Joining the Freakshow

Being happy with my “lightweight” system that I had built over the past 3 trips, I decided one day to check out “ultra-lightweight” videos on You Tube and just see what the freak show had to offer. I then made one of the most profound discoveries of my adult life…Andrew Skurka. If you don’t already know who he is or heard me blab on and on about this guy I have linked his website to this blog. His take on ultra-lightweight backpacking is that it correlates to how we should be living our lives, as a minimalist; and our overall human impact on nature can be reduced. Through the information on his website I started taking note of his gear lists. This is where I discovered his use of the denatured alcohol stove. Although Skurka uses a cat food can stove, and I prefer the penny stove, the end result is the same…major reduction in pack weight by making some equipment yourself. Once I found the penny stove instructions I became obsessed, spending every evening for more than a month in my shop pouring Heineken down the drain to make more stoves. My wife actually developed a problem with this...(I had to ask for her forgiveness). Some of you have benefited from this since I have given them all away. Go to the site and download the instructions at: http://www.csun.edu/~mjurey/stoveinstruct.html. Next, I bought the same pack as Skurka was using, the GoLite Jam 2, which weighs in about 1.7 pounds. This slashed nearly 4 pounds from my overall pack weight which currently was a tank…the Camptrails Wilderness. The quest was on for a sub 10 pound pack for all seasons in Missouri. Changing my water bottles over to Platypus bottles and dropping the Katadyn filter for the lighter Aqua Mira reduced almost another 2 pounds. Lastly and most hard to obtain of all was my sleeping bag. Fortunately I was able to procure one through a generous Christmas present…the Western Mountaineering Versalite Super was now in my pack. I had made a spreadsheet to capture all the weights of the items on my gear list. I would bring a few items to work and weigh them on the postage scale which actually turned out to be quite accurate. The next profound discovery was the “Backpacking Gear Weight Calculator”, http://www.backpacking.net/featured3.html. This is the best way to capture all your items in your arsenal and then turn them on or off depending upon the season or type of journey. Down load it and use it. All of this research, weighing, obsessing and tweaking finally has my base pack weight at about 9 pounds…oh yeah base pack weight is weight of the pack without food and water. The freak show (ultra-lightweight backpackers) turns out to be the best thing that has happened since getting back in the swing that fall of 2005. It’s time to go on another trip…jm.