Wise Women Go Light, Part 1

Introduction

It was the summer of 2004 in the Sky Lakes Wilderness Area of southern Oregon, and with the continuous rain we’d had for several days, I was sure a few extra pounds were hitchhiking a ride on my pack. Still, I questioned it: physically hard working, 63 year old me having to ask my hiking buddy Jean’s assistance in heaving my 40-some pound pack onto my back. Bent over securing and adjusting the multitude of straps, I hoped I’d get it right the first time. Standing upright with a feeling of triumph, I shrugged my shoulders for a final adjustment and was ready for the day’s adventure. Then I heard a plea for help come from Jean, and with both of us lifting her pack, it too, was soon perched upon her back, waiting for adjustment.

“Watch your step!” I cautioned myself as I wobbled precariously next to a steep vertical drop. The view from 7,000 feet was spectacular, and I would have liked to have been gawking at the beauty surrounding me as I walked the zigzag section of trail. Instead, I was concerned with what was an uncomfortable load. A glimmer of thought flickered and I asked myself, “Just how much of this stuff do I really need?”

At our next rest break, the first words out of my mouth were “Jean, we need to lighten our load.” Carrying ten pounds more than I, she was very receptive to the idea.

That’s how I remember hiking buddy Jean Rogers and myself deciding it was time for us to go lightweight. How do we navigate the trail to lightweight backpacking? Where will it lead us? Well, we’re sharing our journey with Backpacking Light in a series of three articles, beginning here with our introductions to backpacking, our early backpacking experiences, and our current heavy gear lists. In the near future we’ll bring you our second article, with our many considerations in going lightweight, perhaps even ultra lightweight, and you’ll hear what we’ve learned, what skills we’ve gained, and what worked or didn’t on our gear testing trips. In our third article, we’ll share with you how our final gear choices perform for us on our 7 day, 90 mile hike of the Pacific Crest Trail from Crater Lake to Williametter Pass in September of this year. We’ll be backpacking at elevations of 5,000 to 8,000 feet, with warm to hot days, cold to freezing nights, and rain and thunderstorms very likely. It will be a great test of the gear and our skills. We hope you’ll join us as we go light!

The Wise Women

Jean’s Story

Until my 50s, I was a horseback rider, not a hiker or backpacker. By then, an active lifestyle was catching up with me and horseback riding became out of the question due to chronic inflammation of my sacroiliac joint. Straddling a horse only aggravates it, but I can walk. And, walking down a dirt road in Maine in the year 2000, I took a footpath off into the woods. I realized that even though one-third of my life had been spent in New England, there was an entirely different unexplored world here only a short distance from the road. I decided then and there that I would backpack the Appalachian Trail in New England.

After two years of planning and acquiring equipment, my cousin, niece, and I set out to backpack the AT in Vermont. We were all neophytes, and the trip was a comedy of errors. Pack weights were 60 pounds and up, all of us having been raised on sayings like “be prepared” and “better to have too much than too little”. I had one of those HUGE packs that are described as being able to carry everything including the kitchen sink. Although I didn’t have a kitchen sink, I did carry a collapsible 5 gallon jug with spigot. That trip did in my knees. My left knee has never forgiven me and reminds me what I put it through on every hike. Even so, I was hooked and returned the following year to backpack more of the AT, this time with a pack weight in the 40 pound range.

In early 2004 I attended a map and compass class where I met Sue, now my friend and hiking buddy. She had been hiking the Cascades with her friend, Mary, for two years. Since meeting, Sue and I have hiked and backpacked a good portion of the Pacific Crest Trail in Oregon and explored numerous areas of the mountains and the coast.

Each year, our backpacking trips have increased in length while our pack weights have decreased. Now 58, I am getting serious about losing more pack weight. When I look back on my first backpacking adventure, I can’t believe I was able to carry 60 pounds.

Sue’s Story

I’d found long awaited freedom to adventure in 2002 when my husband and I sold the meat packing business we’d owned for 25 years. I mentioned my desire to hike to my friend, Mary, and she was immediately ready to explore some trails with me. Soon Mary and I found ourselves on our first day hike together - the 4.5 mile round trip to Three Fingered Jack in the Oregon Cascades. Living near the Coast Range of Oregon as a child, my early memories are of looking off towards the distant country, pondering where the Cascades even were. Many years later, I was enthused to find myself there in all my day-pack glory, shoulders bearing the weight of what I thought then were essentials to survive the wilderness. Food was packed, but if I were stranded I was not prepared at all. No rain gear, no emergency supplies like first aid, and early on, no map. I was ready to hike anywhere, and I’d figured adrenaline would get me there and back.

Many day hike adventures followed in 2003, and in 2004 Mary and I met Jean at a map and compass class. Four months later we three ladies did our first overnight, with me confidently sporting my second hand store treasure - a wondrous six pound backpack. I was a real greenhorn then! Because I had not been able to decide on a tent, I used the bivy bag from my three spiritual vision quests of 12 years earlier.

The vision quests didn’t directly prepare me for backpacking since there was no hiking, no trails, no maps, no compass, and no backpacking gear, but they helped me become more at ease in the “uncivilized” world. The vision quest of 1992 helped me to overcome many fears that had been with me for half a century. I made it through my three solo days and nights, and shortly after I had the courage to bungee jump, and even wrapped a 15 foot python snake around my shoulders at the Oregon State Fair after years of extreme fear of snakes. Ensuing vision quests helped me overcome more fears, and by the last vision quest I was confident enough in the wilderness to choose to stay in my vision spot for five days.

My first long adventure was our Sky Lakes Wilderness Area of the PCT with Jean in the summer of 2004. Jean had a friend that wanted to try hiking with a mule and she’d invited me because she was afraid the friend and the mule would not complete the 5 day, 60-some mile hike. At the time, I was thinking I was past the greenhorn stage. The weather along that section of the trail for August is usually hot, so I had thought I might leave the rain gear at home. Jean quickly vetoed this idea, and to make a long story short, it rained for three days. Guardian angels do exist! That was the same trip that we decided to learn to go lightweight on. We learned a lot that trip. Some other lessons include: do not hike with a mule; always bring your rain gear; packs get really heavy when wet; and yes, you can pee in a zip-lock bag at night when the wind and rain are at their peak, trying to unnerve old ladies in tents.

Going Light

Jean

On every backpacking trip since my first, I have tried to lighten my pack weight, but this has been harder than I had expected. I have a BIG comfort zone that I need to break out of. When Sue and I went on our first backpacking trip together, my pack weight was down to about 45 to 50 pounds. I still had a tough time on the steeper ascents.

Each trip has instilled more confidence in my abilities and I am slowly going without items that I have considered essential in the past. Other items I have tried to find lighter alternatives for. My first sleeping bag weighed over 3 pounds and was rated to 15 degrees. My new 15 degree bag weighs 1 pound 15 ounces. Instead of carrying three nesting pots (one for every occasion, naturally), I now carry only a titanium teapot that holds enough water for dinner and my tea. Instead of a fork and a spoon, I use a Lexan spork.

I found a website with directions to make a Pepsi can alcohol stove. I discovered that I could whip out one of those in no time, and made stoves for all my friends. Sue made the windscreen/pot stands found on the same website.

That humongous pack I started with is now gone and I have a smaller, lighter pack. I did try one of the ‘frameless’ packs, but I still carry too much weight for it and so it pulls uncomfortably on my shoulders.

I still use several light weight wicking shirts from my first adventure into the wilds, but I am eyeing some made from the newer, lighter fabrics that weigh even less. I wore ‘sturdy’ leather boots on the AT. Now I use a boot with leather and mesh and knocked off about a pound or more in weight. I use Crocs as my camp-creek wading shoes. I discarded my self-inflating mattress for a solid foam pad and saved another half pound.

I sold my two person, 4+ pound tent and now use a one person 1.5 pound tent. It isn’t as roomy for sure, but I have less stuff to clutter it with.

Slowly but surely, I am emerging out of my old comfort zone and into a lighter, less encumbered zone. However, after putting only the essentials into my pack, I find that I keep adding this and that for “just in case.” Old habits are hard to break, but I am making progress. I feel good and am looking forward to hitting the trail soon with a much lighter pack!

Sue

There were several short overnight hikes in 2005 where my 6 pound second hand store backpack stayed home and in its place was an Osprey Aether 45 weighing in at 1 pound 12 ounces. Now my “big three” items (pack, tent, and sleeping bag) weigh a total of about 6 pounds! Still, I want to replace the Osprey with another light pack.

I would like to come in at a pack weight below 20 pounds for a week long hike, and feel the Osprey Aether’s 20 to 25 pound load limit will restrain me. We did a three-day hike in 2005 where my total pack weight including food was between 22 to 25 pounds, but the Osprey Aether was not comfortable at that weight.

Other lighter gear I’ve acquired include my Vasque Gore-tex boots and an REI Sub Kilo sleeping bag. I don’t know yet if I’m comfortable with my REI Sub Kilo sleeping bag, but my new Vasque Gore-tex boots so far have not leaked.

Those Nalgene water bottles are heavy, so they became Platypus bladders. This change took some time to accept as I was concerned about the bladder being a breeding ground for germs, even with the good washing it got between each hike.

I had been so proud of my stainless steel cooking pot and then I knew it had to go. I replaced it with a titanium pot with lid at 5.7 ounces, with self-made windscreen. The windscreen also serves as the pot holder and I have a 1.5 ounce pop can stove made by Jean.

I was using REI’s Quarter Dome UL tent at 4 pounds 3.6 ounces, but intense investigation lead to the Six Moons Lunar Solo E. Complete with my piece of builder’s tyvek for a ground sheet it comes in at 2 pounds, 6 ounces. However, I’ve had difficulty putting this tent up and getting it taut - the back corners want to sag. Purchases I made for day hiking that have passed the lightweight test for backpacking turn out to be my Gore-Tex pants and my Columbia ‘titanium-alloy’ raincoat with zip pits.

I turn 65 this fall and with each passing year my slender build will demand that I pay even more attention to my load capacity. Every ligament in my being is shouting “ultralight.” I tell my three daughters that I’m going to live to be 120 so I have a way to go and many trails calling me. A lifelong tomboy for sure, but the earthly requirements of an aging body will take its toll and to spend my remaining years enjoying the outdoors will take intelligence and fortitude.

Backpacking Light

In the spring of this year, Jean mused that we should be gear testers for aging women. I did not give it much thought at the time, but several weeks later, sitting at the computer, I thought “Why not?” and wrote Carol at Backpacking Light with the idea. She thought even more valuable than gear testing would be sharing our journey from heavy to lightweight backpacking with you. Including the trials, the fears, the successes, the reluctance to change. In other words, the adventure. She mused that the journey is not gender or age specific. Most everyone goes through a gradual process as they lighten their packs, expand their comfort zones, and face some fears. What keeps the process going is the realization that it’s just so much more fun to carry a lighter pack! Wise women, and men, go light! We hope you’ll join us on the next leg of our journey, where we’ll share with you as we let go of “needed” gear, experiment with lighter equipment that we fear will be uncomfortable, and try gear that just isn’t heavy enough to possibly work. Join us as we go light!

Gear Lists

We have already lightened our pack weights considerably since our introduction to backpacking just a few years ago. What follows is our gear lists as they are now, as we begin our association with Backpacking Light and start a serious push to lighten our loads. You’ll note that Jean’s base pack weight (everything but consumables - food, water, and fuel) is now 20 pounds and Sue’s base weight is 14 pounds. Since Sue wants her total pack weight to be around 20 pounds for a week long trip, she is striving for a 10 pound or less base weight, while Jean will be happy to lose 6 or so pounds to get below Sue’s current base weight of 14 pounds.