South from Bergerac, chemin de Vézelay, France, 2005.

Getting Ready ~ Pre-Walk Checklist

One year timeline to the trail

If you’ve decided to leave your footprints on the sentiers de grande randonnée in France, make your own camino in Spain, or trek somewhere else, here’s a one-year timeline to keep your planning on track and your getaway gone. If you have less time before departure, do what it takes to catch up on the earlier checkpoints.

It’s time to start getting ready. There are a lot of tasks to accomplish and decisions to make in order to realize a fantastic, engaging, life-changing, healthy, robust journey over the land on foot.

Checklist ~ 12 Months

Commit. Tell your family and friends. Expressing a dream with words is the first step to making it come true. (more…)

Bizarro, by Dan Piraro, 24 March 2010.

Cargo Creep

Pick your pockets well…

Where did I put my compass this time? And my pen? And my map? And my wallet? And my …?

Memo to my amused friends and family: Dan Piraro, creative mastermind of Bizarro, makes my case. There are too many pockets in the world. Yes, they are everywhere. Ubiquitous. And they all weigh something. (more…)

Vineyard trail enroute to Montarcher, France, 2009.”

Getting Ready ~ Video Finder

Preparing for your next long-distance hike

Here are some videos to get you in gear for the long trail ahead. As we find and review interesting and fun videos, we’ll compile them here. (more…)

Through an ancient village gate on the trail from Lyon to Le-Puy, France 2009.

Making Light ~ Expendables

Determining consumption rate

“Expendables” are the things you carry that disappear over time as you use them. I think of “Consumables” as those supplies used in a single day, such as snacks or a picnic lunch. Buy them on your way out of town, and finish them before reaching today’s destination.

Expendables, on the other hand, are depleted at a more or less daily rate over time – things like medications, toothpaste, antiperspirant, sunscreen, and first aid supplies – for the most part, items that make up your personal, medical, toiletry, blister, and first aid kits. For many of these supplies, you can determine very accurately how much you’ll need for a given period of time, and thereby start off with no more than you’ll need. The perfect expendables list will be consumed during your trip, day by day, and exhausted on the last day. (more…)

Even St. Nick uses a light load whenever possible. On the trail from Lyon to Le-Puy, France 2009.

Making Light ~ Clothing

Take only as much as you need

It may seem obvious that if you want to minimize your pack weight, you shouldn’t carry any more of anything than you’re likely to need. (Congratulations – if you’ve read this far, maybe you’re hooked on the idea.) But how much is that?

Here are some tips to help you answer that question when it comes to clothing.

Study the climate, weather, terrain (especially elevation) of the route and season of your walk. Consider how you plan to deal with inclement weather. (more…)

On the trail from Lyon to Le-Puy, France 2009.

Making Light – Introduction

A Stroll Through Longwalking Tips & Techniques…

Making Light is a series of articles on observations and lessons learned about how to lighten the load of your backpack. The focus is preparation for a long-distance walk, mainly on trails and back roads, with occasional off-trail forays.

The context is 3-season hiking, from village to village, inn to hotel to guest house to gîte d’etape to chambre d’hote, etc. – or at least, to a dry place to throw down a sleeping bag. The pro forma trip duration is 30 days. (more…)

Gear – Digital Scale

Once you decide to lighten your load, the first essential equipment is something you’ll never carry on trail – a good digital scale. There are all sorts of them to choose from, but here are some basic features needed to weigh the various gear and clothing components of your ultralight (let’s hope!) packing list.

I use a scale that measures increments of a tenth of a gram, to a maximum of 500 grams. Ideally, get one that has grams and whatever other units are meaningful to you, such as ounces. Increments of .1 grams yield exceedingly precise measurements. For those who don’t think OBSESSIVE is always spelled in ALL CAPS, just round to the nearest whole gram.

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Tools of the trade…

Modifying Gear

Trimming the fat

Here’s an example of taking an off-the-shelf piece of clothing and making it more suitable for its intended use. I like wearing a vest on the trail to distribute the weight of my gear and to keep certain things at hand, like my camera, trail guide, compass, etc. It’s nice to have a few pockets for organization, but too many just complicates things — “hmmn… where did I put the lip balm this time?

Here’s a snapshot of a vest I found on sale at an Army Surplus store. It has 14 pockets, inside and out, including one in the back that’s not much use when I’m carrying a pack. It has all sorts of zippers, flaps, velcro closures, snaps, epaulets – everything! Beside just adding weight, the extra layers of fabric make this vest hotter to wear. In size Large, it weighs 432 grams (over 15 oz.) off the rack. But after a pleasant half hour in the garden with my trusty scissors and single-edge razor blade, the new, streamlined vest weighs only 277 grams (less than 10 oz.)! That’s a weight reduction of 5.5 ounces (155 grams) from a single piece of clothing that now better fits my needs and is more comfortable to wear.

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Walking across France… days of color that never ends…

Weights & Measures – part 2

Body or “Skin” Weight

Body weight or “skin” weight is simply the naked weight of a person. Just shed your clothes and hop on a scale and you have it. For ultralighters, it’s one of the standard figures used to calculate the total weight of everything that’s planning to walk down the trail. The more you weigh, the more energy it takes for you to travel a given distance. That translates into calories, which means fuel for you (food), and possibly, fuel to cook it (alcohol, gas, etc.). All fuel weighs something.

Body weight is an important factor in fitness, and creates the single heaviest load on your joints. Depending on the speed and slope that you’re walking, every pound of weight above the knees, exerts 3 to 5 pounds of force on your knees. Anyone with arthritis below the waist should be especially mindful. Even a 5 or 10 pound reduction in body weight is beneficial for helping to ease these effects. If you’re feeling a little portly and are planning a long walk, get out and start training today.

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