Backpacking Light Editor's Letter No. 2: the simple act of walking

“I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks - who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering…” - Henry David Thoreau, Walking

An underrated aspect of backpacking is how simple it is. How measured it is. Okay, I’ll say it - how slow it is.

Backpacking is - as I sometimes remind myself on those hard trail days at four in the afternoon when the day has started to wear long - just, like, walking, man. 

Many other endeavors require sport-specific skills in addition to baseline outdoor knowledge. Going packrafting? Knowledge of hydraulics and stroke techniques is the difference between a fun trip and a dangerous disaster. Getting into bikepacking? Better learn about gear ratios and how to tune a derailleur in the field. Both sports require camping gear and an additional mode of transportation and a specialized skill-set required to operate or maintain that mode of transportation. 

But backpacking? Ah, backpacking is the stripped-down essence of human-powered adventure. It requires only the willingness to saunter amiably from one place to another at a pace humanity has been traveling for 200,000 years.

Backpackers travel at person speed. I think that’s beautiful. 

And if backpacking is the essence of human-powered adventure, a pack is the essence of backpacking. Just a simple tube of fabric with shoulder straps - and yet we are spoiled for choice, with new fabrics and designs hitting the market all the time.

Our research indicates that there are several hundred backpack models available for backpackers at the moment - more than 200 of which come from 50 small or small-ish brands in the direct-to-consumer market. Even if you commit solely to frameless packs, you haven’t narrowed down the field all that much. 

To that end, we’re examining packs this spring in addition to our work with navigation, trip planning, and footwear. 

To start, take a peek at our Lightweight and Ultralight Backpacks for Backpacking Trailhead. It's a curated index of our backpack and packing system reviews, skills articles, podcasts, videos, and more that we’ve published recently.

And don’t miss the recorded version of the Backpacks for Backpacking: Design, Materials, and Use Cases Member Q&A that we held on April 29th. (By the way, we hold these Q & A events once a month, so give us a follow on Instagram to get a chance to input some questions). 

Ryan and I chat about packs in two recent podcast episodes (here and here), and we also published written and video reviews of the Atom Packs Nanu X25 (written here and video here).

And coming next month, we’re dropping another short video that will help you learn how to choose a well-fitting pack. It’s entirely possible you’ve never had one that fits quite right. Make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for a notification when that video publishes. 

In the meantime, do as good ol’ Henry David Thoreau would - don’t overcomplicate things.

Like all gear, backpacks are a means to an end, a tool to help us enjoy the walk with a spirit of adventure that would make HDT proud. As he says in Walking, 

“We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return, prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again - if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man - then you are ready for a walk.” 

Thanks for reading, and be well - 

Andrew Marshall
Editor, Backpacking Light
Incline Village, NV