Grams

Sixty pounds. What was I thinking?

Here we were at the beginning of the famed West Coast Trail in June 1999 for our first ever backpacking trip. The experts say you shouldn’t pick the West Coast Trail for your first backpacking experience … ha, what do they know.  We’d updated our last will and testament, told our kids we loved them, and packed everything except the kitchen sink to make room for the scrabble game and off we trekked.

The scrabble game is no lie, it’s tucked up at the top of my pack and we actually played until a seagull on a flyby mission took care of that matter.  It’s the last time we took the scrabble game.

Since then we’ve cut our pack weight close to half .  I aim for a base weight, before food, of 9100 grams/20 pounds for myself and try not to let Doris carry much more than 6800 grams/15 pounds total.

When coaching managers I try to get them to think of the one action they can take which will get them furthest towards their goals.  In backpacking there are the big four biggies that will get you the furthest toward a manageable pack weight.

Backpack

For the John Muir Trail I will be using an Osprey Volt 60 (1720 grams) and Doris will be using an Osprey Ace 50 (1440 grams).  Actually these are always the packs we use.  The company stands behind their Almighty Guarantee… we’ve had to use it when a mouse chewed through the mesh.

Tent

Our pick for a tent is the Big Agnes Copper Spur UL2 (1485 grams complete with footprint).  I love the fact that you can set up the footprint, poles and rainfly as an independent quick shelter.  It lets you set up/take down the tent body under the shelter keeping both the tent body and rest of your gear dry.

For the JMT we will be using the roomier Big Agnes Copper Spur UL3 … same features.

Sleeping Bag and Sleeping Pad

The last two work together.  My usual sleep system is a Sierra Designs Quilt (800 grams) paired with a Neoair Xtherm (567 grams).  A quilt gives me room to move, easy to get in and out for night stargazing … or other important matters.  It’s performed well down to minus 2 Celsius.

For the JMT we are going to try a Sierra Designs Duo sleeping bag.  Doris gets cold faster than I do so we’re going to follow Biblical principles that two can sleep warmer than one.

After saving weight with the four biggies … cut off all the tags on your clothes, bags, etc.

Grams count.

Reality Check

Enough of theory.  Our actual full pack weights for the JMT Leg 1 are …

Victor – 33 pounds.  Doris – 20 pounds

Not bad … small adjustments required to redistribute weight to get a couple of pounds off Doris.