If I can't throw my pack over my house and have it land in the backyard then it is too heavy.
That's without water of course.
Sometimes being different is cool, but just being yourself and being comfortable within your own skin is the coolest!Originally Posted by Nean
Thank you for pointing out what UL DOES NOT mean, but can you tell what it DOES mean?
I'm tired of being differentI want to be cool
People can define UL in slightly different ways. And, sometimes definitions can change as other things change. For example, with new advances in lighter and lighter wt UL and Light wt gear the definition can change. I'll post the below statement from ProLite, but in my mind adopting the UL style IS NOT simply about gear! It's a backpacking lifestyle/philosophy that includes adopting a mentality, simplicity, wisdom, and understanding of yourself and the environment in which one backpacks.
How much weight do I need to carry to be considered an ultralight backpacker?
A universally accepted definition for ultralight backpacking has not been agreed upon, but for three season backpacking a base weight of under 10 pounds is commonly accepted as the threshold for what is considered "ultralight". Lightweight backpacking base weights are closer to 20 pounds.
Of course winter and technical backpacking situations require more equipment, but using lightweight or even ultralight techniques for those disiplines are more frequently referred to as a "fast and light" or "fast and lite" approach to mountaineering.
I will say again, I do not think adopting an UL hiking style means one always has to hike fast, faster, or do fast hikes!
A Fast Hiking thread on an Ultralight subforum and there are people criticizing both. If you don’t have value for UL then why push your views on others in a UL forum. Also, if you don’t fast hike, great, others do and don’t want to constantly hear how they aren’t “stopping to smell the roses.”
I do fast hike and I don’t “stop to smell your roses.” You may not like it or understand it but I don’t care. I am getting what I want and need out of my hike. On any given day it could be the challenge of pushing myself mentally, physically or emotionally. I may hike a long day to take advantage of a 48 or 72 hour hiking window made possible by a business trip near the Sierra. And you are going to tell me that should be “stopping to smell the roses” when I get to hike in the Evolution Lake Basin or do the Rae Lakes Loop only because I CHOOSE to do high mile days? You can keep your roses, I’ll take seeing new places and exploring areas that most people would need a week to get to.
I leave on Friday to start my 100 day PCT hike. Probably way too fast by some people’s standards but I can only afford to take this length of time off from work. If it bothers you so much that I will be doing high mile days then send me a PM and I will give you an address where you can send two months of my salary so I can hike the PCT by your standard.
Life is about tradeoffs. I CHOOSE to push myself at the expense of reading a book, bumming around a trail town or hanging out. I CHOOSE to get up before the sun to get a cool early start and see the sunrise instead of sleeping in. I choose to get on the trail in 15 minutes rather than sit around camp drinking coffee and making a hot breakfast. I CHOOSE to try finishing my PCT even faster so I can hike an additional section of the PNT instead of spending extra zero days spending money in some trail town. And there are a myriad of other choice that are MY choices. If they aren’t your choices, great, I don’t care.
I find it so ironic in a community that throws around HYOH like it was a commandment there are so many people waiting to shove their own values and motivations down others throats. Rant Over!
And 10-k, I found skurka's site invaluable.
I second this.
For what it's worth, Dogwood, I don't think anyone who is really cool actually cares what anyone else thinks. They do what's cool without even giving what others think a thought.
Not a bad rant or concluding remark for a beginner, but consider the possibility that people may simply be attempting to point out opposing points of view.
What many don't seem to grasp is HYOH is more about staying focused on one's own hike than having one's nose in someone else's hike. It's not synomyous with MYOB. There is also an important distinction between what trail managers call to the attention of hikers and what other hikers post or say in the real world.
Last edited by emerald; 05-18-2011 at 00:21.
Huh uh! LOL! Watch out. Freight train coming through.
Of course they are your choices. Your hike. Your opinions.
And, of course there are pros and cons(trade offs) in many of the things we do. I hope you can keep an open mind to those pros and cons and be willing to explore them more deeply and rationally without going into a tirade. I know I try to! There's no crying in hiking! There's no crying in hiking!
Don't know if you were referring to me in any of your post but notice how many times I used, FOR ME? Notice how I made that point several times in my posts? Notice where I said I'm an ULer and do fast hikes and hike fast at times? Notice where I say there is value in an UL hiking style, in hiking fast, and doing fast hikes? Notice where I write people hike for different experiences? One person's experiences can be just as valid as another person's experiences. If I wasn't clear in making those pts they were certainly on my mind and in my heart.
As far as values and motivations, those things I did share. Although I can voice myself forcefully, I'm not trying to push them down anyone's throat. If you don't like my values and motivations you don't have to try to understand or adhere to them. That's probably a good thing in some cases! And, you certainly don't have to read my posts.
Again, it's up to you if you are willing to explore the trade offs made in our/your decisions with more than a cursory perspective.
Most of all you DO NOT have to defend yourself, motivations, or hike to anyone, including me!
Hit the PCT with a smile! Just don't step on any rattlesnakes. LOL.
Have a GREAT hike!
The bottom line is that it doesn't matter what you think (whoever you are...).
That's a bit harsh, but really.... It doesn't matter to me what anyone here thinks about how I hike. I'm certainly not going to alter anything I do because someone on here is critical of it.
Hang your food? Do it.
Quit your job? Go for it.
Leave your SO? Doesn't affect me.
You know what I mean?
And it works both ways - what I think shouldn't matter to you.
Last edited by 10-K; 05-18-2011 at 08:35. Reason: Still learning puncuation....
+1 for 10-K
"Fish Camp Woman.... Baby, I like the way you smell"
- Unknown Hinson
Actually it can make quite a difference. The fast you are walking the more you are focusing on the walking aspect. The slower you walk the less you have to focus on walking and pushing yourself and the more you can focus on things around you. I'm sure this may not be true for everyone, but it is for a fair amount of people, hence why you hear people say that all the time.
He who gives up freedom for safety deserves neither.
Ditto. My response to the OP:The bottom line is that it doesn't matter what you think (whoever you are...).
That's a bit harsh, but really.... It doesn't matter to me what anyone here thinks about how I hike. I'm certainly not going to alter anything I do because someone on here is critical of it.
Hang your food? Do it.
Quit your job? Go for it.
Leave your SO? Doesn't affect me.
You know what I mean?
And it works both ways - what I think shouldn't matter to you.
1) Walk as fast as you can, run if you can and so please.
2) Take as little time in towns and otherwise zeroing as you can get by with.
3) Keep your pack weight to a reasonable, workable minimum.
4) Spend minimal time and effort obsessing about it otherwise.
My response to the length of this thread: wow. Honestly, sincere question: is there a way to mark certain threads for "ignore"? This would be one for me.
Meanwhile, I'll be taking pics and taking in sights and going at whatever pace works for me. Cheers to all, the slow, the fast and the in-between.
The more miles, the merrier!
NH4K: 21/48; N.E.4K: 25/67; NEHH: 28/100; Northeast 4K: 27/115; AT: 124/2191
Yes, just don't click the link to read it.
The length of this tread is in direct proportion to the number of people who see fit to interject their hiking philosophy on other people. If you subtract out all the replies from people critical of fast hiking the thread count drops by 1/3. Subtract out the people responding to the critical people and it drops by another 1/3.
I can't help but think that the thread would be 1/3 this size if it hadn't been hijacked by the rose-smelling, looking-under-rocks and 2 hour lunch crowd.
Not that there is anything wrong with rose-smelling, looking-under-rocks and 2 hour lunches - they are just completely antithetical to what this thread was supposed to be about.
Or something like that.
Last edited by 10-K; 05-18-2011 at 10:54. Reason: still working on high school grammer....
Maybe once upon a time. Modern usage suggests that HYOH is polite code for MYOB.
Dang I'm ornery today... Time to go for a hike I think.
There are different motivations for going on a backpacking trip, and I've seen many different backpackers with many different intents. Some love nature and just have to be outdoors, whether moving fast or slow. Some come out with a gf or bf and think about nothing but sex. Some build huge bonfires and come out to get drunk. There's probably no right or wrong answer.
I agree with the blue blaze thing. Fast-movers generally want to stay on their set-in-stone route with no deviation, and god help you if you pass a "thruhiker" and try to get them to take off their pack for a hour and talk. You notice how they keep inching and inching down the trail, frustrated to be stopped.
Yes, but the quest for the light pack commits a person to what I call "snippet backpacking": Going out with a minimum of food weight and the unwillingness to carry enough food w/o frequent resupply, hence the snippet amount of time a person can stay out in the "wilderness" without going to a store or a post office for more food.
Had you not skirted past Whiggs Meadow and instead taken a few minutes to hike to the open bald, you probably would've seen me camped there in my orange tent. At least, I think that's where we missed each other.
Totally agree here. There's a strange obsession with miles in the backpacking community, and I think it's related to how we process testosterone while in a natural setting. "SLOW AND HEAVY" could also be a marketing tool to get people out on 20 day trips with 20 days worth of food and fuel and focus on the exploration of one particular wilderness area, instead of attempting to hike a linear straight-line trail.
What about food? For the most part, in my mind, UL backpacking works only with snippet backpacking where there are short spaces between resupply. Remember, Skurka on his 4,679 Alaska-Yukon trip carried a winter pack weight of 33.3 lbs and on his last 1,700 miles he carried 30 lbs of food with a total pack weight of around 55 lbs.If I can't throw my pack over my house and have it land in the backyard then it is too heavy.
That's without water of course.
It's easy to apply UL principles on trails like the AT where there are food resupply opportunities every three to five days. Sometimes I wish our weekends could be 20 days long and then we'd see how ULers could pull a weekend trip without resupply and carry 40 lbs of food in their tiny packs.
Yes - but he was still packing UL. If a traditional packer had tried this feat he / she would have started with over 100lbs. His baseweight was still incredibly low.
I move fast and light on the trail but I see more than the traditional trekker. This is easy to do when I'm not hunched over with a heavy load. I can keep my head up.
Mike Clelland said it perfectly. UL backpackers like to be on the trail. Traditional backpackers like to be in camp.
My point is that long trips w/o resupply defeat for the most part the quest for the ultra light kit. And in fact, traditional backpackers like myself also like to be on the trail---in addition, all backpackers whether UL or not, must both hike and camp. If an ULer hikes 12 hours in a day, he or she must still camp for the other 12 hours. We all camp and we all hike.
Walter - I used to have an M3 and my neighbor had a pickup truck.
Every once in a while I'd need a pickup for something and I'd borrow his truck and let him use my car while I had his truck.
Now, I don't know if you can appreciate the difference between an M3 and a Ford F-150 but let's just say that it's somewhere between night and day....
If I had wanted a pickup truck I would have bought one. I think my neighbor could have afforded an M3 if he had wanted one.
Different vehicles, both designed to get from Point A to Point B but with totally different kinds of utility
Is one better than the other? No.
Did I rag on my neighbor for having a pickup instead of an M3? No.
Did he rag on me for having an M3 instead of a pickup? No.
So... I'm not going to start hiking short days with a 70 pound pack because someone else thinks it's smarter. With all due respect, it's not going to happen.
Last edited by 10-K; 05-18-2011 at 12:04.
horsepucky
And, there are different ways to measure a successful trip. It's fine if the number of days out there is your measure of success. It's also fine if number of miles hiked is your measure of success. Or number of wildlife photos taken, or haiku written...or even accomplishing absolutely nothing other than omphaloskepsis (look that one up!).
"Throw a loaf of bread and a pound of tea in an old sack and jump over the back fence." John Muir on expedition planning
Is it not true people who suggest or demand others MYOB have allowed themselves to be distracted and are not giving full attention to their own business? Seems to me paying attention to what other hikers think is not conducive to a fast hike and amounts to the pot calling the kettle black, no?
I like it when you are ornery. It also pleases me to know you don't care what I think about how you hike. You would likely accomplish more by taking a fast hike than posting, but, of course, that would be entirely up to you.
Can you burn those for fuel? Another UL suggestion.
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