This thread is a response to another fine gentleman who provided some valuable insight into backpacking. I hope you find mine equally as valuable.
This was my first attempt at backpacking. I am 33 years old, about 285, and out of shape. I went with three close friends, one in very good shape and one about like I am. We hiked the lower 6 mile portion of the Spurgeon Hollow KT loop. Some of the hill ascents were down right debilitating and some of the descents were very dangerous. One false step 3 miles in the middle of nowhere can mean serious trouble.
Mistake #1 - Taking too much gear:
We over packed for a one night trip. I would not recommend it. Although some survival gear is necessary, taking the contents of your bug out bag, is not good if you want to remain mobile. I only took a sidearm, part of a medical kit, and some cool weather clothing from my bug out bag. Seeing as how the temp dropped to 37* at night, I thought it was necessary. Bug out Bags are not interchangeable with long distance hiking gear. You will almost assuredly end up with too much crap. IMO, bugging out means being mobile and being able to get somewhere and survive on foot until you get there. Hikers do this very very well. This trip has me completely re-thinking my BOB and my physical condition.
Sleeping Gear:
My sleeping bag is rated to 20* and by all accounts it was phenomenal. My hammock was the best night of sleep I've ever spent outdoors. It has bug netting, but it wasn't really needed as there were no bugs this time of year. Weather indications for the evening showed no rain, but I went ahead and stung up my 8x10' tarp over the hammock. Even though it never rained, it kept hot ash embers from touching my hammock when the fire decided to get crazy. I'd rather have holes in my $2.00 big lots tarp, than in my $60.00 hammock.
If you do hammock camp in cool weather, you need something under your backside. I am fairly immune to cool weather due to my aforementioned size and layers of natural insulation, but your backside will get cold. I ended up getting up in the middle of the night to strategically place two hand warmers under each cheek. It worked well, but I will be looking to buy a very light weight therm-a-rest sometime soon.
Also, big man or not, getting into a sleeping bag inside of a hammock is challenging to say the least. I made three attempts before I figured out a strategy. You put the head of the bag all the way as high as possible up at one end of the hammock and unzip it about halfway with the unzipped flap wide open. Before you flop into the hammock, sit int the side and reach to the opposite side and grasp the open flap of sleeping bag and the opposite side of the hammock. Then you just kind of lay back. When you hit the bottom of the hammock, you should be able to use that flap to manipulate the bag around you and shimmy into your bag. Once you get the hang of it, it's easy and will be the best night sleep you will ever have outdoors.
Water:
Sometimes filtering is NOT an option. If you are hiking on the KT or any trail that does not have water available to filter, you gotta take it with you. Each liter of water is about 2.2 pounds, and we each had about 4 - 10lbs of it and we used it all. Mountain house meals are great and light weight, but each one requires half a liter of water. That light weight MH meal weighs a lot more than you think it does when you factor in the cost of water, especially since it's water you won't get to drink.
Zombie Apocalypse Factor:
You aren't going to survive the zombie apocalypse if you have 30-40lbs of gear on your back, because the last thing you want in your hands is a gun/more weight to carry. Unless you are still in military shape, I got news for most of the overweight prepers out there, you're going to die. You better hope it's the slow swarming type of zombies and not the fast ones, as seen in World War Z. I was also informed that my snoring is a thing of legend and that I'd likely get eaten in my sleep. I think prepers often forget that noise is going to be a factor in keeping your goods and location a secret. This would include loud snoring and anything that sounds like a chainsaw or gas generator.
Starting a fire with wet everything:
We started out on Saturday in the rain, knowing it would stop an hour or two into our hike. We were prepared for this, but not for the difficulties we had starting a fire. Starting a fire is hard when everything is wet. You have to keep things small and work your way up to larger wood. You also need a dry tinder or fuel source that will burn for at least 15 minutes wet or dry. You need to be able to burn enough tiny sticks to allow them to catch fire and burn off the moisture. We went through two UST Wetfire tinder cubes to get our fire going, but once it was roaring, we were able to put a completely soaked log on the fire and it would burn eventually. If your tinder can't handle 15 minutes of flame, you might want to re-think your gear. I do like the Wetfire cubes and they do work great, but I am still open to other solutions as well, namely those that may not cost as much and ones which I can make at home.
Too much clothing and wet clothing:
I took too much clothing. The city boy in my wanted to have clean dry clothes each day. Ideally, all you need is enough clothes to always stay dry. That means, two pair of socks, one pair of pants for hiking, and one pair of light weight evening pants for sleeping that can double for wearing under your other pants to stay warm. Where I went wrong was bringing a sweatshirt and like 4 pairs of socks.
You can dry clothes out over night. Hikers often dry wet socks on their bellies in their sleeping bags. It won't win you any hygiene awards with your fellow hikers, but your feet won't rot off while on the trail. I really enjoyed having a fresh dry T-shirt to slip into when we stopped for the night.
The sweatshirt was a bit much, when I could have used my shell jacket instead. We dried our shoes by the fire, but were careful to mind them and not let the rubber bits get melted. I would also highly recommend light weight flip flops for camp site. At the end of the day, nothing feels better than taking off your boots and letting your feet air out in a fresh pair of socks. Keep in mind it was 40 degrees when we camped and dropped to 37 when it got dark. Socks with flip flops is not good for fashion, but keep your feet warm and dry.
Backpacking survival gear:
This is where I went horribly wrong. I took a subset of a crazy amount of gear from my BOB that I never used. It would have saved me like 4lbs if I had left this crap at home. I won't go into details, but if you have good hiking gear, you don't need all the extreme survivalist stuff that I had with me. You should be able to start a fire, filter water, hold water, cut things, shop small amounts of wood, and bring your food with you. Hikers pack for a journey, not a destination. Although planning measures are taken, you won't need the kitchen sink, so don't bring it. Most BOBs are good for only 3 days, but almost everyone (including myself) pack them to survive in the woods for a lifetime.
That said, I'd now pack a water filter, camelbak, small water container, fire starting stuffs, hatchet, pocket knife, an LED headlamp, space blanket, 550 cord, and call it a day.
Medical and First Aid:
I have a huge army trauma kit in my BOB currently. I was thankfully wise enough to only bring a subset of it's contents. Mostly I carried foot-care products, basic anti-bacterial cream, purel, bandaids, a needle, foot powder, thread, tape, ace wrap, and military splint board. It all fits into a 10"x5" pouch and is pretty light. It can be used for a number of injuries and I think it worked out well, even though we never needed it. It's lightweight insurance.
Lighting:
LED HEADLAMPS! nuff said.... You don't need anything else. They run for like 96 hours on low settings with 3 AAA batteries and are plenty bright for anything you need to do in the dark. I got mine at walmart for like $6.90. You don't need a sure fire.
Packing:
I see a lot of people with BOBS with crap just thrown into compartments willy nilly. Organize it! your local Walmart will have small pouches for sale in the travel section. Buy them. Try to create little kits within your kit. Have a medical pouch, a survival pouch, and a toiletries/hygiene pouch. Keep your clothing in a dry sack in your bag. When you dig through your bag to get something you can just pull out pouches till you get the right one. It makes life so much easier and allows you to get to the things you want a lot faster. You see hikers do this a lot, and for good reason. Keep things you are likely to use a lot close and easily accessible. Keep bug wipes in your waist belt pouch, keep cooking and eating gear together, and so on... Just pack smart. It saves time, and on the trail, time is energy.
Cooking:
My little $8.00 pocket stove I got from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004U8CP88/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i02?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Is freaking amazing! $4.00 worth of coleman isobutane/propane lasts a LONG time. I'd guess one can could easily last 2-3 days, cooking 3 meals each day. Boils 2 cups water in like 2mins. Love it! And man is it tiny.
Wrap-up:
All in all we had a great time. I'm in a minor amount of pain today, but that's just due to me being extremely out of shape. We did 6 miles of rough terrain in both cold and wet conditions. It was a good way to test our character and get out in the great outdoors. I learned a lot about my gear and my limitations. If you are a practical prepper/survivalist I highly suggest you get off the couch and try out your stuff. You would be amazed at what you learn. I know I learned a lot. We are all looking forward to our next adventure utilizing our lessons learned. I would highly recommend the KT to anyone. It's rough, but anyone can do it. Life is not a race, just enjoy it, we all get to the finish line too soon as it is.
I hope you find this informative or insightful. I like to thank the members on this forum who continue to provide me with a wealth of information and support. This is a fantastic community!
This was my first attempt at backpacking. I am 33 years old, about 285, and out of shape. I went with three close friends, one in very good shape and one about like I am. We hiked the lower 6 mile portion of the Spurgeon Hollow KT loop. Some of the hill ascents were down right debilitating and some of the descents were very dangerous. One false step 3 miles in the middle of nowhere can mean serious trouble.
Mistake #1 - Taking too much gear:
We over packed for a one night trip. I would not recommend it. Although some survival gear is necessary, taking the contents of your bug out bag, is not good if you want to remain mobile. I only took a sidearm, part of a medical kit, and some cool weather clothing from my bug out bag. Seeing as how the temp dropped to 37* at night, I thought it was necessary. Bug out Bags are not interchangeable with long distance hiking gear. You will almost assuredly end up with too much crap. IMO, bugging out means being mobile and being able to get somewhere and survive on foot until you get there. Hikers do this very very well. This trip has me completely re-thinking my BOB and my physical condition.
Sleeping Gear:
My sleeping bag is rated to 20* and by all accounts it was phenomenal. My hammock was the best night of sleep I've ever spent outdoors. It has bug netting, but it wasn't really needed as there were no bugs this time of year. Weather indications for the evening showed no rain, but I went ahead and stung up my 8x10' tarp over the hammock. Even though it never rained, it kept hot ash embers from touching my hammock when the fire decided to get crazy. I'd rather have holes in my $2.00 big lots tarp, than in my $60.00 hammock.
If you do hammock camp in cool weather, you need something under your backside. I am fairly immune to cool weather due to my aforementioned size and layers of natural insulation, but your backside will get cold. I ended up getting up in the middle of the night to strategically place two hand warmers under each cheek. It worked well, but I will be looking to buy a very light weight therm-a-rest sometime soon.
Also, big man or not, getting into a sleeping bag inside of a hammock is challenging to say the least. I made three attempts before I figured out a strategy. You put the head of the bag all the way as high as possible up at one end of the hammock and unzip it about halfway with the unzipped flap wide open. Before you flop into the hammock, sit int the side and reach to the opposite side and grasp the open flap of sleeping bag and the opposite side of the hammock. Then you just kind of lay back. When you hit the bottom of the hammock, you should be able to use that flap to manipulate the bag around you and shimmy into your bag. Once you get the hang of it, it's easy and will be the best night sleep you will ever have outdoors.
Water:
Sometimes filtering is NOT an option. If you are hiking on the KT or any trail that does not have water available to filter, you gotta take it with you. Each liter of water is about 2.2 pounds, and we each had about 4 - 10lbs of it and we used it all. Mountain house meals are great and light weight, but each one requires half a liter of water. That light weight MH meal weighs a lot more than you think it does when you factor in the cost of water, especially since it's water you won't get to drink.
Zombie Apocalypse Factor:
You aren't going to survive the zombie apocalypse if you have 30-40lbs of gear on your back, because the last thing you want in your hands is a gun/more weight to carry. Unless you are still in military shape, I got news for most of the overweight prepers out there, you're going to die. You better hope it's the slow swarming type of zombies and not the fast ones, as seen in World War Z. I was also informed that my snoring is a thing of legend and that I'd likely get eaten in my sleep. I think prepers often forget that noise is going to be a factor in keeping your goods and location a secret. This would include loud snoring and anything that sounds like a chainsaw or gas generator.
Starting a fire with wet everything:
We started out on Saturday in the rain, knowing it would stop an hour or two into our hike. We were prepared for this, but not for the difficulties we had starting a fire. Starting a fire is hard when everything is wet. You have to keep things small and work your way up to larger wood. You also need a dry tinder or fuel source that will burn for at least 15 minutes wet or dry. You need to be able to burn enough tiny sticks to allow them to catch fire and burn off the moisture. We went through two UST Wetfire tinder cubes to get our fire going, but once it was roaring, we were able to put a completely soaked log on the fire and it would burn eventually. If your tinder can't handle 15 minutes of flame, you might want to re-think your gear. I do like the Wetfire cubes and they do work great, but I am still open to other solutions as well, namely those that may not cost as much and ones which I can make at home.
Too much clothing and wet clothing:
I took too much clothing. The city boy in my wanted to have clean dry clothes each day. Ideally, all you need is enough clothes to always stay dry. That means, two pair of socks, one pair of pants for hiking, and one pair of light weight evening pants for sleeping that can double for wearing under your other pants to stay warm. Where I went wrong was bringing a sweatshirt and like 4 pairs of socks.
You can dry clothes out over night. Hikers often dry wet socks on their bellies in their sleeping bags. It won't win you any hygiene awards with your fellow hikers, but your feet won't rot off while on the trail. I really enjoyed having a fresh dry T-shirt to slip into when we stopped for the night.
The sweatshirt was a bit much, when I could have used my shell jacket instead. We dried our shoes by the fire, but were careful to mind them and not let the rubber bits get melted. I would also highly recommend light weight flip flops for camp site. At the end of the day, nothing feels better than taking off your boots and letting your feet air out in a fresh pair of socks. Keep in mind it was 40 degrees when we camped and dropped to 37 when it got dark. Socks with flip flops is not good for fashion, but keep your feet warm and dry.
Backpacking survival gear:
This is where I went horribly wrong. I took a subset of a crazy amount of gear from my BOB that I never used. It would have saved me like 4lbs if I had left this crap at home. I won't go into details, but if you have good hiking gear, you don't need all the extreme survivalist stuff that I had with me. You should be able to start a fire, filter water, hold water, cut things, shop small amounts of wood, and bring your food with you. Hikers pack for a journey, not a destination. Although planning measures are taken, you won't need the kitchen sink, so don't bring it. Most BOBs are good for only 3 days, but almost everyone (including myself) pack them to survive in the woods for a lifetime.
That said, I'd now pack a water filter, camelbak, small water container, fire starting stuffs, hatchet, pocket knife, an LED headlamp, space blanket, 550 cord, and call it a day.
Medical and First Aid:
I have a huge army trauma kit in my BOB currently. I was thankfully wise enough to only bring a subset of it's contents. Mostly I carried foot-care products, basic anti-bacterial cream, purel, bandaids, a needle, foot powder, thread, tape, ace wrap, and military splint board. It all fits into a 10"x5" pouch and is pretty light. It can be used for a number of injuries and I think it worked out well, even though we never needed it. It's lightweight insurance.
Lighting:
LED HEADLAMPS! nuff said.... You don't need anything else. They run for like 96 hours on low settings with 3 AAA batteries and are plenty bright for anything you need to do in the dark. I got mine at walmart for like $6.90. You don't need a sure fire.
Packing:
I see a lot of people with BOBS with crap just thrown into compartments willy nilly. Organize it! your local Walmart will have small pouches for sale in the travel section. Buy them. Try to create little kits within your kit. Have a medical pouch, a survival pouch, and a toiletries/hygiene pouch. Keep your clothing in a dry sack in your bag. When you dig through your bag to get something you can just pull out pouches till you get the right one. It makes life so much easier and allows you to get to the things you want a lot faster. You see hikers do this a lot, and for good reason. Keep things you are likely to use a lot close and easily accessible. Keep bug wipes in your waist belt pouch, keep cooking and eating gear together, and so on... Just pack smart. It saves time, and on the trail, time is energy.
Cooking:
My little $8.00 pocket stove I got from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004U8CP88/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i02?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Is freaking amazing! $4.00 worth of coleman isobutane/propane lasts a LONG time. I'd guess one can could easily last 2-3 days, cooking 3 meals each day. Boils 2 cups water in like 2mins. Love it! And man is it tiny.
Wrap-up:
All in all we had a great time. I'm in a minor amount of pain today, but that's just due to me being extremely out of shape. We did 6 miles of rough terrain in both cold and wet conditions. It was a good way to test our character and get out in the great outdoors. I learned a lot about my gear and my limitations. If you are a practical prepper/survivalist I highly suggest you get off the couch and try out your stuff. You would be amazed at what you learn. I know I learned a lot. We are all looking forward to our next adventure utilizing our lessons learned. I would highly recommend the KT to anyone. It's rough, but anyone can do it. Life is not a race, just enjoy it, we all get to the finish line too soon as it is.
I hope you find this informative or insightful. I like to thank the members on this forum who continue to provide me with a wealth of information and support. This is a fantastic community!
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