The Show Us Your Stupidly Large Pack Thread

[The_Taffinch]

Hi All,

Preparing for a camp out this weekend and I am aghast at the sheer size of the pack that I will be lugging and wondered whether anyone carries something so laughably large and unwieldy:



Somewhere underneath the sleeping bag (in Czech army bedroll bag) at the bottom, and the wool blanket and the canvas tarp and tent roll lashed to the top, is an LK70 pack containing a self-inflating mattress, tarp, groundsheet, tent poles, Zebra billy, hygiene kit, bushlites, sharps and load of other rubbish. Strapped to the side are my axe and spade. And this doesn't include another bag which will have food and small stove. Is anyone else this foolish?

I've erased my number plate in the photo in case you track me down in order to point and laugh.

Cheers,
Matt.

 

[sandbender]

Me doing a little portage on the Tay with my enormous canoe pack with a Tentipi Varrie balanced on my head.

 

[Imagedude]

90 litres/30kg, this is what I carried on a 10 day self-supported trek in Finland.

 

[The_Taffinch]

Big packs those chaps, but you have perfectly good excuses for lugging such prodigious loads - a 10-day duration expedition and a canoe trip - whereas I am only going for a quick one or two night camp, so you can't be allocated the same level of idiocy

That said, it isn't that heavy - probably around 20kg - but this doesn't include food or water (or beer ration).

 

[Scots_Charles_River]

Me doing a little portage on the Tay with my enormous canoe pack with a Tentipi Varrie balanced on my head.

Hi,

I don't recognise that bit of the Tay, which rapid is it ?

 

[kaiAnderson]

When I was in the marines we had to do yomps with 80kg packs. weighed going out, weighed coming back in.

 

[CallsignSam]

When I was doing my bronze DofE, I stupidly offered to carry far too much kit. I had tents, a couple of trangias, food, all my personal kit and bits of other people i pretty much filled up a 120 litre Bergen. And beating in mind this before I had done much hiking at all. No pic I'm afraid but I can safely say I have never carried so much kit since. And that was only one night!


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[Scots_Charles_River]

When I was doing my bronze DofE, I stupidly offered to carry far too much kit. I had tents, a couple of trangias, food, all my personal kit and bits of other people i pretty much filled up a 120 litre Bergen. And beating in mind this before I had done much hiking at all. No pic I'm afraid but I can safely say I have never carried so much kit since. And that was only one night!


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When Assessing DofE groups, I often lift packs and advise to shed kit. Most groups admit they take less kit on assessment after taking too much on training exped.

 

[GGTBod]

Last time out 110ltr weighing 70lbs, a fellow traveller was telling me the military guidelines was a 3rd of the carriers bodyweight, being at the time 210lbs was sheer coincidence and as the bag got lighter due to the food i'd ate so did I, ye just can't win sometimes

 

[MalIrl]

Hi Matt,
It all depends on how long you expect to carry the pack. For Scouts the standard recommendation for expeditions (all day carry) is 25% of body weight, all in. (There is also a top limit for those younger than 16yrs but I cannot remember it offhand)

Personally I find that 25% is a bit on the heavy side, so I set a limit of no more than 15Kg, with a target of sub-14Kg. That is a significant challenge and means scrimping on some items. Having gone through the pain and significant expense of picking up a shoulder injury through over-carrying, I pay a lot more attention to weight now.

However, if you are covering short distances between camps, then you can get away with pushing that number.

Enjoy your weekend!

Mal

 

[santaman2000]

Hi Matt,
It all depends on how long you expect to carry the pack. For Scouts the standard recommendation for expeditions (all day carry) is 25% of body weight, all in.....

Way back when I was in Boy Scouts, we were taught 20%. The same as the cavalry had been taught was the maximum load for their horses.

 

[Haggis]

Some years ago I went with my two youngest daughters on a 2-week trip into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The food pack I put together completely filled a #3 Duluth pack and weighed a full 90 pounds. When we came out of the bush 11 days later, the food pack still weighed 60 pounds. I caught a lot of fish and the girls ate a lot of fish. Then they dropped from their usual 3 meals a day at home to two meals at day. These factors coupled with the fact that I completely lose my appetite in the bush, often for many days at a time, left us with carrying far more food than we could have possibly eaten. My rule since then is; it is better to do without something, than to carry extra weight.

 

[GGTBod]

My kit last time minus all the food was 13 kilo including bergen weight, all my food was dehydrated except for my chocolate treat (was only a 2 x 100g bars), amazing how quick the food weight adds up

 

[The_Taffinch]

The weight doesn't bother me so much...it's not too bad although I know I can trim some excess fat. It's more the comedy bulk factor that is amusing. I tried to get through a narrow gateway the other day with comic results.

Apart from the sleeping bag, the targets for cutting bulk are the tent and the self-inflating mat. The latter I will probably replace with an air mat, and I will possibly go the way of a tarp shelter and mozzi-net combo instead of a tent.

 

[sandbender]

Hi,

I don't recognise that bit of the Tay, which rapid is it ?

It is just after Grandtully, we'd just spent the night at the SCA campsite (which was very nice).

An older one...

This is a very young me in 1985 I think, in Skye, sat beside my Lowe Vector Commando, packed to the gunnels with stuff I'd never use, but I was young and thought my back and joints were invincible. That was a two week walk I think, I never weighed the pack but it was very heavy.

 

[Macaroon]

I too have done the big/heavy pack thing, back in the day when I was young enough to know everything and thought myself physically invincible; it really felt like that and it was no bother to do and caused me no discomfort. I even took a perverse pleasure in ignoring weight and size in order to be comfortable and warm just because I could. I did also do what in those days passed for fast and light when climbing and suchlike, and to learn how to do without all the "stuff", but nowhere near as much as I should have.

I'm now on first name terms with two orthopaedic consultants and have had well over a dozen operations to attempt to remedy some of the damage I caused myself. If I could go back, I'd do exactly the same again

When you read of the loads some of the military boys carry, and what they do carrying those loads, you have to bear in mind the thorough physical training they go through in order to be able to sustain such feats; if you just tried some of that you'd really hurt yourself seriously without the proper guidance and prep.

 

[CallsignSam]

When Assessing DofE groups, I often lift packs and advise to shed kit. Most groups admit they take less kit on assessment after taking too much on training exped.

I think this was the practice actually, it doesn't help the the PLCE bergens are heavy compared to civvie packs anyway.

 

[Scots_Charles_River]

I think this was the practice actually, it doesn't help the the PLCE bergens are heavy compared to civvie packs anyway.

The mountain bike grp I assessed were very lightweight, partly as they had learnt about drinking from appropriate freshwater sources. Easy in the Cairngorms. They also had a set of "day clothes" for riding then a night set. They were not bothered wearing dirty kit three days in a row.

 

[ol smokey]

Want to see big packs being toted see----"Climbing Everest with a mountain on my back" vidio on u tube.

 

[Harvestman]

Good job I didn't take pictures of my pack from my recent single-night trip. It dwarfed some of the ones shown on this thread!