When backpacking goes wrong
THE OTHER DAY WHILE perusing a website that sold backpacks and backpacking gear, I noticed that things had changed substantially since I was a kid. In the old days, the basic premise of backpacking was to carry 90 or so pounds of outdoors gear – and that was just for an overnighter.
These days the weight of gear is measured in milligrams. Apparently, modern day backpackers actually try to minimize the load they carry by purchasing stoves, tents and gear designed to be easily carried by a muscular hummingbird.
Worse still, they also do things like cut half the handle off of a toothbrush to reduce the weight in their pack even more. If this trend continues, I suspect hardcore hikers will have every second tooth removed in order to minimize the amount of floss they need to take along.
The real hardcore hikers might even go so far as to minimize the amount of underwear they take along – which is a horrible strat-
egy if you plan on hiking in bear country.
I suppose all this is fine if you want to miss out on one of the greatest outdoors experiences. I am, of course, speaking about watching your backpacking partner flail on the ground, pack side down, like an overturned turtle. In my day, this was a common occurrence because the packs we tried to hoist on our shoulders were too heavy to stand with. It might have been the beer.
Sadly, you don’t see much of that on YouTube these days.
Years ago, however, this happened frequently because we would place essential things like boat anchors in our packs. We did not do this for frivolous reasons though. We did it just in case we found a boat while backpacking.
You see, the point of carrying a backpack in those days was so you had every outdoors gadget with you so you were ready for any eventuality. This included two hatchets, several knives, a machete, 15 cans of beans, a package of hotdog wieners, a smushed up package of buns, enough condiments to last a year, a two-burner Coleman stove, three canisters of fuel, a rubber dinghy, paddles and not a single can opener or means of ignition.
We also carried tents that were heavier than most bungalows. They were primarily constructed of wet canvas and required more poles than a hydro crew after a hurricane. Sometimes they had the tent we lost on a previous trip accidentally packed inside them. A small one would sleep a family of 17.
The point is a group of backpackers in my day would carry enough provisions to make a trek to the North Pole and back – provided they figured out a way to open the cans.
Luckily, there was never any real danger of that because the packs I grew up with were purely implements of torture. The straps cut into your shoulders. The metal frame grated on your bones. The colours were gaudy.
These design flaws were intentional to prevent the keeners in the sport from getting lost too far from the road. Also, it encouraged hikers to abandon packs on the trail, which was good for sales the following year.
In stark contrast, modern backpackers have developed the spork, which is half spoon and half fork. The result is a lightweight tool that does neither thing well.
All I can say is, what a load.