[pct-l] UL vs going without

[Ikem Freeman]

I couldn't agree more ... one of the things I didn't carry was a knife ... I
didn't need one! I had a spoon and a fork (started with a spork, but it
broke one day while eating tunafish!). One time I needed to cut a small
section of cord, and I used my fingernail clipers to do it!

EVERYTHING I carried had to be absolutely neccessary or I didn't have it!
And at the end of the day, I was smiling!

O. Ikem Sofar

On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 10:29 PM, Diane at Santa Barbara Hikes dot com <
diane at santabarbarahikes.com> wrote:

>
> On Feb 19, 2009, at 8:21 PM, pct-l-request at backcountry.net wrote:
> > Whoever dies with the least gear and/or the lightest
> > pack........still dies.
> > ...
> > No sleeping bag;
> > No shelter or rain gear?
> > No stove or pot;
>
> This isn't what I understand ultralight backpacking to be. I don't
> think I know of anyone who went without these things.
>
> Getting your pack weight down isn't about eliminating gear. It's
> about finding lighter gear that can serve two purposes in one.
>
> For example, your shelter and rain gear can be the same item. Your
> stove need not have the capacity to melt snow if melting snow is not
> necessary. You don't really need a windbreaker and a rain jacket.
> Find a jacket that can do both. Nothing wrong with going without a
> stove. Hot food is not necessarily more nutritious than cold food.
>
> Many people subscribe to the "better to have it and not need it than
> need it and not have it" school of thought. This is fine if you're
> willing to carry it and not land in a hospital with stress fractures.
>
> Here's the deal: If you are doing the kind of hiking where you get
> into camp next to a lake around 3pm and hang around, sleep in, have a
> leisurely hot breakfast in the morning, hit the trail at 10, maybe do
> some fishing during the day or whatever, then maybe you need more
> stuff. You're going to get colder, for one thing, and you'll probably
> want some fancier food and little luxuries. You might even do some
> exploring and therefore find things like fancy compasses and whistles
> to be necessary.
>
> But if you are thru-hiking the PCT the experience is very different
> from this. You are moving constantly along a well-trodden trail from
> the minute you wake up until you set up your bag and go to sleep,
> hiking 12, 14 even 16 hours at a time. You don't need as much stuff.
> There is no time to use it. You learn to pick warmer places to sleep
> at night. You need less insulation because you are so active. You may
> not want a stove because it takes too much time to cook.
>
> This isn't deprivation and courting death. It's just reality. And
> it's a beautiful reality because having and needing very little, so
> little that it literally does not weigh you down, is the ultimate
> freedom.
>
>
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