[at-l] then/now Re: planning for a thruhike

[Tom McGinnis]

--- On Wed, 8/19/09, Amy Forinash <amy at forinash.net> wrote:

> I was rereading Frank and Victoria Logue's thruhike planning guide  
> last night.  It was written around 1990.  Wow, things have changed in  
> the last 20 years.
> 
> They didn't mention alcohol stoves at all in the stove section.
> 
> External frame packs were still the more common ones. 
> With all the gear they were carrying, our super lightweight frameless or
> minimally framed packs wouldn't even have been an option if they were
> available.

### I've got to differ with you. I agree that "super lightweight frameless" packs weren't so available in 1990, but frameless packs predate frame packs by millenia. In the late 70s, there was the beauteous Yak Pak, a mountaineering pack which carries a following to this day. Lowe Alpine was a truly alpine company then, and their internal frames had started to appear on the AT -- but we're talking nylon duck and 4-5 pounds, still not lightweight. Still, most companies had what were termed "summit packs" -- stuff sacks with shoulder straps attached -- and mountaineering companies like New Hampshire's Wild Things (1981) had been pushing the practical end of the envelope since the get-go. 

So the big thing pushing "super-lightweight" has been to get people to leave the weight behind, to afford even a *market* for the patterns that have "always" been out there. But then 1-2 pound water filters, 1-2 pound air mattresses, 2 pound behemoth parka shells, a fashion-driven push for lifetime warranties via cordura and (fergawdsakes) ballistics cloth and bartacking to suspend a Mack Truck...... leads to "This pack might *weigh* 7.462 pounds, but it *feels* just so comfy!" (Ha! Our legs know the truth.)

Think about Lynn Wheldon's Lightweight Revolution video -- there are frameless, external, and internal frames represented there (circa 1998?) -- the consistent thing is that they minimized gear, not so much on what the gear weighed. My favorite L-W-ism: "We pack our fears." Our packs are as heavy as our confidence is light.

So gearwise, about the only difference between what I carried in 1979 and what I carry now is the alcohol stove -- that cuts a pound right there for most AT hikes. However, the rest of my stuff was entirely contemporary to 2009. GoreTex bivy, synthetic 20° NF bag, foam pad, GoreTex parka shell, fleece, pots -- all fitting into a PVC-framed external frame pack that weighs <4.5 lbs. As a matter of fact, the pots, fleece and shell, and 2-3 stuff sacks are still in regular service.

Some random thoughts:
Springer Mtn. GA, 1979: 49.5 pound pack weight (4.5 pound external frame pack), including 1L water and 3 days' food. (Base weight 40 pounds???)

Pearisburg, VA, 1979: 16.5 pound base pack weight.

Monson, ME 2004: 50 pound pack weight (2 pound frameless pack), 8 days food for 3, plus 1L water and 1L Black Fly Stout; ~15 pound base weight.

"Super-lightweight" note: This past weekend, I hit Red River Gorge for some hiking (summer temps, easy weather, mostly plentiful water), and came home with a 7 pound pack, empty of food/water. Had I the knowledge/mileage to put all the facts together, there was nothing in my 2009 pack that couldn't have been reproduced in 1979. As a matter of fact, Ed Garvey visited The Place (Damascus VA, 480+ miles up the AT) in 1979, while I was there. Rather than meet The Man, I stupidly grabbed a book and headed to a quiet corner of the hostel. Ironically, the book I grabbed was Garvey's own Appalachian Hiker, and what I read was Garvey's own description of super-lightweightness (I think he described it with words like "extreme"...), and it inspired me to go "stoveless" a month later -- surviving for 3 days on hard-boiled eggs and salt. (Not all such experiments have positive outcomes; them were some TOUGH miles, I tell ya!) With kudos to Ed though, that experiment
 shaped a lot of what I expect from a backpack's content.

I guess the point is, the ideas have always been around, and the pack patterns have always been around, and comparable materials have always been around. (As a nod to Earl, I am refusing to mention The Great Blue-Blazer here.) But in the past few decades, some materials also got *heavier*, and stuff-and-go backpacking took the forethought out of *how* to pack your pack, and even The Ten Essentials somehow burgeoned to FOURTEEN. (At that point, I'd say "Stay home!") We'd lost the drive to get 3-4 uses out of everything we pack, and instead bought[!] and packed specialty single-use, bombproof-built, catalog-hiker items.

Well, we *look* good, even if our feet hurt.

Sorry for rambling -- this was written quickly.