Backpacking Stories:
How NOT to Pack
This is a painfully funny story of how NOT to pack for a week long hike.
A few years back, I bought a new "day" pack and since the cu. in. size seemed to be ALMOST (but not quite) the size pack I was striving to carry, I thought I would see what I could do with it for a week hike. Oh what a painfully learning trial THAT was.
I started out putting the essentials in the pack as normal and then when I could no longer fit items on the inside I lashed them to the outside. I figured since I had no problem carrying all of this in a big pack, I'd still try it out. However, this was not a good thing to do to a day pack with no adjustment straps for the load.
I did put the rain cover on to try and hide the stupidity of this trial but, as you can see from the picture, it didn't do anything but make me look like I had absconded with Santa's full pack. Obviously I wasn't an Ultra Light hiker.
It wouldn't have done any good to cry from the pain so we laughed and cracked jokes and made the best of a bad situation. Luckily, my partner on this hike was a very good friend. Bless her heart, she did occasionally swap packs with me so I didn't have to shoulder the load all the time, and we took quite a few extra breaks during that long week hike on the Pictured Rocks Trail in MI..
Some happenings that are oh soooo very funny when you are experiencing them really don't transfer to a "funny story" on paper. You just have to be there to enjoy the humor of the situation or look at the picture and imagine an "Old Goose Bag Lady" waddling down the trail with a "Leapfrog" voicing words of encouragement while trying to stifle her laughter.
All in all it really was an enjoyable trip and obviously very memorable. But oh, how we now laugh about the "bag lady" trip. I do have to laugh when I look at the picture, it is certainly picture perfect of how NOT to pack a bag for a week hike.
The Old Gray Goose