30 Signs You’re Carrying Too Much Stuff in Your Backpac…

There is no universal blueprint as to how you should backpack. We all have our own motivations, needs, and levels of experience. That being said, one thing upon which everyone can agree is that hiking is substantially easier and more enjoyable if your pack doesn’t weigh the proverbial tonne. Here are 30 telltale signs that you should consider lightening your wilderness load.

(Note: This is a revised and expanded version of an article I published in March 2019 – 14 Signs You’re Carrying Too Much Stuff in your Backpack; Note 2: For the other end of the load-carrying spectrum, see 50 Signs You May Have Taken Ultralight Backpacking Too Far):

(L to R) Over the decades, I’ve carried packs of all sizes and weights. The shot on the left is from the Pyrenean Haute Route in 1999. The image on the right is from the Cape to Cape walk in 2010.

1.  Your backpack has a capacity of 70 liters or more. Irrespective of the length of your hiking trip, you always find a way to fill it.

2.  Your trail name is “Kitchen Sink.”

3.  You have to sit down to put your pack on.

4.  When you subsequently get up, not only do you inadvertently groan and wince, but anyone who happens to be in the vicinity also groans and winces.

5. You’ve got a poster of Cheryl Strayed in your gear storage area at home. You have a miniature version of the same photo in the leather wallet you carry on trail.

6.  Your First Aid Kit puts EMTs to shame.

7.  When fully loaded, the top of your pack is above your head.

8.  You regularly reach water sources with between one and two liters of H20 still in your pack.

9.  When trekking in the Himalaya, porters refer to you as “brother.”

Porters on Nepal’s Annapurna Circuit (Photo: Dmitry A. Mottl, Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons License).

10.  You have named your pack one of the following: Ennis, Bertha, Goliath, Beast, or Ben (like the big bell inside Elizabeth Clock Tower). Alternatively, if you predicate any reference to your backpack with the “F” word, that’s also a pretty good indicator.

11.  Your go-to sleeping bag for three-season trips has “Arctic” in the model name.

12.  Irrespective of whether you are going up or downhill, people on horses always give way to you. Mountain bikers too.

13.  You consider carrying a heavy pack to be a badge of honor. Funnily enough, in recent years, I’ve seen the “pack weight script” flipped on its head. These days, you’re more likely to hear cherry-picking ultralighters drone on about their pack’s tininess than bipedal packhorses puff their chest out about how much weight they’re carrying.

14.  Your luxury items outnumber your essentials. Two to one.

15.  Your balance is significantly compromised any time you’re negotiating river crossings, snowfields, blowdowns, scree, boulder hops, and steep/uneven descents.

16.  While out on the trail, you constantly find yourself rummaging through your pack, looking for items that you are sure are in there somewhere but can’t quite remember where.

17. Boy scouts point at you and giggle whenever they see you on the trail.

Scouts getting ready to hit the trail (Photo: NThurston, Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons License)

18.  After breaking camp and hitting the trail, your morning coffee finally kicks in and you realize you forgot to take a #2 before departure. However, your pack is so heavy that you don’t want to go through the process of taking it off and putting it back on again. Therefore you decide to suck it up and subsequently spend the next hour in a hide-and-seek battle of wills with Terry the Turtlehead. When the point of no return inevitably happens and you realize that Tezza won’t be denied, you drop your pack unceremoniously in the middle of the trail and dash for the woods. However, you don’t make it more than ten yards before you lose all sphincter control and soil yourself prior to being able to dig a cat hole and lower your shorts. Making a bad situation even worse, you were in such a rush that you left your toilet paper in the backpack. The moral of this not-uncommon story is: A. Have your coffee a little earlier, and; B. Carry a lighter, less encumbered load, which is easy to take off whenever the need arises.

19.  When it’s pouring rain, your hiking companions (all six of them) congregate in your tent’s vestibule to play cards.

20.  You are constantly worrying about not being sufficiently prepared and invariably overcompensate by bringing items that are unsuitable and/or unnecessary for the environment into which you are venturing (e.g., mega multi-tools).

21. You recently signed a deal to be the face of Coleman Camping Equipment.

22.  You carry sports sandals (which weigh almost as much as your footwear). “But I need them for river fords.” Are you sure? Alternatively, take your socks off and insoles out and cross in your trail runners.

Crossing the Rio Verde (in trail runners) during the Copper Canyon Traverse (2013).

23. When you empty your pack after finishing a trip, you realize that there are at least five items that you not only didn’t use but that never actually saw the light of day during the course of your hike.

24.  You regularly find yourself leaning too far forward while hiking. This is often a sign that not only is your pack too heavy but also that it is sitting too low on your back. Given time, this posture can result in rounded shoulders, neck strain from constantly tilting your head up in order to see properly, and pressure on the lumbar region.

25.  Your camping kitchenware for an extended backpacking trip consists of a pot, plate, bowl, frying pan, two mugs (one for strangers in need), knife, fork, spoon, french press, and a cheese grater.

26.  You pack an extra day’s food for weekend trips.

27.  You wear sturdy hiking boots on three-season backpacking trips. Traditionally speaking, heavy-duty boots and overloaded backpacks go together like peanut butter and jelly or vegemite and toast. If you see one, you’ll often see the other (For a detailed discussion, see Trail Runners Vs. Hiking Boots: A Thirty-Year Perspective).

28. Your clothes and all your hiking equipment are in camouflage design. Even your bog roll is in camo.

29.  You’re a bushcrafter (see #28).

30.  And the biggest sign that you’re carrying too much stuff in your backpack while out in the woods? You focus more on how uncomfortable you feel than the beauty of your surroundings.

Conclusion

Obviously, some of the above-listed points are tongue-in-cheek. However, the premise of the article is quite serious. There are a number of reasons to carry a lighter load while out in the wilderness*, however, in my experience, the big ones are simply comfort, health, and enjoyment. It’s better for both your body, which is less likely to incur stress-related injuries, and also your mind, which will be less distracted than it would be under the burden of a heavy load (*Note: Always in accordance with your experience level and the dictates of the environment into which you are venturing).

Postscript: I was just about to hit publish for this article when the old axiom, “don’t pack your fears,” popped into my head.  This is one of those phrases that hikers repeat ad nauseam when discussing what (and how much) you should carry in the woods. However, I’ve long felt that biases, preconceptions, and plain old-fashioned stubbornness can often be equally limiting and heavy. As someone who travelled the long route to lightweight/ultralight backpacking, I’ll leave you with three parting thoughts: 1. No matter how long you’ve been hiking, keep an open mind when it comes to gear choices; 2. Do your due diligence and listen to people with a broad depth and breadth of experience, and; 3. Ultimately, we’re all trying to optimize our time out in nature. Lightening your load can help.

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