We are planning a trip out west, and I know I'll have to be careful about the way I plan the day hikes, because even if I can handle the mileage, the elevation and altitude (oxygen levels) will definitely be different and add to the difficulty. And as Kevin noted, I don't want the trip to turn into Marine training
. I want it to be enjoyable.It's funny too you mention the elk. My brother in law and his best friend (also a friend of mine) are planning a Montana elk hunting trip for next September, and I don't think either has done more than a couple of miles with a 40lb pack. I will be curious to see how bad a packout affects them if they get anything.
Statistics: Posted by Camber — Tue Dec 13, 2016 7:31 am
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Statistics: Posted by ktimm — Mon Dec 12, 2016 9:47 pm
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I bring the weights up because they have a huge effect on my perceived effort and my daily mileage. Up to 20-25 pounds I hardly notice the weight and it does not affect my ability to travel much compared to carrying just a day pack. From 25-30 pounds hills get harder and I notice myself sweating more. My daily mileage drops. From 30-35 pounds things get even worse and mileage drops more. The max I have dragged around was a trip carrying 9 days worth of food and packrafting gear where my pack was just shy of 50 pounds. I suppose if I actually had access to trails to walk on my experience would be dramatically different and I could carry more, farther.
If you can find that break-point (for me it's 25 pounds) where your load suddenly has a minimal effect on your daily mileage, it's a wonderful experience. This is an example of doing a hard trip with a 25 pound pack:
Statistics: Posted by Philip.AK — Fri Dec 09, 2016 10:58 am
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In general I feel the following
- A person can do 3X normal milage with a lightish load for a couple days .. for instance , if you feel ok hiking 7 miles in the mountains in a day you can "probably" do around 20 miles a day in similar terrain for a couple days ....if you start early and don't allow yourself time to get stiff lounging around camp. Unfortunately , much of this recovery and stiffness is probably age dependent. This is not super far off from say working out ..if you can squat X amount you can probably do 3X the reps spread over day for a little bit of time.
- Likewise ... if you can hike "X" amount as a max amount of mileage ..say 20 miles is reasonable ..that is a hard out in the terrain ..you can probably do 50 - 65 percent with a light pack and work up after to the "max" milage in a few days. So ..if you can throw a day pack on and go 20 miles .. reasonable 20 -25 lb backpacking weight is 10 -13 miles and probably working up to near 20 miles per day in 5 -7 days.
Adding more weight ..somewhat depends on how well trained you are. Going to 35 lbs is probably not that big of a deal ..going to 50 lbs is much more of a big deal and that probably requires some training. I hesitate to talk about backpacking and training together ..partially because you should be having fun (of course fun is subjective). However, there is really no way around the fact that our bodies .. can acclimate pretty quickly to conditions. If you don't carry weight ..well it acclimates ..if you do train with weight well ..it acclimates.
Personally .. more weight untrained ..and this is just a wild ass guess ..I'd probably take adding 20 percent of my body weight (35 - 40 lbs) added to say my 25 lb light pack weight (total 65 lbs ) and cut it in half for any sort of duration (5 -6.5 miles) . Of course I "could" do a lot more miles for one day and maybe two .. but to do it day over day the lower milage would probably work fine and then I would work up over 5 - 7 days.
Our bodies are amazing and the acclimate quickly .. but over stressing them can quickly leave you sitting out for a day or two. Anyway, this is really intended as a discussion starting point. I look forward to you sharing your experiences in an effort to help provide guidance to others.
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Statistics: Posted by kevin_t — Wed Dec 07, 2016 8:31 pm
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