Ultralight hikers make every ounce count
My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
— Matthew 11:30
SOUTH OF STEVENS PASS — She had to know. So she finally asked.
"Uh, are you out for a day hike?" asked the woman, a hiker from Cashmere, as I passed her on a remote section of the Pacific Crest Trail near Glacier Lake.
Out to walk a large chunk of the Pacific Crest's 508 miles within Washington, she realized you don't get this deep on the trail unless you come prepared. That traditionally involves a bulging backpack, like the one she was carrying.
The comparatively dainty pack on my back, however, appeared better stocked for a picnic in the park.
No, I told her — I was just finishing a three-day, 75-mile, pell-mell hike from Snoqualmie Pass (Interstate 90) to Stevens Pass (Highway 2).
As she eyed my pack, her response was just delicious: "With that?" she blurted.
Yes, because I've heeded the call. The makers of backpacking and mountaineering equipment want me to change my religion. Yours, too. And I, for one, am a new believer.
The message they're preaching — ultralight travel — is a persuasive one. Particularly to a fellow who two years ago spent 12 days happily but heavily lumbering around Mount Rainier on the 95-mile Wonderland Trail while buckled into a 62-pound backpack.
So I made the leap of faith. I embraced ultralight doctrines on a major hike — a mad dash on the up-and-down Pacific Crest Trail that involved more miles (74.5) than hours (72).
"Y'know," a friend pointed out, "to go that far in three days, you'll have to hike about a marathon every day."
Someone else calculated my route involved a cumulative elevation gain of 13,420 feet.
Ultralight zealots spurred on by author Ray Jardine's well-circulated less-is-more treatise, "Beyond Backpacking," shrug off such challenges. Their advice: Seriously whittle the weight on your back and you will become a changed hiker.
Carry less, go farther, feel better — it's the essence of the ultralight dogma.
So I pared the pounds. Purged the frivolous. Bought or borrowed space-age, next-to-nothing gear, and counted every ounce.
When I launched myself from Snoqualmie Pass one morning last month, my pack — a 2002 model of an award-winning design from Mountainsmith — weighed a startling 24 pounds, 8 ounces.
I've carried day packs weighing more.
If I'd left behind my vintage Nikon (3 pounds, 2 ounces) and three rolls of film, I would have come close to breaking the expert-class 20-pound barrier.
Still, I backpacked lighter than ever before — but not without complications:
Day 1:
I started shortly past 7 a.m. By the time I reached the Kendall Katwalk, it was apparent this would be one of summer's hottest days.
A shirtless southbound man and his son on their exit path from a six-day trip from Stevens talked about getting some hamburgers. I dwelled on hamburgers for the next three days.
I opted not to top off my lone water bottle at Ridge Lake, the seven-mile mark. This flaw in reasoning could be linked to the fact that (1) I am accustomed to carrying two bottles (one of which I left home to save weight), or (2) I am a moron.
I had no excuse; I was even carrying a photocopy of the Pacific Crest Trail Association's indispensable "Data Book" showing the upcoming eight-mile gap between water sources.
Still, I marched on, feeling ultralight on my feet.
I'd slowed to an irritated shuffle by the time I spotted some off-trail puddles in the vicinity of Park Lakes, about 15 miles into the trip. I filtered some buggy, shallow water, guzzled it, then found my way to the main lake, where I filtered-drank-filtered-drank and paused for a 45-minute nap in the shade.
At the spur of Three Queens, I marveled at the long-distance view of Spectacle Lake, its deep blue waters shimmering in the late afternoon sun with Chikamin Peak and Leman Mountain forming towering backdrops. Then I then marveled at the time (nearly 5 p.m.) and the fact I was only 16 miles into the trip. I descended 1,900 feet in 5.7 miles to Lemah Creek and made camp at 7:20 p.m., finishing a 21.7-mile day.
It was my first night inside a bivy shelter (the Soloist Bivy by The North Face, 2.1 pounds). Two small, criss-crossing poles gave me about six inches of headroom. Basically, I was the banana, the bivy was the peel.
But it was fine. I am not claustrophobic (whew) and I had enough space to pass out for the night. My 2-pound, 7-ounce long sleeping bag (REI's Sub Kilo, rated to plus-20 degrees) was so toasty I didn't even zip it up.
Day 2:
I was behind schedule. Two days, 53 miles to go.
Wolfing down a daybreak freeze-dried meal, I waved to a passing hiker, another ultralight packer. He was Paul Clark from Utah, hiking the Pacific Crest Trail northbound from California.
Clark estimated his pack weighed around 15 pounds, including a stove he built from a Pepsi can. Does he ever reconsider the items he's carrying?
"On nice days," he said, "I always feel I'm carrying too much rain gear. On days it rains, I never feel I have enough."
The day before, he told me, he completed a 24-hour, 70-mile hike. Made my 21.7 miles seem like a stroll to the bus stop.
He zoomed on, the only other person I saw that day, and I followed in his dust, covering 25.5 miles along what, to me, was a fairly hum-drum section of trail, involving too much forested walking.
My pack still felt like a day pack, but I was pooped when I reached Deep Lake beneath Cathedral Rock a little past 7 p.m.
After much internal debate, I elected to trudge three miles, and 1,200 feet, up to Cathedral Pass. Slagged, I made a dry camp near the pass, too tired to cook a meal in the dwindling light. I managed three bites off a Luna bar and even give up on that.
My inch-thick, 47-inch-long Therm-A-Rest inflatable sleeping pad felt like something from the Marriott.
Day 3:
I awakened before dawn, knowing I had to cover 27.3 miles and cross two tough, lovely passes, Pieper and Trap. The day's first question was: How many miles will I walk in the dark to finish the trip?
The answer: 4.5, and the 2.4-ounce Petzl Tikka LED headlamp I packed provided surprisingly ample light to illuminate my path.
The preceding miles, however, compensated for the late-night drudgery with the trip's grandest views. From atop Pieper Pass, Glacier Peak punctuated the cloudless horizon with its imposing pyramid of ice and granite. The lung-busting march to Trap Pass paid off with a dazzling wide-screen view into the fabulously fractured Trapper Creek drainage.
Along the way I encountered a group of five guys who ogled my pack, and I eventually showed them everything inside, from my titanium pot (10 ounces) to my football-sized sleeping bag.
"We've always wondered how you guys do it," one of them said.
They asked about the trade-offs. Among them:
Sleeping in a bivy where you cannot sit up or read, and you have to pull off all your clothes (exposing yourself to mosquitoes ) before you get inside and zip up.
Toting a parka but not rain pants, gambling on good weather.
Carrying just a few bandages and blister pads rather than a complete first-aid kit.
Leaving behind extra camera lenses.
Leaving things behind, putting your comfort level at risk, maybe your well-being, too — aye, there's the rub of ultralight travel.
The up side? Tossing a barely-there 24 pounds on your back and surging toward your first set of switchbacks. No sore shoulders and hips. Seeing more territory.
But keeping to a timetable at times deprived me of the luxury of lingering, or arbitrarily deciding, "Y'know, this spot is too good to pass up," and making camp on a whim. The pace was exhausting.
Near Glacier Lake, meanwhile, I paused to filter a quart of water, allowing the woman from Cashmere to catch up and pass me, her tortoise to my hare. "How much further you going today?" she asked.
"About another 15 miles," I answered. "I'm trying to get out tonight."
"Oh, my," she said, "that's a long way." She waved and said she was going to rest and look at the lake.
The idea sounded ... delicious.
What I carried
1. The pack: A 2002 version of the Mountainsmith Ghost (3,100 cubic inches, 2 pounds, 6 ounces; $179), on loan from the Colorado manufacturer.
For more than a decade I have hauled my gear in a 6,800-cubic-inch behemoth that weighs 8 pounds empty.
The Ghost won an Editor's Choice award from Backpacker magazine this spring. It's comfortable, light and tough. It uses a U-shaped fiberglass hoop, not an internal frame, to support the pack bag, and offers a hip belt and lumbar pad that is splendidly proportionate to the lighter loads it was designed to carry. The '02 model features a waterproof zipper.
2. Shelter: No tent. I opted for a bivouac shelter, the Soloist Bivy, on loan from The North Face (2 pounds, 1 ounce; $279). Bivies are essentially ground-hugging Gore-Tex slipcovers for a sleeping bag, offering minimal interior wiggle room.
I left home my 6-pound Moss Starlet tent, which I love, but which represents a heap of weight for a one-person shelter.
The Soloist is a first-rate bivy, but I likely will add another pound or so to my load and move up to one of the minimalist two-walled tents being offered by Sierra Designs, MSR or Mountain Hardware, or maybe a floorless tent such as the Bibler Betamid Shelter.
3. Sleeping bag: REI Sub Kilo (2 lbs. 6 oz. for a long model, rated to plus-20 degrees, 700-fill-power goose down; $219).
I left behind my reliable synthetic bag (rated to plus-5 degrees, weighing 3 pounds, 14 ounces) and sought out one of the new-generation bags using mature down in a compact shape. Marmot, Sierra Designs, Mountain Hardware and other makers also offer bags in this range. Feathered Friends offers the Viero, a plus-45-degrees bag that weighs just a pound.
The Sub Kilo was more than enough for summer nights at 5,000 feet.
4. Sleeping pad: A fan of Therm-A-Rest inflating pads, I tried the baby of the fleet: the 3/4-length UltraLite pad (47 inches long, 1 inch thick, 1 pound, $50).
Compressed, it takes up the space of a 16-ounce loaf of bread. Great size and weight, but my big-guy hips cried out for the 1.5-inch thick GuideLite 3/4, just 3 ounces heavier. If I anticipated very cold ground, I'd bump up to the full-length GuideLite (1 pound, 15 ounces). Another option: lighter, but bulkier, closed-cell foam pads.
5. Water treatment: Real minimalists will use iodine pills such as Potable Aqua or Polar Pure. I swore off iodine years ago. I accepted the weight of my MSR Miniworks filter (1 pound; $69.95), much preferring the taste. Hard-core ultralighters no doubt will shake their heads at such a notion. But in ultralight travel, my acquired view is this: The only right answers are the ones that are right for your comfort level. I toted just one Nalgene quart-sized bottle. In dry times, it might be wise to carry two.
Footwear: Vitesse trailrunners by Montrail ($90). At 1 pound, 2 ounces per shoe for my size-13 feet, they're feather-light compared to my much-loved Zamberlan Civetta boots (2 pounds, 1 ounce each). If you keep your load under 30 pounds, and you're not too much of a klutz, trailrunners can handle trail abuse pretty well (for 500 to 800 miles) and offer adequate support in rocky places.
6. Outer wear: Trusting in the good weather forecast, I carried only a rain parka. A friend loaned me his Sierra Designs Peak Bagger jacket (15 ounces; $189), a three-layer Gore-Tex model (offering better breathability and durability) that faced no rain drops. I used it only in camp — for protection from mosquitoes and as stuffing for my pillow. I also toted a long-sleeved Patagonia Capilene pullover (11 ounces; $43).
7. Kitchen: My stove was the MSR PocketRocket (3.2 ounces; $34.95), an easy-to-light unit that screws into a 13-ounce IsoPro fuel canister that brought two cups of water to a boil in four minutes or less. That's all I needed for the freeze-dried meals I brought along. My pot: MSR's 2-liter titanium pot; blissfully light at 10 ounces, but like a designer-label bikini, you pay ($79.95) for something so splendidly minimal. My utensil: A single lexan spoon.
8. Headlamp: Petzl Tikka LED headlamp (2.4 ounces including its three AAA batteries; $34.95).
9. First-aid kit: A Ziploc bag containing some Second Skin, assorted bandages, tiny ointment packs and emergency cards. Pretty thin, I admit. I was not prepared for a serious mishap.
Also along for the ride: Besides the clothes on my back, I brought a Therm-A-Rest Pocket Pillow, camera, spare T-shirt, bug repellent, foot powder, tube of sunscreen, toothbrush, toilet paper, matches, map, plastic trowel, sunglasses, knife, hat, whistle.
No-shows in my pack: Rain pants; binoculars; camp chair; camp shoes; extra socks; book; radio; towel; long underwear.
Fanciest gadget I sampled: Carbon-fiber trekking poles, to be introduced by MSR next year (8.3 ounces each; $129 per pair). One woman on the trail offered to trade all her Gatorade mixes for the poles. I passed.
Terry Wood is a free-lance writer who lives in Bellevue. He can be contacted at farhiker@yahoo.com.