Why I Don't Stress About Base Weight

hey y'all Dixie here today I want to talk to you about base weight my thoughts on it and more importantly why I don't obsess over it because if y'all just getting into backpacking you might be wondering what is base weight well base weight is the weight of your gear in your pack Andrew pack so the weight of all of your stuff - consumables so for most folks that's food water and fuel for me that's more like baby powder toothpaste sometimes sunscreen and if I'm in the desert lotion the reason those things are included when we talk about base weight is because we've got to have like comparable grounds to discuss pack weight so the weight of those items because they're consumables are constantly changing you know you're constantly using your toothpaste or you know food after a day of it your food weight is gonna be completely different so just to have a common grounds of discussion of pack weight we discuss you know base weight from what I understand and there probably are some discrepancies on this because you know in this world everyone has to argue about it every single thing but uh light backpacking is considered having a base weight under ten pounds and lightweight backpacking is considered having a base weight under 20 pounds now I know some of y'all already drumming on your keyboards calling me a liar cuz you know I've got a z-pack stent and I went to a lighter sleeping bag yes from the Appalachian Trail to the Pacific Crest Trail I did trade in a good many items upgraded them to have lighter you know especially big three so my tent my pack and my sleeping bag but that's not because I just got rid of that way actually ended up offsetting more equipment to improve the videos that were going up on YouTube and also to try to offset some of the weight of water I knew I'd be carrying while in the desert on the PCT so for those of y'all who are wondering what my base weight was on each of those trails well it really varied because I ended up swapping out some gear and for example on the PCT and the Sierra Nevada had to have my ice axe and micro spikes and bear can so you know the base weight went up during that time honestly before sitting down to make this video I had an idea of the range of my base weight but again it's not something that I'd dwell on or that I really think about so I had to go look it up to make sure that I didn't say something completely bogus on the Appalachian Trail I think my base weight stayed somewhere around 20 pounds you know give or take probably started off with a little bit more than that and then on the Pacific Crest Trail it was actually only just a little bit lower at about 18 pounds now it went anywhere from about 15 to 20 I think so again not a huge difference you know it didn't go ultralight or anything like that but I was able to drop a little bit of weight off like I intended to to try to offset things like food during longer carries and then water during dry stretches so if I'm telling you that I don't stress over base weight and it's not something that I obsess over then why am I making a video about it I guess I just wanted to get the message out there that you see a lot of things these days online about being ultra light and almost people criticizing people who have luxury items and things like that and I just don't want to give the impression that just because I do have a lighter equipment in some areas that you know I think that you can't be successful or you can't do a long distance hike or you can't do even a section hike unless you have the most expensive the highest quality and the most lightweight gear in fact I've seen a lot of people on the trail that don't have the highest quality most lightweight gear in fact on the ATI hikes with my friend rebel yell for hundreds of miles he had a hundred liter pack he had a tent from Walmart I mean all of his gear was stuff that he had gotten pretty cheap on a budget and it was decent gear well he did have to replace his pack a couple of times but an osprey pack for example is good quality gear it's a little bit heavier than you know z packs are hyper light or one of those packs but it's still good gear anyway his pack was always heavy I mean his base weight had to be in the 30s I think his pack was always over 40 pounds so he made it to Katahdin he did his through hike he was successful and I think it's more about your spirit the grit that you have and you know the heart like do you have it in you to do through hike and a stick to and in these forms you almost see people who get criticized for having base weights around 20 pounds or even more and that's where the saying that I think is completely overused and I really don't love to say hike your own hike comes into play because as long as you are able to do it and your be with what you have then go for it no is that to say that I think that you should carry a cast-iron skillet in your pack and that you should just load up the canvas tent and really just have a whole bunch of heavy gear because you know it'll make you stronger no I definitely don't think that but I think that there are three things to consider when thinking about base week and that's comfort purpose and experience I do think that it is possible to be more comfortable if you're able to shed some gear and shed some weight I mean that makes sense right if somebody gave you a hundred pound weight to tote up a mountain or gave you a twenty pound weight to tote up a mountain you'd probably choose the 20 pound weight however I do think that there is a correlation it's almost like the more weight you drop to a point you're more comfortable but then there's also this you know you need certain items to be the most comfortable that you can be on trails so if you could like graph those somehow and see where they intersect then you would know exactly the perfect base weight for you but you're probably just gonna figure that out through getting out there and seeing so for me personally I really love having a collapsible mug out on the trail so I can drink my coffee out of it and eat my food my breakfast at the same time now is that collapsible mug necessary no absolutely not it's just something that I really enjoy and it makes me happy to be sitting out there watching the sunrise and knowing that I'm gonna go hike in for 20-plus miles that day also a stove you know I've toyed with the idea of going stove list before I did for a stretch on the PCT you didn't really love it and honestly I think I'm gonna hang on to my stove for now I like a hot meal at the end of the day and it's a morale booster for me to get out of my tent when I'm freezing cold in the morning to have some hot oatmeal I know other people who just cannot sleep on trail without some kind of little pillow I don't need a pillow I don't worry about that on I really love pillows in real life so but you know some people to be out on trail and to feel comfortable and to be able to sleep at night they need a little pillow that's fun next I think it's important to think about purpose so what is your purpose for being out on trail well for me it's to challenge myself to thru-hike to try to maximize the time I have on trails so if I need to get done within a window of five to six months well it's really been like a little over six months then you know I like to fill that window I really like to enjoy my time out and then also I'm making videos for YouTube so I can share my experiences with y'all so I don't need to lighten my load to where I'm completing a fastest known time record you know that's called an FK t in case y'all have heard that and wonder what in the world folks are talking about when you see FK T in the back packing form but anyway I'm not trying to get out there and break any records now for the people who are doing those things then they should obsess over a base weight it is a big deal for them they're not out there to be comfortable they're out there to push themselves to the limit and then they need to worry about base weight and finally the third thing to consider is your experience level so for me you know my first thru-hike I wanted to go with gear that I could rely on it was dependable when I put my tent up I wanted to know that it would stand up I didn't want to have to use a lot of skill in any of my gear because that was my first overnight backpacking trip ever so then when I started the PCT I felt comfortable lightening up a little bit because I knew that I could rely on my skill of being familiar with camping in the wilderness you know I wasn't going to try to set up a tent on the highest windiest point I knew that hey when you get up higher it gets a little bit windier sometimes so if it's a windy day when I find some kind of cover I need to go ahead and take advantage of that and not just keep hiking through the night and then you know end up in trouble just a little things like that you pick up along the way that you know seem common sense but sometimes when you're out there you're in the middle of a situation and you're stressed out you might not think clearly but with experience you think clearer and clearer about those situations and with experience you might change your ideas of the other two things which I mentioned were comfort and purpose so you might decide that you know I really don't need that camp pillow to be comfortable or someday I might decide that I really don't want that stove and the hot meal isn't as important as having that weight off of my back and then my purpose yeah you could change one day maybe one day I will go hey I want to see how fast I can do this and actually one example that I saw this in myself on the PCT was I mailed my stove ahead to do a 24 hour challenge I decided that rather than taking the time to cook a hot meal and enjoy hot food during this 24 hour stretch that it was more important to me to give up that comfort because my purpose had changed so I wanted to do a 24 hour challenge and push myself as hard as I could and there just wasn't gonna be time to cook I ended up with 62 miles that day and on the CDT I may male ahead my stuff again and give it another go again things can't change as you have more experience or the situation changes and your purpose changes in closing I just want to say that you've got to get out there and figure out what works for you yes while it is good to lighten your pack weight when you can don't stress over it and make that be the reason you don't get out there because you don't have the most ultralight gear and you're worried about other people criticizing you I've learned for myself that yes there are certain things that I need on trail I've learned ways to kind of light my pack a little bit but at the end of the day I'm not going to will like a fragile flower in the Summer Sun just because I have a little bit of extra weight on my back for things that I really enjoy having on the trail but just get out there and figure out what works for you because nobody else has the right to tell you that and with that I would love to hear y'all's comments on this topic please feel free to share below and we will see y'all next time

Channel: Homemade Wanderlust

Views: 130,967

Keywords: travel, hiking, backpacking, hike, gear, adventure, fun, story, PCT, thru-hike, Auburn, Alabama, epic, Appalachian, Trail, climbing, canyon, national, nature, mountains, update, park, lake, trail, tents, camping, summer, University, Aubie, River, stream, Mountains, National, Scenic, base weight, ultralight, lightweight backpacking

Id: AJGQE-KZokU

Length: 9min 41sec (581 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 14 2018