November 2007 - Posts

• #1 Continued ... Understanding You

  Understanding your own Desires, Capabilities and Fears will yield the greatest rewards and may be your most difficult task. We are dynamic creatures; our desires fluctuate as wildly as our emotions and are frequently at odds with each other. Identifying Your Desires? Clearly the primary desire for anyone looking to go ultralight is in shedding pack weight to ease the chore of hiking. After all we are out there to have fun, aren't we? Personally I've never had much fun pretending to be a pack mule. I take great pleasure in strolling along mountain trails enjoying the sights and sounds and wondering what new things will be discovered around the next bend. The thought of hiking hunched over carrying a heavy pack, doesn't give me much incentive to go backpacking. Frankly, I can see more speeding through the mountains at 60 miles an hour in my car than spending hours pondering the few feet of dirt in front of me. Carrying gear for a comfortable camp is great, but where lays its value if I'm too exhausted to enjoy it? Now that we've decide we want to make hiking easy, what other items do we add to the wish list. I also want to be warm and comfortable at night, dry when it rains, free of all manner of bugs flying or creeping and have good food when I get hungry. Oh, and if it's not too much to ask, I'd also like to hike where the views extend horizon to horizon over a jagged, torn and wild landscape. At night I'd like to sleep by the sound of a babbling brook or maybe atop a treeless ridge to watch the sunset and sunrise. Many of our desires are driven by those Kodak moments that years of reading backpacking magazines and looking at catalogs have infused into our hiking dreams. I want to be that happy person cooking dinner and watching the fading rays of sunset dance on the surface of lake deep in the wilderness. Of course it'd be nice to have that pack of Sherpa's that are conveniently placed off camera to carry everything in for me. So how do we mold our experience into a series of Kodak moments and not an episode on the TV series "I Shouldn't Be Alive"? To get started, you sit down and make out a list of everything that's important for you to accomplish on your trip. Where do I want to go? How much hiking do I want to do? How and where do I want to camp? What else do I want to do while hiking (i.e. take photos, fish, hike side trails, peak bag or simply take my leisurely time)? What do I want to eat? Am I eating simply for fuel or does backcountry cookery play a motivating force in my trips? Since each of us has our own motivations for venturing into the backcountry, your list of desires is limited only by your imagination. Once you've created your list, you need to prioritize it. Sort downward from the most important items to those that may enhance your trip but can be skipped if needed. As you're making your list, try to identify any potential conflicts. For example if you want to cover 20 miles a day, you may not have enough time available to devote to taking the kinds of pictures you want or hiking side trails. Also make a list of what you don't want to happen on the hike (i.e. hike in the rain, deal with bugs, run into lots of people, etc.). This list is just as important as your desires and may wind up being longer and more detailed. Note that once you're hiking you'll have little control of things like the weather or bugs, but by identifying these issues in advance, you can at least identify areas and times to hike when these problems will be minimized. Finally you'll need to make a list of both what needs to be done and what obstacles need to be overcome. We all have constraints on us that range from limits on time; travel time, distance and expense of getting to and from the trailhead; time needed for planning; to lack of appropriate gear. As we start taking personal responsibly for the creating the experiences we want, these lists perform a vital function of focusing our mind on what is important. In the end it simply boils down to setting priorities and making choices. There is no right or wrong choices, except in how they contribute positively or negatively to your experience. Understand that the biggest choice has already been made and that is to put a pack on your back and head into the wilds. From now on there will be lots of choices to made, some relatively important and others not so. But with a little thought and care, they should lead you to the goal of Maximizing Your Experience. Lists, lists enough of these damn lists! Making all of these various lists does seem to be dreadfully boring. After all don't we just want to go backpacking? Yes, and fortunately the act of all of the various lists isn't needed all of the time. In the past I used to make actual lists; however, overtime as the process got more ingrained I could scale them down to just the highlights. The rest of the decisions I'd resolve during my training hikes, thus killing two birds with one stone. Managing Your Capabilities? There are times when coming to terms with your capabilities is like having a bucket of ice water tossed in your face, whose sole purpose seems to be to wash away your dreams. It's not enough to simply ask yourself, "What do I want to do?" You must also ask yourself, "What can I do?" It's easy to get caught up in the euphoria of planning. During all those hours spent studying gear lists, maps and myriad of other far more interesting aspects, it's easy to overlook the fact that most of us are pretty sedentary creatures. It's pretty easy to hike 20 miles a day with a 15 pound pack while sitting behind a computer screen and dreaming. On trail we soon discover that reality sucks. A marathoner doesn't jump up off the couch one day and proclaim "Hey I'm going to run a marathon tomorrow!", yet walking 20 miles with a pack while ascending or descending several thousand feet is no less difficult. Either activity will take a heavy toll on your body. I know lots of long distance hikers and most of them hate the prospects of getting or staying in shape. Fortunately if you're planning on spending months on trail your early days and weeks can be used to build strength and endurance. The limits are your ability to carry water between water sources and food between resupplies. If you're like most people, your trips are squeezed between work and family obligations. There isn't the luxury of taking the first five days to get into shape for a six day hike. By the time you feel trail hardened, the trip is over. Preparing your body for the hike need not be limited to getting into shape. Like most people, my ageing body found a 3/8 inch foam pad sadly inadequate for a good night's rest. Switching to a heavier Therm-A-Rest was worth weight so I could sleep. Preparing for my 2600 mile Pacific Crest Trail thru-hike required pairing gear to a minimum. End the end I dropped the inflatable for a light pad. The decision was driven partly by weight added to the fact that desert hiking is hard on inflatables. Being naturally lazy, I didn't want the added fuss and stress of the inflatable. Fortunately the desert provides a wide selection of nice sandy sleeping beds that can be molded to my needs. Soon I slept as if back home in my bed. Leaving the comfort of the desert behind, my body had grown accustom to sleeping on hard surfaces. Today I sleep on a hard mattress at home to ease the transition back to the trail. While hiking I can frequently find natural bedding more comfortable than what is at home. You need not spend months sleeping on a hard mattress to achieve comfort on trail. Sleeping for a few nights on the floor before you're trip can ease the transition from bed to trail. Just because you have limits doesn't mean you should be limited. Identifying your limits affords you the opportunity to overcome them. Understanding Your Fears? All of us are plagued with our own fears and demons. If you delve into the pack of even the most dyed-in-the-wool Super Ultralight (SUL) hiker you'll find one or two pieces of "What-If" gear. Or simply gear carried that goes beyond what knowledge and experience tells us we need. On a recent hike on the Tahoe Rim Trail, I made a last minute change of my 5 ounce pack for one weighing 13 ounces. That extra half pound of fear weight amounted to roughly 10 percent of my base pack weight. Would the lighter pack have failed? In hindsight, probably not. Had it failed, would I be endangered? No I carried enough repair materials to cover any unexpected failures. So why carry the heavier pack? Well in this case, the light pack was new and relatively untested. The heavier pack provided that additional layer of comfort. My fear or in this case ignorance drove the decision. A couple of dozen more miles carrying the pack fully loaded would have been more than enough to prove it merits, thus eliminating any fear or hesitation on my part. While we can never fully eliminate our fears, through experience and training we can gain the confidence to corral them into manageable levels. Many of our base fears can be resolved by familiarity. As we spend more time in the backcountry we become more acclimated to the dangers we're likely to encounter, either real or imagined. We have no fear of jumping into our car and driving to the trailhead. Yet we're more likely to be harmed getting to the trail than while hiking. Our familiarly with the dangers inherent in driving allows us to put risks into perspective. Lacking perspective, it's easy to become overwhelmed by fear. Many fears cannot be resolved by familiarity. A few basic skills learned through training is all that's needed to cross safely over snow fields and passes, to wade swollen rivers or administer first aid in an emergency. While not difficult to master, these skills cannot be acquired through simple observation. They require your active involvement through hands on classes or study to be learned. Here we go, back with the lists again. This time we'll create to two lists. Label on "Nuisances" and the other "Danger Will Robinson". In the nuisance category, we'll list everything that annoys the hell out of us but probably won't lead to our emanate demise. Expect that many of the items in this list will be duplicates of "Unwanted Desires" list. Now in the "Danger Will Robinson" list, include everything you feel may harm or kill you. Examples of these include, getting lost, freezing to death, falling, getting attacked by an animal, drowning, etc. Now don't get too worked up. You're not writing an episode on "Tales of the Crypt", gruesome details and flights of fantasy aren't required. Just write a good faith list of concerns. While pondering the evil lurking in dark shadows, consider this. Quite frankly, we are not that easy to kill. Years of living comfortable lives may have made us soft, but we won't drop dead the first time something goes boo. Books and magazines abound with stories of people suddenly thrust into survival conditions. A great many survive despite what we perceive to be insurmountable odds. Understanding our fears is the first step to conquering them. For the ultralight hiker, learning to temper our fears allows us to free ourselves from their yoke. Once liberated, we soon find new worlds of adventures are now open to us to explore. Posted Nov 28 2007, 03:33 PM by ronmoak with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Ultralight Hikers Philosophers Guide

• Principle #1 - Focus on Maximizing the Experience

  Focus on Maximizing the Experience Not Minimizing the Gear Too often when start talking about this subject or that we overlook the obvious or at least what we assume to be obvious. We dive directly into the meat of the matter without bothering to elaborate on topics which we presume is generally understood. The danger of avoiding the obvious is that we can easily overlook its importance. Far too often our discussions of the ultralight hiking experience revolve around the joy of unencumbered travel. Drop a few pounds and your backpacking experience will improve. Drop down into the ultralight range and the improvement will be remarkable. With the constant equating of lighter weight equals better, one might come to the notion that backpacking naked would be nirvana. Well maybe for some. Others, concerned at the potential loss of safety and comfort, couch their discussion of the UL experience in foreboding terms. "Sure you hiking may be easy, but your nights will be dreadful. And God forbid you should encounter a stretch of foul weather. If so, surly your life will be forfeit." At least that's how some people feel about this madness we choose to undertake. Its true there is a connection between your pack weight and an improved backpacking experience. For many the improvement is great enough to allow them to continue backpacking years after they would have otherwise quit. Also despite the claims by some, going ultralight is not a sign of mental handicap nor will it put you on the fast lane to the hereafter. Focus on Maximizing the Experience is the first and core principal of the Ultralight Backpacking Philosophy. It is the first principle simply because it was the genesis of the whole Ultralight Hiking movement. In its infancy, the primary reason to shed all that pack weight was to make hiking long distances more enjoyable. With 14 to 16 hours a day spent on trail between camps, most of camp time was spend either sleeping, eating or taking care of gear. No need to carry a fancy camp outfit if you don't spend much time in camp.  Almost immediately the focus shifted from the experience to the absolute reduction of gear, no matter how ridiculeous the reduction. Indeed, much of what's published online, in books, taught in UL Backpacking classes, discussed ad nauseam in web forums and whenever two or more UL hiker meet for more than a couple of minutes is all about the gear. I don't suppose that's too surprising, after all gear is something visceral. We can see it, touch it, wear it and wrap it around ourselves. It infuses itself into all of our senses. Plus it's damn easier to talk about gear than something ethereal like The Experience. When we talk about experiences we're much more likely to frame them in terms of war stories. "Man you should have seen that storm. Fifty mile an hour winds, lightening and hail the size golf balls pounding us. It was extreme!" Or we talk about how much better we felt strolling into camp after a 15 mile day carrying a 15 pound pack. Since gear is physical, we easily quantify it in terms of weight and volume; it's easy to fall into the trap of discussing gear solely on the basis of one or two key elements. So we say, "Look how great this gear list is! The pack's only 9 ounces the shelter is 8 ounces and the sleeping bag is a pound. It must be a fantastic setup!" There was a day when manhood was measured by how much we could carry. As if suffrage could be equated with virility. Today it's more macho to say I walked a hundred miles through the wilderness carrying a 6 pound pack. Our manhood is now measured by how much we can hang it out on a line and somehow seem to get away with it. When was the last time you hear a hiker talk about taking a leisurely stroll along a high mountain ridge and spending a delightful hour or so watching a bee dance from flower to flower all the time soaking up the warm summer's sun? Yet taking it slow and escaping the frenetic hustle of daily life is a damn good way to spend those precious few days of freedom we're allowed every year. In an attempt to shift the focus back to the Experience. I've extended Focus Maximizing the Experience by appending Not Minimizing the Gear. It is, or at least should be, the quest for the ultimate Experience that drives us to travel into the remote sections of our country. Our gear is simply one of many tools in the UL arsenal that allow us too comfortably and safely travel where others fear to tread (unless encumbered by a ton of "necessary" gear). What is the Experience? In order to maximize the experience, we first need a way to quantify it. We need break the Experience into manageable components that we can explore well before we even step foot on the trail. It turns out that it's pretty easy to breakdown Experience. Simply put, it is the sum of the four parts You, the Environment though which you're traversing, your Gear and a Strategy that binds it all into a workable plan. As we look into each of these components, they can be further divided. As go through the process of bits and pieces that combine to make up the experience, you can begin to get a handle on what changes you can make to mold the experience to suit your desires. Takeing on the process of identifying and exploring all the individual components that make up an experience is important for anyone venturing into the out of doors. This exercise is bentifical wheither you go out to hike, hunt, fish, ski, mountain climb or undertake any outdoor activity. This step is more critical to the Ultralight Backpacker. The ultralight backpacker doesn't simply float across the landscape, expecting their gear to provide all the necessary security and support. No, they create stategies that allow them to fuse together their gear, the very envirornment through which they travel with their own unique skills and capibilities.  When combined they give the backpacker the power to travel safer, faster, lighter and derive a greater joy from their trips. << Four Principles        Understanding You >> Posted Nov 26 2007, 08:28 PM by ronmoak with no comments Filed under: Ultralight Hikers Philosophers Guide

• The Four Principles of the Ultralight Hikers Philosophy

  There are four core principles that when fully understood, crystallize the essence of the Ultralight Hikers Philosoply. They are Focus on Maximizing the Experience, Embrace Multipicity, The Power of Synergy and finally The Theory of Elasticity. If you are familiar with UL Backpacking, at least three of the principles should sound vaguely familiar. Each of the principles covers some fundamental aspect of the Ultralight Philosophy. In addition each subsequent principle builds upon the previous one. Taken together they form a solid foundation which you use to enhance your backcountry adventures. We start with Focus on Maximizing the Experience simply because we all want to maximize those few days each year we’re allowed to wander through distant mountains and wilderness unencumbered by the trapping of modern civilization. We need to go beyond the reach of cell towers, the internet and surveillance cameras, to where the roads are primitive and the trails lead us to sights seen by too few eyes. In order to maximize the experience, we must first try to understand it in meaningful terms. To do so, we break down the definition of Experience into variety components that are easier to quantify. We can then look at look at how they interact with each other. The more we know about the experience we’re trying to achieve. The easier it is to evaluate whether our decisions will ultimately enhance or detract from the desired experience. The principle Embrace Multiplicity builds upon the Maximizing Experience by giving us some tools with which we can start evaluating our gear. In order to Maximizing the Experience we must utilize the full potential of all the gear we carry. We’ll look at the gear we carry and analyze how it can be used to perform multiple functions. By extending the number of functions a particular item of gear can successfully perform, the less overall gear needs to be purchased or carried. This will ultimately save you money that maybe use in some other way to enhance the Experience. It’ll also reduce the weight of your pack and help to make the miles more pleasant ones. In The Power of Synergy we’ll look at combining individual items of gear together into a system. With synergy (where the outcome exceeds the sum of the parts) we are able to combine our gear, our capabilities and the environment through which we travel, in ways that make us not only safe and secure, but elevate us to new levels of confidence. For too many us “The Wild” is viewed as our enemy. Our gear is viewed as our first and often last line of defense to whatever evils lurk in the dense forest or behind rocky outcrops on windswept ridges. With The Power of Synergy, we learn to stop looking at “The Wild” as some foe with which we’re at a constant state of tension if not war, but as a friend who’s glad to offer shelter, warmth and comfort, if we only know how to ask. Finally there’s The Theory of Elasticity. It’s a rather academic phrase, which seems totally out of place as one of the principles of the Ultralight Philosophy. However; once understood, The Theory of Elasticity shows us how to really analyze our gear and how it’s used. When we cut our gear down to the margins, it is critical that we build systems that are not only light and functional, but also highly flexible. One of the fundamentals of ultralight backpacking is to be forward looking. To look for potential problems then assemble the appropriate gear or devise a strategy to navigate safely through any potential hazards. However, despite our best efforts, there’s always the possibility of unseen pitfalls. To overcome the unknowns, we need systems that provide enough flexibility that even failure of one component won’t cause the failure of the system. These systems provide a degree of redundancy. Fortunately adding in some redundancy doesn’t have to mean adding lots of extra layers of protection with the corresponding increase in weight. It does mean that must understand where vulnerabilities exist and what steps we can take to minimize them. Posted Nov 24 2007, 09:26 AM by ronmoak with no comments Filed under: Ultralight Hikers Philosophers Guide

• Ultralight Hikers Philosophers Guide - Introduction

  In the dozen or so years since the concepts of Ultralight Backpacking was first penned by Ray Jardine, much has changed. Early adopters of ultralight backpacking were forced to make most of their own gear. Aside from your basic tarps, little ultralight gear was available. Normal backpacks averaged 5 to 7 pounds and sleeping bags easily topped out at above 3 pounds. Add in big stoves, cook sets, lots of clothes and personal gear and it’s easy to see how and overnight pack could top out a 35 pounds with food and water. The last few years have seen an explosion in ultralight gear with the arrival of new gear manufactures to the market. Tarps have dropped from pounds to mere ounces. Full size tents are available that weigh less than bivy sacks a decade ago. Sleeping quilts of a pound or less provide an amazing amount of warmth for their weight. Packs have dropped from pounds to ounces. Today, it’s easy to acquire an ultralight outfit that’ll get you down to a 15 pound pack with enough food and water for several days of summer hiking. Still, too many people continue to carry traditional gear weighting 35 or more pounds, while hiking in similar conditions. New fabrics are flooding the markets that promise to make our gear weigh less, be more durable and offer more protection. What amazing new products that will be produced in the next decade is anyone’s guess. Understandably, ultralight backpacking roots lay deep in the world of long distance backpacking. Long distance hikers are faced with the need to cover thousands of miles over a relatively short time span. This requires long hours of hiking day after day. With little time spent in camp, there is less need to carry a bunch of gear whose sole purpose is to make camp time more comfortable. Efficiency of travel is the key consideration. As ultralight backpacking techniques have spread into the general backpacking population, it’s evolved to meet different challenges. For an increasing larger segment of the population, ultralight backpacking affords them the opportunity to venture out into our beautiful backcountry. Aging bodies no longer have the energy or desire to tote heavy loads into the wilderness. With a light pack, backcountry travel is not only possible, it’s downright enjoyable. With the increase in available gear, there’s been a corresponding increase in information available on ultralight hiking techniques. New websites are constantly popping up, new books are being published and more ultralight articles are showing up in mainline magazines. So with all the information that’s available, what is the purpose of the Ultralight Hikers Philosophers Guide? Simply put, over the coming weeks and months, I’ll try to look at Ultralight Hiking from new and different perspectives. The Ultralight Hikers Philosophers Guide is divided into three sections, Four Ultralight Principles, Six Steps to a Light Pack and Ultralight Backpacking Strategies. In the first section we’ll cover the basic principles of ultralight hiking. While I’m sure we’ll be covering topics that sound all too familiar, we’ll also be discussing topics that hopefully you have never thought of before. The four principles form the basis for a richer understanding of ultralight backpacking. In the section, Six Steps to a Light Pack, I’ll cover six basic steps to reduce your pack load. Each step is designed to build a foundation upon which subsequent steps are built. All of the steps are designed to allow you to lighten your load with a minimum of expense and mistakes. In the process of reducing pack weight, many people have traveled down expensive dead ends resulting in hundreds if not thousands of dollars needlessly spent. The Ultralight Backpacking Strategies section takes the lessons learned in the first two sections and applies them to real world scenarios. Ultralight Backpacking isn’t about which shelter, pack, sleeping bag, stove or any other piece of gear we carry. It’s about how we incorporate our gear into our backcountry adventures to make the experience richer and more fun. Doing so means we need to know as much as possible about ourselves, our likes, our fears, our interests and our capabilities. With a better understanding of ourselves, the terrain we’re traveling through and conditions we’re likely to encounter, we’ll have an easier time selecting gear that’ll help us to maximize our experience. What the Ultralight Hikers Philosophers Guide isn’t, is a guide to the latest gear available on the market. This may come as a surprise as I make my living off of producing what I hope is some of the best ultralight gear available. In the Ultralight Backpacking Strategies section, I’ll look at how different gear choices will affect how various strategies play out in real world. Often we select gear for purely personal or aesthetic reasons; these choices can have a significant impact on where and how we hike. Gear is certainly important, but its primary role should be to assist in making backcountry travel safe, comfortable and possible. Just how we define safe and comfortable varies wildly from person to person. It is hoped that knowledge gained from this guide will help in your efforts to select gear that will mesh well with you particular needs. No two of us seek the same experiences in our travels nor do we bring with us the same level of understanding. What if you’re not interested in Ultralight Hiking? While the Ultralight Hikers Philosophers Guide is geared to ultralight hiking, it is by no means limited to people carrying little if any gear into the backcountry. Much of the basis of the Ultralight Philosophy is about maximizing the experience. So the core principals apply regardless of how much gear you ultimately carry. The importance is properly applying your gear to the task you’re trying to accomplish. The Ultralight Hikers Philosophers Guide is being published over the coming months as series blog entries. I’ll try and post a new blog entry each week; however other activities may conflict from time to time and delay the post. Because the guide is a blog, you can contribute both to the content and potentially to the guide’s final form. In the blog comments section you can add your own insights, agreements or even disagreements with my own observations. As I write the strategies section, I’ll try and incorporate as many y to do ultralight backpacking. Clearly what works for some may prove a disaster for others. What’s important is listen to a wide variety of voices, then go out and discover what works best for you. Happy hiking! Posted Nov 14 2007, 12:11 PM by ronmoak with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Ultralight Hikers Philosophers Guide