Team plans 600-mile Alaska trek without extra support

Team plans 600-mile Alaska trek without extra support

BILLINGS Two Alaska adventurers and one from Montana are planning a 600-mile hike over some of the wildest land in the United States.
The three plan to start a 20-day journey across northern Alaska on June 11th, with no support other than what they can carry in their packs.

Roman Dial and Jason Geck are professors at Alaska Pacific University and veterans of endurance races such as the Alaska Mountain Wilderness Classic. Jason Geck of Bozeman is publisher of Backpacking Light Magazine.

Plans call for no hunting, fishing or foraging during the trip. Food will be high-calorie fare such as chocolate bars, chips and almond butter.

Dial says they plan to cover 20 to 50 miles a day, with fewer miles at the start when packs will be heaviest.

They expect to lose weight, and expect to encounter bears and mosquitoes.

They plan to post the team's progress on a Web site using a satellite phone.

Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Can Lightweight Backpacking Save Hiking As We Know It?

By Todd Wilkinson, 5-09-06

If ever Boomers want to show their age on the hiking trail, here's a showstopper to use when communicating with the nimble of feet and mind half as old: Drop the name "Euell Gibbons" and then ask your dumbstruck listeners to identify what food stuff ol' Euell hustled for.

The answer will not be revealed here. Youngsters—this you gotta Google for.

The fact is that the heyday of Gibbons' profile as a Granola-ee TV celebrity also represented something else: the late, great Golden Age of backpacking in America when millions of (largely middle class Caucasian) families hit the trails, turned over rocks in our national parks, forests, and deserts, enrolled in Outward Bound and NOLS courses to build character, and fueled the rise of the modern outdoor gear industry.

In the years since, little has changed and yet everything has.

Despite there being more of us earning more money and now having far greater options for leisure activities at our disposal, the trend line demographic for the number of those seeking outdoor adventure -- i.e. those willing to trek more than a mile from roadside trailheads -- is in a spiral. Some believe a death spiral. Most national parks in the country report that backcountry use is stagnant while demand on frontcountry areas in the form of developed campgrounds, fishing docks, picnic areas, and bike trails continues to surge.

Although the outdoor gear industry is spending huge amounts of advertising dollars to capture larger market share in the estimated $5 billion outdoor retail industry, most manufacturers are concerned about what the future holds, members of the Outdoor Retailers Association say. The cold reality is that besides having LESS time on our hands to get out and find ourselves in a world of greater electronic distractions, most increasingly-urban Americans find the idea of trudging dozens of miles with a heavy pack toward remote campsights to be utterly unappealing. In a word, backbreaking.

There is an exception to the truth above. One innovation, initially started by a group of eccentrics but now being eyed with swoon by large manufacturers, is the arrival of light and ultralight camping gear. According to recent studies, the number of regular hardcore backpackers -- once pegged at about two million -- has decreased by 20 percent since the end of the 1990s alone. During the same period, the number of those individuals who engage in lightweight backpacking -- about 360,000 -- has increased 350 percent and is rapidly growing.

The movement has made a revolutionary breakthrough in paring down the weight of an average backpack and gear load from between 40 and 70 pounds to less than 10 without sacrificing safety and (not too much) comfort.

Ryan Jordan of Bozeman, Montana is one of the gurus who established an online magazine devoted to reviewing new lightweight products at www.backpackinglight.com. Two other pioneers are Demetri and Kim Coupounas of Boulder, Colorado, who founded the gear company GoLite.

This spring, a delegation of lightweight advocates met at the headquarters of the National Outdoor Leadership School in Lander, Wyoming which has introduced the rewards of hiking, self-reliance and survival to thousands worldwide. For generations, NOLS has not only taught the value of adventure backpacking but its instructors have emphasized redundancy to keep clients out of harm's way. A similar mantra has been preached by the Boy Scouts of America.

But as adherents of lightweight say, it's true that everyone who goes into the wilderness needs to be prepared for inclement weather and other risks, but redundancy in the amount of clothing we pack, the provisions we carry, and the gear we heave on our spine can, by using common sense and better technology, be reduced.

Doing this can enable us to go farther, faster, healthier and happier. It can also serve as an inducement for those who have given up on real backpacking to return. "This is a revolution that is changing peoples' lives," says Matt Colon, editor of the print edition of Backpacking Light magazine. In addition to the practicality of hiking, lightweight holds other ramifications for helping to convince more citizens to get out and care about the stewardship of public lands as the traditional profile of the conservation movement morphs in the years ahead.

Recently, New West caught up with Colon.

NEW WEST: Give us a short history of lightweight backpacking and how it has gained traction.

MATT COLON: BACKPACKING LIGHT MAGAZINE: The short version is that lightweight backpacking, as an identifiable movement, evolved out of the needs of long distance thru-hikers—primarily the people traveling the Pacific Crest Trail and the Appalachian Trail. People regularly abandon gear along the Appalachian Trail in an attempt to peel off weight.

It’s virtually impossible to complete the long distance trails in a single season without consistently logging some pretty big days. And it’s difficult to consistently log big days with a ton of weight on your back. So the lightweight movement developed in response to this conundrum.

In 1992 a guy named Ray Jardine really got things rolling when he published a handbook outlining his approach to hiking the Pacific Crest Trail—with a packweight of eight and a half pounds. Since then, lightweight backpacking has taken off and actually represents an area of strong growth within an otherwise declining market.

NEW WEST: Do you think that lightweight gear can rescue a stagnant market and reinvigorate a pastime that’s been in decline?

COLON: I think it can help a lot, but I’m not sure that any kind of gear, alone, can turn things around completely. The Outdoor Industry Association reported last year that backpacking has seen steep declines in participation over the past eight years. They have reported a simultaneous increase in what they call ‘frontcountry’ activities—the kinds of things that don’t require spending a night away from a parking lot. I think that these trends are more indicative of changing values than of generalized dissatisfaction with gear. That said, I do think that lighter gear can go a long way toward making backcountry experiences more accessible and gratifying to more people.

NEW WEST: You recently brought the cause of lightweight backpacking to the people at the National Outdoor Leadership School in Lander, Wyoming. What did you tell them and how was the message received initially?

COLON: I think the impetus for NOLS moving in this direction actually came from within the organization itself. I know that Mike Clelland, a longtime instructor at the school, was instrumental in floating the idea up the chain of command, and there were probably others as well.

I went to Lander as part of a group including Ryan Jordan, co-founder of BackpackingLight.com, and a couple of the key people at GoLite. The NOLS folks had invited us down to talk about their inaugural ‘Light and Fast’ backpacking course which is being offered this summer. The idea was to share information and help them think about applying the lightweight approach to an institutional setting.

We spent a lot of time discussing lightweight gear options that might be suitable for NOLS. We then spent time in the field with instructors, giving them a chance to kick the tires a bit on some of the gear that we’d been discussing. We didn’t really have to convince them that carrying lighter packs would make for more pleasant experiences, they’ve all been carrying big loads for a long time and are intimately aware of what that means.

We simply tried to help them troubleshoot and think about how to reduce pack weights in order to enhance the already extraordinary quality of the NOLS experience for their students.

NEW WEST: How would you describe the traditional NOLS way of backpacking?

COLON: NOLS does an outstanding job of providing compelling backcountry experiences for their students. I took a course in the mid-eighties, and it was truly transformational. It was also enormously demanding from a physical standpoint. I think I read somewhere that the traditional NOLS pack weight is roughly 40 percent of a student’s body weight. If my own (admittedly ancient) experience is any guide, I’d say that number is probably conservative.

I think one of the ways that NOLS has traditionally ensured that students stay safe and comfortable in the backcountry is through redundancy—bring extra clothing, extra food, and use heavy-duty gear so that you’re prepared do deal with unforeseen complications in the field. This is clearly a time-honored approach, but it can also result in some fairly monumental loads.

From my perspective, it’s important to remember that the issue of pack weight cuts both ways. An abundance of heavy-duty gear can provide a margin of safety in certain situations. But the added weight can also have a negative impact on one’s safety and comfort in the backcountry. Negotiating a scree-slope or fording a river with an eighty-five pound pack is a completely different experience than attempting the same activities with only twenty-five pounds on your back.

NEW WEST: What kinds of demonstrations did you do with the people at NOLS?

COLON: Well, the folks at GoLite were great about bringing a bunch of equipment for people to experiment with. When we went out into the field, everybody was completely outfitted in lightweight gear. So they all got to carry 20-ounce packs, and sleep in sub-two-pound sleeping bags under 15 ounce shelters. Ryan, from Backpacking Light, brought a handful of solid-fuel stoves, and titanium sporks, cook mugs and pots so that everyone could experiment with a sub four-ounce cook kit.

NEW WEST: Did it work in converting the NOLsies to the other side?

COLON; It was a great weekend. I think that there was genuine enthusiasm all around. Obviously, the NOLS community has the expertise to look at the available options and begin the process of thinking critically about what will work for them and what they will need to tweak so that the approach suits their specific needs. Our role in being there was really just to make sure that they had access to the best or most suitable information, and to put the appropriate tools into their hands. From that standpoint I think it was a very productive weekend.

NEW WEST; So far the marketing has been largely done by having one’s ear to the rail, news of innovation spreading by word of mouth in outdoor communities and over internet chat sites, and through the ventures of Ryan Jordan. Explain a bit of how it has worked.

COLON; As I mentioned earlier, Ray Jardine kind of kicked things off with the publication of his PCT Hiker’s Handbook in the early nineties, but since that time there has been an enormous amount of activity on the internet dealing with lightweight backpacking. BackpackingLight.com has been a significant part of that activity since 2001. Ryan Jordan, who co-founded the site, has a PhD. in engineering and has brought an analytic approach to thinking about backcountry travel. The site has built its reputation on providing readers with in-depth analysis of gear performance, and by functioning as a repository for information about lightweight backpacking techniques.

NEW WEST: Tell us about the magazine that you are currently overseeing as editor.

COLON: I’ve just taken over editorial responsibilities for the Backpacking Light print magazine. It’s a quarterly that is distinct from the BackpackingLight.com online magazine. We’ll feature different content with perhaps a bit more emphasis on the aesthetic or philosophical aspects of lightweight backcountry activities.

NEW WEST: What do you think of the big mainstream mags like Outside, Backpacker and National Geographic Adventure?

COLON: All three of those magazines are exciting to look at, and they represent the work of an extremely talented collection of writers, photographers and editors. My primary frustration with the popular outdoor press is what appears to be an increasing eagerness to advance the extreme and the adrenaline-charged as the dominant representation of why we spend time in the outdoors.

It’s pretty clear that the ‘extreme’ spin sells magazines, which in turn sells advertising. But, for me, the most potent value of wild places has to do with their extraordinary potential for human transformation. The popular outdoor press seems to be less and less interested in wild places as anything more than dramatic backdrops for the titillating and the sensational. The end result has been a discernable shift toward a tabloid treatment of wild places that has little relevance to what I hope to experience when I head for the backcountry. So, while I still enjoy reading some of the high-gloss magazines, I’m finding fewer points of contact than I used to.

NEW WEST; What were some of the seminal moments in your own evolution of backpacking that led you to embrace the light and ultralight movements?

COLON; For me it was a fairly quick conversion. I was out on a solo trip in the Wind River Mountains several years ago and injured myself while carrying a gargantuan pack. I ended up bailing out about eight days into a trip that was supposed to have lasted a month, and I was really disappointed. It was pretty clear to me that I wouldn’t have suffered the injury if I hadn’t had over eighty pounds on my back. After that experience, I started looking for ways to reduce my packweight. It really only took me a couple of trips to realize that a lightweight approach enabled me to be much more comfortable in the backcountry.

NEW WEST; What's the best way for people to become more familiar with a lightweight approach to backpacking?

COLON: Probably the most efficient way to get up to speed would be to visit the BackpackingLight.com website. Full access to the site requires a subscription, but there is a ton of material available to non-members as well, so you can check things out pretty effectively for free.

You can also bypass the BPL site and just do a web search for ‘lightweight backpacking.’ This will unearth an enormous amount of information, but as with a lot of internet research, you can spend a lot of time on sites that don’t end up being particularly useful. And if you’re not terribly excited about spending time online there are several books that deal specifically with lightweight backpacking.

The most accessible point of entry is probably Don Ladigin’s 95 page primer, ‘Lighten Up!’ It was just published in 2005 and is widely available. For a more comprehensive and technical text you can pick up ‘Lightweight Backpacking and Camping,’ which was edited by Ryan Jordan.