[pct-l] Backpack items - Now "Gear System"

[Jeffrey Olson]

I like these threads because it reminds me that I have a "system" made 
up of various components.  I started with a Camptrails aluminum frame 
with 5000 cu inch sack, a 4 lb down bag, cotton long underwear, a 
Frostline down coat my mom made, jeans and Vasque Whitney boots.  My 
base weight in the early 70s was probably 35 to 40 pounds.  I remember 
my dad carrying family gear in the 50s with an army surplus knapsack 
that must have been 7000 cubic inchs.  No frame, and the "belt" held 
none of the pack's weight. The kids carried their clothes, open celled 
foam pad and sleeping bag.

I don't have that camptrails pack anymore, but I have the next seven 
I've used.  I remember throwing the Whitneys away after having them 
resoled by a shoemaker who should have told me the boots were shot.  
They were "torture racks."

I still have that first down bag only because my Mom claimed it - she 
wanted to use the down for a quilt she never made.  It's in a garbage 
bag in the basement.

Somewhere on the web you can find a picture of Monte Dodge up in the 
northwest in front of shelves of old stoves.  I'm sure there are lots of 
us with old gear.

After thousands of dollars spent in usually impulse buys I  read Ray 
Jardine's PCT Hikers Handbook in 1994.  What a revelation!  Where before 
I didn't think of myself as a beast of burden, after reading his book I 
saw that's exactly what I was.  I wore heavy boots because that was what 
you did when backpacking.  I carried a voluminous pack and lots of gear 
because I wanted to be prepared for what nature could throw at me.  In 
1994 my girlfriend and I headed out with two full sets of fleece - pants 
and tops, both made on our sewing machine.  One was 100 weight and the 
other 300 weight Malden Mills fleece.  I just shake my head now.

The revelation?  Each piece of backpacking gear is part of a larger 
system.  It has a place in the scheme of things.  Until you know what 
your own personal and unique "system" is, you'll be making choices about 
pieces within it that in some degree are irrational.

The reasons to purchase one piece of gear versus another are usually 
based on "aspects" of the gear - weight, size, material, color, etc.  
How many hours have you spent comparing one piece of gear against 
another as part of the path to purchase?  This is what I mean by 
"irrational."  The criteria by which a piece of gear is judged comes 
from Western, materialist understandings of reality that tell us weight, 
size, material, color, etc., are the primary criteria we sift to make 
purchasing choices.  This is so bogus.

It is only modern Western culture that says it is the relation of parts 
that defines reality.  All other cultures assume there is a whole within 
which the parts find their meaning.  The modern West says it is 
relations of parts that define the whole.  Medieval Western culture and 
all indigenous cultures assume there is a whole that defines the parts.

To head out on a thru-hike or long section hike involves an act of 
faith.  In our modern world "faith" is suspect - we connect it with some 
sort of stereotypical fundamentalist orientation.  Yet, when we step 
onto the trail in that first step, we are so engaging in an act of faith 
that we will take the next step, and the millionth.  (40,000 steps a day 
x 25 days is a million steps.  40,000 steps is about 18 miles give or 
take a couple depending on stride).

When a person begins a long hike, s/he leaves modernity behind (if not 
sil-nylon and freeze-dried food and ?).  We don't "go back" to 
pre-historical roots.  We cast off the trappings of modernity and enter 
a world in which our own perception of the wilderness in large measure 
determines what is actually there.

IN 1997 just south of Deception Lakes I remember lying in my tent and 
hearing the snuffling of a bear rooting in a log for grubs.  I was so 
intensely "present" I found myself staring at him from up the hill.  He 
was between me and my tent.  I saw myself rigid with "bear-fear" in my 
tent, and how he'd roll the log, push it, glance down the hill to my 
tent 50' away, and go back to eating.  I watched him and my tent for a 
couple minutes before relaxing and hearing him from within my tent.

I lay there realizing he and I were part of something larger, that he 
wasn't after the food serving as my pillow, that he wasn't plotting how 
to overcome his natural fear of humans and "get me."  That was a 
"pivotal experience" for me.  When I hike now I feel part of something 
larger and I, my friends and everything else I perceive expresses this 
whole, are vehicles of it.  Be it weather or bears or an eerie sense 
there are spirits just outside my five-sensed perception - I am a part 
in balance and harmony with the rest of my immediate world.

Those of us who have started numerous trips anticipated our first long 
hike with almost obsessive, definitely neurotic concern for making sure 
our gear was perfect, that our plan was really clear.  We spent 
countless hours contemplating the best way to set the stage so our trip 
would be both comfortable and successful.  Facing the impending unknown 
we tried to control what we could.

As the start date for the second, third, fourth and ? trips comes 
closer, concern for planning no longer dominates the months prior to 
starting a hike.  My first long section hike took three months to plan.  
This involved purchasing gear, boxing possessions and moving them to 
storage, making seemingly infinite baggies of food and putting them in 
boxes my folks would mail, looking at maps, and wonderfully, imagining 
what it would be like.

The planning for my last section hike took a week.  I still plan/imagine 
and hype myself up by looking at maps and pictures from your websites.  
But actual "getting ready" doesn't involve that much energy or time.

I think that the product of numerous section hikes for me is that I 
actually have my own "system" of gear that works for me.  Like feeling 
part of the whole, the "system" is a part that at any given point in any 
day on the trail I am able to meet what the wilderness gives me.

I'm curious what systems experienced thru- and section-hikers have 
developed when it comes to gear.  I know Warner Springs Monty had a 
system that attempted to be as light as possible - 5 pounds was it?  He 
had to have had experience hiking day after day to come up with a system 
that kept him from dying when conditions got extreme.

What's your system?  How have you balanced size of pack, sleeping gear, 
clothing, etc., so that you move through each day in calm confidence 
that you can take what you are given as you hike the trail and still 
carry the least amount of weight?  This might include sleeping low under 
trees on duff so you can carry a 14 oz homemade quilt.  What's your system.

I think this is a question danced around and sometimes through fairly 
quickly, but never really considered in any depth here on the listserv.  
My guess is there will be no more than three or four "systems" of gear 
we use to support our hiking.  Let's see if this is so!

Jeffrey Olson
Martin, SD, where warm fall is descending into cold fall...