Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Heavy Backpacks

Responses have been great. It seems like people tend to be around 30 lbs or 60 lbs, but there is not the range of 25lb, 30lb, 35lb, 40lb, 50lb, 55lbs, 60lbs and everything in between. It seems like it would gradually vary from low to high, not jump from lightweight to heavy.

If you're big and strong enough to haul a heavy pack, and that's what you want to do, go ahead and do it. More important than extra weight in the pack is extra weight on the body - I know those extra pounds I carry on my body slow me down. I also notice that the weight of my hiking shoes/boots make a big difference - it's a lot slower going with 5 pound boots on than with hiking shoes that are less than 2 pounds.

Crap I am 6'1 215 lbs and in no way do I want a heavy pack LOL!! A trip with my wife overnight brings our skin out weight down to 13 pounds for me, and 12 pounds for her.

I'd wager that, if you could grab people and weigh their packs as they head up the mountain, you would find pack weights spanning the range from 10 lbs or fo up to at least 80 lbs.

On my very first overnighters, I used to bring those small shrimp cocktails in a jar! Lots of heavy fresh fruit and my pack was never too heavy for me (have no idea what it weighed). Now, it is a different story. I have a bad back from many car accidents and weight is much more of an issue. I'm not sure what my pack weighs in at but I know it is over 45-50 lbs (was 60+ last year so I'm improving ) How do you guys get to 30 lbs and under???? I had to get a tent that would suffice for fall, spring and summer. I got the BD lighthouse (3 lbs 3 oz) so there's a few extra lbs and I do need a lighter sleeping bag. It also must be my extra clothing. I took basic mountaineering through the Sierra Club years ago and even on summer hikes, I think the extra clothing we were taught to bring was overkill. I am currently using my Northface ski pants (insulated) which I use right over my hiking pants and thermal bottoms. The pant is heavy. Thinking of converting to a light weight wind pant (which I have) and a mid-layer pant.

I'm climbing Adams this month and need to carry a lighter pack; had problems on Adams last year due to the weight of my pack...

Thanks,
MC

"The dream is to get my pack under 25 lbs"!!!!!

Just did Cottonwood Lakes solo with 56lb. pack.

Fishing gear, waders, boots added at least 20 lbs.

I also carried some heavier food, salami, cheese this time, for pure indulgence...

After a few of those heavy pack experiences ...

Once in spring...winter camping

http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/2150991890061435028YPmXCq

And when I went with my family....carrying 4 sleeping bags on my pack.

http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/1221324914061435028zzpTnS

I think I like the trimmed down version....about 30 lbs. You make same sacrifices but don't suffer as much.

I guess you take what you feel you need.

When I was at Whitney Portal on Monday night, I watched a nice gentlemen pack his huge pack. What could I say? I felt he was taking more then he needed, but he was prepared for whatever came his way........He probably did fine.....but wasn't traveling as fast as the folks with lighter packs.

My base weight, before food and water, is about 25-28 pounds. For eight day trips in the Sierras, my starting pack weight is usually around 46-47 pounds, which includes 3L water (yeah, I carry too much water). I believe in comfort, and carry a full coverage tent (I hate dealing with mosquitoes when trying to sleep). I carry a good first aid and repair kit, and more knives and tools than most groups carry. I use a full length insulated air mattress (very comfy at 2.5" thick).

As has been noted, it gets expensive - for example, my Western Mountaineering Summerlite did not come cheap. But long after the price is forgotten, I enjoy the 1 lb 3 oz weight of a bag that I can use down to about 30, and I sleep cold, too.

Each year I try to splurge on one major item to drop my pack weight. Next on my list is a Bearikade.

This is a very interesting topic to me. I will be giving a talk for the Sierra Club related to this topic in October (announcement at end of this post), in which I will be talking about how to achieve a lower weight.

My motivation is what I have seen, and what I've experienced on the trail.

I look at the very frequent senior participants in SC outings....it is painful to watch them WALK. with no pack, although their posture and gait makes it easy to see the pack!

I think of the hundreds, or thousands of people I've met over the years, who gave up backpacking, because they could not tolerate the pain. I think of one friend, who topped off his two-hourly rest, with a vicodin. I can't help but think of the damage to joints, discs, and soft tissue. I personally have a several time broken ankle (last on the MR!), that will not tolerate significant pack weights. (I can do it, but I AM NOT HAPPY)

So, planning is the key. For example, three days, for me, would be leave after lunch for trail camp, summit day two, out day three. I'd need about 3 lbs food max. two dinners, one lunch, two breakfasts. My base pack weight is about 6-7#, plus bear can. So, about 12#, give or take. Certainly under 15. No more than a quart of water, until above TC, when I won't be carrying the base weight, anyway.

However, Whitney MMWT is not typical. somewhere in the neighborhood of 160 people hike on it each day during the summer. This is not an isolated place that requires you to be able to deal with anything, or you are in deep trouble. It is a well defined trail. You don't need the backup GPS, backup cellphone, SPOT, ham radio, or any radio.

However, for most, more novice folks, I'd recommend around 20-25#, which is easily achievable without the super expensive, super high-tech gear. My pack/sleeping bag/tent/pad combo runs around 4#. BobR is my ultralight hero, but I take more toilet tissue. I think that ultralight weights require a lot of experience to safely achieve, and you have to work up to it.

My other hero was Norman Clyde "The Pack that Walked like a Man", famous for his packs containing an anvil, iron skillets, and hardbound books in the original greek or latin (they lasted longer, he said)

I often find that people talk about what they need to have with them, but what they really are talking about is what they WANT with them, which may not be at all the same thing. I like the concept of austerity. As I often say, the two competing concepts are: how much of civilization can you take into wilderness with you, and on the other side, how little.

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October 2008 Monthly Meeting
Oct 23 Thu Sierra Singles

Monthly Meeting: "Backpacking Made Easier." Ranger Ken Murray will talk about the gear revolution that has turned backpacking from a chore of hauling huge packs weighing 60 lbs that crush the back, to base weights of 5-10 lbs for a weekend! How to do it safely, comfortably and cheaply. Whether a veteran of 40 years or a brand new backpacker, you will learn how to reduce the stress on the body! Current conservation news and letter writing will begin the meeting. Everyone welcome. 6:30 refreshments, 7 pm program at LA Zoo in Griffith Park (follow Sierra Singles signs to meeting room— front gates close promptly at 7:30 pm, please arrive early). Contact: Jeanne Karpenko

I came across this 1997 PCT journal where this 130 lb guy started out with a 90 lb backpack, pretty hilarious.

"So when I found myself stranded by my future roommate, George, at the remote trailhead near Campo on the desolate Mexican border one fine afternoon in May 1997, I was as completely and totally unprepared for the reality of long distance hiking as anyone ever was. I'm embarrassed to say that when I'd weighed myself with my pack on the previous night I read off 220 pounds. I only weigh 130. To this day I have trouble figuring out how I managed to get my pack to weigh so much. Or why. It had something to do with the fact that I packed for the first time around 1am the night before, and had absolutely no time to reconsider my gear list. I'd thrown in 2 gallons of water (there's 16 pounds in one fell blow!), my entire bag of tools (including things like a grommet setter that I'd forgotten were in there -- grommet setters weigh a ton!), enough food to feed an army, ice axe, complete guidebook, letters and papers, climbing shoes, several sweat-suits, etc. etc. I'd planned not to re-supply except to buy groceries in towns near the trail, so I needed to carry all the gear I would need -- which is why I ended up with an ice axe in the middle of the broiling desert.

I staggered down the trail a couple hundred feet and sat down in the spotty shade of a greasewood bush. Okay, this obviously was not going to work. I pulled out the water, drank and poured out half of it, pulled out a few other heavy items, like guide book and tools, and put those in a plastic shopping bag. Now that I was capable of standing up again, I carried the rest by hand the long first mile of a 2700 mile trek. Fortunately the little town Campo has located itself conveniently in the middle of the trail one mile from the border. I sat down outside the post office and took everything out of my pack. A guy calling himself "Fireboy", a veteran of the Appalachian Trail, passed me and asked what I was doing: I told him I was on a "which-hunt" -- which things were going to stay, and which were going to go. I emerged with an enormous and satisfactorily heavy box, and maybe a 45-50 pound backpack. Of course, it turned out to be Sunday, and I had to search the whole town before I could finally pay someone to take my box and promise to mail it to my old climbing roommate the next day.

It was a pretty traumatic introduction to long-distance hiking, but the hard lessons are learned best. My "discovery" turns out to be at the very heart of the sport: I can't begin to remember how many times I've gone through my gear, either physically or in my head at night, looking for things I didn't need, or at very least could eke by without. Every additional pound on your back sucks out that much more of your very life and soul."


http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~hollin/index.html?page=hiking/pacific_crest.html

I'm heading over Shepherd Wednesday for a 16 day, no resupply solo trek to the Upper Kern and Colby areas. Pack weighs 55 lb -including 2 full water bottles, a Bearikade Expidition. Food is not the culprit - mainly Mountain House Pro Packs, soup, jerky. But I just can't give up the luxuries - deserts, hot chocolate, cappichino, Thermarest Pad / Pad Chair, 2 books - Coming of Age in the Universe and Atlas Shrugged, extra pot/cup to augment Jetboil. Also, pretty good survival/first aid package, 3 Jetboil cartriges, digital camera, Black Diamond Highlight Tent, SPOT Messenger.

I'll have a damn-this-weight "life is harder when your stupid" episode near the top of Shepherd, but I'll get over it. I may be old (65) but I'm awfully slow!

booger, how about a link to your SPOT Messenger page?

My pack weight without food and water runs about 12 pounds now. I have a gear list at http://www.4jeffrey.net/hike/gear/gearlist.htm from 2001 - my gear has changed a bit but that will give an idea of a 13.7 pound base weight.

I still use the G4 ("no suspension" some say) when appropriate, when I need a little suspension the ULA Circuit that still weighs just 32 ounces. Mountain Hardwear Phantom 32 bag is 22 ounces. Western Mountaineering Flight jacket is 13 ounces in size XL - twice the warmth of a fleece jacket but weighs about 25% less. Etc.

Just did a three day solo to Long Lake with a 35lb pack. My usual pack weight is no more than 30lbs with a tent and self inflatable pad. I like all the gear tips to lighten up and plan to try some in August. I am also upgrading some well used gear for new and or lighter gear.