Waldo Jaquith
@rustyk5 Gear is so small and light now, kids these days, etc., etc. cc: @mathowie https://a.wholelottanothing.org/2022/11/23/im-sorry-big-agnes/
I’m sorry, Big Agnes

A Whole Lotta Nothing
Nov 23, 2022 at 5:00pmWeb
Show threadWaldo JaquithNov 23, 2022

@mathowie When I hiked the Appalachian Trail in 1996, sometimes I'd see folks on short trips with gear from the 60s 70s, which blew my mind because of how heavy and awkward it was. Here I am, in the 2020s, and if I took any of my 90s gear on the AT, long-distance hikers would laugh like hell.

I, too, would have looked at that box and thought "cool, this is the tent, but where is everything else?"

Show threadCarter BaxterNov 23, 2022
@waldoj @mathowie I think about this a lot from the flip side. Was the 90s stuff not perfectly usable? Isn't it still? What (if anything) did we give up along the way?
Show threadWaldo JaquithNov 23, 2022
@tbaxter @mathowie I started the AT with a 72 pound pack. The lightest I got my pack was 30 pounds (not including food or water). As a result, I broke metatarsals *10 times* along the way. I, for one, welcome our new ultralight overlords.
Show threadCarter BaxterNov 23, 2022
@waldoj @mathowie Perhaps mine is more of a philosophical pondering. Broken metatarsals do tend to focus one's thinking.
Show threadDan MunzNov 23, 2022
@waldoj @tbaxter @mathowie I’m a longtime car camper & did my first backpacking trip in Yosemite last October. I was *shook* by how compact that stuff was. I’d love to see a Moore’s Law-type graph of average pack weight over time.
Show threadMatthew HaugheyNov 23, 2022
@waldoj @tbaxter holy shiiiiiit. My 1990s backpack was a 1970s Kelty external frame, but a week's worth of gear and food usually was in the 40-50lb range in total. 72! That's nuts!
Show threadWaldo JaquithNov 23, 2022
@mathowie @tbaxter 72# included food and water (this was the weigh-in at Springer Mountain) *and* a laptop, cellphone, and digital camera, because sponsorships for my blog were the only way I could pay for the trip as a 17-year-old. And I have bad news about how much that stuff weighed back then. :-/
Show threadMatthew HaugheyNov 23, 2022
@waldoj you must have had some incredibly hardcore boots to support all that weight. I remember passing PCT guys on lots of Sierra routes and I could always tell a thru-hiker by their ridiculously over engineered boots for holding all that weight.
Show threadWaldo JaquithNov 23, 2022
@mathowie I had a pair of Asolos that made it ~900 miles, but in retrospect I think they'd probably given up the ghost hundreds of miles earlier, lost their arch support, hence breaking my first metatarsal. From there on out, on the advice of a sports physician who had been a doctor for the ~1992 Olympics, I hiked in *sneakers*, which made me look like a weirdo but they worked pretty well.
Show threadsmathermatherNov 23, 2022
@waldoj @mathowie @tbaxter in 97, I started around that number, got down to the low 30 lbs. during the summer (70s frame pack, food and water and a nominal sleeping bag) and was hiking in sandals once my ankles were 1000 miles in. Ran out of money in CT, ate from hikers boxes until VT, and finished in ‘99. Sponsorship would have helped, but maybe not at that weight penalty…
Show threadHugh StimsonNov 24, 2022

@waldoj @mathowie Contrariwise, my expensive-but-not-ultralite internal frame pack and 2 person tent from 20 years ago are almost identical to the comparable models sold by the same high end companies today.

Plastic frame, ripstop nylon, closed cell foam pads, etc, were cutting edge then, still the standard for the big sellers decades later. Only difference is waterproof zippers.