Scouting Magazine is publishing a series of four articles on light-weight backpacking. This is very timely with our Philmont Crew heading to New Mexico next summer and our first fall T-714 backpacking trip only a month away. To get ready, we’ll have a Scout-led session on backpacking at the first meeting in September, followed by a Sunday afternoon session (on 9/18 at the Fraser’s), and then the backpacking checkout (introduction to backpacking) the weekend of Oct. 7-9. See the proposed 2016-2017 calendar on https://www.troop714.org for more details.
The author of the Scouting Magazine articles is one of my favorite backpacking writers. Ryan Jordan is an Eagle Scout, program director of the Montana High Adventure Base, and the chartered organization representative of BSA Venturing Crew 2001 in Bozeman, Mont. He is a licensed wilderness skills instructor and guide, and the founder of backpackinglight.com. For a bit more on Venture Crew 2001, see the first article at:
The second article is a very good summary of philosophy for making your pack lighter and improving your enjoyment of the backcountry. Ryan notes that, “Ounces add up to pounds, and pounds add up to discomfort on the trail.” This article on how to approach making backpacking more fun is at:
The third article approaches some of the common misunderstandings about light-weight backpacking with Ryan’s focus on, “It’s true: You and your Scouts can do more — and go farther — with less.” The article concludes with a section, “Ultralight Gear on a Budget”, which is a topic often overlooked in most writers’ enthusiasm for technical solutions:
Of course, somewhere down the road, once you have earned your stripes in light-weight backpacking , you may wonder, “What does someone like Ryan Jordan take in his pack?” The list in this fourth article is more for dreaming than for buying, especially until you’ve got many hundreds of miles of backpacking behind you and have a good source of income! Still, fun to read and compare if only to see that the economy list above really has good bang for the backpacking buck:
Happy trails! Hope everyone is making plans to join the real fun of Scouting in the outdoors this fall!
Ferrell Moultrie
Scoutmaster, Troop 714