Ballast

[squeezebox]

What do you use for ballast in your pack for training hikes? I was looking at a 40 lb bag of dirt at home depot. I was looking at the 2 cu. ft. bags of mulch, will measure one and my bag to see if it might work. Do you have any suggestions?

[kayak karl]

i just use my gear. throw in heavy food. my pack would fail with 40 lbs in it.

[LoneStranger]

Big car camping sleeping bag to fill the bag and then my wife's kettle bells. She has a bunch of different weights so I can vary the load as desired.

[moytoy]

I'm with KK on this. Use your gear and that way you can adjust the loading etc. I never go on "training" hikes. All hikes for me are real hikes. I never know when a hike is my last so I like to call them all "hikes".
When I meet my maker I figure it won't hurt to have my hike count as high as possible.

[rocketsocks]

What do you use for ballast in your pack for training hikes? I was looking at a 40 lb bag of dirt at home depot. I was looking at the 2 cu. ft. bags of mulch, will measure one and my bag to see if it might work. Do you have any suggestions?I wouldn't use mulch, too poky...maybe sand, less dirty than dirt. Or as has been mentioned just use your gear, that's what I did, less about 20% for training.

[rocketsocks]

I wouldn't use mulch, too poky...maybe sand, less dirty than dirt. Or as has been mentioned just use your gear, that's what I did, less about 20% for training.one item I left out was my bag so it would be compressed for three weeks prior...my bag goes on the bottom.

[MuddyWaters]

Training hikes mostly train mental facets.
To little, too widely spaced = no real long term benefit.
The body quickly regresses

In my mind, best to something you can do several times per week, like cardio at a gym, or run, and lift weights once per week/body part.

Training hikes in addition to the above, are great, by themselves, not so much unless can do every week. I used to preach this to the scouts/advisors going to philmont that thought the 3 training hikes months apart would get them in shape......not happening. Got them in shapw mentally as to what to expect though, so they were less shocked when they actually started. Convinced a few to get in better shape and drop pack wt as well.

More to the point, containers of water are dense, and work well for weighing down packs. One L bottles, orange juice containers, whatever. Throw some in with basic gear. Bags of rice and beans work too if you eat those.

[rocketsocks]

Training hikes mostly train mental facets.
To little, too widely spaced = no real long term benefit.
The body quickly regresses

In my mind, best to something you can do several times per week, like cardio at a gym, or run, and lift weights once per week/body part.

Training hikes in addition to the above, are great, by themselves, not so much unless can do every week.
funny you should mention this, just the other day i was paying close attention to my regime and came to the conclusion that after about 3 or 4 days of no activity (walking) i'm right back where I started, then it takes about 2 or 3 days to feel strong again.

[Deadeye]

Nothing. The only "training" I consider is making sure my shoes still fit. A few day hikes will do that, with or without a weighted pack.

[Sarcasm the elf]

What do you use for ballast in your pack for training hikes? I was looking at a 40 lb bag of dirt at home depot. I was looking at the 2 cu. ft. bags of mulch, will measure one and my bag to see if it might work. Do you have any suggestions?
When I was getting back into this I filled my pack with some weight. I used a 3liter camelback filled, a couple of filled nalgene's, some random heavy food, bags od rice, beans etc., possibly a couple of canned items, plus some bath towels to keep everything packed together and padded in the pack. It worked well and didn't cost me anything extra. Personally I would ignore the "you don't need to train" comments above. Everyone is different but I found carrying a weighted pack for long day hikes to be very useful.

[nsherry61]

Training hikes with load are important for me to get my feet and knees in shape. Cardio and muscles don't need the long term prep so much.

I use a 20 lb bag of rice, plus water if I want more. The rice was cheap, and had some volume to make it carry more naturally than denser sand rocks, or dirt.

[BirdBrain]

i just use my gear. throw in heavy food. my pack would fail with 40 lbs in it.

I agree with this common sense answer. Why try to simulate what you will carry when you can carry what you carry? Before a shakedown hike I practice packing my gear, test how it rides, and practice using my gear. You could incorporate this into your training. Personally, I do not train with a pack on. I exercise and try to be familiar with gear. I take a shakedown hike before the main hike.

[Another Kevin]

I'm a clueless weekender, so I never really get my 'trail legs'. But one thing that I've found helps me - a lot - is to load up a small (28 litre) pack with a heavy laptop computer and its brick of a power supply, a couple of filled water bottles, a few books, and such - I think it's about the same weight as the pack I'd carry for a long weekend - and walk a couple of miles a day.

In my case, since I live just a mile from the lab, it's walking to and from work. Every single weekday. No exceptions. Summer or winter. Hot or cold. Blistering sun, or pouring rain, or snow. Skeeters and blackflies in season. Postholing on the rail-trail until they get around to plowing it.

Sometimes in winter I get stares from the security guards when I come in the gate, collapse my poles, and peel off my Microspikes once I get to salted walkways. There were a few days last winter that I needed full winter gear, including facemask and goggles, to cope with the -40 wind chill.

On hot days, I may be heading directly for the locker room when I arrive - to shower and change from running shorts to appropriate office wear. (If I weren't walking fast enough to break a sweat on a hot day, that would kind of defeat the purpose, wouldn't it?) In that case, my pack weight also includes work clothes, a soap dish and a towel.

Part of it is that it's 30-40 minutes a day of moderate exercise. Part of it is that it gets me used to carrying a pack. And the "every single weekday, no exceptions" seems to be the most important part. It gets me used to the idea of walking through whatever weather that Mother Nature decides to serve up.

I'm not in terrific shape, and I know once I do get on trail that I need to go slow. 8-12 mile days[1] is a typical plan for me. After a week-long section I start feeling as if I might be ready to go longer, but by then it's time to go back to work.

Still, it's not a total shock to body and mind when I do get time to hike. I get over the hump of starting the day's walk, every single day.

So for me, it's not about having exactly the right load. It's about consistency - carrying at least some sort of heavy-ish pack out in the weather on a daily basis.

[1] I may be selling myself a little short here. When I plan an 8-mile day, it usually includes thousands of feet of elevation change; or involves pushing through dense spruce; or needs snowshoe, crampon and ice axe work; or some other time-eater. I enjoy challenging terrain - some of it harder than anything on the A-T - if I can take my time at it.

[chiefduffy]

Bottles of water.

[shelb]

If this will be your first AT hike, you might really consider putting all your gear into the pack to train and then unloading it each time when you get home. That way, as others mentioned, you will get used to how to pack your gear - what fits best where, how your pack carries with things in places. When you unpack, think about will be most important when you stop for the night.... and what you want to have readily available to remove first.

[Lyle]

By far the best, as others have said, is your actual gear or similar gear. That way, you get to play around with efficient packing and weight distribution scenarios, plus you will always have "emergency gear" with you when you set off into the woods. A bag of mulch wouldn't offer must protection or comfort if you were stuck out overnight. :)

[saltysack]

Pack lots of dog leashes for us folks who don't use them all the time.....


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