Losing Weight!

[Pattree]

I’m not sure whether I’ve mentioned this here or on another forum but:

I was motivated by @Coedwigwr thread about weight. I’m a car voyager these days but I used to enjoy minimalist trekking.

Once a year I re-read S E White’s book “The Forest.” The second chapter is on “Going Light”. The book was published in 1908 and his total kit inc. food weighed around 60lbs (27K). (He hunted and fished a lot) This was transported in a duffel slung from his forehead!
Kit is VERY much lighter now and we backpack but:
His philosophy and approach to his kit is worth the read.

Just an example here.
On return from a trip he would pile his kit in 3 heaps.
- Never used on this trip.
- Used for convenience but there were other ways.
- Used daily.
He would do everything that his psyche would allow to ditch the first two piles.
Indeed things like first aid come to mind but that doesn’t detract from the basic idea. There’s are many stories of porters European and First Nation, who carried 100lbs slung from their foreheads but ……. well it’s inspiring to read about!!!!

What’s the least we really need?
What’s that thing we’d never leave behind never mind the weight?

 

[Erbswurst]

You can still carry your stuff how you like, but in 1908 the rucksack was already pretty common.
I mean, my grandpa was born in 1898 and already a pretty modern guy.

 

[Pattree]

How important is coffee making when you are out there?
Is it worth extra equipment?

 

[TLM]

A few years ago did some searching. Apparently with nomadic people an adult male is supposed to be able to carry his own weight for 20 clicks or so in a day. I don't think they enjoyd it but they could do it. Not impossible today for non nomadics but there is seldom a reason for that ...

 

[Pattree]

The Ojibwa people carried “100lbs” when engaged as porters and that was carried through forest and over portages using a tump line around the head.
The Hochunk, pre-horse moved everything they owned between seasonal camp sites the same way. And yes, children carried their own weight.

 

[TLM]

that was carried through forest and over portages

I have always wondered what the so called "trail" is, here you have your target and take the direction and just start walking.

 

[Erbswurst]

I throw some instant coffee into the field cup and put cold water onto it and finished.

Out there I don't reach the level of a French restaurant anyway.

My insane brother carries a Bialetti coffee can around though.

 

[grainweevil]

I throw some instant coffee into the field cup and put cold water onto it and finished.

Extravagance. I just take a sip of water and imagine a coffee bean...

 

[Erbswurst]

Aren't there even some kind of coffee sweets on the market?

Which solution is used by the NASA?

 

[Pattree]

Tell me more about this insanity!



Are we out there as some form of penance or are we bushcrafting for fun

 

[Erbswurst]

If that is a Bialetti water purifier that you also can use for making coffee it's allowed of course.

Otherwise it's glamping and has nothing to do with the proper way of classical woodcraft and survival.

 

[Pattree]

Ohhhhhhhh - I didn’t know there were RULES to staying alive!!!

Of course you can do a lot with a flint knife and a woollen hammock.

 

[Kadushu]

I don't like black coffee so all these guys ritualising coffee making with high tech gadgets but without the milk can keep it. Nescafe 3 in 1 sachets for me.

 

[Stew]

How important is coffee making when you are out there?
Is it worth extra equipment?

To me, it is worth it depending on the day. I don’t subscribe to this sanctimonious style of rules that some people have that their way is the only way to go on what you use and carry.

 

[Pattree]

I have always wondered what the so called "trail" is, here you have your target and take the direction and just start walking.

@TLM.
It used to be like that on the Laurentian Shield in Canada. Whites’s description of the “long trail” does not involve pathways or following anyone else. He does talk about coming across “Indian Trails” - blazes cut into the mark of trees. Of course when it comes to a portage around a waterfall then there is probably a “best way” like a route up a mountain that has been used for generations.
On the other hand the Hudson Bay Company employed porters who collected and carried huge loads to their trading posts. They also employed Voyageurs, canoeists who did much the same. Some of the famous ones were First Nation but many were French and Russian. They followed “Trade trails”, and why not? They had nothing to prove.

Research over the last two decades has shown that there has not been any virgin forest on the planet for many centuries. Forests on all continents show the influence of humans even the furthest reaches of the Amazon.

I love White’s book and I’m looking for other similar accounts from the turn of the century. He must have been one of the last immigrants to truly walk “The long trail.”
He also carried coffee and typically carried three pots and a frying pan. You’ll need to be very convincing to tell me he was wrong!

 

[Woody girl]

Can't stand coffee, never drink it. Even the smell makes me gag, so it's not a problem for me.
But tea... that's another story! I need at least two large mugfulls to get the motor running.
I don't take a teapot though.

 

[Pattree]

I don't take a teapot though.

Why not? . My coffee maker has poured all sorts of fluids into tight places including kerosene into someone else’s pressure stove.
Nope, all it took was a good boiling and a scrub out with grass and their wasn’ta hint of the fuel. I haven’t used a pressure stove for decades but the coffee maker appears above ^^^^^^

Do you take milk? If so how do you take milk?

 

[Woody girl]

Why don't I take a teapot? Because I sensibly use teabags, and it won't fit in my pack and It is too heavy and liable to breakage.. as for milk, I just find a local cow, and ask nicely if I can have a pint or so, and usualy they oblige and let me hand milk them. I'm lucky, as I can speak bovine.

---

 

[TLM]

You’ll need to be very convincing to tell me he was wrong!

There isn't any one right way, there are many reasonable ones and the only wrong way is when you can't get to where you want.

I have seen some cases where people are doing most things wrong but still manage to somehow get to their destination.

Trekking does get easier when one carries less weight is about the only quasi universal truth, even there is a cut off point below which it does not really matter.

 

[Cuckoo996]

My kit all in weighs 20kg, bag weighs 2 kg.
I've been at this lark now too long to know what I will or won't need. Shelter water food fire, that's it.
Anything other than that is not necessary and just a luxury IMHO.