How much are women able to carry?

[santaman2000]

"The Tossing of the Caber (the Gaelic for pole) is a truly Scottish sport which has been practised since the very early Highland Games in the 16th century. It was devised by Scottish woodmen in their leisure time. Contrary to general opinion, ‘*caber tossers’ *do not try to throw the caber as far as they can but to toss it so that it turns end over end and lands in the ‘12 o’clock’ position. Sometimes the long and extremely heavy caber proves particularly reluctant to turn, so pieces can be sawn off the end until the competitors are finally able to toss it.

As for stacking "pulp", I've handballed many a load, as well as heavier stuff.
pic from 1981.

Yeah, I’ve seen a few cabor toss events.

Nice pic of paperwooding the modern (ish) way. Back when I was still doing it we did it mostly by hand onto rickety old trucks. The length of each “stick” was 5’3” so that they could easily scale the load at the Woodward when you sold it. We did have a home installed winch to load them when the load got over our heads.

Not many pix remain but here”s one lifted from the net that’s fairly representative of the average truck a paperwooding could afford (usually at least 10 years old before being modded to haul paperwood
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/10/bb/d6/10bbd6f18d004a7244eb78b075930e01.jpg

You’d cut it, load it, and haul it to the Woodward where they’d buy it from you (and send a stumpage check to the landowner where you cut it) then they’d load t onto rail cars to be shipped to the mills
https://meridianspeedway.weebly.com/uploads/4/4/1/7/44171393/4157173_orig.jpg

About the time I enlisted, 1976, they were shifting the process to tree length harvesting like you shared. They didn’t scale it anymor and bought it by weight instead. I never got to do any of that although I had logged (a similar technique) as a teen. Nowadays the process is to chip the wood at the harvest site and pretty much everything is done from the cab of the harvest machinery.

I do have a dvd (transcribed from old 8mm film reels) of my uncle logging with a salt & pepper team of horses back in the 1960s. If I can get technical help from my grandson, I’ll try to share it on here (yeah, I’m old and my tech skills aren’t up to par)

 

[Nomad64]

I learned how to pack a hiking rucksack when I was a child. In the seventies it still was part of a propper education in the upper middle class in Germany, like learning to play the guitar or another instrument, swimming, speaking European languages or whatever is useful.

Oh dear this really complicates things - how do we factor in the class of the walker into calculating the load they should carry or indeed whether it is “propper” (sic) for people from different classes to walk together at all?

Would a lower, middle or middle, middle class individual walking in the company of an upper middle class walker be expected to walk a number of prescribed paces behind and carry more as would befit their lower status or be given a dispensation to carry less to reflect their inferior abilities? Clearly any need for separate sleeping accommodation and cooking utensils will add to the overall weight carried - the list of potential complications is almost endless.

Fortunately having been born into the middle, upper class in Britain, I had untermensch servants to both pack and carry my rucksack, a chamber orchestra who accompanied me everywhere playing music specially composed in my honour, no need to swim anywhere having got a perfectly serviceable yacht and as a proud speaker of the Queen’s English, absolutely no intention of soiling my mouth by speaking foreign gibberish!

Edit: Clearly in the unlikely event of one of my superiors from the upper, upper class inviting me to go walking with them, I would politely decline - I know my place!

 

[Alan De Enfield]

I know my place!

 

[GuestD]

Clearly in the unlikely event of one of my superiors from the upper, upper class inviting me to go walking with them, I would politely decline - I know my place!

May I recommend this,

 

[Erbswurst]

Usually people from lower classes are able to carry far more than people who work in offices.

He asked and got a trough answer.

What's your Problem???

 

[Nomad64]

Usually people from lower classes are able to carry far more than people who work in offices.

He asked and got a trough answer.

What's your Problem???

Aye, but you are forgetting the negative effect of living in a small shoebox in the middle of the road and long shifts at the mill on the physical abilities of the lower classes!

 

[Erbswurst]

May be, but this thread wasn't meant about my youth or my equipment or how I figured out what I use, or my job, or my hiking tours or my holidays, or if I would like to write a report about it, show photos or videos how I am camping, or whatever about me, or political problems in Britain.
I will not try to understand political problems in Britain and if they bring it in the TV news like currently every evening, I tend to change the channel.
It doesn't really Interest me, sorry.
You have to sort your country yourselves, I can't help you.

This thread originally was meant to discuss which weight women are able to carry in a hiking rucksack comfortably over longer distances.
I expected perhaps some special recommendations about hiking equipment for women, probably ending in a discussion about special rucksacks for women and other stuff like perhaps shoes, short sleeping bags or what ever.

If this thread doesn't get back on track, I will stop commenting here.

 

[santaman2000]

Aye, but you are forgetting the negative effect of living in a small shoebox in the middle of the road and long shifts at the mill on the physical abilities of the lower classes!

Our “lower classes” (a financial thing) generally live in farmhouses. Not small, but usually old and drafty and not necessarily very healthy (so I’m agreeing with you—just changing the setting a bit) Where ‘m gonna disagree (slightly) is in the negative effect. It’s definitely there, but not so much in their physical abilities (that’s usually higher) Rather the negative effect is their long term health. They age much, much quicker for a number of reasons that go along with the lifestyle:
- the hard itself work is draining in the long term
- they have a higher smoking rate than the general population
- higher rates of skin cancer due to longer and more often exposure to the sun
- respiratory problems from farm chemicals and dust
- probably loads more than I can remember in this short list.

 

[Janne]

As for size of equipment, that is very important. Not only for females, but also for males. Both sexes come in different lengths, and widths
Plus the fit is important too.
Today, the young generation are used to buy everything unseen, untried.
From online sellers.
The only way to see, feel, check the quality, try, is to go to a proper shop and buy there.

So yes, she needs a smaller backpack, shorter sleeping bag, smaller shoes and socks. She needs to select clothes from the ladies section, as their body proportions are somewhat different.

The only interchangeable equipment between me and my wife ( a woman) are the shoelaces, the knife and the closed cell mat.

 

[Erbswurst]

And if she would be smaller, even the knife should be a bit smaller, the shoe laces shorter as well as the sleeping mat.

 

[Janne]

Shr is smaller. Same shoelaces ( not original, but quality leather) as mine. We each carry one spare.
Knife - same. The last one we carried was the Mora with the serrated blade, orange and black handle.
Excellent knife.

 

[Joe tahkahikew]

Dog never been outside of town? That is cruel.

.

Ha Ha, non of my dogs ever seen a town.

 

[Joe tahkahikew]

Yes, they do packs for dogs now.

Even small ones.

Rusty was sixteen and not keen on walking, so my father was told when he dogsat him. So Dad took the jack russel out on the downs. rusty had never been out of town, and was romping away even after eight miles.

My father used to make and use packs for dogs to carry when he went hunting on his own. Some dogs can carry plenty of stuff once they get used to it.

 

[Joe tahkahikew]

Luckily we don't have upper, middle or lower class women or men here. If you need to travel in bush or tundra women and men carry the gear. Plenty of our women can carry more than I've seen european men carry - and for longer.

 

[santaman2000]

My father used to make and use packs for dogs to carry when he went hunting on his own. Some dogs can carry plenty of stuff once they get used to it.

They can pull even more than they can carry. Are you far enough north to use sled dogs?

 

[snappingturtle]

My little Sammi 5'2 and stocky, short distance and I mean short 20kg longer I would say below 10kg me over the same distance you can about double it but I also prefer below 10kg.

 

[Nomad64]

May be, but this thread wasn't meant about my youth or my equipment or how I figured out what I use, or my job, or my hiking tours or my holidays, or if I would like to write a report about it, show photos or videos how I am camping, or whatever about me, or political problems in Britain.
I will not try to understand political problems in Britain and if they bring it in the TV news like currently every evening, I tend to change the channel.
It doesn't really Interest me, sorry.
You have to sort your country yourselves, I can't help you.

This thread originally was meant to discuss which weight women are able to carry in a hiking rucksack comfortably over longer distances.
I expected perhaps some special recommendations about hiking equipment for women, probably ending in a discussion about special rucksacks for women and other stuff like perhaps shoes, short sleeping bags or what ever.

If this thread doesn't get back on track, I will stop commenting here.

Erbswurst, your English (or at least the translation software you are using), is very good but to a native Brit, some of the expressions you use and your understanding of society and the workplace come over as a bit weird, very naive, about 60 years out of date and could be based almost entirely on 1950s and 1960s British Ealing Comedy and Carry On films.

If you have been relying on these as your sources for information on us Brits, you should be be aware that despite the fine selection of period tents, boots and other equipment shown, Carry On Camping is no longer regarded as the definitive guide to British hiking and camping.

I am not sure what the “political problems in Britain” you keep referring to are (FWIW, political discussions are generally discouraged on BCUK), I must pay more attention to the Pathe News film next time I go to the cinema but IMHO, Britain’s decline as a world power started about the time women got the vote and we’ve been on a slippery slope ever since.

Maybe I move in the wrong social circles but I don’t think that anyone in Britain has identified themselves as upper middle class or lower class since the time of the “I know my place” sketch in post #183 but it is a bit tragic that someone with all the benefits that such an upbringing is now reduced to the state where he cannot scrape together the GBP10 for a BCUK full member subscription.

Anyway, if you genuinely think that lower class people have an advantage when it comes to hiking, perhaps the answer to the problem you brother has, would be to swap his current girlfriend for a lower class one. A thorough selection process would be required but with care it should be possible to find someone whose inherent weaknesses as a female are completely counterbalanced by natural lower class strengths.

The current Mrs Nomad is out so it looks like I will be having dinner for one tonight!

 

[Erbswurst]

If you don't like my English vocabulary, which of course can't be the current spoken, because that never is printed in school books, I offer you to change over to French.

 

[Fadcode]

I who was brung up and well edjercated as all my skools were approved, did not grasp the coseqwences of the translation errorrs, all seamed well two mee, but I ave notised a lak of sense of umour creeping in...........

 

[santaman2000]

Erbswurst, your English (or at least the translation software you are using), is very good but to a native Brit, some of the expressions you use and your understanding of society and the workplace come over as a bit weird, very naive, about 60 years out of date and could be based almost entirely on 1950s and 1960s British Ealing Comedy and Carry On films.

If you have been relying on these as your sources for information on us Brits, you should be be aware that despite the fine selection of period tents, boots and other equipment shown, Carry On Camping is no longer regarded as the definitive guide to British hiking and camping.

I am not sure what the “political problems in Britain” you keep referring to are (FWIW, political discussions are generally discouraged on BCUK), I must pay more attention to the Pathe News film next time I go to the cinema but IMHO, Britain’s decline as a world power started about the time women got the vote and we’ve been on a slippery slope ever since.

Maybe I move in the wrong social circles but I don’t think that anyone in Britain has identified themselves as upper middle class or lower class since the time of the “I know my place” sketch in post #183 but it is a bit tragic that someone with all the benefits that such an upbringing is now reduced to the state where he cannot scrape together the GBP10 for a BCUK full member subscription.

Anyway, if you genuinely think that lower class people have an advantage when it comes to hiking, perhaps the answer to the problem you brother has, would be to swap his current girlfriend for a lower class one. A thorough selection process would be required but with care it should be possible to find someone whose inherent weaknesses as a female are completely counterbalanced by natural lower class strengths.

The current Mrs Nomad is out so it looks like I will be having dinner for one tonight!

You have (or had) a “lower” class? Not the “poor?” That implies that your class structure was a social comstruct rather than an economic thing. Seems arrogant.