1: ON THE SCALES
"Anyone from 7 to 70 years of age can be a backpacker and like it." That's what I wrote in the first issue of The Great Outdoors, and it's true—as far as it goes. I was 69 when I wrote it and now I'm 70-plus and wondering why I made threescore-and-ten the top limit.
Obviously you can't go on backpacking for ever. Even Ulysses and his toughs (according to Tennyson) had at last to say
We are not now that strength
which in old days
Moved earth and heaven,
and — poetry apart — it is a fact that a man of 70 possesses only about half the muscular strength he had at 20. Your doctor tells you your heart won't stand for carrying 40 pounds over 9000-foot passes or even on long cross-
country jaunts. And (let's face it) your own common sense tells you the same. But if you're reasonably fit and still capable of long days out on the hills it seems a pity to pack up 'packing, and you get down to considering —
at least I did — ways and means of over- coming the problems, which boil down to three: (1) carrying heavy weights; (2) slog- ging long distances; (3) crossing Alpine passes.
Cutting the Load
Easy enough to deal with (3), though regret- fully: no more high passes. In the matter of (2), easy again — simply plan for short hauls each day, something in the region of ten miles. That leaves (1), the only difficult prob- lem; difficult, because you must carry shelter, food, and the means of sleeping snug at night, and these things can't be skimped. Most of the backpackers I've encountered have been carrying between 35 and 40 pounds on their backs, and I know some peo- ple carry considerably more. For my part, I found 40 pounds turned pleasure into pain when I was trekking through the Valais Alps four years ago, so I resolved to aim at achiev- ing an absolute maximum of 20 pounds for my pack load on a week's backpacking jour- ney in mid-September. This clearly meant drastic reductions in weight all along the line, but I was determined that there should be no sacrifice of comfort or nourishment to the ultra-lightweight doctrine.
I began with pack and frame. The old YHA Highpack which has served me so well for five years weighed only just short of 4 lbs unloaded — one fifth of the total weight aimed at — and its undoubted sturdiness was hardly needed for a 20-pound load. I bought a frameless nylon pack measuring 15" x 15" x 8" which had a big flap and six D-rings on the back panel, and made a frame out of thin garden canes. In this case the pack, not the frame, was supported by the shoulder-straps, the use of the frame being to hold the sack clear of one's back and support it comfortably against the waist; the latter effect was con- trived with a wire-mesh "pea-guard" padded with sealed foam rubber like the stuff used for Karrimats. The complete setup weighed 22 oz and I found that everything I wanted to take could be got inside the sack — nothing had to be slung outside. A day-long test with a full
satisfied with a boiled egg and bread- and-butter and it's perfectly happy. However my backpacking companions as well as myself have discovered on many journeys that we eat about a quarter of the bulk nor- mally eaten at home, and that we not only have enough but also finish a hundred per cent fit — even after a three or four week trek. Hence I saw no advantage of departing from past custom. Tea, boiled egg, bread- and-butter and marmalade for breakfast; hot soup, bread, biscuits, and tea for supper; for lunch, bread and cheese and biscuits and maybe a spot of chocolate. This would be my basic meal programme, and by using "Quick" soups that only need hotwater from the kettle I would economise on stove fuel as well as utensils. There would be opportunity for adding variety to the menu on the journey I was making (the 70-mile Glyndwr's Way, of which more in a second article) because the route, though passing through fairly wild country, touched occasionally at villages where a pint or a pub snack might be obtained, and I would of course drink a pint of milk — that valuable food — whenever the chance offered. A complete re-stocking, at a town, would only be possible after the fourth night's camp, but eggs at least could be bought from farms enroute. With these con- siderations in mind, I got down to food weights in more detail.
Sugar was the weightiest problem. White sugar is 100% carbohydrates and a basic source of energy. I like lots of it in tea and I calculated I'd need a pound of it on a week's trek; but since this would bump up my pack weight unduly I compromised by carrying half a pound and hoping to re-stock before it ran out.Crispbreads such as Vitaweat are bet- ter food value than bread and a good deal lighter. However, they can't be satisfactorily dunked in soup, so I put both on the list — a half-pound Hovis loaf and a packet of Vita- weat (24 pieces) weighing 7 oz. Sweet bis- cuits, invaluable for topping-up at supper and lunch, need to be chosen with an eye to their firm packaging otherwise they finish up in the sack as a bag of crumbs. Garibaldi biscuits are handy in this respect and good food-value as well; a 5-oz pack of twenty would do nicely. Cheese and butter would have to be kept to ¼-lb of each to start with, re-stocking later. With salt, teabags, six Quick soups, ¼-lb of marmalade and a few sweets, my food list was now complete.
Accessories
Of the remaining equipment to be taken, the heaviest single item would certainly have been omitted by a real ultra-lightweight enthusiast, while no bearded backpacker would have even considered it. My battery- operated shaver weighs 7 oz and could almost be regarded as a luxury; but — as I've hinted — I was determined that keeping my pack-weight down to Twenty Minus should not prevent me from living "in the state to which I was accustomed." In went the shaver with the toothbrush, dentifrice, and comb. Among the other items, the 2½-pint folding plastic water-bottle — made in Canada and
load led to some minor modifications after which this pack-and-frame was as com- fortable as could be wished. That meant a saving of 2½ lbs.
Tent and sleeping-bag admitted of no such modification. The tent, a very old single-pole Good Companions to which I'm much attached, weighs only 4 lbs 1 oz when used with my staff as pole with the top section of its normal pole attached by wing-nuts, and I wasn't going to give up the comfort of its 25 square feet of floor space and 4-foot head- room. Ground-frosts were not unlikely in mid-September so there would be need for my Blacks Viking sleeping-bag, and good ground insulation too. The cut-down Kar- rimat (5 oz) I generally use gives excellent insulation but does little to ease a bony and ageing frame on a hard or lumpy pitch. I decided to take a Surfrider. This, which I had used with success on a three-week Alpine trek, is an inflatable plastic raft intended for children to lark about on at the seaside, but its four reeds give li-lo comfort under your bot- tom and shoulder which are the parts that most need ground insulation. Measuring 24" x 36", the Surfrider weighs 9 oz; here, in fact, I was disregarding weight in the interests of comfort. But it rolls into 9" x 1½" as against the Karrimats 12½" x 4", so I was at least reducing bulk in the pack.
Cooking and Diet
The stove presented its usual problem. I could take the Bleuet, 24 oz complete, or the Meta weighing 10 oz with a weeks fuel; but while the Meta takes 14 minutes to boil half-a-pint of water — and needs draughtless conditions — the Bleuet will do it in 4½ minutes. Again sacrificing light weight to efficiency, I opted for the Bleuet. On past form and with a simple menu, a gas cartridge would probably last for the six camps I proposed to make on my jour- ney. A kettle holding a pint and a half and weighing 6 oz would be my only cooking utensil. Which brings us to the important mat- ter of food.
I am perhaps fortunate in possessing a biddable stomach. Confront it with one of those enormous farmhouse breakfasts and it will absorb it without comment; tell it to be
