Lighten the Load
Every family has that one member that overpacks for a trip, no matter what the occasion. You could be going for a two night, three day getaway, and they’ll pack like you’re going to be gone for a week. Unless you grew up with my dad. As long as I can remember, ‘pack light’ was the motto whether it was for a camping trip, church trip, or a family trip out of state.
My dad’s an outdoor guy, not quite Bear Grylls, but I think he would try to be if he could. We started our father/daughter camping trips when I was three; he led my brother’s boy scout troop for years; so when he learned about the Appalachian Trail, hiking the whole thing became his dream. The trail starts in Georgia and ends in Maine, and hiking that far seems a tad insane to me, but when I was in high school, he spent months preparing and packing and re-packing, and then he set out to do it.
Not far into the trail, he called my mom. His pack was too heavy. He wasn’t sure how long he could go with the amount of weight that he had. Now, for those who don’t know, since we didn’t all grow up in households where backpacking was common knowledge, when you backpack, you carry everything you need for the trip in a special backpack that goes over your shoulders and buckles around your waist to try to evenly distribute the weight. People who try to backpack the Appalachian Trail from start to finish (known as through hikers) try to pack as light as possible for the several month journey so they don’t tire out too quickly.
My dad, in all his attempts to pack light, had still packed too heavy. At three weeks, 215 miles into a 2,190 mile hike, he got to a town where he could get new gear, a lighter pack, and send all of the things that took up too much weight home to my mom. Once he got the new gear, the trip was easier. He met people along the way that had packs heavier than his original one had been. They either didn’t make it the whole way or pushed through and struggled, but no one’s waiting at the finish with a prize for the person who carried the most weight. In fact, there’s a good chance they missed out on the side trails, the conversations, the views, because they were too busy trying to push through or the pack weighed too much that anything else beyond taking one step in front of the other seemed like too much.
Know when to drop the things you don’t need that are weighing you down. Being prepared is important, but you can’t prepare for everything in life ahead of time, and you don’t need to carry things simply to have them. The weight of it will wear you out before you reach the half-way mark.
Cheering you on from the sidelines,
SB
Sidenote for those of you wondering: my dad hasn’t finished the whole Appalachian Trail yet. He had to stop in Virginia due to a medical issue with his feet. He’s gone back and done another chunk since then and is hoping to get back on the trail to finish the last section in the next couple years.
