Kathy carrying her 35-liter daypack in Sawcut Gorge, South Island, New Zealand
How big a pack do you need for dayhiking?
You need a 28- to 35-liter daypack to carry the clothing, food, and emergency gear necessary for all contingencies.
When dayhiking, people we pass sometimes ask us, “Where are you camping tonight?” They assume we’re backpacking, because our daypacks are large. What they don’t know is that their daypacks are too small.
Most hikers give more thought to going light than they do to all the circumstances they might encounter when hiking in the wilderness.
Being prepared means carrying enough gear to comfortably adapt to an abrupt change in the weather, to competently handle an injury, or to survive an unexpected night in the wilds due to a navigational error.
It’s not possible to go ultralight, carrying only a tiny daypack, and still take full responsibility for yourself in the backcountry. That’s true even in the desert, where the need to carry water more than offsets the additional clothing layers you can sometimes leave behind.
Your pack doesn’t have to be heavy, but it needs to be big enough to accommodate much more than a water bottle, lunch, and a fleece.
Don’t think ultralight. Think real light. It means going as light as possible—realistically.
That’s our opinion. What’s yours?
For dayhiking, we typically take a similarly sized backpack.
Depending on where we are, though, we may only take 1 pack. If you’re in Texas from April to October, your only real risks are rain and getting lost (obviously sprains, falls, etc are always a risk). Even if both happen, you don’t have much of a risk of hypothermia in the event of an overnight stay in the wet, so we typically concentrate on water, first-aid, and snacks – thus the willingness to leave insulation at home.
If I go on a similar dayhike in the mountains, though – we usually pack the full set of gear…jacket, insulation, etc. However, since we live in Texas, we RARELY dayhike in the mountains…if we’re near mountains, we’re backpacking!
Posted by Dan on May 12th, 2011.
Going ultralight on a dayhike is the very definition of dayhike. Nothing wrong with that. Taking responsibility for yourself in the backcountry means revelling in the joy of the place. Period. If you can not revel without hurting yourself, others, or the place, then train up to it or don’t go. Competence in the backcountry requires at least a half decade of apprenticeship. Mostly to learn the humility required to appreciate the place and leastly to appreciate the objective dangers and gain the skills required to avoid them – including mental skills. Train your mind along the lines of the old Stoics and you will have armed yourself with the psychological tools required for the proper enjoyment of nature. Without these, Karma will cull.
Please pardon the pompous tone. I tend to get bored by discussions of style based on risk management. Style should be based on joy management.Love your writings Kathy and Craig, especially MOST of your opinions!
Hasta
myk
Posted by Myk Kurth on May 26th, 2011.
Hi Myk… What you’ve posted here is original, beautiful, powerful, and true. Thanks for writing. — Craig
Posted by Craig Copeland on May 26th, 2011.