The Horse-y Set

posted Sep 13, 2010 12:04 PM by Paul Wagner   [ updated Sep 13, 2010 10:14 PM ]

Llamas?  Maybe that's the solution!  But they won't let you ride them!   OK—we’re going to say this right out loud: We’re not big fans of horses on the trail in the backcountry.  And you’ll quickly understand why when you compare the impact of a pack train with the impact of a few hikers on a trail.  It’s hard to argue in favor of the leave-no-trace philosophy and then suggest that horses should be allowed in the wilderness.  They destroy trails and trample campsites.  And they don’t really watch where they put their feet, which is why they kick so many stones into the trail, where we have to step over and around them.  Sigh.  A single 1400 pound horse with pack puts about 70 pounds per square inch when it steps on a trail, and that weight is concentrated in a narrow band of steel.  A 200 pound hiker with pack puts about 4 psi on the trail…and that weight is cushioned by socks and Vibram.  And around the campsites, this traffic is even worse.  One way to look at it is that a single horse, even if it were wearing socks and Vibram, would have the impact of 35 hikers.  And a pack train of eight horses is about the same as 280 hikers.  Think of that, the next time one goes by! But we’ve also got to say a few words about the people who run these horses.  Because we’ve had some really good experiences getting advice from people who run pack trains into the wilderness.  And they’ve been very gracious about how they gave it, even though they knew that we were backpackers, and not likely to use their services.   This summer we ran into a pack train early in the season, where the rivers were still quite swollen with run-off.  The driver from Leavitt Meadows Pack Station gave us a great tip on where to ford the West Walker River…and the encouragement to go for it.  And we had a great trip. And the Aspen Meadows Pack Station in Emigrant Wilderness also gave us some great trail advice on a lesser-used route through a series of back country lakes—also leading to a great trip there.   So when we see these guys on the trail, we’re always cheerful and friendly.  But we’ll still try to limit how many horses they take into the backcountry, and how much that impacts our wilderness.

(Edit post)

Creature Comforts

posted Sep 10, 2010 10:43 AM by Paul Wagner   [ updated Sep 13, 2010 10:15 PM ]

Despite the fact that we have to carry everything on our backs, on every pack trip, we take a few things that aren’t absolutely necessary.   But over the years, there are a few things we’ve really come to appreciate, even though  they add a bit to the weight of our packs.  What are they?   In the Sierra Nevada, you can forget your American Express card, but don’t leave home without these!   Well, the first one we’d mention is a tiny little set of folding plastic feet that open up to give our stove canister a little broader base on the ground.  It probably cost about $10, and weighs about two ounces.  And we’ve come to love it.  Heating boiling water on a tiny stove in the mountains is hard enough without having to worry about the stove falling over…and this little gadget solves that problem perfectly.  It fits right into our cook pot with the stove, and adds a good two inches on every side of the stove for stability.     Then we’d add our closed-cell foam seats—two 8 X 16 inch rectangles that P cut from an old sleeping pad.  We just wedge them in the bungees on the backs of our packs and pull them out every time we sit down, on the trail, or in camp.  And you wouldn’t believe how nice it is to have these to kneel on when you have to spend some time over the stove, fixing the tent, or any number of other things that require a little humility in the mountains.  At night, P uses these as the base of his pillow, too.  Cost?  Free.  Weight?  Two ounces. There's one underneath P at left... And our mosquito headnets weigh only one ounce.  We almost forget they are in our packs, until…well, you know when.  And when we need them, they feel like the difference between life and death by mosquitoes.   The last item weighs a bit more, but over time we’ve also come to really appreciate the Crocs we bring along as water/camp shoes.  They are great for wading streams, keep our feet protected a bit, and dry very quickly.  And around camp it is lovely to get out of your boots (and sometimes your socks, too) and just loll around in comfort.  Why not just go barefoot?  Because the last time P did that, at Benson Lake in Yosemite, he managed to get a pine needle stuck in his foot and it took a fair amount of digging and pain to get it out again.  These weight about 11 ounces, but we jam them in the bungees with the seats above, and every time we come to a stream, we just slip them out and slip them on.  P's got them on his feet in the photo above left...pure comfort in the backcountry! Creature comforts aren’t such a bad idea in the wilderness, as long as they don’t weigh too much!