are well designed and well maintained. They go up hill and go down hill, and curve right and curve left, but aside from that they are smooth mostly and lacking in surprises. Mostly. An external frame pack could be the thing.

But external frame packs are getting rare. They aren't trendy anymore. Your choices are limited, but here's what you can expect.

Ready?

All external frame packs will be relatively large and heavy. They don't have to be, but this type of pack is out of favor now, and that's what you will be reduced to. These days it's drifting toward one size fits all — big. Way big. Unfortunately big. Because this type of pack is really good in a lot of ways. It is rugged, holds its shape, stands with only its metal feet in the mud after you've taken it off, and is modular. There is nothing wrong with the idea behind it. It's great! But the one-big-size-fits-all is not great.

Look at this.

Say you get a tear in the pack bag, or a little mousie comes in the night and munches its way through the bag. Back home you can fix this problem with needle and thread. At worst someone can sew up a new pack bag for you, or you can design your own, make it, and hang it on the frame you already have. You can also dismount the bag and wash it, as needed, or replace the shoulder straps or hip belt separately. This type of pack is really, fundamentally a pack kit.

The weight of an external frame pack is probably the main disadvantage, but external frame packs do carry well over smooth ground, and stand farthest away from the body, so they are generally cooler. In a temperature way. And one of these packs will outlive anything made of meat, like you.

– Get huggy. –

Almost all packs you find today have internal frames. These are the trendy ones. Since the frame is inside the pack the pack stays closer to your body, and wraps around you as well, which is good for balance. If you want the widest choice in packs this is the way to go. Same if you hike on rough terrain or go off trail, or do some scrambling. Internal frame packs, descendants of climber's packs, are made for that.

Plus they come in more sizes. External frame packs always were largish overall. Given that they needed welded frames, that made sense. A welded frame supporting a tiny pack bag is unbalanced and pointless — the size and weight of a frame are impractical for small pack bags. A pack bag large enough to spend your whole vacation in does make sense, if you buy into the external-frame concept. And the standard largish frame is sturdier and easier to make than any truly tiny frame is. But on the other hand, if you go this route, you are likely to be using a bigger pack than you need. Or want.

But, internal frame packs then — there have always been a few smaller ones.

But weight. Weight. Think about weight.

These days there might not be much weight difference between external and internal frame packs. This is sad. If weight is critical then hold on until the next section, because pack makers don't put much effort into reducing the weight of internal frame packs, and regardless of everything else, most internal frame packs also fall into the medium to large ranges.

What is it about large anyway? Does that make sense?

It makes sense because only a few people will spend wads of cash on small packs. (OK, gotcha.)

Most people spend what they have on medium-large to large packs. (Why?) Because a large pack will carry a too-small load but a small pack will not return the favor by carrying a too-large load. (Ahhh.) In any way that looks tidy. (Oh, yeah, I see.) You want a pack, you get one, but not likely two or three packs of different sizes, for different trip lengths. Makes sense, no? (Yep.)

So if the snug fit and favorable off-trail balance of an internal frame pack suit what you do, or what you want to do, then consider one of them.

– (Not) Being there. –

Less is less.

Frame.

Less.

Frameless.

Step one was to consider a duffel bag. (Remember?) That can work. So can an old style rucksack. A rucksack might be an ideal start. In the sense that immediately you see its limitations. If you encounter too many limitations, then you are wrestling with a solution that is simpler than what is possible. Without corresponding advantages. (Ow.)

This is called a learning situation.

So, you learn.

You go from a duffel bag or rucksack to a framed pack. Some of the commercial "ultralight" packs from big names could be worth a look. These have most of the features of the larger internal frame packs, which are their cousins, but are a bit smaller, lack most of the useless things, and are a bit lighter. But only relatively. Put them in the 2.5 to four pound (1 to 2 kg) range. Often the only "ultralight" thing about them is the word "ultralight" in the advertising copy. Score another one for marketing.

If you want to get light you'll probably reach that goal eventually, but not right off. (Don't worry, you're fine.) Everyone works up to it. There is no other way. It's a matter of enlightenment. First you do what everyone else does. Then you want more. You find some experts and do what they say. Then you figure out what's actually right, for you. And finally you do what's right, for you. As determined by your own needs and experience. No matter what anyone else says.

This takes time, and learned savvy, and a touch of courage. Because once you begin doing things the way they work, for you, no matter what shows up in the magazines, or books, or outdoor shops, or on the backs of others, you will be thought of as weird. People will come up to you and tell you what you are doing wrong, and why, and what you should do to become righteous, like them.

Poop on them. Poop hard.

– Becoming lighter than possible. –

So. Frameless.

A frameless pack is not a duffel bag or a rucksack. A frameless pack is a specialized piece of equipment for lightweight backpacking. If you are going to go light, seriously light, then a frameless pack is in your future. But first you have to understand what you really need. By making mistakes.

Mistakes are good for you.

Because you make mistakes, do not assume that you are bad. You are good. We still like you. Sure, you're ignorant. We all are, about most things. Mistakes reveal the depth and breadth of your personal ignorance, so then you are able to make specific plans for defeating that ignorance. Is OK. Is all OK. It requires stepwise refinement. Enjoy the process. Exploring is fun, which is why you got into backpacking anyway.

As noted earlier somewhere, one type of frameless pack uses a folded sleeping pad as a frame substitute. A few "frameless" packs gain stiffness through bendable aluminum rods that we can pretend are not frames. One or two packs use carbon fiber hoops. Depending on your definition, a light pack with a framesheet might be frameless, might be light, or might be only another heavy internal frame pack that has mutated a bit, or has been anointed ultralight by the marketing munchkins. We'll leave it to you to sort that out. Strict categories are for dopes. Rigid adherence to ideology is for losers. What matters is what works. Just make it work.

Frameless is for you if and when you know what you are doing, and are intentionally doing it.

If you aren't all the way there yet, think about packs that have small capacities, carry light loads well, and come from small manufacturers. Small manufacturers that are often just one person with good ideas, a sewing machine, and an eye for quality. If you want to be as free as possible, and get by cheaply, and can think your way through what you need and what you don't, then consider a frameless pack. Don't get stressed. Let the answer come to you.

This is fine. Let it come to you.

It will.

– The chase (to which we now cut...) –

· Your decision tree ·

If this is you...	Then try this...
Have big and heavy loads to carry...	Get an external frame pack.
Want the biggest selection to choose from...	Get an internal frame pack.
Desperately hope to be trendy...	Get an internal frame pack.
Are after the best comfort/capacity tradeoff...	Get an internal frame pack.
Desire the most flexibility with smaller loads...	Get a frameless pack.
Are aiming for the lowest cost...	Go frameless.

The End  ^: )