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.