Base Weight & Why It's So Important!

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Tags: Thru Hike Gear List,Base Weight,UL Backpacking,Appalachian Trail,AT,CDT,Thru-Hike,AT Thru-Hike,PCT,Pacific Crest Trail,PCT Thru-Hike,Hiker Trash,Backpacking,Hiking,Adventure,UL Backpacking Gear,Arizona Trail,AZT

Video Transcription

hey guys it's Darwin and today we're talking about bass wait what is bass wait why is it so important why do hikers obsess over it and why is it important for you [Music]

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okay so first off what is bass wait when hikers talk about bass wait we're talking about the bass weight of our pack all of our gear except for food and water

why because food and water are constantly changing on a hike some days you're carrying more water some days you're carrying more food so bass weight is basically all of your gear - the food and water and you'll hear a lot of hikers constantly talking about it you'll see videos of six pound bass weight you'll hear hikers talking about this is my bass weight and I get questions all the time on why do we measure things in bass weight why are we so concerned with bass weight why is it important to us why do we obsess over it and what is the correct base weight for me

so like I said I get a ton of comments and most of them are usually just general questions people simply asking what is it and I just explained that but every once in a while I get certain comments that kind of make me think so this video was born out of one comment in particular and two weeks ago I posted my big three for the PCT and I got this comment the only people who are trying to dial down their base weight are YouTube vloggers who have a pissing contest between themselves so please do not make it sound like everybody is trying to do that don't believe me watch some of these ultralight hiking videos in which they show regular backpackers in the background you will see that most of them have regular sized packs and loadouts you want to go ultralight that's fine

but stop making it sound like you need to do that in order to have an enjoyable and successful hike and or through hike so I got that comment and it got me thinking you know all of us bloggers are constantly talking about base weight and there's a reason for that it's not because we're trying to have a pissing match it's not because we're trying to show off new awesome ultralight gear from z-pak sir Hyperlite Mountain Gear it's simply because it is so important to a long distance hike the reason most of us focused so much on base weight is because we've done a long distance hike with heavier gear and more gear and we no the strain that it puts on our bodies so when you're doing a long distance hike from four to six months whether it be the Appalachian Trail or the Pacific Crest Trail or maybe it's even a section hike of the Continental Divide Trail or the Arizona Trail you're putting your body through a lot of stress getting up hiking every single day climbing up and down mountains beating the hell out of your feet dealing with conditions like snow and rain being hot being cold

so it's insanely important to make yourself as comfortable as possible let's take a car for example let's say you're taking your car and you're gonna drive it up a mountain pass completely unloaded just you and maybe your friend in the passenger seat the car does pretty good getting up the mountain pass now take the same car and let's load on a trailer a trailer that's packed full of stuff let's say backpacking gear it's full a backpacking gear a kayak a cooler a bunch of food it's loaded down so what you're hauling is about a thousand pounds now drive up that same mountain pass it's a lot harder on your engine you can't go as fast you got to put on your blinkers and let cars go around you why it's more stress on the vehicle to get up that mountain when it's carrying more weight and it's no different than your back so experienced hikers that have been out on the trail and have hiked multiple miles know that for a fact that if you have less weight the more comfortable you're gonna be carrying it for those longer miles so it has nothing to do with a pissing match it just comes down to comfort and we also know that it's constantly changing because at the end of a say 4-day stent where you've been out in the woods and your food has dwindled down your pack is obviously getting lighter but when you get into town and you resupply and you load five more days of food in your pack it's gonna put a ton more weight on your back and then if we're talking about the Appalachian Trail every town that you leave you have a climb straight out of the town I don't think I've ever come out of a town on the 80 where I didn't have to climb up a mountain so it's more stress on your body let's take trails like the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail for instance

knows you're doing insanely long stretches where you have to carry extra water because they're giant desert sections where they're super dry there's no strains there's no pawns there's no places to cache water every couple miles so you might have a 15 or 20 mile section where there's no water so what's that mean you have to carry more water on your back again putting more stress on your body so if you can get that base weight down as low as possible you know that in those situations where you're carrying extra food extra water or more food or more water for longer stints that you're not going to be overloading your back overloading your shoulders overloading your hips and creating something like an injury because you're just wearing your body out let's compare it to gaining weight now I personally used to weigh 275 pounds I was a big guy and when I was a big guy it was hard for me to do things like running like just going for a general hike riding a bike why I was carrying around more weight on my body so my body was having to compensate for that and working harder to lug that weight around whenever I went through a huge life change and I lost almost a hundred pounds I was able to do physical activities much easier and not have the injuries that I used to have because I was carrying less weight now there are some people out there for some reason that think that well if I have more weight on my back I'm gonna get a better workout listen if you're hiking the Appalachian Trail or any long distance trail you're getting enough of a workout you don't need to add weight to your back to give yourself a better workout I promise go out there with no pack go out there supported you're getting one hell of a workout so that brings me to another comment that was on that same video I've got a wax canvas pack I figure my big three puts me at around 10 to 15 pounds and I didn't really focus on weight it's kind of like going to the gym and looking hard for a parking spot near the front what's the point in the hike if it's easy you need to be light enough to be physically able to do it but beyond that you're only hurting yourself Kenny man trust me like I said if you have no weight on your back you're gonna get one hell of a workout every single day imagine climbing up and down mountains every day from four to six months that is a huge workout in itself look at people like Jennifer Farah Davis Carl Meltzer and Scott uric three people that set a supported through hike on the Appalachian Trail which means they weren't carrying their gear it was just them and maybe a little bit of water ask them if they had one hell of a workout or not look at them at the end of that hike it's not like they were having an easy time and they felt great and they weren't getting a workout they were beating the hell out of their bodies every single day regardless if they had anything on their back or not and like I said whenever I was a bigger guy and I went to the gym and I ran on a treadmill it was much harder of a workout and I beat myself up and I had joint problems in my knees and my feet when I was a bigger guy versus now when I'm a lot thinner and I go to the gym and run on the treadmill I'm not putting so much stress on my body so sorry bud but that argument doesn't really make sense to me now is base way absolutely important in every situation no no it's not and I wanted to make that clear that I am clearly talking about doing something like a long distance hike whether that's a through hike or attend a 20-day section now if you're going out for a weekend backpacking trip or maybe you're only going out for one or two nights is base weight as big of a deal know why you're not out there long enough to put that much stress on your body over and over and over again remember again it's overuse injury that creates the problems from having too much weight on your back let's take mountaineering for example if you're going mountaineering you might only go up the mountain for one or two days but you need a lot of gear ice axes ropes harnesses crampons you need a ton of gear to make sure you're safe so that's where your trading safety for comfort

absolutely but again you're only out there for one or two days so you're not going to be putting your body through that much stress and you can bounce back from that much faster and a good example of that is two years ago me and my buddy Zach

went on a snowshoeing your trip up in Cumbres past colorado now we knew that we only had an eight mile hike into the yurt and the next morning we were gonna have the same eight mile hike out so it was base weight that important then no absolutely not

we brought homemade eggnog we brought oak steaks potatoes we brought a stereo a speaker system so we could listen to music why it was more of a luxury hike when you were just gonna go hang out at they shirt so base weight wasn't really on my mind I really didn't care because I know that in that situation it doesn't matter as much but for thru-hiking

it means everything as you know it's about warm safe and dry over ultra light so within reason I think there is a balance between that yes you do need to be safe you do need to be dry you do need to be warm but you can do those things and still stay ultra light and still keep that base weight down so you're having an enjoyable time all the way around you're being warm you're being dry you're being safe but you're also not injuring your joints you're not hurting your body and breaking it down faster than what it needs to be so it's 100% a balance I'm not saying that you have to go out and have a base weight of 4 or 5 pounds like some of these super fast f kt hikers have but you also shouldn't be ignoring base weight back packing is all about figuring out what type of gear is gonna work for you best in what type of situation and base weight is definitely an important thing to think about when you're putting that gear together now in 2015 on the Appalachian Trail my base weight was 16 pounds in 2016 I brought that down to 13 pounds and for the PCT next year I'm trying to get down under 10 pounds again it depends on where you're going and what type of trail that you're doing for the PCT I know in that first 700 miles I'm gonna have to carry a lot of extra water and then for most of the trail because you don't have so many resupply points I'm gonna have to carry more food at times so at those times where I'm carrying extra weight I know that I'm not gonna stress my body out and there's a lot of the ultralight gear super expensive that I use absolutely it is and I'm not saying that that's the gear that you need there's a lot of different options out there there's homemade gear that you can make there's gear that you can pick up from thrift stores or buy off of Amazon which is why I've done videos like ultralight hiking on a budget because I know how important it is I want to help you guys get your base weight down as low as possible so you don't have to go out and spend a ton of money to drop that way you can do it by doing simple things of just taking certain items out of your pack or maybe switching one item for another because this one's just a little bit lighter if you guys want to check some of those videos out I'll put the link up here in the corner like I said I've started that series of videos for that reason because some people just don't want to spend that much money on gear and then that brings us to the question what is the base weight for me there's no answer to that there's absolutely no answer that it's all up to you and what you think that you're comfortable with some guys are totally comfortable with only carrying five pounds on their back because they're willing to sleep on you know a little quarter of a pad just on their back and they don't use a tent they don't need hot food so their comfort level is completely different than what yours is some hikers aren't that comfortable out on the trail some hikers need a big tent and a Jetboil stove and maybe an iPad so they can be comfortable and read at night it's all up to you all I'm saying is think about your base weight and just know that it is an important factor in how healthy you stay on the trail all right guys so hopefully this video will help put some of those questions at rest and make you think a little bit more about your base weight next time you're going out for a hike a big thank you to those three viewers who left those comments

it really helped inspired a great topic on this video I love doing that I love answering your guys's questions and letting us all figure it out together because that's what the hiking community is all about so is base weight something that you think about on the regular what is your base weight leave it in the comment box below and let me know your thoughts you haven't had a chance yet go over and check me out on Instagram I've been posting a lot of new photos lately of some of the things that snuggles and I have going on throughout the week plus some pictures from some past hikes if you found any value in this video go ahead and hit like button subscribe to my channel if you haven't already and as always guys thanks for watching [Music]

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