Carry-On Baggage

Just finished the last uphill of the Coast-to-Coast -- that's the Irish Sea I'm kind of kicking. 

I love my backpack, but it's clearly too small for the LT. In the pic above, the rain cover is pregnant with my waterproof trousers, because they wouldn’t fit inside the pack. So…I’m looking for a backpack. I want to use the smallest functional pack. From percussion-gigging, I know that extra gear/weight slows you down. It’s why I now have three marimbas – 3, 4, and 5-octave ranges – and take the smallest/lightest instrument that will work for the gig.

Here’s a great weight/distance chart from a friend’s dad:

Gerard’s cake, camp-chair, radio and harmonica apparently got him in scoffing internet-trouble with Ultralighters… It seems some hikers REALLY CARE what other people carry. There’s a lot of judgment, bullying, oneup(wo)manship and smugness. Why?

I presume it’s a combination of jealousy (Gerard’s cake!), insecurity (ultralight gear’s expensive) and wanting to control/dominate others. In other circles, this is called “taking another person’s inventory”. In hiking, it’s literal – inventory-judging what another person carries on their back. I see the same behaviour, less literally, in music, in relationships, even in "competitive" feminism. Bossy-bullying ultralighters are saying more about what they carry in their own hearts than in their backpacks.

I think of this when others tell me, with forceful certainty, what I should or shouldn’t wear-say-play on stage. What drumsticks are best. Why wives shouldn’t tour. How much I should weigh. Whenever someone belittles, heckles or bullies me (or a friend), I wonder why they care what we’re carrying. 

I don’t give a crap what anyone else carries on the trail. I’m just trying to find my own balance -- I’m probably going to take some novels. Does anyone care?