I am going the same way now and finding a whole new rebirth of way I used to go camping, and away from technology... and I am loving re-finding old skills, and experiences
whats the fascination with weight?
- Thread starter Man of Tanith
- Start date
I am going the same way now and finding a whole new rebirth of way I used to go camping, and away from technology... and I am loving re-finding old skills, and experiences
Oh look.
Another one to add to the I blame Sam list.
Sandbender I hear all you're sayin its more the shavin 0.05g off of pack load I dont get....
Theres a tale where a squaddie tells an officer sir I have forty pounds of lightweight qear sir.
Sometimes its take less stuff rather than lighten the weight of the stuff you take.
I've trimmed a bit o weight off by not using army sup boots.
Haha your probably right there , if I turn out a hunchback at fifty i will know you were.
One Guy that comes to a meet that I go to, shall we say is of the same mind set.... he fills his 130ltr Bergan, has extra leg pouches, and still has stuff in his hands..... I just can not believe how he manages to use it all...........dare I say he also has a back problem.......
As I have got older I cant carry as much, but have learnt to thin down the kit that I dont need, but dont have that problem much....
Lots of justification I could put into it but it boils down to being unfit I guess. Less pack weight off sets my gut but I can still do some miles in comfort. If I'm car camping I couldn't care less what my pack weighs. Well so long as I can pick it up
In my youth I was an avid long distance walker and over the years I have literally walked the Length (Lands End to the Scottish Border) and breadth (North Sea to Irish Sea) of England plus loads more of Britain, lots of Europe and various bits of Africa and SE Asia.
I once walked 30 miles in one day with 45lbs on my back - for fun!
If you carry more weight you get fitter to manage it.
These daysmy long distance walking is over due to probs caused by my dislocating my knee badly in my 20s - the fib was out of position for years thanks to our wonderful NHS failing to pick up the fact it had not repositioned itself well....
My knees are now in poor shape and I have various back issues (some may perhaps even be related to carrying heavy loads but more likely to my breaking my neck in my teens) and a6 mile hike is plenty for me these days.
When I go into the woods I may trot 1/2 mile or so from my van so weight is not an issue ... I can always do 2 or 3 trips if needed!
This means that rather than go minimalistic with kit I can (and often do) carry in extra kit such as woodcarving tools, clean water (one site I use has no water source at all), comfort kit such as an extra tarp for a communal area or tools for shelter building, a decent spade for digging a trench latrine etc etc.
My take on Bushcraft does not rely on walking long distances or being able to carry all I need in one pocket - it is more about "re-connecting with the landscape", preferably in reasonable comfort, and craft work based on natural materials as much as possible (I like making things!) and my bushcraft overlaps into everyday life with many of the crafts being continued at home (I am not putting that in a pack and carrying it around!) - such as my wine making and foraged food meals.
An awful lot of my "Bushcraft" gear is also my "day to day" gear (at church last night I realised I was wearing exactly the same gear I wore for most of the Moot (it has been washed since) and when we have a large number of folk visiting I have been known to treat the woods as an extra bedroom and sleep out while visitors use my indoor bed!
OK - my life is a bit different to many folks experience as I do not easily differentiate between "work" and "leisure" my work including as it does testing outdoor gear and writing a "Bushcraft and Survival" column for a Motorcycle mag, making craft pieces for sale and even doing a bit of Bushcraft instruction ... but I cannot see why folk limit their connection with the outdoors by trimming their load to the lightest possible and not taking the resources they could carry into the woods for even more fun
And - as a wise man once said - "Travel light - freeze at night!" and another said "Any fool can be uncomfortable"
Paring the load is not for me - I am happy taking 2 loads in if I then have the tools to be comfortable and enjoy myself!
On long camps (like the Moot) my "basecamp kit" took several loads to carry in - and almost as many to carry out again - but I had equipment for archery, carving, knapping, cooking, netting etc to haul around
I once walked 30 miles in one day with 45lbs on my back - for fun!
If you carry more weight you get fitter to manage it.
These daysmy long distance walking is over due to probs caused by my dislocating my knee badly in my 20s - the fib was out of position for years thanks to our wonderful NHS failing to pick up the fact it had not repositioned itself well....
My knees are now in poor shape and I have various back issues (some may perhaps even be related to carrying heavy loads but more likely to my breaking my neck in my teens) and a6 mile hike is plenty for me these days.
When I go into the woods I may trot 1/2 mile or so from my van so weight is not an issue ... I can always do 2 or 3 trips if needed!
This means that rather than go minimalistic with kit I can (and often do) carry in extra kit such as woodcarving tools, clean water (one site I use has no water source at all), comfort kit such as an extra tarp for a communal area or tools for shelter building, a decent spade for digging a trench latrine etc etc.
My take on Bushcraft does not rely on walking long distances or being able to carry all I need in one pocket - it is more about "re-connecting with the landscape", preferably in reasonable comfort, and craft work based on natural materials as much as possible (I like making things!) and my bushcraft overlaps into everyday life with many of the crafts being continued at home (I am not putting that in a pack and carrying it around!) - such as my wine making and foraged food meals.
An awful lot of my "Bushcraft" gear is also my "day to day" gear (at church last night I realised I was wearing exactly the same gear I wore for most of the Moot (it has been washed since) and when we have a large number of folk visiting I have been known to treat the woods as an extra bedroom and sleep out while visitors use my indoor bed!
OK - my life is a bit different to many folks experience as I do not easily differentiate between "work" and "leisure" my work including as it does testing outdoor gear and writing a "Bushcraft and Survival" column for a Motorcycle mag, making craft pieces for sale and even doing a bit of Bushcraft instruction ... but I cannot see why folk limit their connection with the outdoors by trimming their load to the lightest possible and not taking the resources they could carry into the woods for even more fun
And - as a wise man once said - "Travel light - freeze at night!" and another said "Any fool can be uncomfortable"
Paring the load is not for me - I am happy taking 2 loads in if I then have the tools to be comfortable and enjoy myself!
On long camps (like the Moot) my "basecamp kit" took several loads to carry in - and almost as many to carry out again - but I had equipment for archery, carving, knapping, cooking, netting etc to haul around
Each to his own, I dont make lists or go lightweight, I like to have my favourite bits of gear I always carry and adjust according to the terrain and weather I might have to deal with. I do tend to overload though and it is usually the what if gear that never gets used. I have a different mindset when I go to a communal gathering such as a bushmeet as I treat that as a basecamp experience and take everything but the kitchen sink. There isnt a right way or a wrong way, so long as you have a good time and enjoy the experience.
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This thread is pretty interesting, it is great to see so many different takes on what we collectively do (and it makes it all the more staggering that swmbo still calls it 'camping' regardless of how it is done). I don't have particularly strong views either way though I guess I come at this from a slightly different point of view to some others. I try to keep the weight of my kit down to a minimum largely out of habit largely because when doing stuff with the TA there is always something that weighs a hell of a lot and gets added to your kit at the last minute. As a result I like to keep my kit as light as possible so that I can perform as well as I can when stuff gets added to it. That said, I tend not to go particularly high tech, I would rather eliminate kit that I don't use and make sure the stuff I do need is of good quality.
On the flip side, my eighteenth century kit is made up of items that are individually pretty heavy and quite bulky. As a result I cut down what I carry as much as I can and ultimately wind up with food, water, shelter, a bar of soap, something to cook in, fire kit and not much else. I guess it all weighs about 12 kg but more importantly it weighs a comfortable weight, my military stuff is never going to do that!
On the kitty litter thing, well I always carry some tinder and some reliable dry kindling with me in some sort of waterproof container, a couple of fat-wood sticks for convenience on a short walk and emergencies when out for longer seems like a sensible precaution to me whatever is going on.
On the flip side, my eighteenth century kit is made up of items that are individually pretty heavy and quite bulky. As a result I cut down what I carry as much as I can and ultimately wind up with food, water, shelter, a bar of soap, something to cook in, fire kit and not much else. I guess it all weighs about 12 kg but more importantly it weighs a comfortable weight, my military stuff is never going to do that!
On the kitty litter thing, well I always carry some tinder and some reliable dry kindling with me in some sort of waterproof container, a couple of fat-wood sticks for convenience on a short walk and emergencies when out for longer seems like a sensible precaution to me whatever is going on.
Someone once said the less you carry blah blah blah... some people took that as a sign they should weigh their kit and others took it as a sign they should count their kit. I'm a counter, not a weigher.
probably the quote from Sgt Rock : "The more I carry, the more I enjoy camping; the less I carry, the more I enjoy hiking" from his page on Going Light
Note I tend to go more toward the hiking than the camping myself so a lot of Sgt Rock's ideas are things that I consider for deciding on choices of kit
Note I tend to go more toward the hiking than the camping myself so a lot of Sgt Rock's ideas are things that I consider for deciding on choices of kit
I think people lean towards lighter loads because we have the notion that should we want to we could wander off into the sunset with just what we can easily carry and live comfortably with that small amount of kit and the knowledge we have acquired of how to use it. It is a bit of a fantasy of course because we don't live in the kind of country you can do that in anymore. I sometimes think bushcrafters are a bit like the sealed knot types in that respect.
I can live reasonably comfy with a small pack.
Just means I've less stuff in in not necessarily lightweight stuff though
Just means I've less stuff in in not necessarily lightweight stuff though
I overheard 2 cyclists in a local café talking about how light their carbon fibre bikes were and how it improves their performance. Losing the 3 stone from around their mid-riff would probably have a greater effect - not a pretty sight in lycra!
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just the natural slimdown gone mad. A 3 kg bag a 3 kg tent a 1 kg stove a 3 kg sleeping bag a 1 kg cookset etc is too heavy to go long stints with admittedley, but theres only so lightweight you can go before you find yourself making your own experience harder, for example a modern fangled rucsack without a propper frame. Or only cooking bad food once a day because you only bought a kettle and 100g of gas, a good hot cooked meal will do you a lot more good. Ultra lightweight camping people expect to suffer weight loss ! Thats probably why everything has to be so lightweight, because as the trip progresses they feel worse and worse, what fun !
I beg to differ. Ultralight hikers are very much performance oriented and adequate nutrition on a long distance, peak bagging expedition is of critical importance. Not unlike the attention given in cycling grand tour event like the TDF. Using dehydrated foods and water treatment systems allows the weight of food and water carried to be minimised, while in no way reducing either intake or quality. I would expect to have a hot breakfast and a hot evening meal most days. 50 years ago I tramped up and down the mountains of North Wales and the lakes with leather boots and a pack usually weighing 50 lbs plus. where I am now, the mountains are even higher, and there are many more of them and at my age I wouldn't be able to get up even one a day with a pack much over 20 lbs. So if I am to enjoy the sport I love so much, I must keep my weight down, and the weight of my kit to a minimum. Step one is to know the weight of every item you pack, so that you can ascertain where reductions are possible. I also have to work on a very limited budget, so though I don't carve spoons or make leather belts and paracord bracelets, I do make much of my own gear, including most of my cooking & eating kit which is efficient and very light, and dehydrated meals so I know they will be to my taste, and I'll know exactly what the nutritional value of every meal I eat, and what it weighs. Anyway, that's hiking. If I camp (rare, I get bored) I take a cast iron Dutch oven.
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