Originally Posted by
Chuck Naill
A 40 something and I were discussing Appalachian Trail hikers in the '70's and now. He said folks were embarking on the trail to check off something on their bucket list whereas back in the day folks were discovering themselves. That might explain a recent 911 call that a bear was bothering them. Maybe preventing them from their bucket list. Getting in the way, I suspect. Mean bear.
I was doing some daily mountain bike rides while car camping with a friend in North Dakota at campsites on the Maah Daah Hey trail. We saw several bikepackers that were badly dehydrated that when they made it to a campground, their first question was where is the water. A bad mechanical on a bike could have been serious for those bikepackers. When I was a boy scout decades ago, one of my scout leaders that had fought in WW II in the South Pacific taught me that you ALWAYS make sure that you will have adequate water, I almost never make camp at the end of a day without some water left in my water bottles. I do not consider some left over water to be excess weight that needs to be avoided.
I don't consider AT through hikers to be normal backpackers or hikers, I consider them to be competative atheletes. Not competative in the sense of trying to go faster than the competition, but they are always focused on trying to make more miles per day to the point that achieving a goal takes precidence over everything else, enjoying the experience is not even on the list.
Last summer on my backpacking trip (Superior Hiking Trail, not AT) I camped for two nights and traveled for a day with a guy that had through hiked the AT. The difference between what he was doing and what I was doing was notable.
We both met at a municipal campground where we both stopped to re-supply. I added about 12 pounds of food to my pack and my pack was up near 40 pounds. He got very little food to add to his pack and his pack was under 20 pounds. He could pick up his pack with one hand and hold it up in the air to put his other arm through the shoulder strap. But that night I figured out his system. He ate very little food, he said he tried to replenish his lost calories on his stops to resupply in civilization. I on the other hand was only running a calorie deficit of maybe 1000 calories a day, thus I carried about two pounds of food per day.
His water filter was badly clogged, he was not backflushing it, he did not want to carry the weight of the syringe used to backflush it. He said he went through three water filters on the AT. I was maintaining my water filter with the stuff needed for backflushing. I managed to get his filter to work much better using my gear, but his remained badly clogged. If you would rather keep buying new filters instead of carrying the few grams needed to maintain your filter, that helps explain how his pack was so light. As a curiosity, I just weighed my syringe for blackflushing, it is 28 grams, or almost exactly one ounce that he was unwilling to carry.
His tent, he explained that there are small specialty companies that make super ultra light gear for thru hikers, his tent was one of those, he said it cost about $600 new, I assume that was a pre-pandemic pre-inflation price. I was pretty happy with my 1325 gram one person trekking pole tent. But I was also carrying extra bigger tent stakes, I cut a pole for it to use instead of a trekking pole, and I carried a ground sheet, luxuries that he was unwilling to carry.
I do not recall how many shoes he said he went through on the AT, but it was several. I am from a generation where your hiking boots are supposed to last for several years, his were lasting a few months at most.
When I do another two weeks this summer on the Superior Hiking Trail, I will try to drop a few pounds from my pack compared to last year, but I am doing it to enjoy the trip, not log the most possible miles in a day like those competitive through hikers. I will consider myself a winner if I have a smile on my face most of the time I am there.