Load Out

Now in my 5th year backpacking, with an average of 8 trips a year, I’m still a poser, but with at least enough experience to feel pretty comfortable with my load outs.

Different types of trips determine what gear I bring on any given backpacking trip, from ultralight to super heavy luxury backpacking trips. Each trip requires a slightly different load out, though I can now broadly categorize load outs depending on my goal for the trip. Am I going to want to eat well? Will there be some rafting opportunities? Am I fishing? Snow-shoe’ing? Do I want to relax? Or am I going for distance? Do I want a fast setup and takedown of the site? All of these things change what gear I bring.

So, I figured maybe it might be fun to just list up different load-outs and post them.

Load-out: Mid-weight “warm-up” pack

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For this first load-out example, I figured I’d start smack in the middle.

All my mid-weight packs are based either on the Gregory Pack Baltoro 75 or the Berghaus Centurio 45.  This particular load-out is based on the Baltoro.  A great (but heavy at 5.6 lbs empty) pack with articulating hip belt, a good set of compartments, a large center pocket, and ideally for me, an angled water bottle pocket that keeps its shape to make taking out and putting back a water bottle while hiking very easy.  This is about a 30+lb pack once some fancier food (like a few cans of spam, maybe some eggs in a coleman 6 egg carrier, tortillas, cheese, maybe some fruit), and of course, water are added.

Every year, the mid-weight load-out is designed for the first non-snow camping trip of the year.  Hiking would not exceed 4 miles (each way) and 1000 feet elevation (Starting at around 8000 feet altitude and getting up to about 9000 feet at the campground).  As the first trip of the year, it’s really the “warm-up” trip to get psyched for the rest of the season.

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