27 pounds, including food and 8 pounds of water. The 8 pounds of water is for desert hiking, though it's the rainy season so no desert involved here. This load includes a very small tarp-tent, barely big enough to sleep in, that weighs in at 24 ounces, as well as full rain gear (because it's going to rain tomorrow), complete safety gear, cooking gear, and lots of socks (see previous parenthetical statement about rain). Because it is impossible to keep your feet dry in the rain, I'm just going to have to hike with wet feet and trust my duct tape on strategic spots, wicking socks and trail runners to do the job of keeping my feet from turning into blister-fests :-(. 'Cause ain't nothin' except the Great Penguin Himself who could keep my feet dry in that situation...
So now to see how my leg handles under load, backpacking an overnight trip. Wish me luck.
-- Badtux the Waddling Penguin
have fun
ReplyDeleteAnd if the zombies come out play, then what?
ReplyDeleteTake a deep breath of clean air for me will ya ?
ReplyDeletew3ski
Well, I decided not to do it after all, because I had two gear malfunctions -- the cord ripped on the hood of my raingear, and one of the eyeholes ripped out on my shoe. While duct tape and knife work made the hood useful again and the shoe could be worked around by re-routing the shoe lace, starting a long hike *in the rain* (it is raining right now) with broken gear is not what I'm interested in doing. So I'm heading off shopping for gear instead. Luckily I have a 20% off at REI coupon for a new rain jacket, and then I'll run down to Gilroy to the outlet stores and get some new shoes, and then tomorrow I'll take a nice long dayhike to test out the new gear (it's supposed to be raining *then* too).
ReplyDeleteEBM, I hike with two sturdy aluminum hiking poles with sharp carbide-tipped points on them that can easily double as spears. While that lets the zombies get too close to me for my comfort, firearms aren't practical in California state parks (for one thing, they'll bury you *under* the jail if you're caught with a firearm in a California state park, meaning that you'd have to bury your firearm inside your pack somewhere, where it's no use if you run into a zombie). I once scared away a maniacal boar (not much different from a zombie) by standing there waving those dadburned things around and yelling at him, so don't underestimate the Aluminum Spears of Penguin Waddling!
- Badtux the Hiking Penguin