With each laborious step, my spine screamed from the enormous weight on my back—and I hadn’t even left the parking lot.
This, of course, was a bad sign, considering how I was competing in a “Survival of the Fittest” pack-off, and a judge armed with a postal scale was waiting for me inside, ready to weigh my overstuffed sack down to the last ounce.
It had all sounded so great when AMC Outdoors Publisher Heather Stephenson first pitched me the story: camping veteran and hiking neophyte vie to pack the lightest, most killer backpack for a four-day jaunt in the woods. It’ll be trail leader versus trail rookie, experience versus complete guesswork, with no help from friends, books, the Internet, or the tent department dude at REI.
Then Heather told me the bad news: I was the neophyte.
I had to agree that I fit the description. While I’ve done my share of day trips, it’s been eight years since I last slept in a tent. The only backpack I own is the kind that holds schoolbooks. A sleeping bag? Maybe a friend could lend me one.
My packing opponent, meanwhile, was Julie LePage, an AMC Boston Chapter hike co-leader for the past three years. When I first spoke with Julie, she was preparing to camp in the snow in the White Mountains. If she weren’t so nice, I would have sworn she was rubbing it in.
The goal was to pack as lightly and efficiently as possible in the eyes of our judge, backpack Zen master Hawk Metheny. Having polished off everything from the Appalachian Trail (2,175 miles) to the Pacific Crest Trail (2,650 miles) in his 25-year hiking career, Metheny now teaches workshops for AMC on reducing pack weight.
“There shouldn’t be anything in your pack that you didn’t use by the end of your hike, except for your rain gear if it didn’t rain and your first-aid kit if it wasn’t needed,” Hawk offers. “Everything else in your pack you should be using every day in camp. If not, why are you carrying it? Might as well have a brick in there.”
Our guidelines were as follows: plan on temperatures ranging from 35 to 75 degrees and rain showers late afternoon and evening of Day 2; count on freshwater streams near every campsite and some typical, Northeast above-treeline exposure; forget campfires and anything else not in line with Leave No Trace principles. Food and gear budget (beyond what we own): $100. Bonus points for ingenuity and homemade solutions.
Julie had everything ready to go in about an hour. I spent two days wondering what to bring, then scrambled to find a backpack, stove, and other items I didn’t possess. In the end, Hawk took us both to backpacking school.
Is your pack too heavy? Photo by Tracy Powell.
