Richard A. Light - Backpacking the Light Way: Comfortable, Efficient, Smart

Backpacking the Light Way: Comfortable, Efficient, Smart

First edition, first printing

Copyright 2015 by Richard A. Light

Editor: Lisa C. Bailey

Project editor: Ritchey Halphen

Cover and title-page photos: Copyright 2015 by Richard Moeller

Interior photos: Copyright 2015; see Cover design: Scott McGrew

Text design: Annie Long; original concept by Janice St. Marie

Proofreader: Rebecca Henderson

Indexer: Sylvia Coates

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Light, Richard A.

Backpacking the light way: comfortable, efficient, smart/Richard A. Light, with photographs by Ash Campbell, Thea Rose Light, and Richard Moeller. First edition.

pages cm

Distributed by Publishers Group Westt.p. verso.

Includes webography.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-63404-028-0 ISBN 1-63404-028-7 ISBN 978-1-63404-029-7 (eISBN)

1. BackpackingHandbooks, manuals, etc. 2. BackpackingEquipment and suppliesHandbooks, manuals, etc. I. Title.

GV199.62.L54 2015

796.51dc23

2015020281

Manufactured in the United States of America

Distributed by Publishers Group West

MENASHA RIDGE PRESS

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Birmingham, AL 35233

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher, except for brief quotations used in reviews.

DISCLAIMER Outdoor activities can be inherently dangerous. Neither Menasha Ridge Press nor Richard A. Light assumes liability for accidents or injuries that may result from participation in the activities described in this book. All participants in such activities must assume responsibility for their own actions, health, and safety.

W alk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. Camp out among the grasses and gentians of glacial meadows, in craggy garden nooks full of natures darlings. Climb the mountains and get their good tidings, Natures peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.

J OHN M UIR

Contents

T HIS BOOK IS DEDICATED to two extraordinary people, Mason and Betty Light, who taught me through kindness how to appreciate and be fully present within the magic and grandeur of wilderness. It is with humble gratitude that I write in the hope that this work will help others to joyfully engage the backcountry.

N O WORK IS CREATED in a vacuum. With humility, I acknowledge and thank those who have been my teachers and guides as I awakened to the beauty and wonder that backpacking enables. A few of these stand out as major contributors: Bill Kerr and my father, Mason Light, both of blessed memory, who introduced me to wilderness and feeling safe in the wild. Ash Campbell, Rick Kelley, Dick Moeller, Herman Ramsey, and Dave Scudder get gold awards for enduring many years of bad puns and serious backcountry treks together. I learned a great deal from each of them. My wife, Morgan Light, deserves special gratitude for understanding my need to be in the mountains and canyons, and for putting up with my closet full of gear and my many experiments with equipment and menus. And lastly, the management of REI Santa Fe gets kudos for allowing me to create my own courses, through which I have learned more than I expected and have been able to hone my understanding of gear, skills, and people.

T HIS BOOK IS NOT another backpacking gear comparison book. There are many good ones in existence, and gear advances in technology mean todays choices will be eclipsed by newer models very soon. Instead, this book is about navigating the transition from conventional backpacking toward ultralight backpacking. That means the information provided here concentrates on how to make the transition, how to rethink what you now own, use, understand, and expect. This book helps you do that no matter what new gear comes along. Its a complete paradigm shift, yet, with some focus, quite attainable.

Guides, instructors, and trip leaders can benefit from this book, because it teaches proven methods for gear management, effective packing, risk assessment, trek organization, and contingency planning, in addition to the concepts above.

New backpackers and those coming back to the sport will be spared the hassle of learning conventional methods only to have to relearn ultralight approaches later.

The bottom line is that this book will help you have more fun in the wilderness. It will help you carry less on your back while still preserving comfort and safety. Logical gear organizational methodology, along with effective trip planning and risk assessment, make trips more fun. This book is designed to be truly useful.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

H ENRY D AVID T HOREAU

I N MY YOUNGER DAYS , carrying 86 pounds was awesome, especially since there were climbing ropes hanging off the top of the pack. They were really manly, and meant that I must be very cool indeed to have them on my pack. It never dawned on me at the ripe old age of 18 that carrying more than 70% of ones body weight on your back might be detrimental to your health. Who thinks of that at 18?

Of course the external-frame pack I carried was amazing, too. It was large and green and had four side pockets and one big back pocket, and the frame was glistening aluminum. The latest, greatest pack money could buy! Or, at least, that I could afford. I bought it through a catalog from a company called Recreation Equipment Inc., in Seattle. The year was 1967. I was in Colorado, so the only way I could touch and fondle the goods was to order them by mail and wait for the magic package to arrive. I ordered a new sleeping bag along with the pack. I was preparing to spend the following summer creating a new company: a backpacking guide service to take teenage kids out into the Indian Peaks region of Colorado backcountry for 10-day treks.