Learning to be light
Tom Mangan at Two Heel Drive reports on his participation in a lightweight backpacking class
Eleven of us sit at tables in a small meeting room in a nondescript office park on the outskirts of Palo Alto. Steve faces us from behind a table containing a blue backpack that looks big enough for moon missions. Steve notes that he routinely toted 60-70 pounds in this leviathan before he saw the light and started trimming his load. While describing his idea of a "lightweight" pack, he opens a zipper and plucks a smaller pack — one that might hold 15 to 20 pounds of gear fully loaded — from the beast’s upper thorax.. Then he starts talking about his "ultralight" pack and snatches a shiny little number from the beast’s lower abdominal cavity...
...For years, one of the primary appeals of backpacking has been the melding of dreadful suffering with wondrous outdoor vistas. Most folks are content to gawk at mountains and forests from their cars or camper vans, but those who insist on seeing them up close have been forced, until recently, to carry equipment built tough enough for Everest expeditions. A few people who were not Sherpas became indignant that lugging a 50-pound pack up a hillside turned an afternoon amid nature’s wonder into hours of praying for the day’s end or death, whichever came first. They made up their minds to enjoy the show and save their shoulders (and knees, hips, ankles and feet), and the lightweight-backpacking movement was born.
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