Joining The Lunatic Fringe
Using in bad conditions.
– Just when you thought you knew it all. –
Time for your next trip.
The weather report is good. You're ready. You're in shape, you have the time, the equipment, the right attitude, and everything is looking fine.
So you go.
And then things.
Begin to go wrong.
Terribly wrong.
But it doesn't matter exactly how wrong things go, it's really how you feel about it.
You know, maybe it's only windy. Wind — how bad could that be? C'mon now. Wind?
Good attitude, wrong side of the argument. Wind can be as bad as anything, though mostly wind is not evil in its own right, but as an abettor of evil.
Hey, there are days (true, not often) when the wind is so strong that you can barely stay on your feet. That is bad wind. And if you are out in it you have to deal with it somehow, because there is no other option. That is, you have to deal with it if you are going to get anywhere, like home again.
At first you don't think that adding your backpack to wind and stirring vigorously will spell EVIL, but keep in mind that a backpack is like a sail. The bigger your pack is the more wind it catches. And relative size matters, too. If your pack is small, but big in relation to your actual body, then it has more leverage. And any force acting on it has effect. Like making you stagger drunkenly along an unprotected ridge.
So what can you do about it?
Not much. But here is a thought — use a smaller, lighter pack.
That will help.
Weight is always a negative. Weight is never good in any way, so the less weight you carry at any time the better off you will be, especially when tumbling crosswinds are throwing you around. And if your pack is smaller as well as lighter, then, well, that's even more better.
Having a small pack on your back is like giving the wind only a short handle to lever you with. Big clunky packs stick out, and as you know by now, the pack you carry goes on your back, which is an inconvenient side of the body in some ways. We are not equipped to handle tugs and shoves from that side.
So if your pack is smaller it stays closer to your body, and offers fewer hand grips for wind. And if your pack is light as well it can't throw you off balance as easily. Mostly you won't notice this a lot, unless you hit one of those hellaciously windy days, but any day with a noticeable amount of buffeting wind will tire you, especially if you are on the trail for 10 or 12 hours or more.
The less advantage you give to the wind the better it is for you.
– Getting your hump wet. –
Rain sucks. Always.
Not so much while you are sitting at home during the off season, and planning next summer's trips. Rain, you figure, is just one of those things.
Maybe it bothered you before, but by golly you've got it figured out now, and you won't let it get to you any more. Not with your new jacket. Not with your new pack cover. Not with your new attitude and shiny, squeaky new boots.
And then, come next spring, or summer, and you're out there on the trail, and the rain falls. On your head, on your face, down your neck, on your back, on your hands and thighs and knees. Everywhere.
It runs down your arms. It runs into your pack. It squishes up through your socks. Your pants stick to your legs. You get muddy and slimy and cold. You are wet all over and your clothing rubs you raw in inconvenient places. You decide that this is not for you.
So your next thought is that rain sucks. This is circular thinking. You have now come full circle.
You can't do a whole lot about rain except never to go backpacking during wet weather. But even planning won't perfect your score. Sometimes rain falls even when it isn't supposed to. Then you are hosed, eh? No way around that one.
About the most benign form of rain is dew. No, you never thought of morning dew as being rain, but it is wet, and that counts.
The big difference between dew and rain is that dew does not chase you. It hangs there, waiting, the way that ticks do, and you walk into it, the way you walk into shrubs virtually quivering with hungry ticks. Dew is especially bad if you have been wetted through the day before, and have managed to dry out overnight, after the rain stopped, and then when morning comes you are once again ready for a nice, dry day. Your clothes are dry, your sleeping bag is dry. Your pack is dry, and your shoes. You are all set. The sun is out, the day is going to be good. You are ready to go for it.
And of course.
The next thing that happens is that you chug along an overgrown trail chest high in dripping, overhanging weeds. And get soaked from the armpits down.
But that is a good thing. As bad things go.
You get wet, and then the day warms itself, and warms you, and you turn dry once more. Not a whole lot you can do about it, but it's over pretty soon. Doesn't bother your pack too much, either, though your feet may stay wet for hours.
Real rain though, is tougher. For one thing, as we noted earlier, the longer you stay out in rain the wetter you get. Rain is like that. Rain isn't smart enough to subtract but it can add. So it does.
Unlike wind or heat or cold, rain is cumulative. If you are cold, you can rewarm. If you are hot you can cool. When things are windy you can shelter and forget it for a while, and be no worse off.
Not so with wet. And rain is wet. This is the worst thing about rain. Wet.
Water conducts heat something like 80 times better than air, so when you get wet you get cold. The good news, if there is any, is that you don't need to worry about hot rain, only cold rain.
Right. Whoopee-doodle.
So rain makes you cold, and its wetness means that it sneaks in everywhere. Now we're getting closer to its significance for backpacks.
You get rain in your pants and inside your footwear and so on, and that's not great, but your body does have a central heating system at work. But what about the pack? There too, is the wet, but without a furnace. And that can be a bigger problem than having wet feet.
– Keeping your hump dry. –
Your pack is a big hump on your back, and that is not the bad part.
The bad part is that your valuables are inside it.
Keeping everything dry is good. Keeping everything dry is a problem. Keeping everything dry is not a good problem. It is hard, and failure is always an unpleasant guest.
People have tried sealing their packs, and sealing them again and again, so that they can have waterproof packs and can just shove things inside and forget about rain, but it doesn't work that way. As an absolute last resort, and overkill, you can get a dry bag that rafters and river runners use (some of them even have shoulder straps), and use that. But these are heavy and stiff, don't have pockets or most of the adjustments that real packs have, and they still leak, some of them, sometimes.
If you hike in places where rain falls in showers, then your sentence is light. You don't need much protection from that, and you can pretty much wait out that sort of rain.
A waterproof poncho works well. A lot of backpacking ponchos are extra long in back, and drape over a pack, protecting it, while still hanging low enough in back to do well by your tail and leg regions. Ponchos are not great in wind but they are simple, and cast a large rain shadow.
If you don't have a poncho then you can buy or make a pack cover. For short trips, especially if you are careful, a large plastic bag might work well.
Anything that covers your pack and keeps rain off it will help, unless you don't mind having a wet pack. Maybe not, but a wet pack picks up mud and gunk a lot more easily than a dry pack, or a mildly damp one, and will wear faster. If you use other rain wear than a poncho then your pack is in the open and will need its own cover. If you want it dry.
Keeping a pack dry is step one.
But step two is the important part.
Since the pack contains everything your life and comfort depend on you need to keep all of those things dry. By far the best way to do this is to wrap each item in its own rain barrier. Plastic bags are great. Some things, like sleeping bags, are critical enough to merit double bagging. Then even if you choose to let your pack get soaked, or it happens without your permission, you can count on its contents being dry and snug.
– Toggling the hatch covers. –
All this is pretty elementary, really, isn't it?
You have it figured out already. You do. The main problem with backpacking in the rain is not how to cover your pack but what to do when you need to get into your pack, especially when you need to do this several times a day. Whenever you stop, you take off the pack. This is one thing. This exposes it to rain.
You set the pack down. So the ground is wet, and you set your pack on the wet ground, and it gets wetter. And muddy.
Then you open the pack, and guess what? Rain falls inside it. This is one problem with the rain jacket/rain pants combo on showery days. First the rain begins to fall so you have to stop and pull out a jacket and your pack cover. While you're doing this rain falls into the open pack. Then you get all covered up, both you and the pack, and start hiking again, and you're fine, except maybe too hot after a while. Then the rain stops, so you do too, and put your wet jacket and pants, and the wet pack cover inside the pack, which gets the pack wetter. On the inside.
Repeat this five or six times and you might as well have skipped the pack cover.
For showery weather a poncho might work better. It can cover both you and the pack, and when you take it off, just strap it outside your pack. Or hang it through a shoulder strap. It's less likely to silently fall off and be left behind than a jacket. Say a $300 jacket. Or a $500 jacket made of MiracleTex.
The other main pack activities that might get it wet are breaking camp in the morning and setting up camp at night. These are times when you need to have your pack accessible and open. Because that is the point. But do that and rain gets inside.
One partial solution is to camp under a floorless tarp, which will keep you and your gear dry until the last minute in the morning, when you collapse the tarp and stuff it into a plastic bag, and then put that into your pack. If you use a double-wall tent you're pretty well out of luck unless you can devise a way to put away the tent while leaving the rain fly standing until the last minute.
In the evening, if you're using a tarp (or a floorless single-wall tent) you pull out the tarp, shake it out, and put your pack under it while you continue setting up the tarp. Your pack has less chance of wetting out that way.
An umbrella is great for rain protection in calm weather, especially for day hikes. It is great during trailside breaks and at the end of the day too, but an umbrella doesn't play well with trekking poles, unless you have an extra arm for holding it.
Mainly, though, you need to develop a system and rhythm that work for you, and keep as much rain out of your pack as possible.
– Sizzle fridge. –
Cold weather and hot weather don't have much effect on backpacks. Not like rain. Not even as much as wind.
The main issue, and pretty much the only one, is that you will sweat more in hot weather, and get your pack salted. You will as well transfer some body oils to the pack, and sunscreen, and bug juice, mostly to the shoulder straps, which will pick it up as you slither in and out of them, but that's about all.
The only other tiny issue associated with temperature is that hot weather is hot.
If you carry anything sensitive to heat you need to pack a bit more carefully. Two things come to mind — cameras and food. Few cameras these days use film, so protecting rolls of film from baking is no longer an issue, but digital cameras can do a heat-croak as well as other cameras.
Fresh and spoilable food either should be left at home or eaten in the first day or two of a trip, but even more robust foods will go bad if allowed to stay hot for days on end.
Food and cameras — the solution is the same.
When you take off your pack, set it in the shade. If you can't do that then turn the pack so that the most vulnerable side is away from the sun. Normally on a hot, sunny day you'll want to set your pack down so the back is facing into the sun, at least part of the time. The sun will then dry the part of the pack that touches your back.
If you carry a camera outside the pack, then put it under your hat, or tuck it into the pack's shadow. Be sure to keep your hat and camera tethered to something immovable so that you won't forget them. Anchor to your pack or to your trekking poles. A hat will invariably blow away during the one and only gust of wind on an otherwise calm day, and a camera (or anything else left loose) will be forgotten, one of those times, so keep everything that is loose and also valuable tied down to one spot.
OK, food.
This is easy.
Food will be inside the pack. Food is easy to protect.
Stuff food deep enough inside the pack so the food is insulated. If you carry your sleeping bag (inside plastic bags) in a layer along your back, you have a cushy pad that's easy on your body, and one that insulates well. If you put your food in next and then your spare clothing on the other side of the food, you end up with the food sandwiched between two layers of insulation and as far from the sun as it can get, so the food stays as cool as it can.
Hanging food overnight cools it, and packing it inside as much insulation as you have, in your pack, will keep it cool all day, even on hot days with little shade.
If you carry the current day's food separately, in an outside pocket or near the top of the pack, it will be less protected but you'll be eating it soon, so no to worry.
It won't matter if your food warms up between 8:00 a.m. and noon if you eat it at noon, or between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., if we're talking about supper. Any food that turns gaggy and dangerous in a few hours has had a head start. You have already abused it, and this one last hot day has pushed it over the edge. Pay more attention throughout the whole trip and you will be fine.
It's the main food supply in your pack, the food that needs to last a week or two that is the real concern, obviously, and a bit of care in tending it will prevent problems.
Cold weather, then. Right.
It is hard for cold weather to be a real problem. If you need to prevent something from freezing, just keep it close to your body and it will be fine. Food certainly won't spoil if if gets too cold. Not on this planet.
– Complexify me. –
Altitude. Not a problem. Doesn't matter how high you get while backpacking, as long as your feet take you there.
Loads make a difference, heavier ones especially. And loads are worse higher up.
The best thing to do with heavy loads is...avoid them.
It isn't always possible to avoid heavy loads but it is always possible to avoid excess weight. Repudiate wretched excess. Doing this one thing will save you the most grief.
If you are faced with carrying 50 pounds (23 kg), then drop some of it. Leave something home, or replace heavier things with lighter ones.
Even if you can make only a 10 percent difference, you will feel it. And maybe you can make a 20 percent or 25 percent difference instead of 10 percent. When you are used to smaller and lighter loads you can even tell if your water bottle is full or empty. You get that sensitive. Because it makes a real difference. Small, but real.
Weight is always bad. Remember that. Tattoo it upside down on your belly for easy reference. If you ever forget, then all you have to do is pull up your shirt and read.
Weight is always bad. Always. Everywhere and at all times.
For how to stuff a pack, refer to previous chapters.
A few other random tips come to mind though.
Take more breaks. They will do you good. Get the pack off your body. Stop to rest and to cool off. Drink. Eat. Eat and drink frequently to keep your energy up.
Learn how to remove the pack and how to put it back on again, the right way, so you can have your breaks. Many packs have a haul loop. This is a sort of handle at the top, between the shoulder straps. Use this to pick up the pack and set it down again. The heavier the load the more important it is to do this, especially with ultralight packs.
The haul loop is designed to take the weight and evenly distribute the stress into the pack. One way you can really hurt a pack is to grab one shoulder strap and yank. Granted, it's almost impossible to take off a pack without putting most of the stress onto one shoulder strap, until you hone your technique with practice, but keep it to a minimum until then.
Dangling a pack from only one strap pulls that strap to one side. Shoulder straps are made to work with a straight hang, not off to one side. They are made to run down your chest and support the pack while it hangs straight back off the other side.
Force your pack to hang from one shoulder strap and you might rip stitches because you are putting high, twisting stress on a small area. You can rip out the whole shoulder strap. On some packs, some times, if you are unlucky.
Know your pack. Respect it. Your life depends on it.
Let's say you're right handed. To put on a pack that's loaded, lift it with your left hand by the haul loop, helping to lift with your right hand from underneath. Set the pack on top of your right thigh, squatting a little to get the thigh up there, or put your foot on a rock or a log. Now slide your right arm through the right shoulder strap. As a second step, while swinging the pack from the top of your thigh around to your back, reach down under the pack and support it with your right hand, while keeping a grip on that haul loop with your left hand.
While the pack is parked halfway across your back, and with both hands, one on the haul loop and one under the pack's bottom, raise the pack up above shoulder level while leaning forward. This will lay the pack way up on your back and fully support it. Your right arm is already in place, so slide your left arm through the left shoulder strap and go from there.
This is one way to do it. Just get the idea of supporting the pack from two or more points at all times, if possible, and do the rest your own way. Doesn't matter as long as you are kind to the pack.
When taking off the pack, do as well as you can to reverse this process. If the pack is extremely heavy, and you're lucky, there may be a large rock or log nearby, or even a steep hillside. If you can, rest the pack on whatever is handy and slide out of it. Or sit down and lean back against that hillside and then wiggle away from the pack's embrace.
By doing this you lessen the strain on both the pack and your body.
Aside from the above, keep your pack's balance trimmed by adjusting the straps as needed, and pay especially close attention to the hip belt, if your pack has one. You will feel better if you keep as much weight on your hips as you can. When you have pain or cramps in your hips, take a break and let the blood recirculate.
– Odd, is it? –
Odd loads are like heavy ones, though they don't have to be heavy to be odd.
Rain causes more problems than just wetness. Constantly juggling rain wear means that you might be removing it from your pack and donning it, then strapping it back onto your pack or shoving it into your pack several times a day, in different locations.
If you carry trekking poles you might want to carry them in or on your pack every now and then, such as when crawling along a log during a stream crossing (there are times when walking is too dangerous).
Carrying water is a problem, a heavy one. If you need to carry large volumes of water it's usually for short distances, but water is unbelievably heavy. If you need to carry lots of water all the time, then you have more than one problem.
Mostly though, with odd loads, when you have them, your job doesn't get harder, only more complex. If you have things strapped outside your pack your number one concern is not to lose anything. Either your pack has a way to carry extras like this, or you need an extra webbing strap or two. When you need a strap you need a strap. Not much you can do elsewise.
After not losing things your biggest worry is getting stuck.
Even on a good trail, if you have trekking poles hanging out both sides, you snag on brush. It gets much worse if you're bushwhacking off trail.
Try to keep things arranged vertically, and behind you as well as you can. You, being a biped, are taller than you are wide, and you travel upright. Whatever you carry vertically fits well into this format. And when you carry extra things, if you can also carry them hiding behind you, so much the better.
While bushwhacking you'll be putting most of your effort into parting the brush ahead of you. Once that's done you're pretty well home free. You simply walk into the hole and you're there. As long as you don't have odd things sticking out to the sides, which is why it's good to have them behind you, and vertical.
If you have to carry two or four or six or eight extra liters of water a mile or two to a dry camp, you may have some repacking to do.
Carrying a bunch of water makes for a lumpy and suddenly much heavier load. It's important to put the weight into a place that can handle the weight, and to arrange it so it's properly balanced. That normally means inside your pack somewhere.
You may have to pull things out of your pack, replace them with water bottles, and then reinsert those displaced things elsewhere. Maybe not, but be prepared for it. Of course, the shorter your carry the less fuss. Brief agony is acceptable.
– Trip us up, whyncha? –
You can think of trip length itself as a bad condition. Longer trips are more complicated. You have to be more careful about everything, and weight becomes a huge issue.
For example.
Say you are now an ultralighter. Say that, aside from food and water, your pack weighs 10 pounds (4.5 kg, base weight). This is seriously light, especially if you might see some rain, or cool weather. OK, say your food weighs one and a half pounds a day and you are on a two-week trip. Your food comes in at 21 pounds (9.5 kg), which is two thirds of your resulting total pack weight, which is now 31 pounds (14 kg), not considering water. If you can't skimp on food and instead need to average two pounds of food a day, your food's total weight will be 28 pounds (13 kg).
You feel this.
So now add a couple pounds for a minimal amount of water, and your total pack weight is between 33 and 41 pounds (15 to 19 kg), depending on how much food you need per day. This amount of weight is truly ugly with a frameless ultralight backpack.
The phrase truly ugly does not express how truly ugly truly ugly is. So keep it in mind and believe it and avoid it. Or learn the hard way.
The good news.
Is that only your first day will be this heavy, but if you set out with this kind of weight in your pack you will find that even after the first week has passed you still feel it. With no doubt.
How to solve this dilemma? Eh?
First, know your limits. You learn by experience where those limits are. You backpack with a variety of packs at different times, through different landscapes, on trips of different lengths carrying different weights. You get a feel for how your body and mind cope with the challenge. That is good.
Second, be sure you are in good shape. A great way to go out for two weeks is by first making several shorter trips that season, with a week-long trip coming shortly before the big one. Far enough before it that your body has time to recover, but not so far that you begin to lose conditioning.
Nothing replaces being in shape, or being experienced, and you need to be experienced and in shape. Being young helps. Try becoming younger.
Two weeks is about as long as you can expect to go without resupplying, ever. Sure, you can push farther but not much farther. After two weeks you really want to knock off for a few days anyhow, even on a 3000 mile trip. Maybe especially so.
On a long section like this your pack will be stressed and you will be uncomfortable.
A fancier pack with a better frame can help a lot to distribute and soften the load, but a heavier pack is also a heavier pack. Heavy things attract, so if you choose a cushier framed pack over an ultralight frameless one, expect to fudge on other things. Expect to see your total pack weight inch up, or even to suddenly leap up, which puts your whole body at greater risk, especially the overlooked but critical parts like knees.
Something to keep in mind.
And if you carry big weight on a long trip you want a repair kit nearby.
For an ultralight pack, especially one you make yourself, your needs are slim. A needle and thread, some heavy duty safety pins, some rubber bands. These can go a long way. And a spare strap with a buckle. Get a rip, or pull something loose, and you can probably repair the damage well enough to get you home again.
Remember the main idea though: It is impossible to fix things if you have no way to do it.
For gnarlier, heavier, commercially made packs, there is good news and bad news.
Because everything is heavier-duty you are less likely to have a tear or have a strap pull out or a seam go kaflooey. But if that does happen you might not be able to shove a needle through the fabric anyway.
You might need an awl and some shoe repair equipment. Not that you're likely to have this sort of problem, but if you do it could be significant. The best insurance is to treat your gear with respect, know its limits, and inspect it before you go where your life will depend on it.
Which is everywhere.
– Having fits. –
Sounds strange, but if you're having a bad day, adjusting your pack's fit can help.
First and foremost, it's all about comfort.
If you feel miserable, then adjusting a few straps won't make you feel great, but it will make you less miserable. If you are on rough ground it's nice to have your pack tight, right up against you, so it moves when you move and doesn't try any funny business.
Lots of times, going uphill, you can loosen things. You're already trudging. There is no such thing as a fast trudge, and if the weather is stinky hot, then loosening the old straps will let the old pack hang back a bit, and give your old hide some breathing room. After all, you are slowly trudging anyway. Just sayin'.
Rain is always a problem (we keep going over this), but maybe keeping a taut ship can at least help you believe you are in charge.
Likewise for freezing cold weather. Doesn't make much difference how your pack is adjusted. But as long as it's comfortable you can do more hoofing and get someplace warm much faster.
Mostly, in fact, you'll feel best when your pack is tight but not cutting into you, and is balanced.
The odd times are when you carry a gallon or two of water, especially if you need to load it off center. A comfy hip belt is a blessing, as is knowing how to mis-adjust the right straps to rebalance a load.
– Craving weightlessness. –
This brings us back to weight, which is the big evil.
On one hand weight is a friend. If you carry weight, the right weight, it means that you can stay out on the trail, for a few days, for a week, for two weeks. Maybe longer. It means that because you are carrying food, fuel, clothing, a shelter, some bedding and so on, you are free. That is good. That is nice. That is what backpacking is about. You want to be free, but you need to know how to handle it.
The more weight you carry the more you ought to rely on a good hip belt. Keep it snug and on top of your hips.
Keep the shoulder straps snugged up to match, and use the sternum strap so the shoulder straps get pulled together and save your shoulders.
Load lifter straps up top, adjusted right, force the load in your pack to pull back against your chest instead of down on the tops of your shoulders.
Balance straps, down low, pull the butt end of the pack in tight against the base of your torso and keep the pack from wobbling.
Fine tuning is a personal matter, but adjustability is important, and helps a whole lot in getting you through a bunch of bad days.
Learn how to load and use your pack, to adjust it, and the two of you will become close friends. Adversity does that for you. Even with an inanimate thing like a pack. Know your pack, feel comfortable with it, use it right, and it will go a long way toward getting you through ugly times.
End of story.