The hot trend in mountaineering these days is light and fast.
Lighten up, leave more at home, and you can increase mobility and agility while reducing fatigue, the nasty culprit behind many a mountaineering mishap.
Elite climbers take a day to go up and down peaks that traditionally required several days to complete. High-speed athletes are bagging three or more peaks in a single day, making it home for dinner with the family. Through-hikers are whittling down packs to less than 10 pounds, compared with the 60-pound packs previously required for long jaunts in the woods.
Light-and-fast disciples say it is the only way to go. Ditch the beast-of-burden ethos and erase suffering from the backcountry experience, they say.
Search and rescue specialists worry the trend leaves hikers and climbers ill-prepared for unforeseen and often inevitable calamity.
“It is very exhilarating to be able to pull it off,” said Bill Barwick, a longtime search veteran with the 46-year-old Alpine Rescue Team in Evergreen. “But when you don’t have some sort of backup system, you could be in a world of hurt. You might find yourself wishing for many things: matches, warm clothes, extra water. It raises the issue that there is less and less margin for a mistake.”
Demetri “Coup” Coupounas, a patriarch of the nimble-is-best backpacking philosophy and co-founder of Boulder-based featherweight gear-maker GoLite, has never once pined for more on the trail. In more than a decade as an agile apostle, Coup has shaved his pack to less than 6 pounds, minus food, fuel and water. He can hike farther without tiring. He has less to lose. He can scamper. He’s comfortable. He has fun.
“The trade-off with safety is illusory,” said Coup, who with wife Kim has shepherded his small philosophy-driven gear company into a fervent backpacking movement. “The real shame, in my book, is all the people who, in the name of safety, are so heavily loaded down that they don’t enjoy the experience at all. I think lighter is safer. The notion is that your brain goes with you everywhere and you don’t add weight to it when you put more stuff in it. The more you know, the more you can leave behind.”
The experienced climbers and mountaineers are the ones pushing the light-and-fast perspective. Instead of hauling a tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, stove, fuel and extra food, they just hustle and make it back to shelter in a day. They replace the tent with a tarp. They hunt down the lightest gear and retire the clunky, heavy stuff. They learn to live lean.
“It is not a good style for beginner alpinists,” said Charley Shimanski, education director for the national Mountain Rescue Association and longtime volunteer for the Alpine Rescue Team. “You learn light-and-fast by taking more than you need and learning over time what you didn’t need.”
Shimanski said the light-and-fast method is not a plague for rescuers. Most of the state’s rescue missions involve people lacking equipment and experience “and have no idea they are lacking these things,” he said.
Buzz Burrell, the Boulder athlete who climbs mega mountains in a single day and enjoys 100-mile solo jogs in the desert wearing a few-pound pack, was giving a slide show last week when someone asked a simple question.
“What do you do if you’re out in the middle of nowhere and you sprain an ankle?”
Burrell’s answer: “You don’t sprain your ankle.”
“You don’t get lost, you don’t get hurt, you don’t make a single mistake. Instead of taking heavy extra gear to compensate for a mistake, you don’t make any,” said Burrell, who has pioneered the light-and-fast method for more than 30 years.
The Sultan of Speed and manager of the La Sportiva GoLite Mountain Running Team said his skill, experience and judgment replace things like extra clothing, signal mirror and first-aid kit.
“I firmly believe these are the three essential items for backcountry safety; nothing else matters that much,” he said. “Speed is safety.”
Ready for anything
A properly stocked pack means a lot more than a jacket and PB&J. An outdoor expert shares his must-haves
The contents of Weil’s day pack:
2-liter drink bladder (full)
Empty 3-liter bladder
Metal and plastic bottles
Binoculars
Space blanket
100 feet parachute cord
Gore-tex jacket
Polypro shirt
Fleece balaclava and cap
First-aid kit
Food
30 water-purification tablets
Trekking poles
Toothbrush, toothpaste and floss
Razor
Toilet paper
Repair kit (needle, thread, buttons and wire, for fixing variety of items)
Box matches
Magnesium flint bar
Fork, two spoons, cup, plate
Compass
Fishing line, hooks
LED light with spare batteries
Two bandanas
Gaiters and mittens
Money and paper
The contents of the small, black survival-belt pouch that Weil carries at all times:
Small lighter
Magnesium fire bar
Striker
Whistle
Tweezers
CPR shield
Three nitril gloves
LED light
Two Band-aids
Antiseptic wipe
Three safety pins
Two knives: a drop point (a using knife) and a round point (medical purposes)
Multi-tool
